Crown of Vengeance

do, though in all the Fortunate Lands there were less than a hundred who could do as she had done, and none of them would have been willing to try. What she did next was a thing none of those others could have done: she Unbound the weaving, thread by thread, line by line, layer by layer, until it was gone.

And then she did a thing no Lightborn had ever thought of doing.

She reached into Gunedwaen’s body with her magic. Once it had been whole, and deep within it, the body remembered its true shape, as a seed knew the shape of the plant it would someday become. From that seedling- self she drew the pattern she must follow; from Eldanwarasse she drew the power to knit up withered muscle, to summon bone and skin and flesh from nothingness, as if she forced a tree from seed to wide-branched tree in candlemarks instead of years. The power she Called to her need roared through her limbs and her senses like the storm whose winds the Starry Hunt rode, until its intoxication filled her body and mind. She knew she could not merely Heal Gunedwaen, but roll back the centuries he carried, until all the skill of his long life was held within the body of a warrior in his prime. She could build herself an army of such knights, bind their wills to her as if they were extensions of her own limbs. With such an army at her command, she could be unstoppable.

But at what cost?

Gasping with the effort, she released Eldanwarasse’s power. The loss of it made her cry out in protest, and almost—almost—she reached for it again, to hold it close, to grant herself such ascendancy that she would need to do nothing more than stretch out her hand and say: my will be done, and all the Hundred Houses would bow, would kneel.…

No! I will not!

But without it, she felt small and cold.

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. The fire on the hearth had burned down to ash and ember, and the only illumination was the glow of Silverlight from the spell-lanterns, for morning had become evening as she had worked. Her body was stiff with long stillness and her muscles protested as she moved.

She walked to the woodpile, laid sticks and logs on the hearth-grid, then kindled them with a thought. Gunedwaen was unconscious, gripped by the exhaustion that followed any Healing. There was blood on his face, though she had Healed the injuries he’d done to himself in his agony.

When Vieliessar had first left the Sanctuary of the Star she would not have been able to lift him to his feet, but the moonturns of training had served her well. On their journey to Eldanwarasse she had aided him to mount his horse many times, but now his body felt oddly unbalanced, the new presence of the once-missing limb making him seem like a stranger. When she laid him on his bed, she undressed him, as much from a need to see her handiwork as for his comfort.

His arm had been cut away a handspan below the shoulder by the farmers who had sheltered him after the downfall of Farcarinon. The stump had been seared—such Lightless mock-Healings were commonplace among those who only saw one of the Green Robes at their lord’s whim—but there was no mark anywhere now to show that had ever happened. Joint and tendon, muscle and sinew, all reborn. She traced her fingers lightly over the skin. The ugly knotted scar in his thigh was gone as well. The limb, withered from years of disuse, was whole again.

She felt nothing. Not triumph, not fear. It was merely a thing which must be done so that she could become what she must be.

CHAPTER SIX

LEAF AND SWORD, FLOWER AND SHIELD

In Bethros, they sing songs of Princess Ringwil’s stainless honor, who said: “Where you exile Einartha, so send me, for my love is as great as my loyalty.”

But the song they sing in Haldil is

The Song of Ringwil

, for it was Ringwil who betrayed Bethros, and by this pretense sought sanctuary in Haldil thereafter. There is no Song of Einartha, who called Ringwil to the Challenge Circle when she discovered the truth, and whom Ringwil spared to toil as a kitchen-servant until the end of her days.

—A History of the Hundred Houses

“Again.”

Gunedwaen waited implacably, the elaborate braid only the Lords Komen had the right to wear a cool weight against his neck. He watched Vieliessar wipe the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand and attempt to stifle a sigh as she turned to retrieve her mock weapon from the grass—some distance away—where it had landed.

He held his wooden practice sword as if it were the deadly weapon he had once proudly borne. The strangeness of having two good hands to grasp its hilt, two good legs to carry him forward in this deadly dance, was nearly forgotten. He was once more who he had once been: Swordmaster to House Farcarinon.

“A duel can be decided in moments. A battle lasts from dawn to dusk. If you tire after a candlemark, or two, or four, you will die.”

“I am not tired.” She lifted the wooden weapon and turned to face him, though still standing outside the practice circle he’d marked in the soft earth.

“Losing your weapon is another way to die,” he said, raising his own. He saw her mouth thin—not anger, but determination—and she paced quickly toward him, weapon at the ready as she stepped across the boundary of the circle. When the two blades clashed, it was a almost a surprise not to hear the ring of steel on steel.

Mornings were for drill, the same drills every komen-to-be practiced from their tenth, twelfth, fourteenth year. Endurance, speed, awareness of the sword’s position, its range, the guards and counters and strikes.

Afternoons were for turning those drills into practice against a living opponent.

Vieliessar circled him, searching for an opening. Gunedwaen gave her none. Each time he felt her settle into a pattern he would attack, striking at her sword, her body. Some of the attacks got through. Fewer than yesterday. Fewer than a sennight ago.

Pride had carried him through the long cold years of being a pensioner of Caerthalien, and pride demanded— on the day she placed the wooden sword in the hand she had given him—he be all he had once been.

He had hoped—still—to teach her that determination was not enough. Desire could not replace the years of training she should have had. And so, that first day, he had attacked with all his skill. The practice swords were strong enough to break bones—she had crafted them from ahata—and he did not pull his strikes. Each time their swords clashed he’d disarmed her. The practice had gone on until her hands were too bruised and weary to clasp her sword’s hilt, until exhausted muscles would not obey her command.

She’d offered no word of complaint.

On the second day, she managed to retain her sword during one engagement in ten.

By the fifth day, Gunedwaen searched his heart: was he giving her false confidence in her skills? Was he allowing her success she did not deserve? He redoubled his efforts to overwhelm her.

It worked—for a time.

She was better than she ought to be. Better than she could be. She wasn’t his equal, but the skill she now possessed should have taken her years, not sennights, to achieve.

But wars are not fought afoot by knights with wooden swords.

He knew her hope of uniting the Hundred Houses was madness. It did not matter. What mattered was that she had come to him to be made a knight. And he could not do it. The training of a knight began afoot, it was true, but it continued on the back of a palfrey, translating the patterns already graven in muscle and nerve to fighting from the saddle. Last of all, with a destrier, learning to ride a weapon as well as wield one.

He could not give her the armor that would fit her like a second skin, the destrier who would be her companion and salvation on the field. But it was good to hold a sword again, even if it was merely a wooden one.

Just as it was good to teach his prince that she was not—yet—his equal.

He did not manage to disarm her again. But he could tire her, forcing her to attack while he merely defended, attacking in return only when she let her attention lapse. They fought on until she was staggering with exhaustion. But he was equally weary, and if he struck her unconscious, she might die before she woke. So he stepped back,