looked down his axe-blade nose, his eyes colorless as rimed ice. His dark hair was slicked as a seal’s coat with ambergris. Even this early, he was ceremonially clothed, his sunwheel vestments of stainless white mirrored in the wax-polished floor. The gray bristles of his beard were trimmed to a point, accent to the wrought gold of yoked chains whose links were interlocked dragons. His beeswax complexion showed no flush of anger. Erect, unblinking, he displayed a sangfroid intimidation more effective than bluster or speech.
On that cold, predawn morning, the Princess of Tysan swept into his presence, unfazed. She shed her cloud of ermine cloak into the hands of her armed attendants. The candles on Cerebeld’s locked aumbries lit her crisp dazzle of sapphire silk and wired jewelry. For this audience, the lady wore formal state trappings, the stamped brilliance of gemstones and shining gold circlet a blaze of royal authority. Unasked, she sat in the chamber’s sole chair. Her skirts pooled around her demurely crossed ankles, damascened blue against her ringed hands, clasped in graceful deportment in her lap.
Doe brown eyes matched Cerebeld’s hauteur with a mutual bristle of antagonism. ‘I’m here on account of the prince, my blood son.’
The High Priest’s plum lips thinned with distaste. ‘The boy’s doings are none of my affair, your Grace, unless he strays into liaison with unwholesome powers of darkness.’
Ellaine firmed her chin. Her spring-rose beauty had lost its fresh dew. The small, timeworn lines tooled into her complexion by year upon year of resignation today underscored her striking determination. ‘The heir apparent of this kingdom has left for Karfael with the guard. I find your seal of approval gave him leave. He’s a fifteen-year-old boy. In the company of veteran field troops, he goes armed with only a ceremonial blade, and a head full of dreams that don’t match his strength, or his inept grasp of tournament swordplay. If that’s not a meddling interest in his welfare, I’ll see you clapped in irons for deceit.’
Cerebeld linked taloned hands at his waist. ‘Princess, your accusation is pure hearsay.’
‘The palace steward’s a weasel at evasion, but he draws clear distinction against lying.’ Ellaine pinned the High Priest without quarter, her retiring nature ignited to flash-point resolve. ‘Gace insists that your writ gave the prince due permission to accompany the troops out on road watch.’
A presence of razor-cut, glittering white against the night-darkened panes of the casements, the High Priest of the Light checked his sigh of exasperation. ‘The boy is this realm’s heir apparent, if not yet a man. He can’t learn to rule in Avenor sequestered behind the skirts of your chattering women.’ The sharp flick of a glance cut and measured the uncowed, closed hands and tense flush of the lady seated before him. The tragic fact that the princess’s late predecessor had died of a suicidal leap from the battlements above had plainly not served to intimidate. Outraged motherhood was not going to back down. ‘No,’ Cerebeld stated in quelling authority. ‘Stay your hand-wringing, you’re quite wrong. The young prince’s permission arose from a higher authority than mine.’
‘What, the Word of the Light?’ Ellaine’s contempt raked him. ‘For your posturing sham of serving divinity, you’ve dared send my son on a winter campaign?’
‘A routine patrol,’ High Priest Cerebeld corrected. Attacks never ruffled him. He unclasped his jeweled fingers, his serenity built on the granite of utter conviction. ‘Have you ever known me to speak false concerning your husband’s divine will? My task while I wear the grace of this mantle is to hear and act for the Light. I say again, permission was served through the mouth of my office, not by my personal preference. Your son was sent to Karfael to mature his experience. He remains in the field until his royal father sees fit to send word and recall him.’
Ellaine clamped back a furious retort, too seasoned to battle the High Priest’s righteous duty head-on. The brute rigors of politics had tested his primacy. Time and again, Lysaer s’Ilessid had affirmed the man’s power to deliver his royal state edicts. Even Avenor’s most avaricious trade ministers bowed to Cerebeld’s decrees concerning the will of the Divine Prince.
