THREE DROPS OF BLOOD (29 page)

Mrillis considered making excuses and leaving Moerta as soon as possible, but he had
enough doubts about his feelings and reasons to make him hesitate. Did he want to leave before
the arrangements were made for Ynessa and Pirkin's wedding festivities, so no one felt obligated
to invite him? Did he fear meeting with Pyris after all these years, and learning just how far the
bitter influence of his Noveni relatives had pushed him? Did he feel hurt by Pirkin's slight
reaction to Efrin's praise and mention of him, so he wanted to run away and lick his wounds like
a spoiled child deprived of a toy?

Meghianna stopped him. She asked him to ride with her while she finished this
harvesting journey, even though her reasons for coming to Moerta had originally been a ruse.
She asked him to share with her his memories of those early years, when he and Ceera and the
original forgers of the Zygradon had walked in ignorance and faith and risked everything to
protect the World. So Mrillis stayed, relieved to ride away with just Meghianna and her original
four Valor guards, to gather and purify raw star-metal, and to remember. It surprised him to
realize that the memories no longer ached. Even the mundane, sometimes tedious, routine of the
harvesting held sweetness.

He took to calling up memories and displaying them in the light of sunset and the
settling dust of the day, as their traveling party made camp. Mrillis found he enjoyed making his
memories visible so others could share them. He could sometimes give himself the gift of
illusion, just for a few minutes at a time, that Ceera and Emrillian were right there in front of
him, laughing and chatting together, making camp, playing games with stones and strings. He
had called up a memory of the very last harvest they shared as a family, just before Emrillian
married Pyris, the evening Pirkin came to join them at their camp.

The young Valor rode up to their camp in silence.

The effort of calling up the memory and casting the spell that would let the events play
out in soft colors and silence distracted Mrillis enough that he didn't realize his grandson stood
on the edge of the camp. He sensed a new presence, but chose not to look away as he watched
Emrillian dance around the fire, trailing streamers of multicolored light from her fingertips while
Ceera played her flute. It was made of crystal and star-metal--he had forgotten that detail for so
many years--and produced light as well as music as it was played. The song ended, the spill of
birds and sparkles and flowers from the flute died away, and Emrillian went to her knees,
laughing and flushed and breathless.

"Can you make her speak?" Pirkin asked, his voice rough. He stared at the illusion of
Emrillian as it faded away into shadows and firelight. The aching hunger grew visible in his face
as the gleam of tears filled his eyes.

"She speaks in your heart, if you're willing to listen," Mrillis said after a long, strained
moment, when he could barely draw a breath, let along force words out.

"Why didn't you fight for me?"

He flinched when Meghianna got up from her place on a log pulled up by the fire, and
gestured for the other Valors to follow her. "Fight to take you from your father, you mean? Or
fight to come visit Goarlotte as an unwelcome, uncomfortable guest for a few days at a time each
year?"

"I don't know." Pirkin cursed and kicked at a piece of firewood and stomped away a few
steps. "I know you said he loved her, but how could he completely cut off all memory of her like
he did?"

"How do you know he did? Just because he doesn't speak of her--most likely out of
respect for your stepmother--doesn't mean Pyris has forgotten your mother." Mrillis settled on
the log seat Meghianna had vacated, and when he gestured for Pirkin to join him, his grandson
did so without hesitation.

"What if I had fought to possess you? What good would it have done us? The Warhawk
throne was unsteady at that point, and the Encindi threat had doubled, tripled, encouraged by the
wholesale slaughter of Athrar's family. I found healing in fighting. Escape, too. When you work
hard all day so you drop into your blankets as if dead every night, you don't remember your
dreams.

"I needed to be busy. And that would have meant rarely being home to see you. Would
you have wanted me to leave you with nursemaids and servants for moons at a time, just so I
could say I owned you? Your father was like a son to me, for as long as he wanted to be. He
made my daughter happy. For that alone, I couldn't hurt him."

"No matter how much he hurt you," Pirkin whispered, his voice a rasp.

