A Fall of Princes (45 page)

Hirel spoke the words that he had been instructed to speak,
but as soon as he had spoken, he forgot them. They were only words. This was
reality. The hand he held, no warmer or steadier than his own; the voice that
murmured in his silences; the eyes both bold and frightened, and once the
glimmer of a smile.

He was rapt. Bewitched. He the prince, the logician, the
master of his royal will.

He hardly tasted the wedding feast. Some he must eat, and
some he must drink: it was the rite. They drank from the same cup, ate from the
same bowl. She ate and drank for them both.

She caught fire under all the eyes. She had even cold Aranos
falling into her hand, hanging on her every word, dwindling when she turned her
eyes away from him. Sevayin, they called her. Sevayin Is’kirien, the Twiceborn,
the Sun’s child.

o0o

Then it was past, and they were alone, locked in a chamber
with a hearth and a winetable and a bed broad enough for a battlefield. Hirel
did not know where to go.

She—Sevayin, he must resolve to call her—had lost a little
of her brittle brilliance. She filled a cup with wine and held it out.

Hirel declined it. She toyed with it; sipped; hesitated; set
it down.

“It’s not done, you know,” she said. “There’s still the crux
of it. I hope you haven’t lost your courage. Because,” she said, and her voice
shook, “I don’t think I ever had any.”

She looked most valiant, standing there in all her beauty,
trying not to tremble. Hirel let his body act for him. It went to her; it held
her, or she held it. They clung together like children.

It was she who broke the silence. “I dreamed this,” she
said. “And you.”

“And you call yourself no seer?”

“I’m not. I’m merely mad.” She laughed as she said it,
unsteadily. “And to crown it all, now I can’t escape. Now I have to begin my
lessons in the high arts.”

“I shall take delight in teaching you.” Hirel held her at
arm’s length. She smiled shakily. He smiled back. “I confess, I have somewhat
more skill as a lover of women than as a lover of men. And rather more
inclination for it.”

“I . . . incline . . . very
much toward you.” She swayed forward, brushing his lips with hers. Her hands
sought the fastenings of his robes.

They were wedding robes; they parted, slipping away of their
own accord. He wore no trousers beneath. Her breath caught. “You’ve grown
again, cubling.”

“How fortunate you are,” he said. “No one can know when you
wake to desire.”

She lowered her eyes. “I can,” she said very low.

He touched her. She quivered.

It was not wholly true, what Hirel had said. Her breasts
were taut.

He freed them of encumbrances; the vest, the necklaces, the
golden pectoral. He loosed the clasp of her belt. It sprang free. Her skirts
fell one by one.

There were nine. He appreciated the irony.

She cast off the ornaments that he had left her, and the
drift of veil. Only the torque remained, and a single jewel: a chain of gold
about her hips, thin as a thread, clasped with an emerald. He set his hand to
it.

“Not yet,” she said, her laughter half a gasp. Her heart was
beating hard. “That’s the maiden-chain. It has to wait until you’ve made a
woman of me.”

o0o

She was. Entirely. A maiden, and then a woman. As he
breached the gate, she cried aloud. For pain. For exultation.

They sang in him. They wrought a great and wondrous harmony,
a symphony of bodies joined together. He soared upon it. He made himself one
with it.

They descended together, he and she. He laid his head on her
breast. She wove her fingers into his hair.

Slowly their hearts quieted. Her cheeks were wet, but the
tears were none of grief.

He let his hand wander down her belly and hips to the clasp
of the chain. It parted.

His fingers found their way between her thighs. She sparked
to his touch, but she shifted slightly, away from him. He yielded to her will;
his hand came to rest again on her hip.

“Hirel,” she said after a few tens of heartbeats. He turned
his head to kiss her breast. “Hirel, where were you when the mages loosed their
power on me?”

He raised his head, frowning that she should speak of it now
of all times. But he answered her readily enough. “I was locked in a chamber,
and no one would let me go to you.”

She met his eyes. “Where were you, Hirel?”

“I told you, I—” He broke off. She knew what he had said.
She wanted more. “I was locked away, but I heard your cries. They all denied
that there was aught to hear.”

