Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire (10 page)

“Go on, tease me,” Tobin invited, making a face. “You just wait until
you
become a grandmother, High Princess!”

Sionell prudently did not comment that if Pol kept putting off marriage while doing what he was doing with the maidservants, Sioned would have grandchildren long before she had a daughter-by-marriage. His bedchamber exploits were no one’s business but his—not even his mother’s.
And certainly not any of my concern—the graceless swine—

She glanced up from folding a stack of shirts to find that both Tobin and Sioned had run to the windows. An instant later the whole tower seemed to shake as an arrogant roar shattered the morning stillness.

Dragons.

Sionell was first down the stairs. She arrived breathless outside the tower and stared up at the flight of dragons heading for the lake. Training her mother had given her in the intellectual study of the beasts warred briefly with the sheer delight of watching them. Emotion won, as ever. The day it didn’t, she’d order up her funeral pyre—for surely she would be near death.

“I never get over it,” Sioned murmured at her side, as if she’d heard Sionell’s thoughts. “All these years, watching them everywhere from Remagev to Waes, and I’ve never gotten used to their beauty.”

Others joined them on the grassy slope in front of the Princes Hall—Sionell’s parents, Maarken, Hollis, Arlis, and the High Prince himself. He was shirtless and barefoot, his damp fair hair indicating he’d leaped from a bath and barely remembered to pull on trousers. He looked his son’s age as he turned his face skyward, rapt and ecstatic.

“Sionell!”

Turning, she saw Pol ride up on one of his golden horses. He reined in, eyes brilliant, and gestured. She grabbed his hand and used his booted foot as a stirrup to swing up behind his saddle.

“Faster!” she urged as he kicked the mare to a gallop, and laughed into the wind.

Some of the dragons were already at play along the lakeshore. Others, hungry after a long flight, pounced on the terrified sheep kept penned for their refreshment. A three-year-old gray female with gorgeous black underwings swept down in a controlled glide, plucked up a woolly lump with one hind foot, snapped its neck with a twist of front talons, and landed neatly on the opposite shore. She snarled at a sibling who attempted to steal her lunch and settled down to devour the sheep with dainty greed. The entire operation took less than twenty heartbeats.

Sionell slid to the ground before Pol brought the mare to a full halt. He was right beside her after slapping the horse back toward the stables—having no wish to see one of his prizes become dragon fodder.

“Start counting!” Sionell cried. “My mother will kill us if we don’t!”

“Five russet hatchlings, seven green-bronze, ten black—Ell, just look at them! As alike as if they’d shared the same egg!”

“Four grays, three more black—I don’t see the gray-blue sire who was at Skybowl. He must’ve died in mating battle—but there’s the black one, and the worse for wear! How does he fly with that scab on his wing?”

“Where’s Elisel? Can you see her?”

They searched the lake and the skies, but could find no trace of Sioned’s russet dragon.

“She has to be here,” Sionell fretted.

“Maybe she went to Skybowl.” Pol tried to be soothing, but his face betrayed his worry.

Sioned ran up, winded. In silence she scanned the shore, biting her lip. At last she whispered, “She’s not here.”

If anything had happened to Elisel—the only dragon any of the Sunrunners had been able to talk to. . . . But Elisel might have been one of the females who died each mating year. There were insufficient caves for all the she-dragons; if they did not mate and lay their eggs, they died.

Sionell glanced up at Pol, seeing the same worry in his eyes. He muttered, “We have to coax them back to Rivenrock. We have to tell them it’s safe there.”

“How?” she asked bleakly. “If we’ve lost Elisel, then—” She broke off, mindful of Sioned nearby.

“Maybe Maarken and Hollis just chose the wrong dragons to touch,” he mused.

“Trying it had them unconscious for a whole afternoon,” she reminded him. His lips twisted as he gnawed on the inside of his cheek, his eyes narrowing as he focused on a single dragon. She knew what he was going to do as surely as if they’d thought it at the same time—and didn’t say a word to stop him.

The others had arrived at the lake by now, occupied with the count or speculating on Elisel’s absence or simply staring awestruck at the dragons. Only Sionell saw Pol take a deep breath to steady himself, fix his gaze on a large blue-gray three-year-old with silvery underwings, and close his eyes.

