The Hidden Stars Read online

  There followed another little stir among the nobles of the King’s household, a ripple of excited speculation. The wizards were silent, but they exchanged speaking glances, which were more than sufficient.

  Réodan received the news quietly. He ran a thumb along the line of his jaw, and his thoughts seemed to turn inward.

  “The ring may have come to this lady by mere chance,” he said at last. “Nor is her ability to make use of it proof of anything. Wizards are few in the north, but healers are not. How old is this Lady Winloki, and does she resemble Nimenoë?”

  “She is nineteen years old,” replied Aethon. “Which you’ll admit is exactly the right age. She resembles Nimenoë only a little, but she has Eldori’s eyes and hair, a certain look of him about the mouth.”

  Faolein rose from his place among the Master Wizards. “Many of you will remember, I always doubted the child was dead. The portents surrounding her birth were unmistakable. And I read the signs on her hand when she was an hour old. The lifeline, in particular, was strongly marked.”

  Curóide shifted in his seat, turned his pale blue-eyed gaze on the traveler. “But did you see Éireamhóine at Lückenbörg?” he asked eagerly.

  When Aethon shook his head, his glance darkened. “Even if Éireamhóine and the infant survived that cataclysmic battle in the Cadmin Aernan—the repercussions of which we felt even here—I can’t believe that he would abandon her later. And certainly not on the plains of Skyrra, among such simple, unmagical folk!”

  “It is possible,” suggested Tuilach, “that he had very little choice in the matter. We don’t know what his circumstances were; they may have been desperate. Or it may have been the nurse who survived, and carried the infant to Skyrra.”

  The King turned to Prince Gwynnek. “You have been to Skyrra. What do you say?”

  “I don’t remember seeing this girl Winloki, if that is what you mean. But there are dozens of young princes and princesses at King Ristil’s court: his own sons and daughters, his younger brothers and sisters, and any number of nieces, nephews, and more distant relations he has chosen to foster. There was no making them out one from the other they were so very numerous.” A brief, condescending smile flickered across his face. “Though I will say the girls were comely enough, and some quite pretty.”

  Ignoring this last remark, Draithleann said, “And where better, Lord King, to hide an infant than in a house already swarming with children? For who, outside the house, would notice the addition of a single child more?”

  Réodan nodded slowly. “And it was not as though she was left—if she was left—in a peasant’s cot. In the house of a king she would be nobly reared. Yes, in even so simple and rustic a court as King Ristil’s.”

  The wanderer, Aethon, cleared his throat. “I have a tale to tell, which may make the matter…somewhat less ambiguous. A story that I heard at Lückenbörg.

  “In the very same year and season that Éireamhóine was lost, King Ristil’s sister, the Lady Elfhael, gave birth to a pair of twins: a fine strong boy, and a healthy girl. The lady was young, her labor not difficult, and all seemed well. Yet the next morning, as she sat up in her bed to receive visitors, without any warning she gave a great cry, the visitors were ushered out of the room, and the midwives shortly announced that a third child was born, all unexpected, almost an entire day after the others. That infant, a girl, was given the name Winloki.”

  Réodan looked to Níone, as the one healer present; others turned to watch her as well, awaiting her reaction. “It might have happened exactly that way,” she said, hesitantly. “And yet—”

  “And yet,” Réodan finished for her, “it seems altogether more likely that someone arrived with a child shortly after the others were born, and Ristil and his sister contrived this mummery to account for her sudden appearance in the King’s household.”

  Faces began to brighten around the room; hope blazed up in a dozen pairs of eyes at once. Faolein took in a deep breath, then released it. “It would seem she’s been safe in Skyrra all of these years, our lost princess, our child of prophecy. But perhaps safe no more. What Aethon has seen and guessed may have also been seen by less friendly eyes.”

  “There can be no doubt,” said Curóide, “that Ouriána has spies in the north, as she has spies everywhere. The princess ought to come home at once. She must be convinced to come home. Not only for her own safety, but the better to be trained in the use of her gifts, whatever they may be. There will be no one among the healers and runestone readers of Skyrra capable of teaching her.”

