Crown of Vengeance dpt-1 Read online

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WAR MAGIC

  The world itself must bow to the will of the Lightborn. If we choose, we can drain the life from every leaf and flower, take the beasts of the fields, the birds of the air, the fishes of Great Sea Ocean itself. For the good of the Land Itself, we pledge we will never draw so much power from the land that it sickens and dies, nor will we draw power from the shedding of blood, nor from death, nor from any breathing thing.

  —Mosirinde Astromancer,

  The Covenant of the Light

  Ablenariel and his Lady walked ahead of Vieliessar across the inner close. Fighting was still going on, but here, its sounds were muted.

  “You will die, Ablenariel,” Vieliessar said, “but I wish to show you to Araphant’s meisne before you do. If you had surrendered, you might have saved your life.”

  “Laeldor does not surrender!” Ladyholder Gemmaire said. “Laeldor will fight until the last komen is dead!”

  “Then Laeldor shall be erased,” Vieliessar answered. As Farcarinon was.

  She led them into the keep. Its chambers and corridors were filled with trampled bodies, shattered furniture, and horse dung. Ladyholder Gemmaire wailed at the sight, as if the condition of the keep was still a thing that could matter to her. As Vieliessar led her prisoners through the Great Hall, Thoromarth overtook her, holding a prisoner by the hair.

  “Well met!” he said, as cheerfully as if the two of them did not stand in the midst of an abattoir. “Here is Ablenariel’s heir, Prince Avirnesse. We’ll have the rest of them soon enough.”

  “Curse you!” Avirnesse howled, seeing his parents. “Why could you not fight! Why could you not fight!”

  He was still struggling and shouting as Thoromarth dragged him away.

  * * *

  Vieliessar’s warhorns sounded the victory, and the long, slow process of searching the castel began. Some of Laeldor’s Household knights had been taken prisoner; most had been slain. Some had been in the castel stables when Laeldor’s defenses were breached, and when the outer court cleared, they chose to ride out and die in battle. Prince Avirnesse’s older siblings and their households had used the concealed passageway to make their escape. But Nadalforo had discovered the horses waiting at the exit from the tunnel, and took Ablenariel’s children and the rest prisoner when they arrived to claim them.

  Vieliessar learned these things piece by piece as the day unfolded, as messengers reached her and her captains made their reports. I must be grateful the casualties were no greater than they are, she told herself. A keep was not a battlefield, and for every lawful target presented to Vieliessar’s knights, there were a hundred that were not. Servants, craftworkers, Lightborn, the noble companions of the Lord and Lady of the keep—none of them wore armor or carried a sword. Most had not been injured, and those who were had escaped with minor injuries.

  And my Lightborn are here to Heal them, and to Heal the Laeldor knights who have given their parole, and if we wished, we might all fight again tomorrow as if this battle had never taken place, she thought bitterly.

  Tonight there would be a banquet, and she would play her part in the time-honored ritual, taking formal possession of the castel and the domain of the War Prince she had defeated in battle. She would give, if not justice, judgment, and celebrate her victory, such as it was. Every Lightborn here, whether hers or Laeldor’s, knew the Light had been used to breach the castel’s defenses.

  Soon enough I shall learn whether today has been victory or defeat.

  She stood upon the ramparts of the castel, watching the last glimmerings of sunset kindle in the sky. For now, this keep was Oronviel’s.

  Hers.

  “My lord.”

  She turned at the quiet greeting. Ambrant stood at the top of the steps. The ruddy evening light turned the green of his robes to a dull no-color. She gestured to him to approach. “Did they send you to find me?” she asked.

  “I sent myself,” he answered. “I would speak with you, but I do not know who my words may reach: the War Prince of Oronviel, or Vieliessar Lightsister.”

  She closed her eyes a moment in weariness. “Both. Neither. Either. Say what you will, Ambrant. I swear that you will take no harm from your words.”

  “It was you who breached these walls,” he said. Though his words were an accusation, there was no anger in his voice. “Some thought Celeharth Lightbrother had set the spell, for he lies now near to death, and there are those who thought it might have been his Great Spell.”

