Crown of Vengeance

not awakened from the swoon he had fallen into in the Great Hall. Lightborn of Laeldor and Oronviel came and went, as did the lords of Araphant, seeming stunned by the death—and the dying—of the two who had been Araphant since the time of their greatfathers. Vieliessar sat at Celeharth’s bedside for as long as she could manage, but could never decide what she felt. Was it good fortune that Celeharth would not long outlive his friend and his lord? Was it bad fortune because his death could be twisted into a dagger for her back? Or was it merely unlucky that she should lose the good counsel of a Lightborn who had lived long and seen much? It was almost a relief when, as she returned to Luthilion’s pavilion just at dusk, she was met in the doorway by Komen Diorthiel, who told her Celeharth Lightbrother was gone. She could see that a body yet remained in the chamber, with a Lightborn beside it, but it seemed to her that body was made tiny by death, as if the greater part of Celeharth had been summoned away.

“I would see him honored in death as highly as the prince he served,” she said, and something in Diorthiel’s face eased at the words.

“It shall be done, Lord Vieliessar,” he answered. “To Celeharth Lightbrother, all honor.”

* * *

That evening, Vieliessar once again dined in Laeldor’s Great Hall among her commanders, and her thoughts were unsettled, for no Lightborn had come to the feast, even Aradreleg. But she was on display, and she knew it, and so forced herself to behave as if this were any ordinary meal. It was not, for there was a constant churning of bodies moving in and out at the back of the Great Hall. She had sent a message to Virry, saying that the commons might come to the Great Hall in the evening, providing they made no disturbance. She suspected Virry of arranging the matter so that each was only permitted a short time within the Hall, but for the Landbond to see their prince’s Great Keep was a liberty of which few of them had ever dreamed.

Tomorrow the first third of her army would depart for Mangiralas. Whether Lightborn rode with them or not.

The first course of the meal had just been served to the High Table and servants were still moving through the hall when she realized someone was approaching her from behind.

“I am here, Lord Vieliessar.” Aradreleg spoke softly from behind the chair. “I am sorry for my lateness. It was not possible to enter through the main gates.”

“Will you sit?” Vieliessar said. “I shall have a chair brought.” Aradreleg’s words might be simple truth, or they might be a convenient lie. There was no way to tell. The noise of so many minds would be deafening if Vieliessar tried to listen for one mind alone. But she thought Aradreleg seemed surprised to be asked.

“If it pleases you, then I will sit,” she answered.

I shall be sad to lose your friendship if you withdraw it, Vieliessar thought as Aradreleg settled herself beside her. There were few to whom she could speak her mind and she valued Aradreleg’s bravery and wry humor. In her first days as War Prince of Oronviel, Aradreleg’s acceptance of her rule had given Vieliessar hope that she could find consent among the people of the Fortunate Lands to the things she must do.

“We send Celeharth to the Vale of Celenthodiel tonight,” Aradreleg said, leaning over to speak softly in Vieliessar’s ear. “Will you come?”

The Lightless went forth on their last journey by dawn’s light, for they had no Light within them to show them their road. But the Lightborn walked the road to Celenthodiel by night, so that the Light of its flowers and leaves would show them the path.

“I will be honored,” Vieliessar answered.

By the time the last course had been set out, there was no table that did not have two or three Lightborn present.

* * *

The pyre had been built down at the bottom of the orchard, upon the ashes of Lord Luthilion’s. Vieliessar walked there with Aradreleg and the rest of the Lightborn who had been in the banquet hall. Other Lightborn were already there, in a ragged circle around the pyre. Vieliessar took her place among them. The blue gown she had worn to the banquet shone in the moonlight while the green of the Lightborn’s robes blended with the darkness. None of those present paid any more attention to her than if she wore Lightborn Green as well.

Celeharth’s body lay upon a green silk cloth spread over a pyre of aromatic woods and fragrant resins. A funeral pyre might be made of anything that would burn, but great lords surrounded themselves in death, as in life, with rare perfumes and costly essences, and she had given the order for Celeharth’s going-forth to be conducted with all honor. His name would survive nowhere but in the rolls at the Sanctuary of the Star, for he had left behind him—so he had told her once—no Line to remember him. But in the moment of his death, he would be splendid, for the night air brought the scent of applewood and spicebark, the deep sweet notes of amber and the sharp green odor of pine resin.

They stood quietly in the darkness until the last Lightborn arrived. Araphant and Ivrithir, Oronviel and Laeldor, all were present.

“We come to celebrate the leave-taking of one of Pelashia’s children.” Pharadas Lightsister was the most senior of Araphant’s surviving Lightborn. “Celeharth of Araphant, you have served long in the Cold World. Go now to the Warm World, where it is always summer, and go with joy.”

Vieliessar knew to close her eyes against what came, and—greatly daring—added her own power to it. A flash brighter than the noonday sun, a wash of furnace heat.…

Then nothing remained behind but night’s blackness and a small drifting of fine white ash. In that instant of intense spell-kindled fire, the pyre and the body upon it had been consumed utterly. The going-forth of one of the Lightborn was swift.

“You said you needed an answer before the day ended,” Isilla said, walking over to Vieliessar. “The day is not yet run.”

“Nor will I presume I have my answer until you give it,” Vieliessar answered.

“Just as you like,” Isilla said easily. “Who will you wish to send to Mangiralas? Ambrant? He has skill.”

“It is my place to say to the War Prince who has skill as an envoy, not yours,” Aradreleg said sharply. “But she is right,” she added reluctantly. Aradreleg glanced at Isilla, and an unspoken message owing nothing to the Light passed between the two women.

“It is in my mind to let Ambrant rest a while yet,” Vieliessar said, “for his adventure here in Laeldor was … taxing.”

“Then if you will not send Ambrant Lightbrother, Lord Vieliessar, I would say to you Isilla Lightsister is no bad choice,” Aradreleg said. “She is clever enough—if overbold in her speech and manner.”

“Says the gentle craftworker’s daughter,” Isilla jeered.

“Have you yet washed the mud out of your hair, Landbond brat?” Aradreleg instantly responded. A moment later she looked toward Vieliessar with wide, horrified eyes, and Vieliessar knew that for an instant Aradreleg had forgotten who—what—she was.

Vieliessar laughed—it was funny—and Aradreleg’s expression eased. But if she laughed, the moment held much sadness, too, for it showed her more sharply than gowns and jewels and the deference of great lords what a vast gulf there now was between her and those she had once thought of as her peers. Somewhere, in the back of her thoughts, had been the hope that when her great work was done she could simply walk from the High King’s palace and be merely Vieliessar once more.

And now she knew that day would never come.

“I shall go and compose fair and clever words for you to take to War Prince Aranviorch, and perhaps, if they are fair enough, or clever enough, we shall not have to fight at all,” she said.

* * *

A fortnight after Laeldor fell by Magery, Vieliessar set forth with the last of her army.

Much had changed.

Iardalaith had come to the Sanctuary the year after she did. He had already been in training to become a knight when his Light was discovered. Now she learned he was a cousin to Damulothir Daroldan, for he had come to her in Laeldor both as Daroldan’s Envoy and to pledge his own person to her cause. He discovered immediately that she meant to use Lightborn Magery upon the field, and to her great surprise, came to her with a proposal.

He would train her Lightborn to fight. She agreed to allow it.

Roughly a third of those Lightborn who followed Vieliessar, Iardalaith said, had the combination of