ceased to numb his wound, and his shoulder ached abominably. He could feel sticky warmth on his back, could even smell his own blood over the stench of death around him. Rohan fought with one eye on the approaching riders, frantic lest someone else kill the High Prince before he could do it himself.
And then he was free of enemy swords and spears, and Chay was at his side, and they kicked their tired horses to speed across the heaped and mangled bodies. But it was not Roelstra who rode to meet them in the growing gloom. It was Andrade.
Her silver-blonde hair had come loose, blowing out behind her and tangling around her shoulders. She drew rein only when she was almost upon him, her eyes wild.
“You’ve lost him!” she screamed. “He escaped past us, to the south! Damn you, Rohan, you’ve lost him!”
“Not yet, by the Goddess!” he shouted back. “Chay!”
“At once, my prince.”
“I ride with you,” Andrade stated grimly.
Rohan laughed in her face. “Can’t miss out on your vengeance, can you, Andrade? If you think you can keep up with me, then come. But don’t interfere!” He turned to Tilal. “Go to your father—don’t argue with me! Tell him where I’ve gone, and that he has the honor of cleaning up this battle on his home soil, just as he wanted. You and Maarken stay with him. That’s an order, squire!”
Tilal unhappily obeyed. Chay had assembled thirty riders, men and women with new determination in their battle-weary faces. The Lord of Radzyn narrowed his eyes as he scanned Andrade’s escort.
“Lleyn’s sailors. Go claim a piece of Roelstra’s armies for your prince!”
Their leader glowed with eagerness, then glanced guiltily at Andrade. She nodded. “Stay and fight, Cahl,” she told him.
He bowed his gratitude for the release from her service, then addressed Rohan. “One favor, my lord. If it comes to it, burn our ships before Roelstra can board them.”
“He won’t get that far, I promise you.”
Urival said quietly, “I’ll ride with you, my lord. You’ll need Sunrunner’s Fire to see by.” He was staring at Andrade as if daring her to object. Rohan laughed again.
“Scruples? You cast your lot with me the moment you brought me Sioned. Come along, Aunt. Come savor the outcome of your work.”
Sioned knelt on the rim of Skybowl’s crater as the last shadows faded into night unlit by moons. The baby lay quiet and sleepy-eyed on a blue-and-gold blanket, his stomach full of goat’s milk, blissfully unaware of the commotion he had caused.
Skybowl was nearly as empty as Stronghold. Those who had gone to fight at Tiglath had not yet returned, and those few who remained accepted without murmur that the child was Sioned’s own. Tobin had expected nothing less. Having kept silent about the gold for so long, they were not likely to reveal this new secret.
Tobin knelt to Sioned’s left, Ostvel to her right. The fourth position that should have been Rohan’s was left open to the Desert below the cliff. The child murmured drowsily, his body pale and perfect in the dimness, so small compared to the vastness of the Desert and the infinity of the emerging stars.
“Child,” Sioned whispered at last, beginning the ritual, “you are a part of this world. Water will quench your thirst, Air will fill your lungs. Earth will guide your steps, and Fire will warm you in winter’s chill. All these are yours by right of birth, the right of every son and daughter born.”
As Sioned paused, Tobin remembered other Namings, when the gentle ritual had been spoken over Maarken and Jahni, Andry and Sorin. Ostvel’s fingers were clenched on his knees, and she knew he was remembering, too, the night when Sioned had presided and Rohan had been with them as Camigwen Named young Riyan.
“But you are a prince,” Sioned continued softly, and Ostvel looked up, as startled as Tobin at this departure from the time-honored formula. “Born of a long line of princes, sire to generations more. For you this world holds more—and will demand more.”
Sioned lifted her hands, emerald ring glittering, and a soft breeze swept up from the lake behind her. With the Air came a mist of Water and tiny motes of Earth. Tobin sensed, as Ostvel could not, the careful gathering of delicate threads of starlight, fine and thin as spider-spinnings, the weaving of its pale Fire into the breeze. The slow swirl surrounded them, gradually centering at arm’s length above the baby in a tight, glistening spiral.