The young dragon stood with wings spread out to dry after his swim. Well-grown for his age, as an adult he would be a sire of formidable size. His head with its long face and huge eyes turned toward Pol, then away, then shook as if insects irritated him. Shuffling to one side, he bumped into another youngling who growled at him.

Sionell held her breath, willing Pol to succeed. How could he not? Nothing had ever been denied him; the world and all its dragons were his by right.

But not today.

The dragon shrieked, head lashing toward the sky. Pol cried out at the same time, a terrible groan that shuddered his whole frame. Sionell flung her arms around him to keep him upright, calling his name.

“Pol! You idiot!” Rohan gathered him from her and lowered him to the grass. His eyes were open and he mumbled incoherently, the muscles of his legs and arms quivering. Sionell knelt, shifting Pol’s head to her lap. Rohan framed his son’s face with his hands and called his name.

The dragon howled again and took wing, circling the lake in panicked flight. All at once Pol’s eyes opened startled and wide. He gave a great sigh and went bonelessly unconscious.

“Idiot,” Rohan said again, but in a relieved tone this time. “Maarken, Tallain, get him out of here and put him to bed.”

The young Lord of Tiglath gently assisted Sionell to her feet. “He’ll be all right now, my lady. Let us take care of him.”

She nodded numbly, grateful for his strong supporting arm as he gave her over to Arlis. Pol was slung between the two young men and carried away, utterly oblivious.

“Whatever possessed him to try such a thing?” Hollis asked. “He knows how difficult it is—”

“You just answered your own question,” said the High Princess. “If he’d gotten tangled in that dragon’s colors—”

“He wanted to ask about Elisel,” Sionell murmured.

“Perhaps,” Sioned conceded. “But what he really wanted, what he’s
always
wanted, is to touch a dragon himself.”

Rohan rubbed a hand over his face. “If he wasn’t already to be punished by a sore brain for the next two days, I’d take him over my knee.”

“
I’d
take him by the ears and shake some sense into him—if I could reach up that far,” Sioned countered. “Has that poor dragon settled down yet?”

“Sunning himself and having a snack,” Arlis reported. “Are you all right now, my lady?”

Sionell managed a shaky smile for the future Prince of Kierst-Isel. “Thank you, my lord.”

Pol woke in time for dinner, sat up, moaned, clutched his aching skull, and collapsed back into the pillows. Tallain came downstairs to inform them that the prince had wisely decided to stay in his room.

“How long did it take you to bully him into it?” Rohan asked curiously.

Tallain grinned. “Two tries at standing, one at getting his pants on, and some very creative cursing, my lord. I hardly had to say anything at all.”

“Good man. Let him convince himself. Walvis, I assume Feylin is lost in her statistics again, and won’t be joining us for dinner?”

They were a small group that night, seated around a table in what would one day be the guards’ mess. Sioned had chosen to stay upstairs and wait for first moonlight to contact Riyan at Skybowl; he would know about Elisel. Chay, Tobin, and Maarken were at the stables tending a mare suspected of colic. So Arlis served Rohan, Walvis, Sionell, Tallain, and Hollis from a cauldron of stew made of leftovers from the Lastday banquet. When sweets and taze were presented at the end of the meal, the young prince was dismissed to his own dinner.

Despite the day’s events, conversation was not of dragons or Sunrunning. Rohan plied Tallain with questions about an agreement signed only days ago with Miyon of Cunaxa regarding the border between princedoms. The gist of the matter was, could Tallain live with the terms?

“Kabil of Tuath and I had a long talk this spring. With Sunrunners at our holdings able to contact Riyan at any time, we both feel fairly secure. And glad to give our people something better to do than patrol.”

“Trust my son to need more iron than even Sioned was able to trick Miyon out of,” Rohan sighed. “And trust Miyon that the only way to get it was a reduction of troops along the border.”

“That’s not quite fair,” Walvis observed. “Sorin learned so much from building Feruche that more iron had to come to Dragon’s Rest—plus it’s so much bigger.”

“And whose fault is that? Again, my son’s.” The High Prince shrugged. “Ah, well. Reduction of patrols reduces the chance of any little ‘accidents’ like last winter.”

