Crown of Vengeance

proud fortress had stood upon this spot.

The road that led to the castel gates was bright in the moonlight; the earth, hard-hammered over the centuries, giving way only grudgingly to the encroachment of the meadow. Trouble’s hooves, noiseless on the soft summer earth, clopped faintly as Gunedwaen guided her onto the road. The ditches that had once lined it had fallen inward years before, leaving only shallow depressions in the grass.

As they crossed the boundary where the outer wall had once stood, Striker raised her head from where she lay across Gunedwaen’s knees and gave a soft, interrogative bark. An instant later, Vieliessar heard the clink of a bridle and realized there was someone here. She forced herself to pretend she’d heard nothing. Gunedwaen must know someone awaited him—awaited them.

She steeled herself against betrayal. Just as well to see it come now, if that is what comes, for if I cannot bind my House’s last vassal to me, what hope do I have of binding princes?

A moment later, a stranger rode out of the shadow.

His grey gelding’s coat had been rubbed with powdered charcoal to make it dull and dark, but there was no disguising the quality of the animal, the kind which only a great lord—or a great lord’s favorite—might ride. Neither horse nor rider displayed the badge of any House; the rider wore a dark hooded cloak, but Vieliessar could see the unmistakable angled shape of a scabbarded sword beneath the cloak, and her ears brought her the faint sweet jingling of chain mail.

Gunedwaen reined in and waited. Vieliessar stood, silent and watchful, at his knee.

The stranger stopped, pushed back the hood of his cloak. The silver of his mail-shirt gleamed at his throat, and now she could see that the cloak’s clasp was enameled. A red otter on a white field. Oronviel.

Farcarinon’s Warlord has taken service with Oronviel, for Caerthalien was ever generous with its leavings …

“Rithdeliel is a friend,” Gunedwaen said quietly. He shifted Striker in his arms, and Vieliessar took her and set her on the ground. The hikuliasa wandered over to the grey gelding, who lowered his head to sniff at her, unimpressed.

“An ally—perhaps,” Rithdeliel corrected.

“Ally, then,” Gunedwaen conceded. “It has been far too long.”

“Not as long as I expected, since I thought you dead,” Rithdeliel said. “Your message was a surprise.”

“As was your answer. I had not thought you saved any of Gwaenabros’s Finding charms.”

“You will admit it came in useful. I assume this is the girl? Have you proof she is who she claims to be?”

She stepped into the space between the two horses.

“I am Vieliessar Farcarinon, daughter of Serenthon War Prince and Nataranweiya, his Bondmate and Lady,” she said. “Declare yourself, knight of Oronviel.”

She saw him smile. “Rithdeliel, Warlord of Oronviel, begs leave to declare himself to you, Vieliessar Lightsister.”

She turned her back on him without answering. A bright flash of memory showed her Ladyholder Glorthiachiel doing just this to show her displeasure to one of Caerthalien’s court. She had not thought of her childhood in longer than she could remember, and for a moment the memory actually made her want to smile.

“Why should I trust him?” she asked Gunedwaen, her tone just short of a demand. “Who has broken his pledged word once will break it twice.”

“Rithdeliel was once Warlord to House Farcarinon,” Gunedwaen answered.

She gestured impatiently, brushing away his words. “So much I knew even before I came to you,” she answered pitilessly. “And I knew him forsworn of his allegiance to Farcarinon. If he is indeed forsworn by pledging to Oronviel.”

“‘He’ is here,” Rithdeliel said. “And were you a true knight I would challenge you for such accusations. Do you think I forswore Farcarinon lightly?”

“I think it is a marvel and a wonder you survived to do so,” she answered, turning back to face him.

“Caerthalien did not wish to see too many of its own executed, no matter where their lawful oaths had since been given,” Rithdeliel answered. “Or do you not know the whole of this tale? I shall tell it to you. I was chief among the knights in Lord Ethradan’s house—unfortunately for us both, for Serenthon Farcarinon had already set himself to walk the road that would slay him, and for this cause he played suitor to Caerthalien. There he met my Lady, and knew her for his Bondmate. And so Lord Ethradan of Caerthalien, Nataranweiya’s father, gave her as her dowry as many of his household as he could spare, myself among them, trusting our loyalty and care would keep her alive.”

