A Fall of Princes (50 page)

She shifted infinitesimally. Her bones ached with the
passage of power. It took most of her strength to sit unmoving, to keep her
head up and her mind shielded. Mages sought to pierce it; their touch was pain.
With each swift stabbing probe it mounted higher, with no blessed gift of
numbness to grant her ease.

The end of it came all at once. In white flame among the
Varyani; in a scattering of Asanian princes. The Mad One burst from the lines.
Ziad- Ilarios’ chariot rolled past the last of his attendants, his twin golden
mares matching stride and stride.

Sevayin’s lips stretched in a grim smile. They were alone,
both of them, without attendance: Mirain with only his Mad One, Ziad-Ilarios
with only his charioteer.

Neither came without defense. Mirain needed none but his
power. A thousand archers stood in the foremost rank of the Asanian army, bows
strung, arrows nocked, aimed, waiting.

The emperors advanced without haste, moving slowly yet all
too swiftly. The Zhil’ari drew back before them.

They halted. Mirain was not quite close enough to touch.

Sevayin held herself rigidly still. His anger was hot enough
to feel on the skin. Too hot to let him see aught beyond a dark face, a bright
mane, a defiance the more bitter for that it was his own child who defied him.

He flung it back in her face. “What have you done? You young
fool, what have—you—”

She watched it strike him. Watched him refuse it. Watched
him struggle to see the truth.

His truth. His son who was young enough still to change
remarkably from season to season; who had gained flesh, but who had needed it
desperately, and who even gaunt to a shadow had looked much younger than his
years. It was not impossible that in full health he should look more like a
beardless boy than a man grown. A beautiful boy. A boy as lovely as a girl.

She sensed rather than saw Hirel moving away from her,
dismounting, advancing to help his father from the chariot. She knew when
Ziad-Ilarios laid aside his mask: Hirel’s pain was sharp inside her.

The emperor had aged terribly. He walked because he must,
but his every step was anguish, his every joint swollen and all but rigid; his
face had lost the last of its beauty, his hair gone white. He embraced his son
and let himself weep.

Mirain had not changed at all. He was a little leaner, maybe;
a little harder. He looked as he had when his heir was a child, when he waged
his wars in the outlands of the world. Though Sevayin knew with mage’s
certainty that he was mortal, she could comprehend the tale men told of him,
that he was a god incarnate; that he would never age or die.

Good bones and good fortune, and hair that was slow to go
grey. He dismounted slowly, calm now: a quivering calm. His eyes never left
Sevayin’s face.

He took off his helmet, hung it from the pommel, shook down
his simple braid. Their minds could not meet while hers was barred.

She touched Bregalan’s neck. He knelt; she left the saddle.
Her knees buckled briefly. The child kicked hard, protesting; her breath
caught. She drew herself up.

He could not deny it now. It was as obvious as the shape of
her under the archaic robe.

He stepped toward her. She stiffened, willing herself to
stand fast. She was not as tall as he.

His army saw it; they were slow to understand. His hand
brushed her hair, her cheek. “What have you done?” he whispered.
“What have you done?”

“Given us hope.”

He flinched at the sound of her voice. He touched her again.
Set hands on her shoulders, gripping cruelly tight. Tears of pain and weakness
flooded to her eyes; she would not let them fall.
“Why?”
he cried out to her in pain at least the match of hers.

“It was possible,” her tongue said for her. “It seemed
logical. Should I simply have killed myself?”

“You should have killed the lion’s whelp.”

“I love him.”

“You—” He stopped. His eyes were wild. “You fool. You bloody
fool.
” He shook her until she gasped.
“You have betrayed us all.”

“I have saved us.” She tore his hand from her shoulder,
pressed it to her middle. “This is our hope, Father. This is our peace.”

He tensed to break free. The child kicked. He froze.

“Our son,” she said. “Mine; the young lion’s. He shall be
mageborn, Father. Mageborn and doubly royal.”

He said nothing. He seemed transfixed.

She laughed, sharp and high. “Yes, go, disown me. It’s your
right. I’m an attainted traitor. I’ve sinned against you; I’ve sinned against
nature itself. But you can’t deny your grandson his inheritance.”