“There was nothing. I was silent, Hirel.”

“I heard you,” he insisted.

“You did.” She scowled. Damn these witches and their
paradoxes. A smile flickered; she bit it back. “You were in my mind. You and
the mages. You’ve been in and out of it ever since.”

“That is preposterous.”

“Have you ever had a better night’s loving? Or a stranger?”

“You have a gift for it. And I am besotted with you.”

Her smile escaped. “And I love you, my proud prince. But
something is happening with my power. I should have suspected it long ago. I
began to when I found you amid the pain, and your presence eased it a little.
It’s been growing stronger since; it’s strongest when you touch me. I’ve been
afraid to believe in it. Afraid I only dreamed it. But now I know. We’re mages,
Hirel. Both of us.”

He thrust himself to his knees. “You are a mage. I am glad
for you. It was bitter, your power’s loss. But I have no part in it.”

“You are the heart of it,” said Sevayin, relentless. “You
were there when I lost my power. You were with me when I almost died; it was
you who turned me back to the light. You found the Eye of Power. You were
almost on top of it when I destroyed it. We came to love one another; we faced
death together, as we faced life. Somehow, in the midst of it, my magery bound
itself to you. It’s part of you now.”

“No,” Hirel said. “I can believe the improbable, but not the
impossible.”

She seized his hands. He could never accustom himself to her
strength, even though he knew what she had been and what she would always be:
born of warriors, trained for war. He glared into her eyes, and lost his battle
thereby.

It was a sharpening of all the senses. He could see through
stone; he could hear across worlds. His skin knew every nuance of the air. He
tasted love and fear and gladness. He scented wonders.

Power
, she
whispered. Her lips never moved.
This is
power. I thought I had lost it. I wanted to die for lack of it
.

“I am not made for it!”

She drew back. Hirel reeled, blind, deaf, all but bodiless.

By slow degrees his senses grew again, but dimmed and
dulled, mere earthly senses. The only brightness was Sevayin lying beneath him,
her face a vision of lamplight and shadow, crowned with fire.

With great care he touched her cheek. The power roared and
flamed about him.

Her smile was sad and joyous at once: warmth and coolness
mingled, scented with flowers. Flameflowers, burning-sweet. “Oh, yes, my love,”
she said, “you are made for it. It flames in your blood. It takes its strength
from you.”

“Ah,” he said, wry, not yet angry. “I am your familiar.”

Her eyes glittered. “You are much more than that!”

“Certainly. I am your lord and husband.”

“And my lover.”

She stroked him until he quivered with pleasure. Her joy made
his heart sing. She was whole again and growing wild with it, leaping up,
sweeping him with her, spinning like a mad thing. She reached for the fire that
was in her; she set her will upon it.

Hirel groped through the blinding pain. He found her huddled
on the floor, too stunned even for temper.

“Crippled,” she said. “Still—after all—”

“You are not!” Hirel cried.

She barely heard him. “I was so sure. I knew. My power has
come back. It has been coming back ever since the change; and you are its
focus. But the pain is still there. The walls are as high as ever.”

She raised her head. Her lips drew back from her teeth. “I
will break them down. By Avaryan, Hirel, I will.”

o0o

The Red Prince was gone again. So too was Aranos.

The mages would not tell Hirel where. The how he could
guess. Even a little of the why, if he set his mind to it. There was trouble.
The war did not go well. But for which side—that, they refused to say.

He could not find Sevayin. She was present in his mind, an
awareness as of his own body, a glimmer of night and fire; in time, she had
promised him, he would learn to follow the presence to its source. But he had
not yet learned, and she had hidden herself well.

He spared a moment for temper. A wife should hold herself at
her husband’s disposal.

This one did as she pleased. Which was nothing but what she
had always done, insofar as she could in this wintry eyrie.

Hirel could do nothing that befit a prince. There were no
servants but the mages, and they performed none but the most essential of
services. He must bathe and dress and amuse himself.

There were books, a whole vault of them. None could tell him
what passed between the empires. One of the mages condescended to a match or
two of weaponless combat; he would speak of naught but holds and throws and
falls.

