Crown of Vengeance

“Say I am imaginative, Prince Thoromarth, it sounds better,” Vieliessar answered.

“I’ll say you’re the Mother of Dragons if that’s what you want,” Thoromarth growled in reply.

First Night. The feast had gone on from sunset to midnight. Two dozen Lightborn envoys were guests of Oronviel, and if they weren’t spies in truth, their so-called servants certainly were. No one from the High Houses had attended, but what Ulillion knew, Cirandeiron knew in the same breath. The Twelve were present, even if they were not here.

“Say I shall be High King, for I mean to be,” she said. She walked through the outer room to the inner as Thoromarth followed. “Wine?” she asked, gesturing to the sideboard as she seated herself in a chair beneath the window. A spellshield cast a faint shimmer over the opening.

He raised a cup toward her in silent question, nodding at her demur before filling it for himself. “Giving amnesty to losels and wolfsheads is one thing—a prince may do as she pleases with her people and I won’t gainsay you. But … not sending Candidates to the Shrine? What will the Astromancer think?” Thoromarth asked.

“I have not made up my mind to it.” But soon Oronviel would be set against the rest of the Hundred Houses, and she had promised her people she would not take their children from them to be held as hostages. “Forester Lonthorn has been to the Flower Forest. She says the Vilya looks likely to fruit this spring, so we shall have a new Astromancer.” She gazed down at the surface of the inlaid table beside her. The silver wires crossing the wood gleamed faintly violet in the spellshield’s light. “Thoromarth, why doesn’t the Light ever appear in the Lines Direct?”

Thoromarth frowned and glanced back toward the outer room. He was obviously displeased by this change of topic—he had little patience for discussions which seemed to him to be idle speculation—but knew he had no choice but to follow Vieliessar’s whims. “It does,” he protested. There’s you, and … Ivrulion Light-Prince of Caerthalien, and…” He stopped.

“Let us not forget Ternas of Celebros,” Vieliessar said dryly. “But … two, from all the Hundred Houses in all the years of the reigns of the last three Astromancers? And I was not expected to have the Light, and Ivrulion’s Light was not supposed to be discovered. What we do at the Sanctuary is flawed, Thoromarth.”

Thoromarth reached to touch the silver shoeing-nail he wore about his neck. “Hunt defend us, is there nothing you do not mean to overturn?” he asked.

“Perhaps I shall like the new Astromancer better than I like Hamphuliadiel,” Vieliessar answered obliquely. “We shall see.”

“Perhaps you will not live to see him—or her—chosen,” Thoromarth grumbled. “Ah well. It is time I sought my bed, to receive the overtures of all those who wish to cast you down and set me once more in your place.”

“And I to give these same answers to Gunedwaen and Rithdeliel,” Vieliessar answered lightly. “I wish you good rest, such as it will be.”

* * *

On the Fourth Night of Midwinter, Lightbrother Thurion of Caerthalien Called the Light in the children of Oronviel Great Keep. It was a graceful nod to Oronviel’s clientage to Caerthalien, and if everyone at the Festival already knew that Vieliessar meant to break those ties, the fact that she still played a double game was obscurely reassuring.

It brought back odd memories of her childhood, when she was Varuthir, not Vieliessar. Of watching the castel children walk up to the High Table in Caerthalien’s Great Hall where Ivrulion and other senior Lightborn waited to Call the Light. The storysinger sang The Song of Pelashia’s Gift and each child received a honeycake and a ribbon when the Lightbrother was done. Silver for those who would make the journey to the Sanctuary of the Star, gold for those who would not.

Now it was a lifetime later, and she sat in the War Prince’s great chair in another Great Hall, and presided over the selection of Candidates who might never see the Sanctuary.

Oddly, with all she said, privately and publicly, and despite the very fact of her existence, the thing that caused the most talk that Midwinter was Vieliessar’s treatment of the commons. Night after night, her vassal lords and the Lightborn envoys stood upon the battlements of the keep and looked out over the tables she had erected for the commons’ feast.

A waste of good food, they said.

They’ll come to expect such tender treatment, and grow lazy.

She cossets them out of weakness.

Sanctuary softness has no place in a War Prince.

But beneath the mockery and disbelief, she sensed … fear.

Fear of change.

Fear of ways they did not understand.

Fear of her.

And on the morning of the eighth day, those who had kept Festival within Oronviel’s walls rode forth, while Vieliessar stood upon the battlements and watched them go. It was hard to watch Thurion ride away, knowing that his pledge to her made all of Caerthalien a danger to him.

But spring was coming.

And War Season.

CHAPTER EIGHT

BATTLE CITY

For twice upon five hundred lives, the Throne of Shame shall sleep

And Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor a haunt of shadows lie

The Happy Lands shall ring to blood and battle through the years

While all who husband hidden secrets die.

Though many seek to gain the crown, no hand shall gain its light

And brother vie with brother for a prize no House can claim

While Darkness breeds in lands unknown, its armies bought with blood

Against the day false promise is made true.

—The Song of Amrethion Aradruiniel

The remains of the Free Companies ravaged the countryside as bandits. As she had vowed, Vieliessar hunted them relentlessly. As she had also vowed, she gave each of her prisoners a choice: pledge fealty to her or die in battle.

“I wish to offer you and your people a full pardon.”

There was a long moment of disbelieving silence.

“Why?” Nadalforo asked suspiciously.

“So you will swear fealty to me and fight for me,” Vieliessar said patiently. “It is better to be my vassal than my enemy. If you or any of your followers have committed offenses in another domain, I do not care. If any offense was committed in mine, I will pardon it. But you must swear to me.” She meant to become High King over a realm that held neither High House nor Low, and that was not a thing she could plan to do later, for she did not know how much of “later” there might be. It was a harder path, but she would begin her destruction of the Hundred Houses with the army that would fight to make her High King.

“But I—I ran off a steading. And Belgund—he broke parole when his lord wouldn’t ransom him. And Findron —”

“I don’t care,” Vieliessar said. “Keep my law. Keep my peace. Fight for me. You’ll be fed, clothed, and housed as well as any in my army and treated no differently than any other of my people.”

Nadalforo blinked several times, trying to make sense of what obviously sounded to her like madness. “We’re mercenaries—or we were. You could—”

“No,” Vieliessar said quickly. “I hire no mercenaries. Swear to me. Or leave my lands—and know that the next time we meet I will kill you all.”

“But … how do you know you can trust me—or any of us?” Nadalforo asked desperately.

“Break your oath to me and see,” Vieliessar said. “I do not think you will. Shall we see?”

“I—I—I guess we will,” Nadalforo answered.