How did she get in here? he almost asked, and then held his tongue, realizing his foolishness.

  The shadow of a doorway could be seen dimly behind her, where before only smooth wall had been. Willow must have headed here from the Ariane Mission as soon as word reached her that they had come this way.

  Still she said nothing. Just stared at him.

  "It suits you," he said. She started at the words. They echoed around them in the chamber, too loud for this sacred place.

  He motioned to her garb. "You are beautiful as the leader of the Ariane. It is what you were born for."

  "And you, Raven? What were you born for?" Her look was cold, assessing.

  "Apparently to be king, according to your persuasive young messenger."

  "Lark is a loyal servant," she said carefully, sounding him out.

  "Yes, she is," he said. But who did she serve, he wondered. "She is a bit of an—unusual—choice for an Ariane, isn't she?"

  "It was necessary at the time, Your Grace."

  "Of course," he said. "Most of the other Ariane had been killed."

  "I had to make difficult choices."

  "We both have," he agreed.

  She stood at a distance, one hand resting casually on the sword hilt at her waist, watching him, assessing him. "You have changed, Your Grace."

  He suddenly felt self-conscious of his scars. She of course had never seen him like this. "I was just a boy. Haven't we all changed?" he said.

  "Why have you come back?"

  "An odd question, Willow. You sent Lark searching for me throughout the countryside—"

  "—You knew where Chÿar was, Your Grace. You could have come back at any time." She stood still, withholding judgement.

  "I think we both know why I could not come back, Willow."

  Her knuckles were white on the sword handle. She was more tense than she appeared. "Enlighten me, My Prince," she said.

  He looked around the tomb. "After the trouble I caused, I thought it best to stay away. The peasant rebels did not want me then, why should they accept me now?"

  She stared at him for another moment, then, "Oh, Raven." She dropped the coldness, suddenly, rushing forward, into his arms. The words came spilling out. "I thought you were dead. Truly, I did. When Lark insisted on searching for you I let her, but I never believed...."

  "Shhh." He hushed her against his shoulder. He was taller than her now. "I am here now, Willow."

  Still she cried against his shoulder. "I am so sorry. We are the only ones left. Oh, Raven...." Her lips touched his neck.

  He pulled away from her. She had always felt something for him that he didn't for her. That had driven them apart before. He had never been romantically interested in the beautiful and forceful Ariane. Even as a boy, he had turned her aside as gently as possible, feeling something mercenary in Willow's interest in him, with her desire for power and her contempt for the peasants like a wall between them. But now, he needed her as an ally. He tried to sound light. "Really, dear. My cloak is filthy. It will muss your gown."

  She smiled at that and allowed him to draw away.

  He turned back to the sepulchres to give Willow a moment to compose herself.

  "You wanted to come here first?" she asked after a bit.

  "Of course. I am responsible for what happened."

  She made some small noise and he glanced over at her in time to see her startled expression. She quickly recovered her composure. "You are not responsible, My Prince."

  "We both know where the blame lies, Willow. But I thank you for saying so, anyway. And thank you for this." He pointed with his cane to his father's and brother's tomb. "It is your work, is it not?"

  She looked startled. "My work?"

  "The carving. You showed them more respect than their killers did."

  "Raven—" She changed the subject abruptly. "You said Lark was persuasive. What did you mean?"

  "I didn't want to come back."

  "Why not?"

  "If I had wanted the throne of the Silver Isle I would have returned long ago."

  "You do not want to be king? But you are."

  That was the point, wasn't it. It did not matter what he wanted. "Yes," he said slowly. "I am the only heir to the Griffon throne. So it is me, or no king at all. And Lark would not take no for an answer."

  Willow sounded almost bitter. Apparently she expected some different response from him. "You make it sound like a curse. The girl could not make you come, My Prince."

  He smiled at that. "She was most persuasive, Willow. You have trained her well. I could hardly refuse."

