Douglas Niles - Lord of the Rose

The white wizard stood atop the city gatehouse tower, watching the marching soldiers accompanied by drummers, pipes, and the rousing cheers of the populace. Horses pranced, chariots rumbled, and newly built catapults rolled toward the battlefield. In the pageantry of the march, the legacy of recent defeats-and the ignominious deaths of the dukes-seemed to vanish in the wind.

Jaymes Markham cut a dashing figure at the head of the army. He wore a helm of gleaming silver, marked by a pair of curving bull’s horns. The people shouted as he rode past, and he needed an escort of knights on each side to prevent them from rushing forward just in the hope of touching his boot, his leg, his horse. Coryn smiled wryly, thinking what a contrast the sight was to Jaymes the Assassin-though she had always known his destiny.

She looked over to a section of wall where Lady Selinda was smilling and waving to the army commander as he rode past. The princess, with her royal bearing, her golden hair, her supreme beauty and confidence, had grown into a leader as much as Jaymes. When the people were not cheering Jaymes, they shouted their accolades toward her. Coryn felt that uncomfortable flash of jealousy, which momentarily brought tears to her eyes.

Lady Selinda was blissfully in the dark about her father. When she learned the truth, she might yet lose her smile.

Coryn turned away, but not before she spotted Jaymes waving back at the Princess of Palanthas. The crowd also saw the eyes of the princess and the Lord of No Sign meet, and their cheers increased, soaring up from the walled city, swelling into the sky, through the heavens. Indeed, it seemed, across all of Solamnia.

Unable to watch any longer, the white wizard disappeared.