  “We should not speak of convincing her, when so much is at stake,” cried out one of the noblemen in the King’s entourage. “Let us send an army to escort this lady to Thäerie, whether she wishes to come or not! Time enough, then, to convince her, when we have her safe.”

  Réodan shook his head slowly from side to side. “No, no, my good Lord Daómhóine. If our enemy doesn’t know yet that the princess still lives, we would only draw her attention by sending an army where no army of ours would ordinarily go.”

  There rose a murmur of agreement from the wizards, a faint movement among the other noble lords, though whether of protest or assent Faolein could not tell.

  “And as for storming into Skyrra with force of arms,” Réodan continued, “King Ristil would take that ill, very ill, and who could blame him? We would have a fight on our hands before we had time for explanations.”

  “Yet if she refuses to come, we are all lost,” said Lord Daómhóine.

  “That is a risk we must take. Even if she does prove to be the child of the prophecy, her friendship, her assistance, these are not things we can claim as a right. She must come willingly or not at all—else we are no better than Ouriána, and so the princess might well think us. We should send an embassy, to present our respects, inform the lady of her true origins, and bring her home, if she will come. A small but carefully chosen party, it should be, able to go swiftly and secretly, and to return the same way.”

  “I will go,” said Bael of Hythe, grudgingly, as though conferring a gift. “There ought to be someone of suitable rank to treat with King Ristil, if he is reluctant to let her go.”

  “And I will accompany him,” volunteered Prince Gwynnek. “After all, they know me in Skyrra. My presence, if nothing else, will assure King Ristil of our goodwill.”

  Faolein felt a jolt of dismay pass through the ranks of his fellow wizards; he saw that same dismay mirrored on faces around the room. To trust so delicate, so vital a mission to this hotheaded pair was clearly unthinkable, but none of them seemed willing to speak and so draw the fire of the two young princes.

  The King, however, proved equal to the task. “I hardly think,” he said evenly, “that either of you can be spared from the defense of the coast. If Ouriána’s forces don’t strike at Mere, they may take advantage of the Duke’s declared neutrality to sail on past his seaside fortresses, his ships of war, and land in Hythe.”

  Prince Bael expelled a long breath. “I never thought—But of course you are right. I ought to go home and see to my own defenses.” He sat back in his chair, his dark brows drawn together, obviously contemplating the worst that might happen.

  “I will send one of my own grandsons, either Ailbhan or Ruan,” said Réodan, glancing to either side of him at the two just named: the one tawny-haired, muscular, a typical Pendawer; the other slight and inhumanly fair. “He can carry my greetings to King Ristil, speak in my name. And whichever I choose, he can take three or four of his own men with him, ostensibly as an honor guard.”

  He turned, then, to the Nine Masters. “But who will go for Leal? For it’s certain that wizards should also go, as we have no way of knowing what challenges, what dangers, may be met with along the way.”

  The wizards gave no immediate answer, awaiting some sign, some revelation. Faolein returned to his seat, sat with his head bowed, as mute as any of the others, but he felt an increasing pressure on his mind, which made his head throb and his thoughts
race around and around without arriving anywhere. It seemed there was something he was supposed to say, yet there was nothing he wanted to say.

  At last the pressure became too great. “I will go, if it pleases the King,” he heard himself declare. “Anyone will tell you: I am no diplomat. But I was there at the very beginning, when the princess was born, and I may be able to, well, answer some of her questions.”

  Even as he spoke, he fully expected the others to object, the King to refuse him. The truth was, he had very good reasons to stay at home. But all around him heads nodded, the other Masters murmured their approval. He felt his heart sink.

  “Faolein should certainly go,” said Draithleann, turning her blind eyes in his direction. “With his gift for naming, he will know at once if she is…who we have very good reason to suppose she is. And as he says, she may have questions that he can answer: about her birth, about the decision to hide her away.”

