outrageous expense from Ossetia, Meadowlord, and Syr, transplanted with such loving care to Desert soil that not a single one had been lost in the shock. For ten years they had been pampered into lush maturity near the rock grotto where the spring that fed Stronghold splashed down into a small pool. He had loved playing here as a child, and had always found it a good place to sit and dream and listen to the water. He wanted to be the first to show it to Sioned.
Walvis had arranged everything. The squire had sidled up to him just after dinner with the breathless information, “My lord, your lady will attend you at midnight.” The boy’s term made Rohan smile; Walvis was no fool. He was of an age where romance between a prince and a pretty lady caught his imagination, and secret meetings late at night were exactly to his taste. Rohan knew what it was like to be Walvis’ age and a go-between, for he had been just eleven the year Chaynal had inherited Radzyn and arrived to pay homage to Zehava. Though he’d teased his sister mercilessly, he’d been thrilled to arrange encounters between her and the handsome young lord. He had liked and admired Chay at once; despite the ten years’ difference in their ages, Chay had never treated him like a child. Politic of him, Rohan thought now with fond amusement. One did not antagonize one’s future prince, let alone the brother of the woman one hoped to marry. But their friendship was based on more than canny self-interest, he knew. It had grown stronger over the years until Chay was one of the few people Rohan really trusted.
Much depended on whether he could trust Sioned. Much depended on Roelstra, too, whom he knew very well he could not trust. His whole scheme rested on the beliefs of two people—or, rather, on his ability to make two very different people believe two very different things.
Prince Zehava had ruled by his sword, demonstrating strength through victories over dragons and the Merida. High Prince Roelstra ruled by his wits, demonstrating strength through political and personal humiliation. Rohan intended to base his power on a little of both for the present—victory over the Merida after humiliating Roelstra at the Rialla—and eventually to work his way around to leadership through law. Sioned would bring him no alliance and no lands, but she brought something much more useful: the farad-h’im. The Desert’s resident Sunrunner, Anthoula, was growing old, and Rohan intended to send her back to Goddess Keep with Andrade so she could live her remaining years untroubled by the Desert’s searing heat. Anthoula had taught him how the network of faradh’im worked and where their loyalties lay—not with the courts they served, but with Goddess Keep. They were forbidden to do battle except to protect their own lives, forbidden to take sides in any dispute, and most especially forbidden to use their powers to kill. With Andrade as Lady, however, the distinctions of nonpartisanship had grown a little blurred, though she had thus far behaved with scrupulous impartility. She had been waiting for him to grow up so he could marry a Sunrunner.
But Sioned’s loyalty must be to him, not to Andrade. He refused to torment himself with doubts of his ability to win her mind as it seemed he had already won her body and, perhaps, her heart. A rueful laugh escaped him as he realized they had both been scorched by Fire. But he needed a princess, not just a wife.
He had long since surmised that Andrade had purposefully arranged the match between his parents. Milar had used Zehava’s wealth to embellish his home and their lives, adding to his prestige and his power by impressive display of its rewards. This, Rohan saw now, was the foundation for his own coming power. He was grateful for the benefits of his mother’s tireless work. But he needed more of a woman than someone to run his castle, bear his children, and order tapestries. He needed what Chay had found in Tobin: a woman to trust in and work with, who understood him and his ambitions. A faradhi princess would make him a very powerful man indeed. Andrade’s design, of course—but to what end?
Rohan had to admit that his actions in pursuit of his own ends would be incomprehensible to most. He would play the indecisive prince when the vassals arrived to do him homage, then next spring fight