  Willow looked genuinely shocked at the implication. "You mean you want to abdicate?"

  "I already did, of course. Ten years ago. If that's not abdication, what is?"

  She turned away, thinking. "Then we cannot force you to do otherwise." He cringed at the sound of relief apparent in her voice. "No one need know you returned, My Prince."

  Raven looked at his father's huge empty sarcophagus. "Lark seemed to think you wanted me here."

  She looked at him warily.

  He took a deep breath, wishing he could just end the conversation there and walk away, but suddenly knowing he could not. "I do not wish to be king. And I understand your reasons for agreeing with abdication—it would be difficult to expect support from the same peasants who assassinated my father. Perhaps this is God's will that we clear the air between us."

  "You believe this is God's will?" she said, her voice clipped.

  He smiled. "Or the gods, if you prefer. I think the semantics of that may be at the heart of our problems. But that is a debate for another time." He looked around the catacombs. "And another place."

  She traced the outline of the swan on grandmother's tomb. "So what are you saying, Your Grace?"

  "Lark is right—she has been right all along. I see that now. We must change the path this country is on. And I, as divisive a symbol as I am, must be the one to do it. I cannot pass the task on to anyone else—there is no one else."

  "Someone had to be steward," she said in a clipped tone. "I did my best."

  "I know, Willow," he said swiftly. "I am in no position to criticize what you have done. After all, I am the one who forced you to take over. But as grateful as I am—as the whole country is—for your leadership, the time has come for me to take responsibility. And I must find a way to do it without bloodshed."

  Silence from her. She said nothing for so long he wondered if she would answer him, but finally said, "The people of the Silver Isle have always loved you."

  He smiled in the dimness. It was a diplomatic answer. "The people of the Silver Isle made me a half-blind cripple," he pointed out.

  She still looked away from him. "They didn't do that to you, My Prince—"

  "—I know, as your little protégé pointed out, it was a handful of dissidents. But the sentiment was apparently there among the people, or how could they have overwhelmed all the Ariane and done this?" His hand swept the room where his family's tombs lay. "This level of destruction is unprecedented in the history of the Griffons. For a group of peasants to not only have the desire, but the ability, to kill not only the entire royal family, and all their household servants, but also kill most of the Ariane...." He shook his head. "To desecrate the bodies of my family, denying them the afterlife they believed in, is an act of such evil—"

  "—Let us not speak of it!" Her nerves were scraped raw, even more than his. He had not really thought about the guilt she must feel as one of the few Ariane survivors of the attack. He had been too focused on his own guilt to realize how she must have felt after the massacre.

  "I am grateful to you, Willow. You have been a good steward, and have rebuilt the Ariane, and preserved the memory of my family. And I am most grateful to you for sending Lark to find me. It was an—unconventional—choice, but I now understand. She is a very special lady, and has made this possible. I will need you and all your Ariane in the coming transition."

  She turned away from the tomb and faced him firmly. She had reached a decision. "Very well, My Prince. Stay here, and I will return for you. You will sleep in the shelter of the Mission tonight, and then we will talk about how you wish to be brought out before the people."

  CHAPTER TEN

  Wolf watched Willow leave through the far door of the catacombs. Prince Raven yr Griffon stood alone in the burial chamber.

  So Prince Raven lived. The little slave girl had been right all along. How could Wolf have been so foolish for all these years, thinking little Lark was unimportant, and Willow's indulgence of her pet Ariane just a pointless game?

  Now the pacifist boy prince with his revolutionary ideas was back, and worse, Willow was apparently toying with the idea of making him a puppet king. How dare she? She thought it was up to her to decide. The fool.

  Willow was tempted by Raven, he had seen it in her eyes. She wanted Raven. She had always wanted him. And that was a dangerous want.

  What kind of a king would Prince Raven yr Griffon make? Willow underestimated the quiet prince. Once before he had shown his backbone, and if he became king, he would not be Willow's puppet. Wolf would bet his life on that.