  “And for that same reason, Sindérian should go with him,” Níone suggested quietly.

  Startled, Faolein turned to look at her, his pulse jumping, his mouth suddenly gone dry with fear. But it was not Níone that he was seeing: a dizzy array of possible futures whirled through his mind. He opened his mouth to speak, but this time the words would not come.

  In any case, the other Masters had already begun to react.

  “Too young,” said Melliéne, with an emphatic shake of her golden head.

  “That Sindérian is gifted none can deny,” Cathaoch put in, a doubtful look on his shrewd square face. “But she remains largely untested. I see no reason why she should be chosen.”

  “Indeed,” said Tuilach, in his high, unsteady voice. “This is a task, I think, for one much older and wiser. Let Melliéne go, or Feneilas, for there should certainly be a woman present.”

  Curóide snorted something unintelligible under his breath. “No one protests that our healers are too young when we send them off to battlefields and into cities under siege,” he growled. “After six years of horror and heartbreak in Rheithûn, I think Sindérian is wise enough!”

  Níone put a hand on his arm to quiet him. “In fact, her age might work to our advantage,” she stated calmly. “What years and wisdom can’t accomplish, youth and eloquence may. And who better to win the princess’s trust than one much like herself: a young woman and a healer?”

  Her words made an impression. And suddenly, Faolein felt himself the center of everyone’s attention, even more than he had been before, when his own name was mentioned.

  “What does Sindérian’s father say?” asked the King.

  The wizard tugged at his beard, as he always did when perplexed. But as he hesitated, the myriad possibilities resolved in his mind to a single vision of remarkable clarity, to one inevitable, inescapable conclusion.

  “I think…I think that my daughter would choose to be one of the party.” The words slipped out before he could catch them. “More than that, I think she is meant to go.”

  “Then,” said the King, “it is decided: Faolein and his daughter will represent Leal.”

  It was that time when yffarian, the day’s waning, passed into anoë, the twilight hour. The light coming in through the deep windows on the west was tinted a sunset orange; the starry dome overhead was lost in shadows. A cold wind passed through the vast airy chamber. Réodan dismissed the council, rose from his chair, and headed for the doors. Others followed after him. This was a time reserved for prayer, for meditation, for setting one’s mind and house in order before the evening meal.

  Only Faolein remained in his seat, his shoulders hunched and his brow furrowed in thought. After a time, he realized that he was not alone. A shadow fell across the floor at his feet, and he could smell the herb scent clinging to Níone’s violet silk gown.

  He looked up, met a questioning gleam in her mist-colored eyes. “You did not say so, but you were reluctant to take Sindérian with you.”

  Faolein’s hands gripped at his knees through the heavy folds of purple cloth. His moment of clarity past, the memory fading, he was left only with a sense of impending grief, the conviction that something very precious to him would be lost. What had he chosen for Sindérian, and why? Suddenly, he felt his years, as he had never experienced them before. The wind seemed to pass right through him; he felt chilled and empty.

  “The truth is, I fear for Sindérian whether she goes or stays. And yet, if we are at least together—” He lost the thread of his thought; as he groped for it, the end of his sentence continued to elude him.

  He shook his head. “I sometimes wonder if I did right, all those years ago, allowing her to be trained as a healer. What Curóide said troubles me more than anything: What right have we to expose our children to so much, so young, simply because they show the gift of empathy? Sindérian has other talents as well—why did we not choose to develop those instead? If she had spent the last six years studying at the Scholia, instead of breaking her heart on the battlefields of Rheithûn…”

  Selfish, he thought. Selfish is what they had been, he and Shionneth, getting a child (not entirely by natural means) at such an advanced age. A wizard child, likely to outlive them both, that was the lure, one who would not grow up, grow old, and die, while an absentminded parent was occupied elsewhere. But who would have supposed such a placid elderly pair could produce such a vivid, passionate, empathetic child? They had been like two drab brown moths watching a brilliant butterfly emerge from its chrysalis, with no idea what to do next or how to do it. Selfish and heedless, that was how they began it, which was unforgivable in the so-called wise, and he, left alone to raise the child after Shionneth died: a well-meaning fool, but a fool nonetheless. He had allowed Sindérian to put herself in harm’s way with scarcely a second thought.

