Crown of Vengeance

“I shall buy us time,” Vieliessar answered.

But time could only be bought with information, and so after the meeting had drawn to a close, Vieliessar dismissed her commanders and retreated to the inner chamber of her pavilion to gain it.

One of the things that had bemused—and amused—Vieliessar once she became War Prince of Oronviel was her discovery of the portable spellkits (so called by the Lightless) the Lightborn used. It was true that to cast any of the spells she had learned within the Sanctuary, all that was needed was the power of a Flower Forest and a Mage’s own Light, but it was also true that many spells required a particular stillness or a period of cleansing meditation. Nearly all Lightborn meditated regularly, both to still their thoughts, and to take the opportunity to touch the Light without needing to use it.

In the Sanctuary, the elements necessary to ease a Lightborn’s path were available in every practice room and sleeping chamber. Outside the Sanctuary, Lightborn might be called to follow their masters on progress, on campaign, or simply to move from manor to manor. To be certain they had with them all they needed, they had evolved the custom of storing their favored items in a special case, which they brought with them wherever they went or were sent.

The one she now used had been Celeharth’s.

Made of ivory, it was covered in pebbled, iridescent, red-gold leather: gryphon skin. The hide had worn away at the corners of the box through centuries of handling, and the ivory, yellowed with age, showed through.

The hinges and the clasps were simple things, for any of the Lightborn could Seal a container so utterly it could not be opened by the Lightless, but they were beautifully wrought, of fine gold, in the fashion of feathers. The interior of the box was padded and had been shaped to hold its contents immobile: one fat and two narrow storage canisters, a small cordial bottle, a brazier, a teapot, and a teacup.

The pot and cup were of unadorned shin’zuruf—their beauty came from their exquisite shape and delicacy. The cordial bottle was much the same as any that might have been found within the Sanctuary, but made of white amber instead of the traditional crystal. It did not hold medicine but rather a flower cordial that could be mixed with water. The narrow canisters were of gold, their surfaces elaborately etched with the form of a dragon. One held charcoal disks, the other, Light-incense. The last was the traditional cherry-bark tea canister; this still held tea that Celeharth had blended with his own hands.

The tiny brazier was very old—older, Vieliessar thought, than Celeharth—and carved of cinnabar in the form of a coiling dragon holding a golden bowl in its claws. None of the histories she’d read mentioned dragons as living creatures—but then everything she’d read said unicorns didn’t exist, either, and she’d seen one. She wondered if dragons—assuming there were dragons—looked anything like the carving.

She made her preparations with quick efficiency, lighting the charcoal, measuring the tea, pouring water over it from the iron kettle. Once it had brewed, she sipped it slowly, relishing its subtle flavors as she willed her spirit to stillness. When the cup was empty, she spilled tiny grains of golden incense onto the burning charcoal and inhaled the familiar fragrant smoke.

She was ready.

Since the night she had sent him eastward to be her voice to the War Princes of the Grand Windsward, she had done her best to remain in touch with Thurion. There were more reasons than self-interest for her actions: the Lightborn of the Windsward Houses were certainly receiving news from the Houses that held them in clientage, and Thurion must be able to set her facts against his own.

Thurion? Thurion, are you there?

Every Lightborn experienced Farspeech differently. Hers showed her the place she ’Spoke to as if she stood there in flesh.

For a long moment there was no answer, no sense of another place forming its image behind her eyes, and the worry that Thurion might be lost or dead was almost enough to break her concentration.

Then: “Vielle? Oh, thank the Light! It has been so long since we have ’Spoken, and I have heard so many tales of you…”

She opened her inward eyes and an image slowly came into focus. He sat in a chamber that was clearly the accommodation of an honored guest—she could tell by the tapestries on the walls, the furnishings, the carpets upon the floors. But the windows were nothing more than narrow slits, instead of the ones she knew from the Great Keeps of Caerthalien, Oronviel, and Laeldor: wide open ones hung with shutters of fragrant wood or filled with designs in colored glass. It was clear from the openings in the walls that the walls were much thicker than they should be in any chamber meant to house anything but a prisoner. Thurion was an honored guest somewhere in the Grand Windsward, then, for the thick walls were meant to keep out more than the wind and its winter chill.