“Do you think I can deny you?”

She started, swayed. He held her up. There was no gentleness
in him; his wrath had diminished not at all. He said, “I do not revoke the laws
that I have made. Nor do I call you to account for this latest of many
insanities. Not yet. But if I come within reach of those who laid it upon you . . .”

“There,” Hirel said, “I am your ally.” He stood with his
father, the emperor’s hand on his shoulder, two pairs of burning golden eyes.
Hirel moved slightly. Warning, as a cat will, or a wolf:
This is my mate. Touch her at your peril
.

Mirain regarded them steadily. “You have gained much,” he
said to Hirel. “Are you regretting it?”

“Never,” Hirel answered. “Nor shall I forgive those who
wrought it.”

Sevayin set herself in the cold space between them, filling
it with the heat of her temper. “You’ll both have to wait until I’m done with
them.”

All three would have spoken. She overrode them. “Have you
forgotten where we are? Or why?” She spread her hands across her swollen
middle. “Here lies the end of this war. Will you leave him a world to rule?”

The emperors did not move, but they had drawn away. “It is
not so simple,” said Ziad-Ilarios. And Mirain said, “You cannot buy peace with
love alone.”

“Why not?” she demanded. “Why ever not?”

“Child,” said Mirain.

“Lady,” said Ziad-Ilarios.

She flung up her fists and swept them wide, taking in the
ruin about them. “I will not hear you! One of you must rule. You hardly care
which. You care not at all what price the land pays for your rivalry.”

“I care what price Asanion pays,” Ziad-Ilarios said. “And it
has paid high. Our most grievous fault. We are men of reason. We have little
defense against the fanatics of the east.”

“And what is reason,” Mirain countered, “but blindness of
soul? You deny your own gods. You refuse aught but what your eyes can see, your
hands touch. You call us fanatics who are merely believers in the truth.”

“Are you?” They both rounded on Hirel. He folded his arms
and regarded them coolly. “There are times and places for the settling of old
grievances. I do not believe that this is one. You have seen us; you know that
we come of our own will, and that we have made our own peace. Will you accept
it? Will you agree at least to consider it?”

The emperors eyed one another. Sevayin saw no hate in
either, nor even dislike.

In another world they might have been brothers. In this one,
neither could yield. Too much divided them. Too many wars. Too many deaths. The
world was not wide enough for them both.

She came to Hirel’s side, even as he came to hers. They
stood shoulder to shoulder. “You can kill one another,” she said. “We will
live, and we will do what you refuse to do. Now or later, Father,
Father-in-love. Choose.”

There was a long silence. Hirel, so calm to look on, was
trembling just perceptibly. She shifted, leaning lightly against him; his arm
circled her waist.

She tasted the emperors’ bitter joy. Every man rejoiced to
see his line’s continuance. But that it must continue thus—that was not easy to
endure.

Slowly Mirain said, “I can consider what you have done. I
cannot promise to accept it.”

“And I,” said Ziad-Ilarios. “My people must know, and I must
think. You will come with me, Asuchirel. You will tell me, at length and before
our princes, why I should yield to your presumption.”

Hirel drew his breath in sharply. “How do I know that I can
trust you? I have seen enough of betrayals, and more than enough of prisons.”

Anger sparked in Ilarios’ eye. He spoke with deadly
softness. “You are my son and my heir. Neither title is irrevocable. Remember
that.”

Hirel started as if struck. Sevayin held him tightly. “Trust
him,” she said. “He may try to lure you into his war, but he won’t compel you.
He knows there’s no profit in turning you against him.”

“I will not go without you,” Hirel gritted. “I will not.”

“You must.” The Sunborn’s voice was velvet and steel. “Someone
must face my army. Someone must tell them what has become of their high prince.
I am not minded to lie to them, and I am even less inclined to give my enemies
a hostage.”

Sevayin had been expecting it. She did not have to be eager
for it. “I must go, Hirel,” she said as steadily as she could.

His face set in imperial obstinacy. “I will not hand you
over to our enemies.”

“They are my people,” she shot back. “And no one hands me
over to anyone. I go where I choose to go.”

