Dragon Prince 02 - The Star Scroll (39 page)

 

Segev heard voices in the library just as he located the Star Scroll on the shelf. He froze, fingers extended, nearly touching his prize. A flicker of his mind darkened the tiny flame he had conjured to see by. He told himself to wait it out, stay calm, remember how close he was to success. Whoever had entered would soon be gone. He had waited earlier behind a row of shelves for Andry to leave, and he could wait again.

But it was Andry’s voice he heard. “If you think Wilmod’s essays are boring, you should try Dorin’s. At least Wilmod knows how to construct an argument. Dorin’s just plain awful at everything!”

They were down the room from the small chamber where the scrolls were locked away with other important records. Segev rapidly reviewed the layout and breathed a sigh of relief as he recalled that the books Andry talked about were on the other side of the library. But then he tensed again when recognition of the second voice destroyed all his plans.

“I was thinking along the lines of farming manuals as a soporific,” Hollis said teasingly.

Segev heard their footsteps fade down the long row of shelves and moved quickly. He had touched nothing but the lock on the door, so there was nothing to put back as it had been. He let his fingers brush longingly against the leather case containing the Star Scroll, then went to the door. He slid through and the lock worked with a faint click. Pocketing the key, he cursed Andry for ruining it all. Hollis, obedient to a suggestion he had made tonight while serving her
dranath
-laced taze, had gone to the stables as planned to saddle a horse for his swift, unnoticed departure. But Segev dared not chance now that the mount had been left for him.

He used the shadows to conceal his progress toward the main door, but froze again as he heard them coming back in his direction. There was an alcove nearby with a study table and a chair. Segev sat, opened a book left there, and put his head down on his folded arms.

“Oh, Andry—look,” Hollis said softly from nearby. “I didn’t see him earlier. Poor boy!”

“He certainly is devoted to his studies,” Andry whispered. “Should we wake him?”

“He’ll have a terribly stiff neck tomorrow if we don’t.”

A gentle hand touched his head and despite himself a shiver of excitement went through him. He had never forgotten that night with her and doubted he ever would. He used the startlement to mime abrupt awakening from sleep, and mumbled, “I’m sorry, Morwenna—I forgot the answer—oh!” He blinked and sat up. Hollis wore a fond, amused smile, and Andry was grinning over a scroll clasped to his chest. “What happened? Did I fall asleep?”

“Yes, and quite some time ago, I’d wager.” Hollis ruffled his hair. “Come up to bed, Sejast.”

He gave the perfect impression of being fuzzy-headed with too little sleep as he got up and yawned. Andry’s sharp gaze had gone to the open book on the table, and his brows lifted exactly the way Andrade’s did.

“Magnowa’s treatises? That’s pretty advanced stuff.”

Segev was thankful that he actually knew about the book, and managed a bashful shrug. “Some of the words are hard, but it’s interesting.”

“A good deal of it is closely related to the old language,” Andry observed. “Are you having much trouble?”

“Some, my lord, but it gets easier.” Boldly he added, “I guess it must be the same way with the scrolls.”

Hollis answered Andry’s astonishment with, “He comes from the mountains. The dialects there are closer to the old tongue than what we speak. He’s interested in history and has helped me several times.”

The young Sunrunner nodded slowly. “Maybe you’d like to give me some advice on a few translations.

Segev nearly yelped in delight. “Could I, my lord?”

“The histories are tough going in parts, and there are a lot of words I can’t figure out. I’d appreciate the help.”

“Oh, thank you! I’d love to work with you and Lady Hollis—” He cast a look of calculated adoration at the golden-haired Sunrunner, who smiled back at him, her dark blue eyes alight.

Andry’s lips twitched at the corners, for he had seen precisely what Segev wished him to see: a boy infatuated with an older woman. “I’ll talk to Lady Andrade about it tomorrow. Meantime, I think we all ought to go back upstairs, don’t you?”

Having impressed Andry with his admiration for Hollis, it was an easy matter to include himself in escorting her back to her chamber. He pretended to be drawn to the view of the sea from her windows, and on the way back to the door dropped the key soundlessly into the little silver bowl on her desk where he’d found it. He lingered as long as he could in telling her good night, then returned to his own small, windowless room.

Reaction set in after he had closed the door. He sat down on his bed, the chamber lit by the glow of the brazier—necessary for light but also for keeping some of the damp from the walls, even in summer. Bemused, he held out both hands and watched the fingers tremble. He had nearly been caught tonight. He didn’t want to think about what Andrade would have done to him had she discovered his true identity and purpose here, let alone what he’d done to Hollis by addicting her to
dranath.

But he had not been caught. True, the Star Scroll was not in his possession, and he was not galloping north to Mireva. But something even better had happened, if Andry followed through with his notion of having “Sejast” help with the scrolls. He could work his way to free access to them, and learn more than Mireva had ever guessed—certainly more than she would ever teach him of that dangerous knowledge. Ruval was the one she’d chosen to educate in the finer points of the craft; Ruval, whose only recommendation was that he was Ianthe’s firstborn son.

Her thirdborn sat hugging his knees and grinning. He was glad he’d been unable to steal the scrolls, glad he would be staying here. If he played his part correctly, he would learn what the Star Scroll could offer along with all the
faradhi
secrets being taught him daily. He might even be taken to the
Rialla
as part of Andrade’s suite. Hollis liked him, could not do without him. She would ask Andrade for permission to bring him along.