  And he was betting his life—Raven the King would never allow Wolf to continue to hold power as he had all these years.

  Now, as all those years ago, Wolf's fate was in the hands of the Ariane.

  He rested his uninjured hand against the wall behind him.

  It had been ten years since the young prince Raven rejected the attentions of a beautiful teenage Ariane warrior, and that high-born prince still underestimated Willow's love for him.

  It had been ten years since Wolf himself had been there to convince Willow that if she couldn't be the consort of a prince, there was a man who could give her the love and attention she so desperately craved.

  Wolf had been handsome ten years ago. It had been his ticket out of the drudgery of the spinning sheds, and despite the lack of silver in his hair and the lack of wealth in his pockets, he had enjoyed the bed of more than one noble lady.

  Even now, when time had softened the sharp features and strong muscles of youth, he could still charm any woman. He winced at the sting in his hand, and corrected himself. Any woman save the impossible barbarian princess.

  But he could not fool himself. He may have skill with women, but he also knew that the noble Willow y Ariane had never seen him as her first choice.

  She had been a beauty back then, glowing with the nobility and power of an Ariane in her prime. The best swordswoman of the forty-four. The most trusted by her Ariane leader. And the guard over a peasant rebel caught smuggling silk to the Var outside of the official royal channels.

  It had been a close call, whether the smuggler would face the execution which even he would admit he had richly deserved, or whether the beautiful girl with the broken heart would soften to his whispered seduction through the dungeon bars.

  She had chosen love over honor, but even as the rebel had escaped into the anonymity of the Chÿar streets with a final kiss for luck from his guard, he had known how close he had come to losing his head.

  It had been ten years, and the anonymous peasant smuggler had long ago been remade into Wolf, a man of power and wealth. His life was secure, and profitable, and even enjoyable.

  And now this. It was all ruined because of that stupid, idealistic prince.

  Wolf wrapped his hand around the heavy iron handle of an unlit torch hanging on the wall.

  Now the boy Willow had loved with all the desperate unrequited desire of an innocent girl, the boy who had rejected her and left her vulnerable to the charms of a peasant rebel held prisoner in the Ariane dungeons, the boy who was the only true rival for Wolf's power, was back.

  Wolf quietly lifted the torch from its hook on the wall and moved into the burial chamber.

  •••

  The colored glass candleholders on the walls bathed the Soft Room in shades of cobalt, ruby, and emerald. Lark's sword reflected the rainbows across the room's padded walls. Her blade cut smoothly through the air, shimmering in the candlelight.

  The large room was silent except for the swish of her sword through the air and the almost bell-like jingle of her Ariane cloak sweeping around her. Even her cloak glowed here, its silvery mesh changing color as she swirled through the motions.

  Here was the one place she was truly at home. No one bested her in the Soft Room. When none of the other Ariane would accept her, she had retreated here to practice endlessly until she had mastered the sword and her own body. If only she could master her own spirit as effectively.

  The others may not accept her, but she had earned their respect in this room. As a child she had practiced the movements until her hands were raw and her limbs shook with exhaustion, but she had learned. She was smoother and faster than anyone else, simply because she had worked harder. Hour upon hour of silent repetition of movements, alone and ostracized. The very act of making her an outcast, of denying her access to the friendships and games of the others, had spurred her to become better than all of them, until every movement of her body was as the Book of Rule said, "like a poem new-made, a whisper on the edge of vision, details unseen by mortals."

  She had beaten every one of the Sisters in this room. She knew—and all the others knew—that she herself chose her position as Number Six. She could have chosen any position and taken it by challenge.

  Any position but Number One, of course. As far as Lark remembered, no one had ever fought Willow, but her skill was legendary. She had been the best of her generation—as Lark knew she herself was of hers. Would she ever be as good as Willow? She would never know, for the leader no longer sparred with the others.

