Crown of Vengeance

it touches cannot be good.”

Vieliessar bowed her head, and Thurion didn’t think he’d given her the answer she hoped to hear. But it was what they had both been taught in the Sanctuary.

“Imagine all the good things in the world. Everything you can. Everything that has given you joy, or a moment’s pleasure, or made you happy,” she said.

“The Light,” Thurion answered softly. The look on Vieliessar’s face frightened him, though he could not say why.

“Now imagine that all these good things have an opposite. Not the petty cruelty of the Hundred Houses—for the War Princes may be as kind and generous as they are cruel and petty—but an opposite. A being. A race that can only be named Darkness.”

“You cannot know this!” Thurion exclaimed.

“High King Amrethion warned of them—every Astromancer, every great Seer from Mosirinde Peacemaker to Celelioniel has Seen them. Hamphuliadiel has swept all the books of prophecy from Arevethmonion—did you know?—so no other can discover that Celelioniel spoke true.”

“It is only a theory, Vielle,” Thurion said desperately.

“Yes,” she answered. “A theory. But suppose it is not. The Prophecy says this Darkness comes, not to conquer us, but to destroy us. If I am the Child of the Prophecy, it will come in my lifetime. If the Hundred Houses do not act as one when that day comes, our defeat is certain. So tell me, my oldest friend, what would you have me do?”

There was only one true answer he could give: If the Prophecy is true, you must do everything you can, no matter what it is, to make the Fortunate Lands ready for the day we must fight as one.

He could not bear to give her those words.

“All right,” he said into the silence. “Let us suppose the Prophecy is as you say.”

“You do not believe,” she said harshly.

“I want to,” he answered helplessly, knowing only as he spoke that the words were true. “But I cannot imagine … How can you hope to unite the Hundred and make the War Princes swear fealty to you? Serenthon —”

“Serenthon of Farcarinon intrigued to make himself High King with vows and promises, yet his strongest ally turned against him. Caerthalien was able to turn his allies against him and unify his enemies—because they feared what their lives would hold were he to rule,” she answered unyieldingly. “I know his errors. I would not repeat them. But I ask again, Thurion: what must I do?”

His life had trained him to love the Light. His years in the Sanctuary of the Star had trained him to think. “You must fight,” he answered, hanging his head. “If we die in battle, the Hunt will claim us for its own, so … Vielle, you are the most powerful Mage I have ever seen. Could you—if you were to break the Covenant—”

“—call down lightning from the sky to slay all their armies in an instant?” She gnawed at her lower lip, as if choosing her next words with care. “That thought was in my mind. But I might render the Fortunate Lands a desert without destroying the Darkness. Or the Lightborn might slay me as I fought. Or I might succeed—” She broke off. “One chance in three of victory is not such a match as I would wager upon. If we are to face a great army, we will face it with a great army.”

“But you have no proof!” Thurion cried. “You cannot make the Hundred bend the knee without giving them proof!”

“No,” Vieliessar agreed. Her voice was hard. “Nor would I offer it if I had—they would only fight among themselves over who was to lead the army, just as they have fought all these centuries over which of them is to be Amrethion’s successor. And so I will not ask anyone to believe in anything but me. The War Princes will swear to me, and to each other, and we shall face the Darkness an army of princes. All of us, Thurion. All.”

“Did you…?” Thurion said. His voice trembled, and he could not finish the sentence. Did you use Magery to defeat Rithdeliel and gain Oronviel?

“I will do what I must, Thurion.” There was no triumph in her voice.

Tears glittered in Thurion’s eyes. He wiped them away before they fell, not caring if she saw. “Vielle … Is it worth … surviving … if we cast aside everything that makes us what we are?”

“Once Amrethion and Pelashia reigned over a land without death, without war—without Landbond and craftworker sold as if they were cattle when the luck of battle did not favor their masters. We have already cast aside what we were. I would see us live to regain it,” she answered softly.

“I … I must…” With great effort, Thurion collected himself. “I suppose I have always known. Who you were. What you were. What you would become. I have thought, you know, since the news came to us of Oronviel. About you. The Sanctuary never finds Light in the Lines Direct, you know. I think something must have happened that forced Caerthalien to send Prince Ivrulion to the Sanctuary. Perhaps all of you—”

“I am no different than you, Thurion,” she said, but he went on as if she hadn’t spoken.

“—perhaps all of you have great power. Perhaps the Sanctuary fears the return of Lightborn like Mosirinde Peacemaker. They should. Have you ever thought about how miraculous Lady Nataranweiya’s escape from Farcarinon was? She could have died a thousand times on the journey. She did not. She could have miscarried of you, lost you to cold, a fall from her horse, a dozen things. She did not. She gained the Sanctuary. You were born alive. Celelioniel knew all you say you know, yet she feared your birth as if it were the summoning of the Darkness, not our defense against it. And still she set her Master Spell upon you so you could grow up safely beneath the rooftree of your House’s greatest enemy.

“You might have died there. Babies do. Children do. A kick from a horse, a fall from a wall, and all Ladyholder Glorthiachiel would have needed to do was not summon a Lightborn to Heal you. But she never got the chance. So you went to the Sanctuary, and there you were no one. Nothing. Powerless. Hamphuliadiel could have slain you and gained favor with any of a dozen Houses. He never did—and then it was too late, for not even the Astromancer may raise his hand against one of the Lightborn without cause. You have walked barefoot among adders every day of your life and never been harmed. Your destiny was always waiting for you. A task set upon your shoulders by Amrethion Aradruiniel himself, ten thousand years ago.”

He had not meant to say any of this. It was admission that he believed. But he could not hold back the words.

“I think it has made you … more,” he said in a whisper. “I do not know why others do not see it. Perhaps you keep them from seeing it, as you kept Hamphuliadiel from seeing you. But they will see it. And they will fear you as you fear the Darkness to come.

“I cannot stand against what you have become, Vielle. The time when I might have is long past.”

“Do you fear me?” she asked, and in her eyes Thurion saw sorrow, not triumph.

“Yes,” he said simply. “And I grieve, for I had a friend whom I loved, and she was but an illusion, a shadow cast by a Great Power.”

“I am no Great Power!” Vieliessar protested. “You said yourself—Nataranweiya was my mother—Serenthon was my father—”

“And now you are Child of the Prophecy, not of Farcarinon,” Thurion said with gentle finality.

“Will you serve me still?” she asked.

Thurion closed his eyes as if the sound of her voice hurt. “Yes,” he answered, opening them again.

She smiled painfully, and in that moment she was so beautiful his heart broke for her. “You will curse my name before we are done,” she told him.

“I don’t care,” he answered steadily. “I will do all that you ask of me.” He took another deep breath. “So let us now consider what I am to tell Bolecthindial, and how I am to keep Ivrulion from discovering the truth.”

* * *

Vieliessar’s Midwinter Court was a dazzling affair. Through her Lightborn, by spellbird, she had extended invitations to the princes of all the Hundred Houses. Only those of the forty Houses of the West could possibly attend, for the eastward passes were closed by winter, and the journey from the Western Shore was long and arduous. It did not matter. Every word spoken within Oronviel’s walls on the first night of the Festival would reach the farthest castels of the Grand Windsward before the seventh.

“I still say you’re mad.”