Crown of Vengeance

Peacemaker, the sacrifices have been offered at Arevethmonion and the Lightborn have gone there to be trained. If Hamphuliadiel denies access to the Shrine of the Star, the princes will not think that there are seven other places they can go. They will think Hamphuliadiel plots to punish them for not delivering you back into his hands.”

“Doesn’t he?” Vieliessar said. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, trying to think. In the Sanctuary’s library she’d studied war, and in all the centuries the Hundred Houses had fought, Magery had never been a consideration in their plotting. But Thurion was right. Hamphuliadiel had taken the first step toward becoming a prince of the land in his own right. She must assume he would take the next, and the next. And the moment he did, the War Princes would panic.

And she would be their target.

“If I can make it seem that Hamphuliadiel’s actions—whatever they are—are taken in secret alliance with Oronviel, the War Princes should delay any attack they contemplate,” she said slowly. “I know Hamphuliadiel. Even if he means to hold hostages, he cannot let that be known until the last caravan has brought its Candidates and departed. By then, this season’s new Lightborn will have left as well. Then he may do as he wishes, and it will be a moonturn or two before anyone notices.”

“Yes,” Thurion said, nodding. “The War Princes send to make the victory sacrifices when they send the Candidates, and then they go to war. It will not be until Fire or Harvest that they will wish access to the Shrine of the Star again. Now: how will you convince the other Houses that Hamphuliadiel plots with Oronviel?”

“Simple enough,” Vieliessar answered. “I shall send Thoromarth immediately to bring away everyone from Oronviel—it will not seem impossible to Hamphuliadiel that I am so unused to ruling that I cannot gather Oronviel’s Candidates in a timely fashion. I shall send Ambrant Lightbrother with him to take my word to those of Oronviel who are already in training. The Postulants know a thousand ways to sneak out of the Sanctuary when they are supposed to be in their beds—as you well know—and Hamphuliadiel has no precedent for holding them against their will. Ambrant’s Keystone Gift is True Speech; his shields will defeat Hamphuliadiel’s attempts to hear his mind, and Thoromarth will swear to any who ask that the Oronviel Candidates come soon, for that is what I will tell him, and beg his pardon for the lie when he returns. And so it will be seen that this year, two Houses of all the Ninety-and- Nine have not sent their Candidates to the Sanctuary: Oronviel and Ivrithir.”

“But how will you— Ivrithir?” Thurion said, startled.

“War Prince Atholfol has pledged himself to support Farcarinon’s claim to the High Kingship,” Vieliessar answered. “On my word, he will withhold this year’s Candidates. I must see which of his Lightborn I may send to the Sanctuary with Ambrant, for the Ivrithir Candidates will not come away at Oronviel’s word.”

Thurion sat brooding over her words for a long stretch of silence. “If you do this, it will seem that—whatever Hamphuliadiel does—you knew of it beforehand,” he said at last. “But you will lose what new Lightborn you might have gained—” He gestured helplessly. “If the Postulants must come away without daring the Shrine—”

“There are other Shrines,” Vieliessar said once again. “For the rest, we shall simply return to the actual earliest practices of the Lightborn, when there was no Sanctuary and no single place of learning. Until there is a new Astromancer, Oronviel’s Lightborn will train her Lightborn-to-be.”

The High King’s Lightborn will train her Lightborn-to-be.

* * *

It took her most of a day to persuade Ambrant Lightbrother not merely to do what she wished him to, but to do it with utmost guile. If Thurion had not been there to swear that Hamphuliadiel would refuse to step down as Astromancer, she would undoubtedly still be arguing with him. She wished she could send Aradreleg Lightsister or Peryn Lightsister, or most of all, Harwing Lightbrother, who had found a joyous heart-twin in Gunedwaen, and now served as one of the Swordmaster’s most effective spies. But none of them had True Speech as their Keystone Gift: any shields they set about their minds and thoughts, Hamphuliadiel would be able to force.

She spoke with Atholfol in cautious elliptical messages sent by spellbird. Both Rithdeliel and Gunedwaen believed Farcarinon’s old war codes unbroken, and Serenthon had used a different cipher for each of his allies. Atholfol had agreed to withhold this year’s Candidates if Oronviel would swear to undertake their training—and to send his sealed writ by messenger to Thoromarth so those of Ivrithir who were to leave the Sanctuary this season would know it was safe to journey with Oronviel’s party.

