Mercedes Lackey - Crown of Vengeance

Behind her, Vieliessar heard running footsteps.

“What has happened?” Hervilafimir Lightsister cried.

“She Healed me,” Garwen said, his voice giddy with relief. “The Lightsister Healed me!”

Hamphuliadiel Astromancer possessed an Audience Chamber where he could receive the petitioners and supplicants who came to the Sanctuary. Though it was said to be so opulent as to stun any of the War Princes to wordlessness, no one who had actually seen inside had ever spoken of what they saw, and its vestibule was as stark and unadorned as any other chamber in the Sanctuary, save for the elaborately carved wooden door that led into the chamber itself.

Vieliessar had been waiting here for a long time.

She had fled—from the field, from the garden, to the only place she could think of to go: Mistress Maeredhiel’s workroom. Only then had she realized she was covered in Garwen’s blood. Maeredhiel had taken one look at her stricken expression and sharply ordered her to wash and change. Vieliessar tried to explain what had happened, but Maeredhiel refused to listen.

She had barely finished scrubbing the blood from her hands when a wide-eyed Postulant appeared, sliding back her door without tapping to announce that Hamphuliadiel Astromancer wished Vieliessar to attend him at once. She’d assumed she would be brought before him immediately, but her wait stretched. The delay gave her time to reflect, and her thoughts weren’t happy ones. Just as no Candidate had ever returned to the Sanctuary after the end of their Service Year bearing newly awakened Light, no Postulant had ever refused training—much less hidden what they were. What was the penalty? Would she be sent from the Sanctuary?

He cannot do that. He knows it will mean my death.

A year ago, or two years, or five, she would have bargained with the world, tossing out hopes as one might toss dice from a cup: dreams of allies found, of victory achieved, of safety, fortune, safe concealment as she worked toward her vengeance. She knew now these were no more than the fantasies of a heartsick child.

It was two candlemarks past the time for the end of the evening meal when the door to the Audience Chamber finally opened.

“You may present yourself to the Astromancer now,” Galathornthadan Lightbrother said.

Vieliessar followed Galathornthadan through the door, telling herself she must not gawk lest she rouse Hamphuliadiel’s anger further, but she could not stop herself. The chamber was the size of the Refectory, and more opulent than any she had seen within Caerthalien’s Great Keep. Its floors and walls shimmered with Warding, and her feet passed over carpets that would ransom a Lord Komen, laid over flooring that was an intricate pattern of inlaid woods and precious stones. Nor were the walls any plainer: beneath the opal coruscations of the Wards she could see that they were painted, hung with tapestries, and lined with treasures the Hundred Houses had brought to the Sanctuary to curry favor with the Lightborn down through the centuries.

At the far end of the chamber, Hamphuliadiel sat. Vieliessar stopped abruptly, so quickly that Galathornthadan walked six paces on before noticing.

He enthrones himself as if he would be High King!

She stared at the Astromancer, struggling to conceal her shock. Hamphuliadiel’s chair was wide enough for any two men to sit upon, and its back extended several handspans above his head. Perhaps it was wood, or perhaps ivory, but it was hard to say, so thickly was it encrusted with gems and gold. Such a seat might have been cold and unpleasant, but Hamphuliadiel had surrounded himself with green silk cushions filling the empty spaces. The green of his robes merged into the green of the cushions.

Galathornthadan stopped, frowning at her, and Vieliessar started walking again. But she was no longer afraid.

She was angry.

Hamphuliadiel regarded the child standing before him, her aura flaring and flickering with anger and half-shielded power, and hated Celelioniel for her foolish superstitions even more than he had before. Her mad belief in ancient fables had led her to see prophecies in nonsense-rhymes, and that delusion had kept Farcarinon’s get alive.

And now it meant Hamphuliadel was faced with a choice no Astromancer before him had ever needed to make.

Even the lowliest Landbond knew that power must be paid for in power. The small and simple spells that so impressed the common herd could be cast with no more power than that which lived within one’s own skin. The Greater Spells required more. There was power in blood, in pain, in death—but to tap those sources brought madness and an eternal soul-hunger. There was power in soil and water and plant and tree—but to take from these was to render them lifeless and sterile. Only the Flower Forests held power enough to fuel the spells of the Light. And so, a thousand generations past, Mosirinde had founded the Sanctuary of the Star and forged her Covenant: to take only from the Flower Forests.

But the Lightborn were as corruptible as the great lords themselves, and so one secret was held by each Astromancer and passed only to the next: it was neither power and ability, nor Light Within, that made Candidate into Postulant. It was the choosing of the Astromancer, who gazed upon the spirits and futures of all who entered the Sanctuary and passed a covert judgment which could not be appealed. This was why the Light was so rarely discovered among the great nobles; their arrogance made them difficult to control. It was a simple matter to lay the most gossamer of geasa upon each departing Lightborn, so that they would simply … not see Light where it was … inconvenient.

And so he had done, as Celelioniel had done before him, as every Astromancer had done for reign upon reign.

And now the child who was War Prince of Farcarinon by blood and birth stood before him. He had never thought to gaze so upon the future of the last scion of Farcarinon … until today, when news had come of her Healing. And then he had discovered he could not. There was no clear line through the years to come that said: this shall be and that will not.

He wished to blame mad Celelioniel, or even the vexed mooncalf herself—but he sensed no spellcraft. Whatever clouded the girl’s future owed nothing to Magery.

Amrethion’s Prophecy exists only in a madwoman’s ravings! he told himself angrily. Who is to say there are not many whose future is cloaked? Perhaps all War Princes are born so.

And perhaps the stars did not care that Vieliessar was not truly a War Prince.

None of this would matter if she had lived out her days as a Lightless drudge!

But she had not.

Kill her? Train her? There was no third road—he might call Lightborn to Burn the Light from her mind, but that was only a slower death.

“What have you to say for yourself?” he demanded.

He saw her chin come up and her eyes flash.

“I say that I did not ask this. Nor would you now know of it save by mischance.” She spoke with the pride of one who knew herself to be War Prince even now, and her words and her voice were a pledge of defiance.

I can kill her where she stands! How dare she take such a tone with me? In the years of his reign, Hamphuliadiel had received War Princes and Warlords, bearers of the noblest blood in the Fortunate Lands. They had, they thought, flattered him and bribed him into doing their will, never knowing that none of them had caused him to do anything he had not decided upon in advance.

For a moment his rage was so great that the opulent chamber seemed small and far away. It would not be an act of war. Farcarinon does not exist. He closed his hands on the arms of his chair so hard that his fingernails turned white from the pressure. He could see Galathornthadan standing behind her, and saw Galathornthadan’s eyes go wide with fear at the sight of his anger.