yet,” Morwenna pointed out, “you’re going to change the way the most important Sunrunner alive will be trained.”
Rohan stared at her long and hard. “You’re not here merely for Urival’s sake, are you?”
Her dark skin acquired two blossoms of dusky color across the cheekbones. Then she laughed heartily. “Ah, my lord, you have me there! But from what I hear from Graypearl I won’t be Pol’s first by any means!” She paused and sighed her regret. “Wish I could be. But I’ll take care of the first-ring night for him, yes. He’ll know it’s me, but that can’t be helped. It’s something he has to experience if his training is to approximate that at Goddess Keep.”
“But it won’t,” Urival said. “That’s the whole point.”
Rohan poured himself a much-needed second cup of wine. “Meath and Eolie have been training him at Graypearl. They keep in close contact with Sioned and she’s pleased with his progress. Andry knows about it.”
“And doesn’t dare say anything,” Morwenna added. “He has to behave as if it’s perfectly all right with him, or people will realize that he doesn’t have the power he claims to have. A good deal of his influence rests in his relationship to you and Pol, my lord.”
“Exactly the way Andrade engineered it when she married her sister to your father,” Urival said, nodding. “She envisioned a Sunrunner Prince connected to her by blood, trained by her to rule with both kinds of power, princely and faradhi.”
Andrade had been disappointed in the first generation, for Rohan’s sister Tobin had the Sunrunner gifts, not he. So she had arranged for him to marry Sioned, reasoning that their children would be her tools. What she had not known—what only seven people now living knew—was that Pol was not Sioned’s son.
“There’s a third kind of power,” he said in level tones.
Urival met his gaze unblinking. “Which is why I’m here.”
“The Star Scroll has been fully translated, then,” he guessed. “And you have a copy Andry doesn’t know about.”
Morwenna shifted uneasily in her chair. “He’s not afraid of it,” she burst out. “The Star Scroll is only another means of power to him. More knowledge. But it scares me half to death. I’m the one who copied most of it in secret for Urival. Who knows better than I what it contains?”
“Calm yourself,” the old man advised. “If you don’t feel comfortable discussing it, perhaps you’d better go have your bath now.”
“Treat me like a child and I’ll use what I learned from it,” she threatened.
“I do have a small demonstration in mind, actually,” he replied. “Will you do the honors, or shall I?”
Rohan noted with interest that she immediately shook her head. Were the spells so very dangerous? he wondered. Or was it only that they came from ancient enemies of the faradh’im?
Urival gestured, and Morwenna went to lock the door. She drew the window shutters, closing out daylight. Going to the side table, she poured water into a polished bronze bowl and brought it to Urival. He had pulled up another chair to his knees. When the bowl was placed on it, he hunched forward over the water.
“We use Fire as a focus for such things,” he said matter-of-factly, and it startled Rohan to hear his voice so casual when he was about to—to do what? “But they had a technique for working with Water, an element we usually avoid, as you know. Rohan, have you something of Sioned’s? Something small enough to fit into the bowl, preferably a thing she wears or uses frequently.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked, unable to keep suspicion from his voice.
Urival glanced over at him, laughing sardonically. “I presume you miss your wife and would like to see her?”
After a moment’s thought, Rohan got up and crossed to a glass-fronted bookcase. Opening it, he extracted one of a pair of tiny carved cups. “The Isulk’im sent us these a few years back, for rattling dice in. Sioned uses this one when playing Sandsteps.”
“Isulk’im?” Morwenna repeated blankly, then nodded. “Oh—those crazy people who live out on the Long Sand.”
“Go gently with your descriptions,” Urival smiled. “They’re Rohan’s distant kin.”
“But I’m crazy, too. Hadn’t you noticed?” He gave the old man the sand-jade cup. “Will this do?”
“Perfectly.” It disappeared into his palm for a moment, and then he slid it into the water. “Stand close, so you can see.”
He did so. Morwenna stepped back warily. Her skittishness would have been catching had Rohan allowed himself to react to