approached and held out her hands to Maarken and Jahni. She led them forward to pay their last respects to their grandsire. They turned then to bow to Rohan, and started back to the keep. Tobin was grateful for her brother’s kindness—Anthoula was too old to endure the entire night here, and the boys were too young. She pressed his hand in silent thanks and stood beside him, watching the flames.
Scenes from their childhood seemed to flicker in the fire, and a smile came to her face beneath her veil. Their father had been so good to them, loving them with a vast, gruff, indulgent affection even when he did not entirely understand them. As the hours wore on, she relived the past in the flames, glimpsing Zehava playing dragons with them, teaching them how to survive in the Desert, taking them along as he rode his lands—Radzyn, Tiglath, Tuath Castle, Skybowl, Remagev, Faolain Lowland, and a dozen smaller keeps where she and Rohan learned what it was to be ruler of the Desert. Tobin felt her grief burn away as the memories lit her heart.
Thank you for my life, Father. You never had much use for rituals, did you? But this one reminds me of all the things you gave me by giving me life. I love you as I love the Water I drink and the Air I breathe, the Earth’s bounty that feeds me and the Fire that’s between Chay and me. You gave me all those things. Thank you for my life.
When the three silent silver-cloaked moons were at their highest and their light very pure, the faradh’im formed a semicircle as close to the death stone as the Fire would allow. Smoke and bits of ash rose up to form a gray-black background as they linked hands, twenty-five slate-colored figures with Lady Andrade in their center. At any other time, Anthoula would have performed this ritual alone. Tobin was glad the old woman would be spared this strain—and that so many had gathered to give power to this ritual. She felt the flare of energy around her and swayed slightly. Chaynal, standing at her side, put his arm around her waist. She was aware of the exchange of frowns between him and Rohan over her head, but could not seem to look at either of them. Power was being woven nearby, and she sensed it along every nerve.
The faradh’im were stitching the moonlight into a silklike covering that reached the length and breadth of the land from the Sunrise Water to the island of Kierst-Isel, sending word to every other faradh’im that the old prince was dead. Tobin’s eyes were dazzled by the multiple prisms of color, each one different, all woven together in a loose, complex fabric flung out in all directions. And she was part of it—gliding with them down the skeins over moonswept meadows and mountains, across forests and lakes and deep gorges, skimming snowcaps and broad plains rich with wheat. She was a silver-winged bird gazing down at the whole of the continent, sending feathers of light drifting down to be caught by faradh’im in a hundred keeps. She was herself, and she was all the Sunrunners standing with their faces to the flames.
How beautiful it was, this landscape of an improbable dream. She flew with them, within them, colors shifting and dancing around her. Without any training and without any control but the general guidance of Andrade’s skill, Tobin was part of the gleaming fabric of moonlight across the land; was a bird flying free; was a dragon soaring and gliding through the night sky. She lost herself in image and color, dancing through light and shadow, enchanted.
“Tobin!”
She felt a vague disapproval as someone broke tradition by breaking the silence. Her name sounded again and something wrenched inside her. Too abruptly she returned, and was standing in the Desert near her father’s pyre. Chay’s arms were around her, his face stark with terror. A stabbing pain went through her skull and she whimpered, groping for that part of her that still winged over the moonlight. But she was alone, earth-bound, and cried out in anguish for the loss of that incredible beauty. From somewhere there came an answering cry, as despairing as her own, the voice of some unknown faradhi who understood her pain as none of the others could. She had a swift image of bright colors gone dark, and wanted to weep.