But he would not give her an Ivrithir Lightborn to call his Postulants away.

And perhaps I, too, would be skeptical, had I not such long and intimate knowledge of Hamphuliadiel’s mind. Very well. I have warned him, at least.

* * *

She had known since before she left the Sanctuary of the Star that the time she would have to work in would be short, for she had squandered too many precious years seeking to avoid her destiny. Once Thurion fled Caerthalien, she knew she would have to work more quickly still, for the moment his presence in Oronviel was known, Caerthalien had the pretext it needed to attack her out of season. Very soon—in a moonturn, perhaps two —her war would begin, and she would not ride into such a desperately important battle without making a sacrifice to the Starry Hunt and petitioning Them for victory.

She could not go to the Sanctuary of the Star.

But as she had told Thurion, the Sanctuary did not hold the only Shrine.

In the candlemark before dawn, Vieliessar walked from the keep and down the path which led to the oldest part of the craftworkers’ village. No dog barked to warn of her passage, no goose bugled a warning. She had a long way to go before the sun rose and she would not take Sorodiarn to this appointment. Her destination was the paddocks beyond the stables. Spring was the season to begin a young horse’s training, so it could be exposed to the sounds and smells of battle long before it must stand steady before them. From among the drowsing animals she selected two: a young bay mare, already under saddle, and a pure white colt. She knew Fierdind Horsemaster meant to train Phadullu for her use in case Sorodiarn was killed, but she needed him now. She mounted the mare bareback and rode away in the darkness; the colt followed tamely.

Mornenamei was the nearest Flower Forest to the castel, and she would need Lord Mornenamei’s aid for the morning’s work. She reached Mornenamei and vaulted down from the mare’s back. The mare could be left here to graze: she would not go far, and if anyone happened upon her, the silver token braided into her mane would mark her as belonging to the castel stables. Vieliessar patted Phadullu on the shoulder and he followed her docilely as she walked into Mornenamei.

A combination of homesickness and longing assaulted her as she felt the Flower Forest’s magic enfold her. Her happiness at the Sanctuary of the Star had been dearly bought, but it had been real. She could not imagine there would ever be such happiness for her again.

Ruthlessly she banished those thoughts from her mind. Time enough to mourn her life when she had fulfilled the role Amrethion High King had set forth for her to play. Ten steps, then twenty, then twenty more, then she swung herself up onto Phadullu’s back. She nudged him forward at a gentle walk, and before he had gone a dozen paces, the Flower Forest through which he walked was far away from Oronviel.

She could Sense the Shrine the moment she filled her lungs with the air of Earime’kalareinya. She’d chosen it because Manostar was merely a notation in the histories, its location given as “somewhere in Tunimbronor.” There were accounts of visits to Earime’kalareinya, for many of the Land-Shrines had continued to receive visitors for some centuries after Mosirinde Peacemaker established the Sanctuary of the Star.

She dismounted again and walked onward. The day was brighter here than in Mornenamei, for she had gone toward the sun. She followed the currents of power until she reached the heart of Earime’kalareinya.

The three stones that marked the Place of Power looked somehow more stark and wild surrounded by the lushness of the Flower Forest than they did in the careful concealment of the Shrine of the Star. The stones are as weathered as if they stand upon a desolate plain, she realized a moment later, though this deep within Earime’kalareinya, wind and rain could barely reach them. A flat stone lay on the ground between them, and someone was still making offerings here, for the stone was smeared with blood that rain and time had not yet erased.

She stroked Phadullu’s silken neck, willing herself to feel the calm and serenity she had learned to summon before setting a great work of Magery, but could not manage it. Her fingers touched the knife on her belt and she hesitated. This was not the simple vigil with which every Lightborn ended training. To call upon Them was to Summon Them—and they might take the summoner as the victory-sacrifice. It was a fearful thing to make petition for victory and risk being taken to ride the star-roads forever.

You made up your mind to do this before you came! she told herself fiercely. She