Taut-faced, white-knuckled, Ellaine refused setback. ‘If the heir apparent rides for Karfael, then I go as well. My train and escort will include his Grace’s tutors. Two pages from Avenor’s prominent families will serve the young prince as companions. Let my royal husband understand this: I will not have our son in the forests of Westwood haring after the scalps of barbarians!’
‘You will not leave for Karfael, or anywhere else.’ Cerebeld’s velvet-clothed certainty shot dangerous currents through the spice-burdened air of the room. The edged play of the light on his sunwheel emblems gained sharpened menace as he served his ultimatum. ‘The last princess before you left this city with war pending. She fell victim to the Spinner of Darkness. The Blessed Prince will not see her tragedy repeated. Dear lady, by my oath of service to the Light, you will not pass the gates of Avenor.’
Spark to struck tinder, Ellaine surged to her feet. ‘Spinner of Darkness? What is he, but the name of an absent threat? I have never met him, never seen him! Nor have I stood witness to one concrete act that was his, and not some machination used to further the interests of politics. What is Arithon s’Ffalenn but convenience and hearsay that feeds the excuse for trade factions to raise arms and curb the predations of barbarians!’
‘But the Master of Shadow is no longer in hiding,’ Cerebeld explained after the gravid, barbed pause he used to lend weight to his arguments. ‘The enemy is back in Rathain at this moment, and your husband is across Instrell Bay, raising town garrisons to challenge him.’
The High Priest waved aside Ellaine’s rebuttal, that deep winter would hamper the muster. ‘These are dangerous times, princess. The straits that could bring terror and woe to the innocent are just as you say: that the ports and the passes are closed in the north. No speedy warning can call cities to take arms. The years the s’Ffalenn sorcerer has lurked in obscurity have blunted the memories of his atrocities.’
Which fact was a truth without contest: beyond a bare handful, the aged veterans of Vastmark had retired from the ranks of field service.
Straight as a doll in her jeweled state garments, her bravado reduced to cosmetic paint over paraffin, Ellaine never swerved from her purpose. ‘If as you say Rathain’s bastard prince has returned, and the eastlands face a new war, I insist, my son should be here and not set at risk with fighting men posted to Karfael.’
For the first time in her presence, Cerebeld broke his glacial mask of objectivity. ‘My lady, let me warn you.’ His advancing step was a pantherish stalk, glancing candlelight struck off his silk-and-gold robes like the shimmer of sun-bathed quartz. ‘Against the grand conflict of Light against Dark, nothing and no one shall come in between the Exalted Prince and his divine destiny. He is the world’s ray of hope. Before his glory, and the cause that he stands for, you and your son are expendable.’ A glance toward the north bank of casements lent his point stabbing edge. ‘Your predecessor, the past Princess Talith, pushed that truth too far and bought tragedy. Try the same thing at your peril.’
The scrape of a hobnailed boot sole recalled the royal guards still standing in dutiful attendance. Their ranking officer cleared his throat, then ventured, ‘My lady, your Grace, pay heed to the High Priest. No man in the guard can escort you to Karfael. Not now.’ His ranks had not known the Divine Prince had gone to stand in defense against Shadow. Ruddy features averted in embarrassed apology, the officer added, ‘You may not know the unhappy history. But when Princess Talith was abducted by the enemy, the captain of the royal honor guard lost his life in reparation. We are charged with the greater burden of your safety, and our loyal oath to your husband sets us in conflict. To support your desire to escort your son could land us with charges of treason.’
Ellaine held her fixed glare of hostility upon the impervious High Priest. ‘I understand well enough that your duty has no heart, and no shred of human compassion. If my son goes to Karfael for the sake of the Light, and harm comes to him, on my word, I will hold both you and my husband responsible.’ A cascading rustle of azure silk saw the Princess of Avenor to her feet. She paid no respects. Spun face