found himself lying in a soft bed within a luxurious room. This chamber, with its brocade hangings and its view of the mountains, had become his prison—for this chamber had contained a pitcher of wine laced with dranath.
At first he hadn’t known. Lady Palila herself had brought him the wine, and the honor of having her serve him had not seemed unusual to a Sunrunner accustomed to instant respect and hospitality wherever he went. She had told him word had been sent to Goddess Keep that he was safe, and he need not worry. She had been all smiles and solicitude. He had suspected nothing.
But the wine had changed. Crossing water had been nothing compared to the loss of dranath during those rainy days of late autumn when the sun denied itself to him and the moons vanished behind clouds. His physical agony was made all the worse by the fact that this time he had all his wits about him. At last the High Prince himself had come to him late one night after some sort of celebration, wrapped in a cloth-of-gold cloak that shone in the firelight. Its brightness seared Crigo’s eyes and sent swords of cold fire into his brain. After drinking the wine Roelstra offered, he had listened in mounting horror as the High Prince explained exactly why Crigo felt better now.
A thousand times since that night he’d asked himself why he hadn’t chosen to die. There were easy answers: he was young, he loved life, he had thought to wean himself from the drug, he had intended to report back to Lady Andrade in secret. He had long ago recognized all these answers as lies. Shuddering into his blankets, he wondered bitterly why he could still feel such shame, and closed his eyes to the cool silver pitcher on the table. He hated it, craved it, blessed it, cursed it. It owned him as surely as Roelstra did. And that was the only answer that counted.
A thousand times since that night he had ridden the light for the High Prince, using his faradhi skills to communicate with Roelstra’s spies in major courts. Today he had made his regular contact with Stronghold’s wine steward, bracing himself against the bite of that rapacious mind in order to glean the information the High Prince wanted. Tonight he would use the moonlight to contact the steward again, this time to convey whatever message Roelstra wished. Crigo nearly sobbed aloud as his aching body crying out for the drug. Lady Andrade had special ties to those at Stronghold, ties of kinship and affection. To betray the young prince was to doubly and triply damn himself. Worthless in his own eyes, he was worth a very great deal to Roelstra. It was the difference in the price they each set on his soul.
Slowly, painfully, Crigo sat up. He raked the thin blond hair back from his eyes, drew in a long breath—and poured himself a measure of drugged wine.
Palila was in Roelstra’s chambers when the renegade Sunrunner was admitted. She was always nervous in Crigo’s presence, for he was a reminder of the bizarre old crone who had provided her with the dranath years ago. She had heard of a sorceress in the mountains who guaranteed all sorts of charms and spells. Desperate for a son—and needing something to put in Lady Surya’s wine that could not be traced or suspected—Palila had summoned the old woman secretly to Castle Crag. No son had come of it, though Palila had done everything required. But Surya had died of something the crone claimed was dragon’s blood, and in addition Palila had learned the secret of dranath. She would much rather have had the son than the presence of this pallid, drawn Sunrunner at Castle Crag. Roelstra had been forbidden an official faradhi by Lady Andrade for offenses not even rumor could guess at, and Palila did not mind the lack. Sunrunners did things she feared, and in the five years Roelstra had been using Crigo she had never gotten over the suspicion that one day he would reach his limit. Who knew what somebody trained by that witch Andrade might do? But Palila was wise enough to sit quietly on her couch and hide her wariness, for Roelstra wanted her to witness what happened this night.
“Come in, Crigo,” the High Prince said. “Be seated.”
A chair had been placed in the full moonlight. He huddled into it, wrapped in a thick cloak though the