Sionell sipped hot taze, remembering how close they had come to war with Cunaxa. An encounter along the border had led to a disagreement about who had encroached on whose land, ending with several dead on each side before both backed off. A courier had galloped into Tiglath that night; Tallain rode out at once with an escort. His quiet diplomacy—aided by a map drawn by Goddess Keep’s Sunrunners in 705 that strictly defined boundaries—had convinced the Cunaxans that the matter wasn’t worth further bloodshed.

“Yes,” Tallain was saying in response to Rohan’s comment. “But if they’d been led by a Merida, I wouldn’t have let them away so lightly.”

Sionell turned to him with interest. “How did you know it wasn’t?”

“Northerners can smell a Merida at ten measures, my lady,” he answered with a tight little smile. “Ask your mother. She’s from our part of the Desert.” His brown eyes, startling contrast to the sun-gold hair swept back from his brow, lingered on her. She realized abruptly that he liked looking at her. She fought a blush as his attention returned to the High Prince. “Miyon’s impudent lately, though, which must mean he has a new ally. I suspect Meadowlord.”

“Chiana and her Parchment Prince,” Walvis said sourly. “They’ve a natural affinity with Miyon. I can’t believe Chiana’s insolence in Naming her son after her grandfather—and her daughter for her whore of a mother.”

Hollis blinked large, innocent eyes. “I’m surprised she didn’t Name him Roelstra.”

Rohan grinned and rapped his knuckles on the table. “Now, now, children. We can’t encourage such disrespect for other princes—next, you’ll be insulting us! Tallain, will incidents increase or decrease along the border?”

The thin smile crossed Tallain’s face again. “I couldn’t say, my lord—but for one factor. There’s an advantage to dealing with Prince Miyon. His merchants and crafters. They’ve got him by the throat, as ever. And they constantly try to sneak their shipments into Tiglath. Sometimes I let them.”

“Reaping a substantial profit thereby?” Sionell asked, amused.

“Of course, my lady. I let enough through to keep them trying. The rest I confiscate. You’d be astonished what they’re willing to pay to get their goods back and legally shipped. My father built two schools and a new infirmary on the proceeds. I’m planning to refurbish the market square next year.”

“Oh, I do enjoy the law,” Rohan sighed. “Especially the ones my
athr’im
ignore to our mutual advantage. But I never heard any of this, Tallain.”

“I never mentioned it, my lord.” The young man was unable to keep a twinkle from his dark eyes.

“It’s not civilized of me, of course,” Rohan went on. “And I really shouldn’t condone this sort of thing, even unofficially.”

Walvis was grinning openly. “But so much fun,” he urged. “And such a comfort to the rest of us to know you’re not perfect after all.”

The High Prince pretended horror. “Sweet Goddess, don’t tell anyone!”

Sionell laughed. Rohan really was so much
nicer
than Pol. “Your secret is safe with us!”

“My eternal gratitude, my lady,” he responded with an elegant bow. “To return to the matter of the Cunaxans—Sorin feels they may start to use the trade route over the Veresch again, now that Feruche is there for protection. I hope you’ll forgive me, Tallain, if I make the passage fees low enough to encourage them.”

Sionell answered, “He can hardly object, can he?”

Tallain gave her a long look, then grinned. “Hardly,” he said in dry tones.

“You’ll still make a profit,” Rohan added. “But if Miyon feels too bottled up, he’ll get nervous and start thinking about war again.”

“I don’t think he’s fond of you, Rohan,” Walvis said blandly.

Hollis was frowning. “He asked a lot of questions about Pol this year. And he was usually close by wherever Pol was. He might simply have been taking his measure, of course. . . .” She trailed off doubtfully.

“Did you get that impression?” Sionell asked. “His half-sister sat next to me at the races, being subtle.” She snorted. “She practically asked which boot Pol puts on first. As if I’d know anything, not having seen him for so long.”

“Audrite and I got the same treatment,” Hollis said, nodding. “And she knows him much better, his having been a squire at Graypearl.”

“None of you ladies said anything to the point,” said Tallain. Reverting in Arlis’ absence to the squire’s role he had held at Stronghold for many years, he rose to refill everyone’s cups.

“No, but—thank you, Tallain—but why would Miyon’s sister ask such questions?” Hollis dipped a spoonful of honey into her taze. “Not political, personal. Private things.”

“She’s only a few years older than Pol,” Walvis offered. “Maybe his grace of Cunaxa sees a match?”