LITMIR.BIZ

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      Even now Tobin wasn’t frightened. This felt nothing like Brother or his mother. He felt welcome here.

      Kneeling, he touched the place where the golden tablet of the Oracle had stood.

       So long as a daughter of Thelátimos—

      From Ghërilain’s time, through all those years and queens, the tablet’s carved words had proclaimed to all who approached this throne that the woman who sat upon it did so by Illior’s will.

       Restore.

      “I don’t know how,” he whispered. “I know I’m supposed to, but I don’t know what to do. Help me!”

      The ghostly hand caressed his cheek again, tender and unmistakable. “I’ll try, I promise. Somehow. I swear it by the Sword.”

      Tobin said nothing of the experience to anyone, but spent more time that winter reading in the library. The history Arkoniel and his father had labored to teach him came to life as he read firsthand accounts of events written by the queens and warriors who’d lived them. Ki caught his enthusiasm and they sat up late into the night, taking turns reading aloud by candlelight.

      Raven’s chalk drawing battlefields took on new meaning as well. Watching the old general push his pebble cavalry and wood chip archers about, Tobin began to see the logic of the formations. At times he could imagine the scenes as clearly as if he were reading Queen Ghërilain’s account, or the histories of General Mylia.

      “Come on now, someone must have an opinion!” the old man snapped one day, tapping his stick impatiently on the diagram in question. It showed a large open field flanked on either side by curving belts of trees.

      Without thinking, Tobin stood up to answer. Before he could change his mind everyone was looking at him.

      “You have a strategy, Your Highness?” Raven asked, raising a bushy eyebrow doubtfully.

      “I—I think I’d hide my horsemen in the grove of trees on the east flank under cover of night—”

      “Yes? What else?” His wrinkled face gave nothing away.

      Tobin pressed on. “And half or more of my archers over here in woods on the other side.” He paused, thinking of a battle he’d read about a few days earlier. “I’d have the rest set stakes here, with the men-at-arms in ranks behind them.” Warming to his subject, he squatted and pointed to the narrow strip of open ground between the copses, at the Skalan-held end of the field. “It would look like a thin front from the enemy’s side. I’d have my horsemen keep their mounts quiet, so the enemy would think it was only foot soldiers they were facing. They’d probably make the first charge at dawn. As soon as their horsemen were committed, I’d send mine out to cut them off and have the hidden archers shoot at the enemy’s foot soldiers to panic them.”

      The general tugged thoughtfully at his beard, then rasped, “Divide their forces, eh? That’s your plan?”

      Someone snickered, but Tobin nodded. “Yes, General Marnaryl, that’s what I’d do.”

      “Well, as it happens, that’s very much like what your great-grandmother did at the Second Battle of Isil and it worked rather well.”

      “Well done, Tobin!” Caliel cried.

      “He’s my blood, isn’t he?” said Korin proudly. “I’ll be glad to have him as my general when I’m king, I can tell you.”

      Tobin’s pleasure dissolved to panic at the words and he took his seat quickly, hardly able to breathe. For the rest of the day, his cousin’s praise haunted him.

       When I’m king.

      Skala could have only one ruler, and even Tobin couldn’t imagine his cousin simply stepping aside. When Ki was asleep that night, he rose and burned an owl feather in the night lamp flame, but he didn’t know what prayer to send with it. As he struggled for some words to say, all he could think of was his cousin’s smiling face.

Chapter 13

      A cold draft across his bare shoulders woke Arkoniel.

      Shivering, he fumbled in the darkness and pulled Lhel’s bearskin robe up to his chin. She’d let him spend the night with her more often since midwinter and he was grateful, both for the companionship and the chance to escape the haunted corridors of the keep.

      The bracken-stuffed pallet crackled as he burrowed deeper under the covers. The bed smelled good: sex and balsam and smoky hides. But he was still cold. He groped for Lhel, but found only a patch of fading warmth where she’d been.

      “Armra dukath?” he called softly. He was learning her language quickly and always spoke it here though she teased him, claiming his accent was thicker than cold mutton stew. He’d learned the true name of her people, as well. They called themselves the Retha’noi, “people of wisdom.”

      There was no answer, only the clacking of the bare oak branches overhead. Assuming she’d gone out to relieve herself, he settled back, longing for her naked heat against his back. But he couldn’t get back to sleep, and Lhel didn’t return.

      More curious than worried, he wrapped himself in the fur robe and felt his way to the small, leather-curtained doorway. Pushing it aside, he looked out. In the two weeks since Sakor-tide it had snowed less than it usually did here; the drifts surrounding the oak were only shin deep in most places.

      The sky was clear, though. The full moon hung like a new coin against the stars, so bright on the sparkling snow that he could make out the fine whorls on his fingertips by its light. Lhel said a full moon stole the heat of the day to be so bright, and Arkoniel could well believe it. Each breath showed silver white for an instant, then fell away in tiny crystals.

      Small footprints led in the direction of the spring. Shivering, Arkoniel found his boots and followed.

      Lhel was squatting at the water’s edge, staring intently at the little circle of roiling open water at its center. Wrapped to the chin in the new cloak Arkoniel had given her, she held her left hand over the water. Her fingers were crooked to summon the scrying spell and Arkoniel stopped a few yards away, not wanting to disturb her. The spell could take some time, depending on how far she was trying to see. He saw only undulating silver ripples across the spring’s black surface, but Lhel’s eyes glinted like a cat’s as she watched whatever it was that she’d summoned. Shadow filled the lines around her eyes and mouth, showing her years in a way the sun never did. Lhel claimed not to know her age. She said her people reckoned a woman’s age not by years, but by the seasons of her womb: child, child bearer, elder. She still bled with the waning moon, but she was not young.

      Presently she lifted her head and glanced at him with no apparent surprise.

      “What are you doing?” he asked.

      “I had a dream,” she replied, kneading the stiffness from her back as she stretched. “Someone is coming, but I couldn’t see who, so I came out here.”

      “Did you see in water?”

      She nodded and took his hand, leading him back to the tree. “Wizards.”

      “Harriers?”

      “No, Iya and another I couldn’t see. There’s a cloud around that one. But they’re coming to see you.”

      “Should I go back to the keep?”

      Smiling, she stroked his cheek. “No, there’s time, and I’m too cold to sleep alone.” The years fled her face again as she reached under his robe and stroked a chilly hand down his belly. “You stay and warm me.”

      Arkoniel returned to the keep the next morning, expecting to find lathered horses in the courtyard. But Iya did not come that day, or the next. Puzzled, he rode up the mountain track in search of Lhel, but the witch did not show herself.

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