  “I am sorry that he has taken such hurt. And I wish with all my heart Luthilion yet lived. But I will not evade nor set aside the purpose on which you have come to have speech of me. Yes, Ambrant. It was I who used the Light upon the field of battle, to gain advantage in war.”

  Ambrant looked down at his hands, holding them out before him as if they were bloodstained. “I fought today, Lord Vieliessar. I used no Light, but … I fought.”

  “You saved my life,” she answered. She did not know if that was true. But it was true enough.

  Ambrant shook his head as if the act of thinking pained him. “It is forbidden. What I have done. What you have done. I … If it were right, if it were permitted, would I not have cast spells to save my Idronadan, who fell upon the field of battle? I let her die, when I might have turned the blade that took her life.”

  Vieliessar crossed the space between them in two steps and took his hands in hers. “You did not let her die!” she said fiercely. “The Code of Battle, which sets the Hundred Houses to fight as if it is a game—that let her die! Hear me, Ambrant. Hear well. I will set into your hands a secret with which you can destroy me, if that is your wish.”

  He looked up, and his eyes were wild and staring.

  “The Song of Amrethion—Amrethion’s Curse. You know it. All who train at the Sanctuary know it. It speaks of a Child of the Prophecy. I am the one Amrethion foretold,” she said. “I.”

  His hands tightened in hers. His mouth worked, but he could not force himself to speak.

  Quickly—as if this were a thing she had told many times, instead of only once to one other—she told him of Celelioniel’s decipherment of the Prophecy, her trust in Hamphuliadiel, and Hamphuliadiel’s betrayal.

  “So I must become High King, or Amrethion Aradruiniel’s warning will be for nothing. Against the peril of which he warns, all must fight—komen, Lightborn, and commons alike. But I do not violate the Covenant. I never will. Not even to save my life.”

  She would have withdrawn her hands then, but Ambrant was clutching them tightly. “But this, if, if what you have said—what you promised.… Peace and justice, an end to Houses High and Low, to Lords and to Landbond—is it only so they will fight for you, so we will fight for you, when the day of the Prophecy comes?” He was stammering and the touch of skin upon skin opened his mind to hers without her willing it.

  She saw a storm of images, a lifetime stretching back centuries before her birth, the injustice, petty cruelty, and lies Ambrant had been powerless against. He had faith in her—she was stunned and awed, humbled at the passionate intensity of his belief—and he had known, without truly knowing, that she was not merely War Prince and Serenthon’s daughter. He had seen her, and he had hoped.

  “No. I have not lied. I promise justice always, and an end to High House and Low. I promise an end to war between House and House. But when the Darkness comes, we must fight or die. If we win, then—I promise you, Ambrant—peace forever. If we do not, that, too, is peace of a sort.”

  His breath caught upon a ragged sob, and now she could slip her hands free and take him in her arms. She could feel him shaking.

  “I do not know, I do not know,” he muttered to himself as if in delirium. “How can you make such vows? How can I believe?”

  She could not ask for his trust, when she had violated it so utterly. She did not know how to comfort him, for no one had comforted her since she was a small child. Any whom she’d dared to love, or even trust, had been tak
en from her—by death, by betrayal, or simply by the destiny she could not avert. When she trusted now it was as if she gave up hostages upon a battlefield: it was done because she must, because it was the path to victory, not out of love or kindness.

  “My father wished to be High King,” she said at last. “He scattered promises like seed at sowing time. To his favorites he offered power, and vengeance upon their enemies. And those enemies were afraid of what he might do, and even those who were neither enemy nor friend feared to have a High King who would let his favorites do as they wished. I am not my father. From the day I am crowned, I shall have no favorites. My justice will fall evenly upon the necks of those who are now great lords and upon the necks of those who are now Landbond. And my justice will fall like the rain that wears away the stone, and in the end there will remain only my people.” She took a deep breath and stepped back. “Speak to the other Lightborn and say that any who wish to leave me may do so, and I will not take vengeance upon any they may leave behind. But say to those who wish to stay that we must set the old ways aside, for this is not a time of peace.”

  She didn’t wait for his answer, but stepped past him and walked back along the rampart.

