in his hand. The flame turned his hair to molten gold and sank his eyes into darkness. He was a stranger tonight. For almost the first time, Tobin could see their father in him; the Desert had claimed him for its prince. Zehava, too, had had this look about him, for despite the comforts Milar had brought to Stronghold, the sand and the wind had been bred into him. The dragon that had killed the old prince sprawled between the largest boulders. There was a long, hollow wound in the sand, the path made as the great corpse was dragged to this place. Nearby on a flat stone that had been the final bed of fifteen generations of princes, Zehava lay beneath a silvery cloak that concealed his body from neck to feet. Torchlight picked out the sharp profile and black beard, so different from his son’s finely drawn features and clean-shaven cheeks. Yet they were alike, Desert-bred and dragon-born.
Rohan turned at last to Princess Milar, who walked forward to the funeral stone with the steps of an old woman. The shining scars of tears were on her cheeks, and she stood for a long time at her husband’s side, stroking back his hair and letting the Water of her grief fall onto his face. Andrade came forward to trickle a handful of sand onto Zehava’s motionless chest, the Earth from which he had been made. Anthoula, faradhi to the dead prince for many years, limped to his bier and spread her hands wide. The cloak’s hem stirred as she called Air to touch him lightly in farewell. Then she bent her head in homage for a moment, and returned with Andrade to the place where the other Sunrunners stood cloaked, hooded, apart.
At last Rohan approached his father, carrying Fire. He lifted it high, his right arm a little stiff from his wound. The light was painted over Zehava’s body and on the great bulk of the dragon behind him, dripping down to the sand. Rohan touched the flame to the four corners of the cloak. The material caught and flared, beginning the blaze that would liberate Zehava’s spirit from the elements of which his physical form had been made.
Then Rohan did a shocking thing. He went to the dragon and took a small waterskin from his belt, pouring the contents over the beast’s wing. A handful of sand was scooped up and flung atop the water, and a fiery breeze created with a sweep of the torch over the dragon’s head. At last he set fire to the carcass and stepped back, his shoulders set defiantly.
Tobin was stunned. She had known he intended to burn the dragon, but honoring the creature as Zehava had been honored was unthinkable. Yet as she looked at her brother’s face, she thought she understood. Enemies killed in battle were accorded decent burning; so, too, the dragon.
Sweat began to bead on Tobin’s forehead as the flames rose higher and hotter, augmented now by the silent efforts of the faradh’im standing nearby. Piles of sweet herbs and incense had been placed around both corpses, but they could not mask the smell of charring flesh. She glanced at the faces around her, seeing that Stronghold’s people wept unashamedly for their prince. Various foreigners who happened to be at the keep stood in little groups, wearing conventional masks of solemnity. Tobin resented their presence, but they had to witness the ceremony and Rohan’s conduct during it. He had undoubtedly shocked them all by honoring the dragon, but they would learn by it that he was not to be predicted.
As the first waiting time ended, the outsiders filed toward Rohan, bowed, and started back to Stronghold. The servants and soldiers followed after they, too, had acknowledged their new prince. Before too much longer only the family and the faradh’im would remain here. Tobin tried to pick out Sioned in the cluster of anonymous gray-clad Sunrunners. At last Tobin saw the ends of the long fire-gold hair that hung loose down Sioned’s back below her veil. There were so many things Tobin wanted to know about this woman whose colors she had touched so briefly, but there had been no chance to talk. What did Sioned think of Rohan, of Stronghold, of the Desert—of becoming a princess?
Rohan accepted the homage of the last of the squires, then went to Anthoula and touched her arm, nodding toward Tobin and the twins. The faradhi’s limp was even more pronounced as she