could do with a husband. It would get me out of this nursery!” She gestured to the lawns where their half-sisters played in the sunshine.
Ianthe paced along the garden wall until she found a perfect violet rose. She plucked it and ran the soft petals across her cheeks and lips. “There’s nothing wrong with a husband of one’s own choosing. But remember who’s sent emissaries recently? Prince Vissarion—now, there’s a fine specimen, if you like lechers. And then there was that lisping idiot sent by Prince Ajit. How would you like to join the list of wives he’s buried? Four now, isn’t it?”
“Five—no worse than Father,” Pandsala retorted, but there was fear in her dark eyes now. “Very well. So the idea is that if Palila manages a son, we’ll find some way to switch the child for a girl.”
“If Father gets an heir, we’ll count for less than nothing.”
“I know.” Pandsala scuffed the toe of her slipper against a clod of newly turned earth. “But Ianthe—this is our brother we’re talking about.”
“And if he grows up a servant’s son instead of a prince, what of it? It’s our future we’re concerned with, Sala! Father’s wealth split seventeen ways is bad enough—but if there’s a son, instead of a seventeenth part we’d be lucky to get a hundredth. You and I and Naydra and that imbecile Lenala will get larger shares, of course, being princesses. But five hundredths is still nothing multiplied five times.” She crushed the rose in her palm. “If there’s no son, Father will have to choose the next High Prince from among our sons.”
Pandsala’s eyes narrowed for an instant, but then she hastily smoothed her expression. “Some other woman than Palila might give him a boy. You know, Ianthe, we’d do better to have him gelded.”
The younger girl burst out laughing. “And you call me foul-minded!”
Pandsala laughed with her. “I’d call us both practical, wouldn’t you?”
But as they walked on, conversing in perfect accord, neither spoke of the sons they hoped they would have—or the husband each hoped would father them.
The High Prince—who was not as unaware of his daughters as they believed him to be—sat behind the desk of his private study high above the gardens. Roelstra’s forty-five winters showed in a thread or two of white in his dark hair, a line or two around his pale green eyes, a notch or two let out in his belt. He had been a remarkably beautiful youth and had matured into a handsome man; oncoming age only added to his looks. But many years of absolute rule had set certain things into his eyes—arrogance, cynicism, contempt. All of these were in evidence as he looked at his most valued, though not most trusted servant.
“So. The old dragon is dying. It’s certain, Crigo?”
“Yes, your grace. He was gored most horribly and now lies in his bed, from which he will not rise.”
“Hmm.” Roelstra tapped his index finger against his lips and regarded Crigo. “You seem tired. Have you been indulging too much or too little?”
The man’s fair head bent. “I . . . apologize for my condition, your grace.”
“Sleep it off. Come back to me at moonrise, for I wish to send a message to our contact at Stronghold. And you must take better care of yourself, Crigo,” he cautioned, smiling without humor. “It’s not every prince who has his very own renegade Sunrunner.”
Crigo’s lean shoulders flinched at the reminder of what he was. Roelstra studied him for a few more moments, thinking that it might become necessary to acquire a new faradhi soon. Crigo was beginning to look used up.
“Leave me,” he ordered, and rose to look out the windows. The door latch clicked softly, and Roelstra was alone. He gazed at his daughters, saw Palila’s auburn hair gleaming in the sunlight, and wondered what plots were whirling around in their heads today. The princesses were getting to a dangerous age, he reflected—too old to be placated with toys and games, old enough to want more of the silks and jewels that were an idle woman’s playthings. Ianthe and Pandsala in particular would bear watching, for they were intelligent. A woman with a brain was not a thing to be relished.
He wondered if the young princeling had a brain. Son of the old dragon and nephew of the redoubtable Lady Andrade; perhaps he could think. Roelstra hoped so. It would make life much more interesting.
He wondered, too, if Andrade knew about Crigo or the dranath. Such