silent field and over small hills that cradled shadowy valleys between them like the slight hollows between the muscles of a powerful man’s back.
She saw then, and knew the two groups of riders who faced each other in a broad valley. She saw her husband, tall and tense as he sat his horse in perfect stillness, more carving of warrior’s beauty than living man. She saw her brother, golden hair turned to silver, poised, waiting, as motionless as Chay. She saw Andrade, pale hair streaming down her back, strangely helpless as she spoke urgent words that Rohan and Chay ignored. There were others, but Tobin did not look at them—for the star-thread drew her across the emptiness between to Roelstra.
The High Prince gestured sharply, and a slender young woman rode forward. Chay went to meet her. They exchanged words Tobin could not hear, wore expressions the shadows did not allow her to read. But she saw her husband nod slowly, and when the woman straightened from her slight bow of acceptance, Tobin saw that it was Pandsala. The pair returned to their princes, and Rohan and Roelstra each dismounted.
Confused and frightened, Tobin quivered in the grip of the starlight. Andrade held up both hands, rings shining, her mouth contorted as she cried out words that would forbid, her face terrible as she flung her head back. Roelstra shouted, Rohan shook his head. Not even Andrade could stop this now.
The two princes stripped off battle harness and clothes until they were down to trousers and boots, nothing more. There was a bandage wrapped around Rohan’s right shoulder, blood seeping through in an ominous stain. Chay spoke with swift urgency, gesturing, warning; Rohan nodded absently and unsheathed his sword. Tobin heard in imagination its angry hiss from the scabbard, the blade a long gleam of steel in the night, lean and pale as its owner.
Andrade at last submitted, withdrawing in response to Urival’s hand on her sleeve. The two faradh’im moved apart and dismounted. Urival walked to the other end of the line of Rohan’s soldiers. Both Sunrunners paused a moment before their lifted hands conjured two small spheres of Fire. Rohan’s people formed a loose arc on one side, Roelstra’s on the other. The faradh’im and the Fire hovered between to complete the circle and give the princes light to see by, light in which to kill each other. Andrade stood with head bowed and shoulders bent like an old woman’s; Tobin saw, and grieved, but knew that whatever the Lady had planned for Rohan and Roelstra, this was the only possible conclusion.
They stalked each other warily, moving with elaborate care. All advantages of youth, strength, and swiftness that should have been Rohan’s were negated by the wound in his shoulder that would slow and weaken him the longer the fight went on. Roelstra was heavier of body and motion, and it had been a long time since he had used his warrior’s training. But that the muscles beneath his flesh were strong and that his instincts were intact became obvious with the first swing of his sword.
Tobin did not hear the clang of blades, nor the grunt wrung from her brother’s throat as the impact shuddered up to his wounded shoulder. She did not hear whatever taunting words Roelstra flung into the space between them. But she could see—and there was a spark, a narrow gleam of steel far back among Roelstra’s people. They shifted. A pathway cleared. The starlight spun around Tobin and her colors seethed with panic, twining, merging with Sioned’s—and Urival’s, and Andrade’s—and someone else, someone trained but not perfected in the faradhi arts. Suddenly there was yet another, a tiny, raw gift that surged up in answer to Sioned’s need. Light and shadow skittered around Tobin, through her, and she lost her own colors to the greater whirl of power borne on Fire from the stars.
Andrade was too stunned by the assault on her senses to begin defending herself until it was too late. Caught up in the threads of starlight, she saw in an instant the treachery of the upraised knife—and for the first time since the tenth ring had been placed on her finger she found herself subordinate to the powers of another Sunrunner.
Chill silvery flames sprang up around the two princes, a circle of dangerous starlight that rose, met, created a shining dome that enclosed Rohan and Roelstra in shivering Fire. Colors flashed as each faradhi pattern was woven more deeply into the