Crown of Vengeance

neither Peryn nor Berlaindist would know it. “‘All haste’ is…?” Vieliessar prompted.

“A sennight, Komen Berlaindist promises, no more.”

“Then there is barely sufficient time to prepare to receive him,” Vieliessar answered. She had invited Caerthalien to attend her Winter Court, of course, but an envoy arriving a fortnight before the start of the Festival could mean only one thing: Caerthalien meant her to pledge fealty. Word of her ambition would already have reached Bolecthindial. The emissary from Caerthalien must be its attempt to overturn her plans.

They will send Ivrulion, of course. Who else? And Lightborn or no, he will speak among my guests with princely authority.…

But when Caerthalien’s Lightborn envoy walked into Oronviel’s Great Hall at last, it wasn’t Ivrulion.

“Thurion!” Vieliessar exclaimed, struggling to keep all the welcome she felt out of her voice.

“War Prince Vieliessar,” he answered, his voice steady. “War Prince Bolecthindial sends me to you, for Caerthalien has always stood friend to Oronviel.”

“Oronviel thanks Caerthalien for her gentle care of her neighbor. We rejoice in your visit to us and hope you will find all you seek.”

“I am certain I shall,” Thurion answered, bowing.

“I pray your visit will allow you to partake of our hospitality this Midwinter, as well.” She did not ask if he was Caerthalien’s envoy to her Midwinter Court, for that would reveal too much. This meeting was a formality, a show enacted for those watching. Later they would have the chance to speak privately.

* * *

“Caerthalien sends me to discover if you mean to keep to your own borders and honor the treaties Lord Bolecthindial held of War Prince Thoromarth,” Thurion said, the words bursting from his lips in a rush almost before the door had closed behind him. “Of course I’ll tell him whatever you like, but—that was Lord Gunedwaen of Farcarinon at table tonight, wasn’t it?”

The evening meal had been a long and lavish one, but it would be only prudent for any new lord of a small and embattled domain to wish to impress the emissaries of her large and powerful neighbors. Thurion had been seated upon her left hand, in the place of honor.

That he would see what he had seen was inevitable. But only one who still counted himself her friend would have broached the subject so openly.

Vieliessar waved him to a seat as she finished skimming the scroll she held—Gunedwaen’s sennightly analysis of the information he’d gleaned from her knights as well as from a number of Oronviel folk who had gone secretly where they would not have been welcomed openly.

Thurion flung himself into a low chair, kicking the hem of his robes out of the way with the negligent ease of long practice. “It was, wasn’t it? The Gunedwaen?”

“Does it matter?” Vieliessar asked, setting the report aside. There was nothing new there. The War Princes were obviously waiting for Midwinter before declaring for or against Oronviel. At least openly.

Thurion sat upright so abruptly that Striker raised her elegant head. “Of course it matters! Vielle! He lost his arm years—decades ago! No Healer has ever—” He stopped abruptly, gazing at her with disbelief. “You knew. You knew what you’d done when you Healed him.”

She met his gaze squarely. This, her instincts said. This is more important than anything else we will say to one another about my plans and the lies he will tell his Caerthalien masters. “I knew I could do it before I began,” she answered simply. “It was hard, and painful, but it was not impossible.”

“It should have been,” Thurion answered quietly. His words were not a rebuke. They were uttered in tones of one who looked upon the impossible. “I know of no Healer who could have done it.”

“You know what hradan Celelioniel laid upon me at my birth,” Vieliessar answered.

“‘Death against Darkness, blood expunge blood, burn the stars and save a brand from the burning,’” Thurion quoted. It was the beginning of the passage about the destruction of the Hundred Houses. “Is that what you mean to do?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “All I know is that I am the Child of the Prophecy, the Doom of the Hundred Houses. It took me so long to admit it that I do not know if there is enough time left.”

Thurion drew a deep, shaking breath, summoning calm, summoning reason. “You think you have deciphered Amrethion’s Prophecy,” he said, but once again Vieliessar shook her head.

“Celelioniel Astromancer deciphered it. It was why I was allowed to live. ‘When stars and clouds together point the way / And of a hundred deer one doe can no longer counted be’—Farcarinon’s destruction. Thurion, it does not matter whether I am the only one it could be, or simply the one Celelioniel chose. What matters is the rest of the Prophecy.”

Thurion studied her face. “The Prophecy foretells a time when the Hundred Houses are ended by the prophesied child who becomes High King. It says a Darkness is gathering armies against that day and talks of a false promise coming true and two becoming one. If Celelioniel Astromancer decided you were the Child of the Prophecy, she must have believed that the false promise that becomes true means you will become High King, as Serenthon War Prince tried to. But … Vielle … How can you?”

“You are Green Robe and scholar, and once you were friend to me, when I had none. I would tell you a story that is no story. Will you hear?”

“Yes,” he answered heavily. “I will hear.”

* * *

Almost he could imagine himself back at the Sanctuary of the Star on some lazy afternoon when there was nothing better to do than to try to unravel the mysteries of their long and unfathomable history. Vieliessar spoke not of herself, but of Celelioniel’s quest to discover the beginnings of the Lightborn, of how they had learned to wield their power.

“In the Sanctuary we are taught that each thing implies its opposite,” Vieliessar said. “It is the foundation of our spellcraft. Heal or harm. Make fertile or blight. And not only in our Magery: we see in the world around us that each thing possesses its opposite. Creatures who fly and creatures who burrow, grass eaters and flesh eaters, and for this cause we have always been taught that the Beastlings are the shadow of all we are—but Celelioniel did not believe that could be so. If the Beastlings possessed a Darkness as great as our Light, surely they would have used it to make a desert of all the Fortunate Lands.”

“Not if they want to live here,” Thurion commented dryly, and Vieliessar made a rude snort of amusement.

“Perhaps. But surely they would make some desert. And they would feed their spellcraft upon blood. And we would have learned that those things are wrong from their example. We have learned those things are wrong, but not from the Beastlings. From who, then?”

“Everyone knows the Lightborn—some Lightborn—break the Covenant,” Thurion said hesitantly.

“And why is there a Covenant?” she asked implacably.

For a moment Thurion was a Postulant still. “Because—it must have been a long time ago—some Lightborn did those things, and…” He stopped, because Vieliessar was shaking her head.

“Each thing there is implies—creates—its opposite,” she reminded him.

“Theory is no validation of prophecy,” Thurion answered, almost sputtering.

“No,” Vieliessar agreed. “And Celelioniel did not begin with the Prophecy, but with an attempt to discover how we learned to do as we do. It was Mosirinde Peacemaker who first taught the Covenant—and she also who founded the Sanctuary of the Star.”

“But—” Thurion said.

“But no one knows why, or how the Light came to us before the founding of the Sanctuary,” Vieliessar agreed. “I will ask you to simply take as true that Celelioniel searched for that answer for years, that The Song of Amrethion was the end of her quest and not the beginning, that she discovered that what seems like nonsense to our eyes is instead a simple list of events that will come to pass before…” She stopped, and when she went on, her voice held sudden urgency. “Thurion, do you believe that evil can be done in the service of good?”

“Of course not,” he answered promptly. “By its very nature, evil destroys and taints all it touches, so anything