* * * *
The next morning, their party rode down to the port where the fleet of ships waited to
take King Markas and his party on their bi-yearly trip to the Warhawk's fortress. Meghianna,
Lycen and Athrar were all disguised, with hair dyed dark brown and stain rubbed into their skin
to give them healthy tans. They masqueraded as a traveling healer and her two sons, and were
quartered with Markas, his queen Lyriel, their son Karrel, daughter, Lyrissa, and Markas' ward
and niece, Indreseen.
Meghianna disliked Indreseen from the moment she laid eyes on the girl--and feared her
dislike was even stronger because the girl gave her no reason at all for the reaction. Indreseen
was thirteen, delicate, with golden-white hair, green eyes, natural curls, and a way of dancing as
she walked. Prince Karrel ignored her, but Princess Lyrissa adored her cousin. Megassa's sons
were spellbound. Lycen smiled a little too much for Meghianna's taste.
Athrar stared. Meghianna might have found that amusing, but Indreseen stared right
back. For increasingly longer periods, until an almost visible tie existed between the two.
"There's no reason for me to dislike her so intensely. She's well-mannered, kind, and
good-natured with the servants. Maybe because she blushes so much. It makes me wonder what
she's up to. She can't be that innocent," Meghianna confided to Megassa, their second day at
sea.
"I'm going through the same with Lok," her sister admitted. "It's what all mothers go
through. No girl is good enough for her son."
Meghianna opened her mouth to protest, then stopped short with the words caught in her
throat. She supposed Megassa was right.
"Someone ought to warn Glyssani. She's looking forward to getting her son back,
physically, and she'll find he's lost already."
"I think some judicious testing is necessary." Megassa tipped her head to one side and
studied the cluster of boys on the deck below them, with Lyrissa and Indreseen in their center,
too much like a swarm of bees around two very delicate flowers. "It would be wise to get to
know her, to make sure she's as wholesome as she seems. Despite their ages... Well, they would
make a good match. And she seems quite as smitten with our brother as he is with her."
"A match." Meghianna shuddered, deep inside.
Politically, the match was brilliant. Indreseen was related to two-thirds of the most
powerful kingdoms on Moerta. As the ward of Welcairn's king and queen, she had that political
connection. Meghianna almost found some amusement in anticipating the dismay and frustration
of all those court ladies and their meddling parents, when they tried to latch onto the heir to the
Warhawk's throne, and found him already claimed by a girl who had just crossed the sea from
Moerta for the first time in her life.
Early on the third day at sea, a long, low rumble of thunder seemed to vibrate up from
the seabed and down from the dome of the sky, catching Meghianna between the two waves of
sound so she felt squashed flat. She nearly went to her knees before Lycen raced across the deck
of Markas' magnificent, huge ship, and caught her arm. He guided her to a seat on a nearby step
from one level of the deck to another, and rubbed her hands.
"Did you hear that?" Meghianna looked around, checking the sky and the sea. Neither
showed any signs of disturbance.
"I felt something." The boy shook his head. "You're pale and I felt... We were
practicing touching the Threads, and all the colors vanished around you." He gestured back,
toward shore. "The ones going that way turned clear. Ath--Thrarin says that shouldn't
happen."
"Unless great power has been drained." She swallowed hard, fighting down a surge of
panic as she mentally grasped the Threads and searched for the core of the disturbance.
The spells protecting Goarlotte Castle hadn't simply been tripped--they had been
shredded, incinerated, all the power sucked out of the Threads feeding them.
Mrillis!
She struggled to her feet, and Lycen had the sense to support her
instead of trying to keep her seated.
Meghianna found him by following the Threads that vibrated with a dozen discordant
notes. Mrillis knelt at the stern of the ship, clutching the rail, staring west with blank eyes. She
felt the intensity of his concentration as he forced power into those Threads and rebuilt the
connection with Goarlotte by sheer force of will. He rewove Threads that no longer existed and
stole energy from all the other Threads around them. She reached for Athrar and Megassa and
Lycen, gave them a glimpse of what she feared had happened, and then sucked their
imbrose
from them to feed Mrillis.