At length, driven by his mighty restlessness, Hirel came to
the heart of the castle, to the chamber of power denuded of its wedding
splendor. Its fire burned unabated. If it failed, Sevayin said, the fortress
would fall; for the fire was the power that held stone upon stone.

Hirel sat on the floor in front of it. It looked like a
simple mortal fire. Its warmth caressed him; its dancing soothed his temper.

He closed his eyes. The flames flickered in the darkness.
“If you are power,” he said to them, “serve me. Tell me what my jailers will
not have me know.”

“Are you strong enough to endure the telling?”

Hirel glanced over his shoulder, unstartled. The fire’s
doing, perhaps.

The guildmaster leaned on twin staffs. His robe, which had
never seemed to be of any color in particular, in that light seemed woven of
silver and violet together, shimmering like imperial silk. “I must know,” Hirel
answered him. “Has Asanion fallen?”

“No.”

“Is my father dead?”

“Indeed not.”

“Have I been stripped of my titles?”

“You know that you have not.”

“Then,” said Hirel, “I have nothing to fear.”

The mage sat by him. Why, thought Hirel, the man was young.
It was the twisting of his body, and the pain of the twisting, that had aged
him so terribly.

It was no less than he deserved.

“Indeed,” he said calmly. “It was my payment for the power I
wield. I had great beauty once and great strength, and grace such as few of
mortal race are given. I was a dancer in the temple of Shavaan in Esharan of
the Nine Cities.”

“But they are—”

“Yes. They are all women. What I did to your beloved, I did
to myself. And more. All that I had been, I surrendered, to be the master of
mages.”

Hirel considered that broken body, those clear eyes. “What
price will you demand of me?”

“Not I, prince. The power. It will do with you as it
chooses.”

“I do the choosing, guildmaster.”

The master smiled. “Perhaps you do. Perhaps you have. Are
you not inextricably bound to the Sunchild? Do you not accept the reality of
magic?”

“Perforce,” said Hirel, “yes.” He narrowed his eyes. “Tell
me.”

The master bowed his head, raised it. “Perhaps, after all,
it is not so terrible. It is merely a wielding of power. We are out of your
world, prince, and out of your time. It is still autumn there; the war has
barely begun. Mirain An-Sh’Endor has taken Kovruen. Ziad-Ilarios has announced
that he will lead the Asanian armies in his own sacred person, as he led them
before he took the throne.”

Hirel bared his teeth in a smile. “Scandalous.”

“Is it not? But that is nothing to the greater scandal that
rocks Asanion. The emperor your father will not only command his own forces in
the field. He has sent an embassy to the Sunborn, proposing an alliance.”

Hirel stiffened, incredulous.

“Truly, prince. An alliance against us who dare to hold you
hostage.”

Hirel laughed suddenly. “Thus is the biter bit!”

“If either of them can find us.”

“They will,” said Hirel. “You are not the master of all
mages.”

“I am not,” the guildmaster conceded. “The Sunborn is
greater than I. But if he accepts your father’s embassy, he will have fulfilled
our purpose. They may find our gate; they may besiege it; they may even conquer
it. It does not matter. You are here, with your lady who bears the heir of the
empires.”

“And they fight together.” Hirel frowned. “If all is turning
to your advantage, why are your mages so reluctant to boast of it?”

“It is too early yet for certainty. The Sunborn may refuse
the alliance. The Golden Courts may turn against your father. Ziad-Ilarios
himself may choose to act alone in despite of his ambassadors.”

“And,” said Hirel, seeing clearly now, “we their children
may manage to escape you. What will the Sunborn do when he discovers that he is
father to a daughter?”

“He will discover it. In good time. When it will best serve
us all.”

“How long, guildmaster? How long will you imprison us here?”

“As long as we must.”

“As long as you can.” Hirel stood. “I should be
compassionate. Your order will bear the brunt of the emperor’s wrath. Does it
trouble you that even as your people suffer, certain princes will enjoy the
full trust of their lords?”

“That trust serves us well,” the master said.

“Trust us, magelord. Let us share in your counsels. We are
your great weapon; should we not have a voice in our wielding?”