Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

a whole princedom. Chiana had in two brief years grasped as much of her husband’s power as she could. When Clutha died, she would rule, not Halian. Ostvel suspected she would never rest until her son, born this past spring, was High Prince. Though all Roelstra’s daughters had renounced any claim to Princemarch for themselves and their heirs, Chiana had been only a child at the time and could always say she had not understood what she had signed.
    Goddess help them all if she or anyone else ever found out that Pol’s right came from Roelstra’s blood in his veins, not just Rohan’s conquest. Ostvel mentally listed those who knew: himself, Rohan, Sioned, Chay, Tobin, Myrdal, and one servant at Stronghold. Not even Andrade had known. If Sioned had her way, no one would ever know, especially not Pol. He doubted the wisdom of never telling the boy the truth, but it was not his decision to make.
    He closed and locked the coffer, storing it with the other dangerous one in the secret space. Sioned might just get away with it, he mused. Nothing in the archives even hinted that Ianthe’s fourth son had not died at Feruche. Everyone knew she had been pregnant; many believed the child had indeed been Rohan’s. Ostvel had been at Stronghold that summer and autumn, when Sioned had emptied the keep of all but three servants and spread word that she was pregnant again. Two of those servants had since died, their knowledge of the secret blown away with then ashes on Desert winds. The one who remained—Tibalia, a young girl at the time and now in charge of all maidservants at Stronghold—was trusted implicitly. At Skybowl, where Sioned and Ostvel and Tobin had fled from Feruche and where Pol had been Named, the story was that Sioned, furious beyond reason at knowing Ianthe carried Rohan’s child, had gone to destroy her rival—and that the strain of the journey had brought Pol’s premature birth. No one had ever questioned this tale, though Ostvel was never able to decide whether it was really believed or not. Still, Skybowl’s people had kept the secret of dragon gold. Whatever they truly believed, they could be trusted. And surely any rumors would have surfaced long ere this.
    So Sioned was probably safe in her deception. Goddess knew, she had paid dearly for it. Ianthe’s sniggering reference to multiple rapes had knifed through his heart, and with more than the anguish of knowing proud Sioned had been used thus. For to her, none of it had ever happened. She had never said a word about what had been done to her at Feruche; Ostvel had learned of it from Rohan. Neither did she ever speak of that summer and autumn of waiting, or of the night Feruche had burned. None of it existed for her. Sometimes he wondered if she even had a clear memory of that time. He truly believed she had gone a little mad that year. He knew from experience that agony and terror and grief must be cleansed from the heart. Sioned’s wounds were still open and bleeding. Ostvel had known her since childhood; she could hide very little from him.
    He twisted the small carving of gilded elk-hoof that fit cunningly into the wood paneling. Myrdal had noted that other secret rooms, doors, and passages were opened with a similar carving that depicted a rising star. Ostvel found it intriguing that Pol’s name was the key to Castle Crag’s secrets, and eerie that Ianthe had written words calling him what Sioned had Named him. And, strangest of all, the same stars provided the light used by diarmadh’im.
    The word meant “Stoneburners” and came from the manner in which rock cairns glowed during certain ritual sorceries. Urival shared odd bits of Star Scroll knowledge with Sioned on sunlight, and she passed on some of them to Donato, Ostvel’s court Sunrunner and a friend of their youth. Stars were everywhere these days, it seemed: used in sorcery, Pol’s name, indicating Castle Crag’s secrets—could the place have been built by these diarmadh’im