"It is over and done. We must go forward, rather than stand still, wasting energy and joy
by constantly looking over our shoulders." Mrillis snorted. "That's something your mother and
grandmother both believed in. I would be happy to be your friend. And perhaps you will allow
me to spoil your sons, as I wasn't allowed to spoil you," he added with a shrug, a chuckle making
his voice thick.

"Sons." Pirkin flushed and finally took his gaze off the spot where Emrillian had faded
from sight. "That's why I came. Ynessa says I was rude, not inviting you to stay with us. Not
inviting you to stay until the wedding."

"Your father wouldn't be comfortable with me in the castle."

"It's a big castle, and it's my wedding, not his." He pushed himself to his feet with a soft
groan. "Can you look ahead? Can you see that we'll be happy?"

"Meghianna..." Mrillis sighed. "Meghianna has seen you with several sons, one grown,
the others nearly there, and a girlchild in Ynessa's arms. There is a light around your daughter, a
sign of great potential and destiny. That is all either of us has seen, but I believe it is a promise of
many happy years together."

"Will any of them have
imbrose
? More than just enough
imbrose
to be
Valors?"

"The blood of the strongest enchanters in the World runs in your veins. Who knows
what gifts your children will be born with?"

"I don't want it." The usual vehemence of his rejection of his magical heritage was
missing from Pirkin's voice, and Mrillis took comfort from that.

"You have made that clear. Your willpower is a strong force. Strong enough to shackle
your inborn magical gifts as securely as the spells that bind the
imbrose
of others, to
protect the world from harm."

Mrillis caught his breath as the image Meghianna had shared with him, of Pirkin's future
family, filled his mind. The girl baby slipped from Ynessa's arms and walked toward him,
growing taller and older with every step until she was a woman grown, with Ceera's perfectly
straight hair, white gold, and soft green eyes, her beauty almost painful. She held out her hands
to Mrillis, and there in her joined hands lay a doll. It opened its eyes and sat up and smiled at
Mrillis, and the doll was his Emrillian, just on the verge of adulthood.

He remembered Trevissa's words, about Emrillian being reborn, returning to him, and he
thought his heart would burst with the pain of the hope.

"Sons, and a baby daughter," Pirkin said, totally unaware of the vision that froze Mrillis,
to the point he had forgotten to breathe. The young Valor nodded, a smile driving away the
stiffness, warming his eyes. "Grown sons. That means many years. Thank
you...Grandfather."

Mrillis sat alone by the fire long after the sound of Pirkin's horse's hooves faded into the
forest. He was vaguely aware of the fire needing wood, and the pot of stew bubbling a little too
rapidly over the coals, but he couldn't make himself move. The sound of Pirkin's voice, calling
him Grandfather for the first time, remained in the camp clearing, as fragile as a glass
bubble.

Meghianna returned to the camp first. She sat on the log next to him and took his hand.
She touched his cheek, and he realized when he saw the glistening dampness on her fingertips
that he wept.

* * * *

If Queen Glyssani danced more than expected at Ynessa and Pirkin's wedding
festivities, those who noticed reasoned that she still celebrated her rescue from Timark. The only
ones who complained that she danced with no one but Efrin Warhawk were older nobles, kings
of much smaller kingdoms, who hoped to court her. Anyone who listened to them discounted
their remarks as the peevish complaints of men who didn't know what
no
meant, and
refused to admit they had no hope of winning the still-vibrant, beautiful queen as their bride.

Meghianna was dismayed to realize that her sister's popularity with the nobles of Moerta
irritated her. As Mrillis had warned her years ago, when the sisters first met, jealousy was an
ugly plant that grew when it was least expected. She fought to be glad that her sister's wishes for
a splendid courtship seemed to be coming true. To fight down the unanswered hope for a
sweetheart of her own, she spent as much time as she could in exploring the countryside around
Goarlotte, and monopolizing as much of Mrillis' time as she could. Anyone who compared her
with Megassa would reason that no hopeful suitor could approach her if she was never available.
It was easier to blame Mrillis' legendary stature for discouraging potential sweethearts than to
acknowledge that the stories of her strength and skills in magic made otherwise sensible men
fear her.

