Read Dragon Prince 02 - The Star Scroll for Free Online

and well; for them she had made this land a model of law and prosperity; for them she had learned how to be a prince. For them, anything.
    She returned to her desk and sealed the letter to Chiana, watching her rings gleam. She alone of all Roelstra’s daughters had inherited the gift; it ran not through his line but that of her mother, Princess Lallante, his only wife. Had Ianthe been similarly gifted—Pandsala shuddered, even at this late date. Ianthe with Sunrunner powers would have been well-nigh invincible.
    But Ianthe was dead, and Pandsala was here, alive, and second among women only to the High Princess herself. She remembered then that she had a report to write to Sioned, and forgot Chiana, her other half sisters, and the past.

    Lady Kiele of Waes was also at her desk that evening, and also considering the gift Pandsala possessed and she did not. Kiele did the best with what she had—but how much more she could have done had she the ability to weave the sunlight and see what others might not wish seen.
    Smoothing the folds of a gown made of green-gold tissue, she consoled herself with what she did possess. But in a short while she would preside over a dinner for Prince Clutha, in Waes to discuss arrangements for this year’s Rialla, arrangements that would nearly bankrupt her and Lyell. Again. Clutha had never forgiven Lyell for siding with Roelstra during the war with the Desert, and all these years of being watched and suspected had not been amusing. Clutha had hit on the idea that making Waes pay the entire expense of the triennial gathering would keep its lord and lady too short of funds to work mischief elsewhere. Treading the extremely narrow path their overlord had decreed kept Kiele in a near-constant state of nerves. Lyell, however, never seemed to mind. He hadn’t enough wits to mind; he was too busy being grateful that he still possessed his life, let alone his city.
    Kiele’s fingers trailed along the gold headpiece on her desk. It was not quite a coronet, for not even she would dare that in the presence of her prince. Her pretty mouth twisted as she calculated yet again the chances of wearing the real thing one day. None, unless a great many people died. Though elderly, Clutha was in the best of health, as was his son Halian. The blood connection between them and Waes was in the female line and so remote that Kiele had no hope of its ever becoming applicable to the inheritance of Meadowlord.
    The best she could do was set up one of her half sisters as Halian’s wife. She had been well on the way to it some years ago when her choice, Cipris, had died of a slow, mysterious fever. Halian had been sincerely attached to Cipris, but that had not prevented him from taking a mistress to console himself. He had sired several children on the woman—all girls, for which grace Kiele thanked the Goddess. Had there been a son, he might have become the next heir to Meadowlord, with no blood ties to Kiele at all.
    Halian had been quite happy in his illicit domestic life and reluctant to exchange it for legal marriage. But now his mistress was dead. Kiele smiled as she put her signature to a letter inviting her half sister Moswen to Waes for the summer. Moswen would make Halian an excellent wife—although Kiele wondered why she took the trouble to elevate one of the hateful Lady Palila’s daughters. Then she shrugged. She worked with what she had. Moswen was the right age, reasonably pretty, and grateful to Kiele for past favors. She was also hungry for the trappings of power. She saw the jewels, the lovely clothes, the deference, and it was these things she desired. Of the realities of power she saw and understood nothing. Kiele considered her the perfect choice, for she would be easy to instruct and influence. Once Clutha died and both Halian and Lyell were out from under the old man’s eye, Meadowlord would be Kiele’s to play with as she wished. Halian had proved himself the type of man who could be led by