  * * *

  Lord Luthilion’s body had already been laid upon its funeral pyre. The heads of all the castel guardsmen would be burned with him, their bodies buried so that they might never ride with the Starry Hunt. With Lord Luthilion’s death, Araphant passed to Vieliessar. Vieliessar confirmed each of lords of Araphant who had come to fight for Oronviel in their lands and their rank, and took their oaths of fealty.

  Aradreleg Lightsister was the only Lightborn present in the Hall. It was she who set the spell of Heart-Seeing upon Oronviel’s new lords, but her eyes were dark and quiet upon Vieliessar when she thought herself unwatched.

  It was customary to bring the prisoners in halfway through the victory banquet and make their fate an entertainment for the victors. Vieliessar refused to do that. There would be a banquet in Laeldor’s Great Hall tonight, but she would give her judgments before it.

  Lord Ablenariel, Ladyholder Gemmaire, and their children were led into the Great Hall in chains. “You have lost,” Vieliessar said to War Prince Ablenariel. “Your lands are mine and your life is forfeit. Do you choose the Challenge Circle or the executioner’s sword?”

  Ablenariel did not answer. The chains clinked with his trembling, and he seemed both old and ill, though he had looked hale enough when she had taken him prisoner.

  “Come, my lord. Silence will gain you nothing. You must choose, or I shall choose for you,” Vieliessar said, as gently as she could.

  “I had thought to withstand a siege and so save my honor,” Ablenariel answered, his voice weary.

  “Be silent!” Ladyholder Gemmaire cried. “If you must die, do not shame us in your death!”

  Her words seemed to have some effect, though undoubtedly not the effect she had hoped for. Ablenariel pulled himself upright and faced Vieliessar squarely.

  “You have wondered, perhaps, why I did not meet you on the field, when you sent an envoy to challenge me,” he said. “You have wondered why I did not send your envoy back to you to offer parley.”

  Vieliessar nodded slowly. No answer he could make would change his fate, for she could not trust him, and she could not hold Araphant if she pardoned him. But she would not deny him his last words.

  “I could not,” he said, and now anger lent strength to his voice. “I could not! I summoned my levy knights—my lords—my great meisne—and they did not come!”

  There was a long moment of silence, and then someone in the hall laughed.

  “Silence!” Vieliessar shouted. “Is betrayal a cause for laughter?”

  “But they took your side, Lord Vieliessar!” The hall was dark, for the Lightborn had not come to fill it with Silverlight, and she could not see who spoke.

  “Each swordblade has two edges,” she said. “If the nobles of Laeldor have taken my side, then I shall be pleased to accept their fealty. But in doing so, they have betrayed their sworn lord, and that is a sad thing.” She returned her attention to Ablenariel. “My lord, how will you die?” she asked again.

  “I would die at your hands, Lord Vieliessar,” Lord Ablenariel said. “It is how I should have died.” He knelt stiffly, made awkward by the weight of the chain that bound his hands, and gazed up at her.

  “A sword,” Vieliessar said, getting to her feet.

  It took an awkward time to bring one, for no one in the Great Hall had come armed to the victory feast, and when Avedana arrived at last, the sword the arming page carried was not Vieliessar’s. The quillons were wrought of gold and ornamented with moonstones, white sapphires, and diamonds as clear and bright as winter moonlight. The pommel stone was made of two half-spheres of clear crystal, and between them was laid a thin leaf of moonsilver cut into the shape of a rearing Unicorn, its detail as elaborate and delicate as lace. But it was the hilt itself that was the true marvel, for it was a soft, iridescent white, as if it were made of shell-nacre. It had a twisted spiral to its shape to provide a firm grip for the hand that held it, but it seemed, when she took it, that it was no carving of stone or shell or ivory, but a thing placed upon the sword hilt nearly as it had grown.

  It was Ablenariel’s sword. Vieliessar knew this the moment she saw it.

  “I shall carry this blade always,” Vieliessar told him, taking it up. “In memory of loyalty—and betrayal.”

  Lord Ablenariel bowed his head, saying nothing. And she struck.