"There's nothing left," Mrillis finally said, after what felt like hours. Judging by the sun,
perhaps ten, fifteen minutes had passed.
"Nothing?" Meghianna rested her hands on his shoulders and turned him away from the
rail. "But surely not 'no one'? They escaped?" She let out a soft cry of relief when he nodded
jerkily. "The spells worked. They were warned. They escaped in time."
"Goarlotte Castle is nothing but a bowl of glass. Our enemy is more powerful than we
guessed, to send such power, so soon after that attack on the inn." He shook his head. "Pirkin
thinks whoever attacked wasn't even sure if--" He stopped, looking over her shoulder, and
Meghianna turned to see Athrar had joined them on the deck. "It's our guess the enemy didn't
know if we were there. They just threw everything they had at the place."
"But?" Athrar said. "Something went wrong, didn't it?"
"No, they got out. They made it to safety in the tunnel. They're coming to join us, aren't
they?" Meghianna said.
Mrillis nodded, then grief spasmed his face and he went to his knees. She caught him,
and his weight carried her to her knees on the deck so they clung to each other, face to face.
"Ynfara." He shuddered, visibly struggling for breath against a pain that tore through his
body. "Lynzette refused to listen to the warning. She wouldn't let Ynfara wear the bracelet I
made, to help find her. She took Ynfara and fled. Pirkin was too busy getting the older women
and the children out to know...until it was too late. My little Ynfara." He stared into her eyes,
pleading and pain shattering him. Then he crumpled, weeping.
Meghianna cradled his head against her shoulder and held tight as shuddering sobs
wracked his body. Several times, she had glimpsed the desperate, tearing pain he had suffered
when he had lost Emrillian and Ceera in one blow from his traitorous friend, Endor. Meghianna
feared that losing Ynfara was like losing his wife and daughter all over again.
She could almost be glad Lynzette had taken her poisonous heart to the grave, but why
did she have to take the innocent little girl with her?
Mrillis sobbed, soaking her shoulder, his hands clutching at her until she thought she
would find bruises that night when she undressed for bed. Meghianna vowed she would find
whoever had done this, and she would utterly annihilate them, for the sake of Mrillis' pain. Her
world had finally been turned completely upside down. Mrillis had always been the stronger one,
the leader, the mentor and teacher, the one who understood her better than anyone. For him to
collapse against her, to depend on her strength and cling to her for comfort, was a travesty and a
violation of all the laws of nature.
* * * *
Their party landed at the port of Quenlaque and immediately hired wagons and drivers
to take them inland to the Warhawk's fortress. Meghianna chose to take a horse instead of riding
in the cushioned wagon with Lyriel, Lyressa, Indreseen and Megassa. She wanted to stay as
close to Mrillis as she could. He had grown grimly silent in the long days since the destruction of
Goarlotte. Knowing that Pirkin and his family were safe, and Efrin had provided for their every
need was some comfort, but not enough for his grieving heart. Meghianna remembered the tales
of how Mrillis had taken the sword, Braenlicach, and gone in search of Endor, to risk his life in
vengeance. She feared Mrillis would try something just as desperate, in an effort to quell the pain
he felt for innocent little Ynfara.
"Besides, all the talk of Court fashions and parties and gossip gives me a headache," she
retorted, when Mrillis accused her of nursemaiding him.
They were four hours away from Quenlaque, riding up a mountain trail that let them
look back across the valley and gave them a glorious view of the port city.
"You've never been very good at lying, my dear." Mrillis managed a ghost of a smile.
"But I thank you for reminding me that I am not alone. There are people left who are dear to me,
and who care about me. I forgot that when my Ceera died." He gestured with a jerk of his chin,
back the way they had come. "Do you remember that vision you told me of, where Quenlaque
becomes the center of the World?"
"Yes." Meghianna looked back, her gaze going to the plateau rising above the sprawling
port city. Quenlaque had doubled in size since Athrar's birth. The plateau remained untouched,
but the city growth had pushed almost to its rocky, steep sides. She partially closed her eyes and
recalled the image she had seen of a grand fortress with high walls, flags flying from a dozen
watchtowers, and torches blazing to light up half the city below.
