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long among the trees after Gules Lyon had gone. The sky darkened; leaves whirled withered in endless circles about her. The wind was cold as the cold metal of locked books. It came across the snow-capped peak of Eld, down through the wet chill mists to moan in the great trees in her garden. She thought of Tam running bare-armed, barefoot through the sweet summer grass and the tiny wild flowers, shouting at great hawks with the voices of rough mountain children echoing his. Then her thoughts slipped away from her to the silent rooms and towers of wizards she had stolen books from. She had listened to them arguing with one another, watched them working, and then she had smiled and gone quietly away, carrying ancient, priceless books before they had even realized anyone had come.
“What is it you want?” she whispered to herself, helplessly, and then as she spoke, she knew that a Thing without a name watched her from the shadowed trees.
She stood slowly. The wind moved swift, empty past her. She waited in silence, her mind like a still pool waiting for the ripple of another mind. And presently, without a whisper of its leaving, the Thing had gone. She turned slowly, went back into the house. She went to Coren’s room. He turned his head as she came in, and she saw the dark lines of pain beneath his eyes, and his dry mouth. She sat down beside him and felt his face.
“You must not die in my house,” she whispered. “I do not want your voice haunting me in the night.”
“Sybel—”
“You have said everything. Now, listen. I may grow old and withered like a moon in this house, but I will not buy my freedom with Tam’s happiness. I have seen him run across the high meadows shouting, with Ter Falcon on his fist; I have seen him lie late at night, dreaming of nothing with his arms around Moriah and Gules Lyon. I will not go with you to Sirle to see him bewildered, hurt, used by men, given a promise of power that will be empty, exposed to hatred, lies, wars he does not understand. You would make a king of him, but would you love him? You looked into my heart with your strange, seeing eyes and you found some truths there. I am proud and ambitious to use my power to its limits, but I have another to think of besides myself, and that is your doing. And your undoing. So you will leave here, and you will not return.”
She could not read Coren’s eyes as he looked at her. “Drede will come for his son. There was an old woman of his court, a highborn lady who swore that Rianna and Norrel never had a moment of privacy—never more than a moment. She tried to help them—they plotted again and again for a single day of privacy—half a night—but always something, someone forestalled them. We took the child at its birth, afraid for its life, and the old woman thought we might kill it if she told the truth, that it was Drede’s son. Drede’s second wife died childless; he is aging, desperate for an heir, and the woman learned somehow that the child was alive and we did not have it at Sirle. So she told Drede the truth, and now he has a fragile hope. He knows that long ago one of Rianna’s family wed a wizard living high in Eld Mountain where few men ever go. What will you do when he comes for his son?”
She shifted uneasily. “That is not your concern.”
“Drede is a hard, bitter man. He has long forgotten how to love. There are cold rooms at Mondor he has ready for Tam, a house filled with suspicious, fearful men.”
“There are ways to keep Drede out of my house.”
“How will you keep the thought of Drede out of Tam’s heart? One way or another, Sybel, the world will reach out to that boy.”
She drew a breath, let it wither away from her. “Why did you come, bringing me such news? You told me to love Tam. I did. And now you tell me to stop. Well, I will not stop for Rok, or Drede, or for the sake of your hatred. You will have to breed your hate in some other place, not in my house, lying in Ogam’s bed.”
Coren