her life regretted the ten rings on her fingers, the bracelets and chains linking them and her to ancient vows. “No,” she repeated. “Never.”
Sioned had grown used to the dark. Not a thread of light was permitted, not even a candle. She had no way of knowing how much time had passed, how many days and nights and days again. Meals came at irregular intervals—as did men who were a darkness she could taste and smell as well as feel.
She had been unable to test out Maeta’s information about the hidden entry to Feruche; though she had anticipated most of the guards and the time they changed duty, one had caught her just the same. Her own fault, she knew, for being careless in her urgency. And now she was here in this black cell, alone.
It was the lack of colors that disturbed her most. A Sunrunner shut away from the light was an unnatural thing, yet panic had not lasted long. The suffocating heat did not trouble her after what must have been a day or so. But she missed the colors. She spent her time tracing the shape of each one in memory: not the faces and landscapes and sky they formed, but wanting only to feel them, wrap them around her in the blackness. They were life to her, the gorgeous spectrum that made up the world she touched as a faradhi. But without light, she could not feel them. They had no substance.
She did not waste her energy by conjuring Fire very often. It hurt her eyes, and the colors of flame raged with her inner turmoil, her fear. And what was the use, in any case? She knew she would not be here forever.
A squeal of hinges alerted her a few moments before a torch spewed red-gold into her cell. She covered her face and turned away to spare her eyes that teared and stung with the pain of light.
Sioned took her hands from her cheeks and slitted her eyes open, wiped away tears. But she was not yet equal to meeting Ianthe’s gaze.
“Here,” Ianthe went on, “cover yourself. You’re looking rather awful, my dear. Like Rohan—too afraid of the dranath to eat much. It shows, princess.” She laughed. Sioned held herself from a flinch as clothes were flung at her.
She could open her eyes now without too much pain, and after brushing away the last of the tears she faced the princess. Ianthe’s smile sickened her.
“You’d enjoy killing me, wouldn’t you, Sioned? Almost as much as Rohan would. But you’re both too cowardly to dare it here in my castle. Tell me, Sunrunner, do you love your life so much you’d willingly endure this? Or do you love life even more than you hate me?” She laughed again. “There’s a subtlety here that has escaped you, I think. Hate is everything. My father understands that, and so do I, thanks to you and Rohan. Yes, I really ought to express my gratitude! Hate is the only thing that endures. It’s kept you alive thus far, hasn’t it?”
Ianthe took another step into the cell, firelight playing off her unbound hair, her jewels, her dark crimson gown. “But neither of you will risk your own lives to fulfill your hate for me and my father. Very practical of you, and very satisfying for me. There’s another life in question now. When a woman has borne three sons, she knows the signs of another in her body.”
Sioned stared at the torch Ianthe held. She could do it—conjure the Fire higher and hotter, send it writhing down the princess’ body, do to her what Roelstra had done to his mistress—
Ianthe cursed and threw the torch onto the stones. But Sioned had already doused the small flare her thoughts had given the flames. She would not kill Ianthe. Yet. There were no burns on her own flesh, no child in her arms.
The light fluttered up in strange patterns of shadows that both burnished and blackened Ianthe’s face. “I knew seven days after my youngest son was conceived,” she said. “But I wanted to make especially sure this time. Perhaps you think I won’t be believed. Put your mind at rest, Sioned. There will be no doubt that this child is Rohan’s. With my father victorious on his battlefield and I on mine, who will dare to doubt? Rohan will live long enough to acknowledge his son—and I want you alive to hear him do