“You are my wife.”

“I am not your property!” She wrenched away from him before
she struck him. “Damn it, cubling, now’s no time to get unreasonable. Go with
your father. Beat some sense into his head. And be sure of this: I don’t intend
to do my own arguing from a cage.”

He was stiff and haughty, lest he break down and cry; angry,
lest he blurt out the truth: that he could not bear to be apart from her. He
would never know what it cost her to kiss him lightly, flash him her whitest
grin, and turn her back on him.

She was on Bregalan’s back before anyone could be
solicitous, dispatching her Zhil’ari to guard Hirel. On that, she was adamant.
She had Ulan, who was worth a dozen men, even men of the White Stallion.

She did not watch them ride away. Her eyes and mind were on
the army. Her father’s army. Her own by right of birth.

If they did not rise up to a man and cast her out.

The truth crested slowly, like a wave: rising, gathering,
poising long and long at its summit. It crashed with deadly and inexorable
force.

The Sunborn’s tent was an island in the torrent. The
empress’ women guarded it with their full strength, which was potent, but which
was sore beset. They could not abate the roar that overlay and underlay all
that passed in the cramped and crowded space.

Sevayin stood against the central pole with Ulan for wall
and guard, facing her father’s princes. She had expected revulsion. She had
been braced for bitter recrimination. She had known that a precious few would
begin to accept her, and that all too many would reject her out of hand.

But her foresight had failed her. That their high prince
should sacrifice his manhood for his empire, that, they could endure. It was
the act of a hero, of a saint; it had a certain tragic splendor. And she was
very beautiful, they said, seeing her there, glittering, growing desperate.

They could endure a woman’s rule. They would not contemplate
an Asanian consort. “I carry his son!” she had raged at them while she still
had strength to rage.

“You carry a Sunborn prince,” said the Chancellor of the
Southlands. His Gileni temper was well in hand; he was struggling to be
reasonable. “Sarevadin”—he said it gingerly as they all did, not wanting to
slip and wound her with her old usename, not ready yet to call her by her new
one— “Sarevadin, we cannot grant Asanion so much power. We are too young and
too raw; it will overwhelm us with the strength of its thousand years.
Keruvarion will shrink to a satrapy, a dependency of the Golden Empire.”

It was not the first time he had said it. It was not the last.
They all said it, singly and in chorus.

They spoke of Asanion. Of the Golden Empire. Of
it
and
they
. Never of Hirel Uverias, or of Sarevadin who had no intention
of dwindling into a mere and ornamental queen.

When she cast the truth in their faces, they took no notice
of it. She was a woman. Of course she would yield, or she would die. Asanion
would make certain of it.

“No,” the chancellor said at length, as weary as she. “It is
not that you are a woman. It is that you are Varyani and their high prince’s
consort. They will not suffer equals. They will assure that their prince holds
all the power.”

“Are you any different?” she demanded.

He smiled wryly. “Of course not. We wish you to rule; we
cannot let you share your throne.”

“What will you do, then? Poison my husband? Strangle our son
at birth?”

“We do not murder children,” he said.

“Hirel is hardly more than that.”

“He is old enough to father a child. He is more than old
enough to rule an empire.”

“He’ll never be old enough to rule me.”

“His empire—” the chancellor began.

“Uncle,” she said. “Halenan. If he dies, I die. You call
yourself a mage. Look within and see. We are soul-bound. There is no sundering
us.”

He looked within. He was gentle and skilled, but she was a
tissue of half-healed wounds; and he had not his father’s mastery. He all but
blinded her with pain.

“You fool,” he said. “Oh, you lovestruck fool.”

“It was not her doing.” The empress had been silent
throughout that bitter hour. The princes had all but forgotten her.

Sevayin had not. Elian had said nothing, done nothing,
revealed nothing behind the walls of her mind. She had scarcely glanced at the
child she had borne.

She did not raise her eyes now, but gazed into her folded
hands, her voice cool and remote as when she spoke in prophecy. “Brothers, you
accomplish nothing. The lady is weary; she has another to think of. Let her
be.”

“But—” said Halenan.