“It did not,” Vieliessar observed.

She saw sharp-cut lines appear around Rithdeliel’s mouth as he clenched his jaw tight upon his anger. When he spoke again, his words were as cold and stinging as spitting snow.

“I was taken from the battlefield in chains that last day,” he said, his words soft and precise. “You live because of what I and my army did upon that field. We held the Alliance there until Lady Nataranweiya could flee Farcarinon Keep, though we were outmatched a hundred to one. To this battle War Prince Serenthon had summoned everyone who had ever borne a blade, or who might do so soon, and they were slain in their hundreds: aged greatmothers and children who had not yet leaped the fire or flown their kites. They are no more than names written on the wind, for no kin survived to place their names upon the Tablet of Memory. We in our hundreds stood against the Alliance in its thousands. Of the flower of Farcarinon, not one in a thousand survived the day. Those of us who did paid dearly, for we languished in chains until the day you returned to the Sanctuary of the Star, and many who had walked from the field did not live to walk beneath the sun again. When I was brought forth from the darkness at last, it was to hear Oronviel would ransom me from Caerthalien, if I would pledge fealty to War Prince Thoromarth. I had seen Serenthon fall, and I knew all of Farcarinon dead with him, for if the House had survived, Bolecthindial would not have sold my name as if I were a Landbond in the field. Farcarinon was dead,” he repeated heavily. “And so I pledged to War Prince Thoromarth, and I have served him faithfully since that day. I came here for Gunedwaen’s asking, and for my love for Serenthon, but I do not know that I wish to give up either freedom or life to the impatient tantrums of a child.”

“I have learned patience from the cradle,” Vieliessar answered, her words following his, beat upon beat, as if they clashed with naked blades. “And I am no child—you of all should know this, who so auspiciously marked the day of my birth. Know this as well: I would gladly have ended my days within the Sanctuary of the Star, save that the Hundred Houses face an enemy they are too blind and selfish to see. To prepare them against the day of its coming I must become a knight. And I shall, Rithdeliel of Oronviel. Do not doubt me.”

“You speak of the Prophecy. The Song of Amrethion,” Rithdeliel said accusingly, and Vieliessar could only stare at him in astonishment. “Oh, come, Lightsister,” he added, his tone turning sharper. “Serenthon Farcarinon knew of it. He too said it spoke of an enemy to come, and that his kingship would unite the Hundred Houses against it. And so the Hundred killed him.”

Again her answer was swift. “They killed him for fear of a collar about their throats, and for the promises he made to gain and keep his allies. I will not bribe as if I am weak; I will not flatter as if I must beg victory to favor me. I will triumph or I will die—and on the day I am crowned, there will be no High House or Low, nor will there be noble and Landbond. There will be one land and one people, and they will be mine.”

For a long moment they stared at each other in silence.

“It has been too long since I have risked my life for something worth the risk,” Rithdeliel said at last. He nodded slowly, as if sealing an unspoken bargain. “Very well. Say what you would have of me.”

* * *

The ring and hiss of steel was loud in the practice ring, where two knights mounted on destriers backed and circled for advantage. The rich smell of ripening hay filled the still air and motes of dust pounded from the straw underfoot turned the air to gold. The sun beat down on the combatants, turning the layers of metal and padding they wore into instruments of torture. Fire Moon was the hottest moonturn of the year, as if summer expended all her heat in one last profligacy before the cool of autumn and the long slow slide into winter.

One combatant rode a muscular roan, the shields of his pearl-enameled armor enameled in the red-and-white of Oronviel. The other, mounted on a bay mare, wore the bare-metal armor and bare shields of a maiden knight. Neither spared a hand to the reins, for destriers were trained from foalhood to answer to the weight and pressure of an armored rider, to move as an extension of the knight on their back, to kill if asked.

Both destriers knew that today was not a day for killing. Neither animal had taken the field in years, too old