Ianthe surged up again, her eyes slits of rage. “You dare take my son? You whore! I’ll butcher him while you and Rohan watch!”
“A mother’s love,” Ostvel said.
Ianthe swayed to her feet. “Did Rohan tell you how it was?” she shouted at Sioned. “Did he tell you how he made love to me here in this bed? He’s mine now, and his son with him! The way it should have been from the first!”
Sioned suddenly backhanded her, and the emerald tore a gash across the perfect cheek. Ianthe fell back onto the pillows, fear in her eyes now. Sioned spent a moment enjoying it, then turned. Tobin had taken the baby and wrapped him in her tunic. The child whimpered fretfully, smoke stinging his nose.
“Hush, little one,” Tobin soothed, rocking him. “Little prince.”
“Sioned, we’ve got to hurry,” Ostvel warned. “The Fire—”
“Yes,” she said, looking at Ianthe again. “The Fire.”
The princess spat defiantly, “You couldn’t kill me before, Sunrunner, and you won’t now! You’re—”
“I am what I have to be. Did you stay to watch your father ignite his mistress’ bed, Ianthe?” Sioned slapped her again as she lurched up from the bed. “My Fire is of a different kind.”
She held her hands out so Ianthe could watch them, the emerald a seething reflection of the flames outside the windows. Sioned smiled at the terror in Ianthe’s dark eyes. Hate was a wonderful, living thing in her guts, giving her power beyond anything she had ever felt. Sweet and hot and potent, the hate wove its magic through her with threads of blackened sunlight, stitching together her need to kill and her delight in Ianthe’s mortal fear.
But all at once the princess drew herself straight and looked to the child Tobin held. Sioned saw triumph in her face, laughter in her eyes. Sioned longed to strike her again, but there were better ways of killing her and the emerald blazed in response as Sioned sought the Fire within it. She gathered herself to wrap flames around the smirking, victorious princess.
A lean flash of fire-shrouded steel suddenly quenched itself in Ianthe’s breast. She grasped it with a cry that was more surprise than pain. A flicker of comprehension lit her eyes before all light fled them forever, and she sank back, taking the sword with her, hands clasped feebly around its hilt.
Ostvel slid his sword from the dead woman and wiped the blade on a fistful of bed hangings. He met Sioned’s rage without apology, his face set in stone.
“It’s over, Sunrunner,” he said.
She wanted to claw his face until the blood ran. “She was mine to kill, mine!”
“No. Not to kill.” He sheathed the sword. “You have what you came here for, Sioned. Do you want to stay and watch the Fire take her? It’s over!”
She made a harsh, animal sound and whirled, setting the bed ablaze with a single thought. Ianthe’s long hair caught, and the hangings, and the tapestry dragons writhed in obscene mating dances with Fire spewing from their teeth and talons. Sioned hauled at one of the bedposts and it split apart at its joining, the burning weave cascading down onto Ianthe’s corpse. Curtain rods fell and Sioned screamed as one of them cracked across her shoulder, spat flames across her face, seared her cheekbone a finger-width from her eye.
Ostvel hauled her away and she shrieked at him, tears streaming down her face. “Sioned! Stop it! Do you hear me? Stop it!” His open palm cracked across her injured cheek, snapping her head around. Through the haze of smoke she saw the empty doorway and screamed.
“My son! Where is he? Where?”
“Tobin took him downstairs, and if we don’t follow we’re going to die here! Sioned, it’s over! Ianthe’s dead!”
She gasped for breath, struggling against his grip. Sanity was returning and she dreaded the loss of the hate that had given her such power. “Let me go! Damn you for killing her, Ostvel—she was mine to kill!”
“And how did you plan to tell him that when he grows up?” he asked bitterly, pulling her from the room where the stench of Ianthe’s burning flesh swirled up into the thickening smoke.
They ran down the hallway, coughing and stumbling down the stairs. Fire had invaded the lower hall, taken hold; tapestries in flaming tatters flung sparks on the fireborne wind. They could not leave Feruche the way they had come in; the whole castle was on fire.
Outside on the steps Sioned searched frantically for Tobin’s small, white-shirted figure,