Sunrunner who had been posted here for a time. He had misjudged the light late in the day. Shadow-lost was the most fearful risk farad-h’im could run, for thoughts unraveled in darkness never rewove, and colors forgotten in the night never knew sunlight again. The mindless body soon died, its essence having following the sun into the Dark Water.
“Then you know the consequences of overconfidence,” Andrade said. “And speaking of arrogance, Rohan seems to be making quite a game of avoiding me.”
“Mother says he was in Father’s room late last night for a little while. But I don’t know where he is this morning.” She sank down on a bench in the shade. “And before you ask—yes, I know most of his places, and I’m not going to tell you. He’ll appear when he’s ready. Don’t push him, Aunt. Not now. I’m worried about him.”
Andrade sat beside her, shrugging irritably. It was probable that Rohan was in no state to talk to anyone, not even his family, and especially not Andrade. “He’ll have to face me sometime.”
“How dare you imply that he’s a coward!”
“I didn’t. But why isn’t he with Zehava?”
Tobin sighed. “I suppose he’s like me, and can’t believe Father’s dying—not so quickly, or so slowly. Does that make any sense?”
Andrade understood. A strong and vigorous man one day, Zehava was dying the next. Yet life lingered painfully in the ravaged body, refusing to relinquish its hold on flesh.
“In any case, it’s forbidden for the next prince to watch his father die,” Tobin went on.
“That’s a very bad idea. Rohan must watch or all his life Zehava’s image will be in front of him, never really dead and burned.”
Tobin’s black eyes sheened silver with tears, like rain at midnight. “You are the crudest woman I ever knew,” she whispered.
Andrade bit her lip, then grasped her niece’s hand. “Never think I don’t grieve for your father. Zehava is a good man. He gave me you and Rohan to love as I would have loved children of my own. But I am what I am, Tobin. And you and I are both women of consequence with responsibilities. When we have time for it, we feel. But there is no time. Rohan must be told.”
Yet he eluded her for the rest of the morning and afternoon. Andrade grew furious at the dance he was leading her and was reduced to the humiliation of setting one of her Sunrunners outside his chamber door, with orders to report instantly if and when the young prince appeared. Her other faradh’im she posted at various places around the keep with identical instructions. But none of them came with news during the whole day.
With the evening, Andrade was exhausted. She had attended Zehava twice, hoping but not really expecting him to awaken, and had sat vigil with Milar for several hours in the suffocating heat. At dusk she decided to go up to the Flametower, where there might be a breath of air to cool her. She opened the door of the uppermost chamber, panting after the climb, and cursed viciously—for Rohan was in the huge circular chamber, alone.
The light from the small fire in the center of the room turned his hair fiery gold and glistened on the sweat that beaded his forehead and the hollow of his throat. As Andrade entered, he glanced up without curiosity from his seat before the little blaze.
“It took you a long time to find me,” he observed.
She resisted the impulse to blister his ears with her reply. Choosing a chair from the few stacked against the far wall, she placed it opposite his at the fire and stared into the flames. “Gracious of you to wish at long last to be found,” she told him in a rigidly controlled voice. “Although this isn’t the most agreeable place for a talk—or the most comfortable.” She gestured to the fire that was kept burning year round.
“Comfortable?” Rohan shrugged. “Perhaps not. I keep seeing Father in the flames.”
“A trifle premature. He’s not dead yet.”
“No. But when I don’t see Father, I see myself.” He rose and paced to the windows, pointing arches left open to whatever wind chose to blow. They circled the room at regular intervals, each one surmounted by a sleeping dragon carved into the stone. Rohan made the circuit slowly, stray gouts of fire-sent breeze ruffling his sweat-damp hair.
“They’ll signal his death from here,” he said musingly. “Build up the fire so high and hot that this room will