  But even in those fleeting daydreams where Lark pictured herself in the pure white garb of the Ariane leader, with all her rivals forced to bow down before her, she knew that was foolishness. Not just because she owed her life to Willow, and to challenge her would be a slap in the face to the one person who loved her as a daughter, but also because she would inevitably lose such a challenge and end up ridiculed by everyone.

  Willow was the best of them all. When the peasants had attacked the royal family, Willow and Autumn alone had survived—and Autumn had never been the same. All other Ariane had been massacred, worn down by the sheer mass of peasant rioters. Willow alone had been strong enough to survive.

  Still, the thought of such power was pleasant as a daydream, even if the reality of leading a group of women who hated her would be a nightmare.

  Above her the walls rose high to a ceiling which was covered in tufted leather, padded with wool. Lark shut out all outside senses and rose up to touch the ceiling. She reminded herself to enjoy the thrill of the power surging through her—the power she had earned through her own hard work—instead of longing for a power that she could never have.

  "See! You can do it—why can't I?" The girl's voice cut into her concentration and Lark almost fell, but she shut out the distraction in time to lower herself calmly to the floor.

  She looked over to where Fawn y Ariane stood by the pair of weeping Ariane statues framing the doorway.

  "Sorry," Fawn said sheepishly, looking as downcast as the marble statues. "I guess if you fell on your head you wouldn't want be my friend any more."

  "I will always be your friend, Fawn."

  Fawn smiled as if that were a great honor, instead of the burden that kept her from achieving acceptance among the Ariane.

  "But if I make you fall, you'll never teach me how to fly."

  Lark lowered her sword to her side and walked over to the doorway. She place her free hand on the head of one of the statues. The statues weeped to symbolize the price of failure—an Ariane who was weak in the Soft Room risked the life of her royal charge.

  Fawn's downcast expression said it all. In the one place where an Ariane may not fail, she failed. "You have made no progress in the months I've been gone?"

  Fawn shrugged. "Those who excel want better training partners, and those who do not—"

  Lark laughed. "—Cannot help you, is that it?" She took Fawn by the hand. Fawn's hand was as calloused as her own, but from swordcrafting, not swordfighting. "Even the young ones—that little girl, the one with the annoying giggle—even she?—"

  Fawn shook her head. "Lotus told her practicing with me would tarnish her skills." Of course. Fawn was guilty by association. Befriend the slave, and she would be shunned too. This was what Lark had escaped in her endless search for the prince. Well, now she must face it again—and now face it forever without relief in travel. She swallowed the sarcastic comment that sprang to mind, and instead simply asked, "have you been doing the exercises I taught you?"

  Fawn smiled sheepishly.

  "I see. So the fault is not entirely mine. That eases my guilt a little, anyway..."

  "Of course it's not your fault, Lark! You are my one true friend."

  Lark smiled. "All right. We will forget that problem for now."

  Fawn laughed. Her wide eyes and short-cut silver hair made her look about ten, though she was going on fifteen. Every inch a noble, her Ariane garb fitted her like she was born to the role. Only Lark knew how deceiving Fawn's appearance was.

  "How much have you grown since I was gone?"

  "A handspan," the girl said proudly. "This new tunic has gold threads woven through—see?" She twirled around, and her tunic glittered in the candlelight.

  "What does Lotus have to say about that?"

  Fawn pouted. "She says it's a violation of the Rule, of course. But all the Ariane are doing it now. Why shouldn't we enjoy our wealth?"

  Lark shook her head. On this she actually agreed with Lotus. "It is not our wealth. It belongs to the people of the Silver Isle. We are only the king's servants."

  "Really, Lark. Don't be absurd. It belongs to our families, so why shouldn't we get some for ourselves?"

  Lark didn't want to argue with Fawn on her first night back, so she changed the subject. "Don't worry about the practice, Fawn. Soon you'll be beating me in here."

 

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