  “My dear old friend,” said Níone, with a little laugh, her fair face bright with amusement, “what else could you have possibly done? It is many years since Sindérian was a child by anyone’s reckoning, and it was her own wish to go to Rheithûn. There is something in what you say—perhaps some aspects of her education have been neglected, but those talents are still there and can still be developed. And she would have become a healer in any case. A gift like hers is not to be denied. The only difference is that without the proper training she would have killed more than she cured, at least at the beginning.”

  He knew they had had this conversation before, or one very like it, and just as he always did, he was forced to yield to her gentle certainty. “Perhaps you’re right. It was never for me to choose; it was always Sindérian. And however that might be, it is too late, now, to repine.” Faolein rose heavily from his chair and headed for the door, Níone gliding along beside him.

  “I can only hope,” he said under his breath, “that we have chosen better for her today, you and I.”

  4

  The hour was very early, the air damp and utterly still, dawn no more than a faint white line along the eastern horizon. In the harbor at Baillébachlein, a small rowboat carrying four silent passengers slid out from a long, low boathouse, slipped between the dark hulks of ships massed along the docks, and headed out into deeper water, moving swiftly with the tide.

  No one had seen them go. They had chosen this hour of uttermost secrecy so that none should mark the time of their departure. Oars creaked, the weathered hull dipped and bobbed in the water, but those in the boat remained silent until half a mile of water lay between them and the docks. Then Curóide grunted a few words to Cathaoch, the other oarsman.

  “No, I don’t see anything,” said Cathaoch, speaking in short bursts between oar strokes. “But that’s as we arranged it. They’ll keep themselves dark until we hail them.”

  To the east, a fragile seashell-pink spread slowly across the sky. The sea was the color of opals and amethysts; but the west still blazed with stars. A stiff breeze sprang up, blowing off the land, scented with apple blossom and freshly tilled earth.

  Sindérian crouched in the bottom of the rowboat, cloaked and hooded
against the early-morning chill, trailing one hand in the sea and watching the glittering foam fly off her fingertips. Because she barely listened, conversation between Faolein and the other two wizards came to her in fragments.

  “…we can hardly expect this Winloki to change our fortunes in the war overnight. What will she know of wizardry, or the battles we’ve fought?”

  “—too many were there to hear the plan. The High King erred. Hythe and Weye—”

  “If something isn’t done, it will be Alluinn and Otöi all over again. I’ve seen portents in the fire, in the wind and the sky—”

  None of this made more than a passing impression on Sindérian. She was intent on the opalescent water sliding under the bow, on the starry ocean, on everything she could sense below the surface. She thought, Something has changed. It wasn’t like this when I sailed from Rheithûn—was it only three months ago?

  A school of young herring passed under the boat; she could see them in her mind—tiny flickering lights moving in the darkness—and she felt their confusion. A hundred yards away, she detected a shark, its slow, savage, pitiless mind troubled, uneasy. She sent her thoughts deeper and deeper still, down to a place where long, sinuous shadows moved in the deep.

  The moon, Ouriána’s ally, was still young, yet Sindérian could feel her influence, her pull on the tides, like a great slow heartbeat. And she sensed something more, profoundly disturbing, a steady vibration under the water as though something down there, something beneath the sandy floor of the bay, struggled to be free.

  Then it seemed to her, for a moment, that she could hear faint music coming to her over the water, across the years and centuries, music as of reed pipes, and wooden flutes, and sistrums. She heard women wailing, priests chanting, the dull boom of drums.

  Lifting her hand, she tasted the water, and a cold chill snaked down her spine. It tastes of blood, she thought, blood and death. Words in a language she did not know came unbidden into her mind: Hanòg domendeth amissa abhoran vòragol. Ephësien! Ephësien!