“I have been much occupied these last sennights, I fear,” she answered. “I took Mangiralas as I said I would. War Prince Gatriadde has sworn fealty to me.”

“Gatriadde?” Thurion’s mental voice blurted, “but—”

“All the rest of the Line Direct are dead,” she answered, knowing Thurion could feel the sorrow in her thoughts. “But after Mangiralas, I forged treaties with Amrolion and Daroldan while my army fought elsewhere. I hold much of the West. But what of you? When I last heard, you had reached Encherelimier to place your petition before Celelioniel’s own House.”

“And so I did,” Thurion answered; Vieliessar felt the exasperation in his voice. “It is hard to travel here—they set their castels far from the Flower Forests to preserve themselves from attack, so I could not go in person, but I Spoke to many, even Hallorad. And you may see what has come of my careful work!

“The Grand Windsward is at war. Some of the Twenty see only a second chance to free themselves from the High Houses, but some look farther than that—Vielle, you do not know what it is like to live here. There is never a time when one may know himself to be safe! I do not think there is a single boundary stone anywhere here, for it would be death to set them and the Beastlings would only remove them.”

“It is much like the Western Shore,” she answered softly. “There are no villages there, only great keeps of stone where all shelter, from lord to Landbond. From Damulothir’s own Great Keep I watched Beastlings pluck fisherfolk from the shore as you might pluck berries from the bush.”

“So you have seen what it is like to live constantly embattled,” Thurion said. “Give the Twenty an honorable reason to come across the Feinolons once and for all, and who would not? But for now, I may tell you that Penenjil and six more will fight beneath your banner. Antanaduk, Rutharban, Cazagamba, and Narazan say they will give their answer next War Season. Hallorad stands neutral, as always, but Dalwath Hallorad says Hallorad will sue for terms once you have won. The others support either Bethros or Haldil, or else pretend to in order to make their own bid to become Lord of the Grand Windsward when the rest are weakened by battle.”

“Seven is better than I dared to hope,” she said. The sense of his words caught up to her abruptly. “You said they will fight for me, Thurion. But I need them to renounce their claims to the Unicorn Throne.”

“They have promised to do so if you win against the Twelve.” Thurion’s response was troubled.

Vieliessar gave an exasperated sigh. Promises were easily broken, and if she did not hold the fealty of a domain’s War Prince, its knights could leave the field for any of a score of “honorable” reasons. It was still more than she’d thought she’d get.

“When can they join me?” she asked.

“The caravans leave for the Sanctuary each spring as soon as Nantirworiel Pass opens,” Thurion said. “It is a long way from the Grand Windsward to the west.”

Vieliessar made a faint sound of exasperation, but Thurion was right. The tribute caravans took moonturns to cross the Feinolon Peaks, the desert of the Arzhana, the Bazrahil Range, and the Mystrals on their way west. When the High Houses had gone east to break the Windsward Rebellion, they had made up their arrays mainly from levies upon their clientage Houses in the Uradabhur rather than move the whole of their own meisnes eastward.

She sighed in acceptance. “They will come when they will come.” As much as she might rail against the indecisiveness of the Windsward Houses, she would not herself choose a course that would force her army to overwinter in a hostile place. If I had any choice about it, she thought wryly. “But you may say to them that to join me, they need not go so far as Vondaimieriel,” she went on. “Soon I come east—I shall cross the Mystrals just before the Dragon’s Gate closes, and take the Uradabhur over the winter. It will be spring before the Alliance can follow me—if it dares to. Let my allies join me there, when it pleases them to do so.”

There was a long moment of silence, and Vieliessar had a dim sense of her own pavilion around her, the incense smoke blending with the ever-present scent of horse and dust. That faded as Thurion spoke again