"Better for them to fear you," her father said, when she finally confided her heartache to
him, "than for them to see you as a prize to win or a tool to manipulate." They stayed in Welcairn
Castle, ostensibly to assist with settling a last few matters for Prince Markas and his mother and
the rearranged governing council, before returning to Lygroes.

"Papa? Is that what you fear for Megassa?"

"She has no hope of sitting on my throne, no matter how fine a warrior she is, no matter
how well she leads the warriors assigned to her command. The Council of Lords will never
accept her, but if she married a powerful man, her children would be counted as legitimate heirs
to the Warhawk throne." Efrin stared off into the distance from the tower guest room window.
Meghianna wondered if he watched for Glyssani to return from some errand that had taken her
from the castle today, or if he saw into another place and time, either memories or dreams.

"Do you fear what will happen to her many sweethearts if you produce a legitimate heir
and crush all their plans and dreams?"

Efrin startled, nearly dropping the empty metal cup he had been toying with when
Meghianna came up to the room to talk with him.

"Or should I say
when
you produce an heir, Papa?"

"Meggi--"

"I approve. I think Queen Glyssani would take you tomorrow, if she didn't have her vow
and her fear for Markas' security to stand in her way."

"You think so?" He grinned like a boy and set the cup down on the sill--missing it so
that it fell and rang against the stones of the wall. "Who else has noticed, do you think?"

"Nearly anyone with half a brain. It hasn't taken long for the rest of the world to decide
that Timark was in love with her, and took her to the tower because he feared you would steal
her from him, by force if necessary. I've already heard one person speculating that you were in
the tower half the time, and forced Timark out, and you seduced the lady without her ever
guessing that you weren't the man she loved."

"But I am--" He shut his mouth with an audible click of his jaws.

"Yes, Papa, I believe she does love you. Or she will, when she has had enough time to
recover from her ordeal and understand what she feels."

Meghianna pushed away the quiet little complaining voice, quite bitterly pointing out
that she had come up here for some advice and comfort and sympathy from her father. Once
again, she had ended up acting as Queen of Snows, advising the Warhawk, with all her fears and
hurts pushed aside for the good of the kingdom. She wanted to tell her father that all would end
well, he and Glyssani would be happy together, and they would indeed produce the
long-awaited, legitimate heir. She couldn't tell him that. Some of her earliest lessons had been stories
of people who interfered with prophecies and visions, either trying to force them to unfold before
their time, or prevent them.

As Nalla had counseled her, when she was perhaps ten years old, discovery was half the
joy in life. Prophecies and visions had a tendency to take away the surprise and the fun of the
journey. Meghianna suspected she would never know the sweetness of courtship and discovering
true love, so she refused to take that sweet, sometimes uncertain, tempestuous path away from
her father.

* * * *

Megassa kept her many sweethearts dangling, preferring to enjoy a few years of danger
and adventure as a traveling Valor. Mrillis watched her weed out the noblemen and warriors who
vied for her favor, and wondered if she chose the most dangerous and long-lasting missions
specifically to learn just how long a man meant when he vowed to love her forever. She came
back from long journeys, browned and lean and sometimes battered, always standing in triumph
before the Warhawk's throne to recount her adventures. If she noticed that another suitor or two
had given up and married someone else, she gave no sign.

Then again, she developed a habit of spending a large portion of her time in the vicinity
of Welcairn. There was a certain young nobleman named Lorkin, a distant relative of Prince
Markas, who had expressed interest in the warrior princess. Lorkin had been third in the chain of
command at Welcairn Castle when Timark was co-regent, and he had fought long and hard to
convince the Council of Lords that he had been as shocked as everyone else to learn of Timark's
treachery against Queen Glyssani. Mrillis didn't totally trust Lorkin's vows of loyalty and peace,
but the intervening years had given nothing but good evidence that the man was innocent. With
the ranks of nobility decimated by Timark's attempt to gain control over the throne, Lorkin's
presence was necessary to support Markas, despite the fact that his family had some ancestral
territory in the Wayhauk Mountains on Lygroes. Mrillis was torn between approving Lorkin as a
match for Megassa, or hoping nothing came of their quiet courtship.