  “Alas, you have spoiled your gown,” Ladyholder Gemmaire said into the silence that followed. “But perhaps you do not care for fine things.”

  “I know that you do not,” Vieliessar answered, handing the sword back to Avedana, “for you have spoiled something finer than any jewels you own.” She did not step back, but forward, and her long skirts trailed through the spreading pool of blood. “Tell me, Lady-Abeyant Gemmaire, do you swear fealty to me?” she asked, her voice soft and cold.

  “My husband is dead. I demand to be returned to my father’s house,” Gemmaire said. Her eyes flickered from side to side as she sought allies, and for the first time, there was fear in her voice.

  “Your father’s house lies in Caerthalien, does it not?” Vieliessar asked. She knew it did. Everyone here knew it did. The pedigrees and marriage-alliances of the War Princes were as well known as the bloodlines of a favored horse or hound.

  Servants had come to roll Lord Ablenariel’s body into a cloth to carry it out and to sprinkle sand over the blood on the floor. Vieliessar stepped past them and resumed her chair.

  “My father is Lord Mordrogen, brother to Lord Bolecthindial,” Lady-Abeyant Gemmaire answered.

  “Then I see no reason to deprive Caerthalien of your presence. Lord Rithdeliel, assist Aradreleg to remove the lady’s chains. You may go.”

  Rithdeliel stepped forward, a thousand questions on his face, but he held his tongue as Aradreleg reached out to touch the shackles. Lady Gemmaire shook the manacles from her wrists, lifted her chin, and turned away from Vieliessar, moving toward the archway that led into the keep. Vieliessar raised her hand, and Rithdeliel stepped forward to take the Lady’s arm, halting her.

  “You said I could go to Caerthalien!” Gemmaire said, turning back to face Vieliessar.

  “So I did,” Vieliessar said. “Lord Rithdeliel will conduct you to the horselines and have a palfrey saddled for you, and I shall provide you a warm cloak, for the night is cool.”

  “I have cloaks and palfreys of my own!” Ladyholder Gemmaire said. “What of my servants, my jewels, my clothes, my—”

  “Everything that was yours is now mine,” Vieliessar said. “I give you your life. And a horse. And a cloak. It is only a few days’ ride to the border. Ask for hospitality along your way, and you may receive it. I shall order a safe-conduct sealed for you, so all whom you meet know you ride free by my will. I am sure you would find it inconvenient to be taken prisoner and
returned here.”

  Gemmaire looked around again seeking someone who would take her part. At last she stepped away from Rithdeliel, shaking her skirts out as if the touch of his hand had soiled her, and began to walk toward the outer doors. There was a moment of even more profound silence, as if everyone there awaited some defiant words from her, but none came.

  “Now, Prince Avirnesse, will you swear fealty to me? Or will you die?” Vieliessar asked, turning to the next prisoner.

  * * *

  “I always find a few executions sets a tone for a banquet,” Thoromarth said, pouring wine into two goblets.

  “I am surprised you have managed to stay awake through any of mine, in that case,” Vieliessar answered tartly.

  Executions were something any castel’s servants knew how to deal with. Some were bringing out tables even while other were clearing the bodies away, and soon after that the first dishes were carried in, just as if Laeldor Keep hadn’t fallen that day.

  “Ah, my lord, in your case it’s never been the executions as much as the possibility of being executed by your many enemies that lent spice to your banquets,” Thoromarth said blandly. “Here. Drink. We won today, you know. Drink. Or everyone watching will think we have lost and that they’re to be dead by morning.”

  Vieliessar sipped her wine. She’d never managed to get used to the taste—wine was either thin and sour or thick and over-sweet. You won’t be dead by morning. But I might be, she thought grimly. It had not escaped her notice that Aradreleg had vanished once there was no more need for her Magery. Lightborn were often absent from victory banquets, performing Healings, but most of Oronviel had not even drawn sword today. There was not so much work for the Lightborn that they could not have been here, if they had chosen to be. Aradreleg certainly. Ambrant, perhaps—Komen Mathoriel was his mother, one of Vieliessar’s commanders, and Mathoriel was here.