Why wait? Once there, he would challenge the High Prince himself.

 

Rivan flattened his back to a tree as Kiele galloped past on her mare. He’d heard the screams, faint but clear in the night stillness, and had barely slid into the woods in time to avoid her as he ran back to the manor house.

By the time he arrived, the place was silent and deserted. Riyan watched for some time from shelter, tremors shooting through him, before he finally approached the dwelling. The door was unlocked. He entered cautiously to find the interior empty. There were signs of habitation—and also of hurried leavetaking.

Outside again, circling the house for a clue as to what had happened there, he found nothing. Dirt and grass had been scuffed along one wall, but that could have been the work of the mare. Of Kleve there was no sign at all.

Riyan inspected the house once more in growing perplexity. He discovered food, used crockery, a rumpled bed, and a few clothes that would fit a tall, athletic man. Returning outside, he glanced up at the moons, tempted to use their light to cast about over the countryside for Kleve. Memory of Andrade’s warning dissuaded him—that, and Kleve’s promise to meet him tomorrow at the goldcrafter’s. Riyan looked down at his four rings with a sense of betrayal. Knowledge enough to weave the sunlight, but not the moons he needed so much right now.

He returned to the residence, slipping into his chamber as dawn first touched the sky. Despite his unease, he slept soundly for several hours and was up in good time to keep the appointment at the goldcrafter’s. But Kleve did not.

S
ioned crouched atop a knoll in the tall summer grass, a breeze off Brochwell Bay ruffling her loosened hair. The sunlight came from behind her, making her an unidentifiable shadow—a trick her Desert-bred husband had taught her—as she watched the activity in the encampment below, where nearly ninety tents formed eleven neat little enclaves of color. Each group followed roughly the same pattern: the prince’s large pavilion in the center surrounded by smaller tents for vassals, aides, and servants. Her own pavilion, an immense thing of blue silk that had been Prince Zehava’s last extravagant purchase before his death, occupied the best site on a rise just above the west branch of the Faolain River. The dragon banner was unfurled, for although Rohan had not yet arrived she shared his sovereignty. The dragon was as much hers as his. He had made that quite clear at their first
Rialla.
She smiled to herself, recalling the slack-jawed amazement of the other princes when Rohan had broken all tradition and brought her into a banquet at his side. Since then other wives had demanded—and by and large had received—the same privilege. None of them, however, shared their husbands’ authority as completely as did Sioned. The dragon was proof of that, too, holding a gold
faradhi
ring set with an emerald in his claws.

The other princes had followed Rohan’s lead as well in the use of personal emblems to identify their people and belongings. In the last ten years all had chosen devices of their own, though Chay remained the only
athri
with his own symbol. The encampment was gaudy with colored tents and seethed with pennants flying above them that depicted all manner of devices. Some were beautiful, others merely appropriate. Fessenden’s silver fleece on sea-green fluttered on tall silver poles; Gilad’s three silver moons on blushing pink wafted above tents of the same ridiculous color. Dorval’s white ship on a blue field waved a full arm’s length higher than Grib’s white candle on red, sure to irritate proud Prince Velden, who would doubtless order taller flagpoles next time. Above her cousin Volog’s tents the breeze fingered scarlet banners with elegant silver flasks thinly outlined in black. Ossetia’s wheat-sheaf on dark green was beribboned with mourning gray to remind all of Prince Chale’s loss of son and grandson. Sioned noted the quiet of his camp, sad contrast to the bustle elsewhere. She pitied the poor old man, forced to attend the
Rialla
when his grief was so new.

Three colors were missing from the array below her, and there were corresponding gaps left for those who had not yet arrived. Her brother Davvi was due sometime today, and by evening his turquoise tents would rise near her own blue just as his princedom of Syr bordered the Desert. Princemarch’s violet would be established on the other side when Rohan, Pol, Maarken, and Pandsala rode in tomorrow. They had not taken the usual route down the Faolain to the
Rialla,
prohibited by the fact that neither Pol nor Maarken could set foot on anything that floated. Pandsala had no such difficulty, and it remained one of the curiosities of her Sunrunner abilities that she had no qualms about crossing water. Andrade and her suite—including Maarken’s intended wife—would arrive whenever Andrade felt like arriving. Her white tents would be set up apart from the rest. Sioned had made certain that several prime locations were left open for her, but just where the Lady would choose to make her camp was, as ever, her own affair.

Sioned sat back on her heels, lips pursed as she considered the meetings that would constitute the working portion of the
Rialla
for Rohan. The last three assemblies had been rather tame affairs compared to the first one she had attended. Trade agreements, boundary agreements, marriage agreements—nearly everyone had agreed on nearly everything. Sioned ascribed much of this amity to Rohan’s statesmanship and skill at weaving so many different personalities and aims into a more or less cohesive group. But though she knew his acumen was responsible for much of the concord between princes, other factors were involved. The
Riall’im
of 701 and 704 had been canceled; Plague had stunned the continent before the first and three years after that, Roelstra’s death had dealt everyone another shock. Sioned’s mouth tightened to a bitter line as she reflected that almost no one had believed Rohan could prevail over the powerful and cunning Roelstra. Memory of their final combat, a fight to the death beneath a dome of starlight woven by Sioned herself, could still make her shiver. Roelstra’s planned treachery had failed; Rohan had killed him in a fair fight. But the remembrance of the strain as she used forbidden starlight at an impossible distance was the stuff of nightmares.