rich princes,” Pandsala corrected silkily. “And the firmest of friends.”
Palila smiled her sweetest smile. “Naturally, my dear! Now, we really ought to be planning what you’ll wear on the Lastday ceremonies.”
They spent the rest of the morning discussing Pandsala’s wedding gown, these two strange and dangerous allies.
Sioned was less fortunate in her physical circumstances. Instead of a snug, dry cabin on board Roelstra’s barge—something a Sunrunner would not have appreciated anyway—she was stuck inside a leaky tent. No sooner did she and Camigwen and Hildreth stop one drip than another began. The beds were damp and the wet wool carpet smelled awful. But there was nowhere to go for escape, and when Cami suggested a game of chess to take their minds off their misery, Sioned gladly agreed.
But her mind was not on the game. She could not stop thinking about what she had seen the previous night. Had Rohan welcomed Ianthe? Had the Fire interrupted the first caresses of their lovemaking? Sioned’s response to Roelstra’s advances had educated her most painfully in the fascinations of his deadly breed. Had Rohan felt the same?
She lost to Cami in less than fifteen moves. Rising, she grabbed up a cloak and pulled the hood up over her hair. “I’m going for a walk.”
“You’ll catch a chill,” Hildreth warned.
“This is the cloak Tobin lent me—see?” She spread its folds to show the fur lining. “I’ll be warm enough.” As Cami began her own protest, Sioned exclaimed, “I have to get out of here!”
She pushed aside the sopping tent flaps and started walking. The cloak, made for the much shorter Tobin, reached only to Sioned’s knees. She knew she must look absurd, but there was nobody to notice her in her rich crimson cloak over plain riding clothes. A few guards huddled beneath the slight shelter of entry overhangs; a servant or two hurried through the rain on errands. Sioned left the maze of tents for the river and crossed the bridge to the Fair. The booths were shut down and deserted, bright hangings drenched, wood dark with rain. The merchants had taken their wares back to the tent village over the hill for safety and protection from the storm, and undoubtedly sat cursing the weather that deprived them of a day’s sales. Deserted, silent, the place looked like a battlefield, lacking only corpses and black-winged birds to pick the bones clean.
Sioned gave an annoyed shrug at the grim turn of her thoughts, and kept walking up the crest of a hill, where a small wood provided welcome if inadequate shelter. Damn Rohan’s leaky tents. Damn Rohan.
Hunkering down beside dripping ferns, she forced herself to think things through once again. It wasn’t even last night’s scene that was bothering her, she admitted privately; she could understand if Rohan had desired Ianthe for a time. She had felt the same around Ianthe’s father. The trouble lay deeper, and she looked down at her rings with a bitter smile twisting her lips.
What would Andrade say if she knew what Sioned had done to that Merida? Meaning only to frighten, her conjuring had killed. Worse, she felt no real remorse over the man’s death. He had tried to kill Rohan; that was reason enough for him to die.
She tried to believe she hated Rohan for doing this to her. The truth was she hated herself for allowing it to happen. She hadn’t meant for the wine steward at Stronghold to die either, but he had, his mind pulled apart by two Sunrunners warring for control. Sioned was partly responsible. But she could not feel much remorse over him, either.
She had killed for Rohan and she did not even have the excuse yet of being his princess. What would happen in the future, when she could hide behind that convenient obligation? Rohan’s power over her was terrifying, but it was power she had given him along with her heart and her mind. She could be his princess only—and feel like only half a person if she gave up being a faradhi.
It must be possible to balance them, be both Sunrunner and princess. Andrade would never have done this if it was impossible to be both. No prince or princess had ever been an active Sunrunner as well; it was too dangerous. She huddled more deeply into her cloak and closed her eyes, wondering why Andrade should think her strong enough to resist using her power if her husband or her lands were in need. Sioned had not intended