"We are coming close to the time of that vision. I hear Athrar likes to go to that
plateau."
"And no, I never took him there. He and Lycen and their friends found it. It makes a
marvelous place for reckless boys to race horses and play at being Valors."
"Soon, those boys will be men, and they won't be playing," he murmured.
* * * *
Markas' traveling party stopped at an inn three hours away from the valley of the
Warhawk's fortress. Megassa and Lyriel took center stage, as agreed, gathering all the attention
of the travelers and merchants. By nightfall, the tavern attached to the inn was nearly bursting
with visitors from the surrounding countryside, come to catch a glimpse of the Warhawk's
daughter and stepson and their families. The two women held court, gracious and glittering with
jewels. Markas and Megassa's sons nearly faded into the background. Meghianna thought
perhaps Markas enjoyed the game, but Megassa's sons chafed at having to dress in their best
clothes and sit still, when they wanted to race across the countryside under cover of darkness
with Athrar and Lycen, Mrillis, and her.
Three hours by wagon could be covered in less than an hour on fast horses. Mrillis
wrapped the horses with Threads, giving them extra speed and strength and agility. As the four
sped across the countryside, Meghianna suspected the illusion of flying wasn't entirely illusion.
She didn't care. The exhilaration of finally seeing her father again, able to hold him and feel his
arms around her, made her giddy and impatient. Then she looked at Athrar, riding next to her,
and saw the grim set of her brother's mouth, the tight clenching of his hands on the horse's reins.
This was no adventure for him. Meeting his parents in his dreams all these years couldn't have
been adequate substitute for the real thing. Was he nervous about meeting Efrin and Glyssani in
the flesh, or did he feel the resentment she and Mrillis had worked so hard to prevent?
The walls of the fortress looked black in the moonlight, and the shadows it cast seemed
to reach out taloned hands toward them as their horses drew closer and poured down the last
slope toward the wide, beaten road that led to the main gates.
They turned off that road when the guards standing on the walls became visible and
Meghianna could make out the dull gleam of moonlight on their helmets. They could have gone
through the gates without anyone noticing, invisible and silent in the magic Mrillis wrapped
around them. The plan they followed now was simpler to execute, and only required
patience.
The four went to the sod house that had been used by generations of Valor trainees, next
to the exercise field for horses. Meghianna wrapped another Thread around the horses to
maintain the illusion of invisibility and silence, after the four turned their mounts out to graze in
the field, and went to follow Mrillis, Athrar and Lycen into the sod house.
Now, it was Efrin and Glyssani's turn to play their part in the plan. Since the fortress had
first been built, young men had found ways to sneak out, to carry messages for their elders or to
visit village girls. One passage was the private property of the royal family, hidden by magic so
old and deeply embedded that only those who used it felt it at work. Efrin and Glyssani would
come out of that passage after the moon had set, and meet them at the sod house. This reunion
with their son would have no witnesses except those who cared the most.
Lycen waited until Meghianna settled on one of the benches against the wall, where she
had a good view of the door but could sit in shadows. Then he perched next to her. He leaned
against her arm and slid his cool, gloveless hand into hers, and she smiled into the darkness. She
supposed he felt it more than any of them, the change about to come. Even though Athrar
insisted they would always be brothers, Lycen had to feel cut adrift. She supposed he had to feel
like an outsider, painfully so right now, waiting to meet the Warhawk and his queen--and watch
them take away the brother he had played and argued with for most of his remembered life.
You're both too young for Valor training,
she said, tightly controlling the
Threads so this was a private conversation. Lycen stiffened a little when she addressed him, then
relaxed more against her.
But I daresay the time you spent with Captain Ector and Kaldar
has given you an advantage over the other new trainees. I suppose your cousins will expect to
enter their training with you and Athrar, now that they have their star-metal, and that will only
be fair. At least, for Lok and Mikyl. It might be easier for you and Athrar to have classmates,
rather than receiving private lessons. Though I do rather like the idea of you two getting special
attention it might not be healthy, in the long run.