Sinner by Sara Douglass. Book One of The Wayfarer Redemption

“Talk,” Drago said hastily and then, to distract her hand which was creeping to his lap, he said the first thing that came to mind.

“Did you play like this with WolfStar?”

She sat back, her hands still now, her face hard. “I loathed him then, as I loathe him now.”

“But surely… you were both SunSoar… you must have loved -”

“I never loved him!” she spat.

“No, of course not. He must have been rabidly mad, even then.”

She was silent a while before she spoke. “He was attractive enough, and sometimes he made me laugh. But he was in the way.”

“What do you mean?

StarLaughter looked at Drago carefully, as if assessing him. Then, “I always thought I would have made a better Talon. I intrigued against him – fool WolfStar! He thought I was so sweet, so pliant! He thought of me as a bedmate and a breeder. Nothing else. I hated him for that. So I planned to replace him.”

Drago thought of his own bid for power, and then shuddered at the thought that he and StarLaughter might be so much alike. “You did not succeed.”

And, he thought so suddenly he almost jumped, you did not succeed, and I did not succeed, and maybe it was better that way.

“Succeed? He threw me to my death!” StarLaughter said. “And our child, our baby.” She glanced back to the bed where, Drago was grateful to see, the infant still lay. “He was no father to my baby.”

“No.” Drago wished he had not mentioned WolfStar. Gods, had he been this bitter? This loathsome? “He betrayed me!” “Yes.”

“Twice over, the crow!” “What do you mean?”

“He betrayed me twice over. First by casting me to my death… then by lying with another. You bear his blood. I can feel it. Who did he betray me with?”

Drago hesitated. “With a woman called Niah. She was First Priestess on the Isle of Mist and Memory.”

StarLaughter laughed, but it was ugly and harsh. “The First? He seduced the First? What did she bear him, a son or daughter?”

“A daughter. My mother, Azhure.” “Ah.” StarLaughter was silent for a while. “Then you have given me another name to hunt.”

Drago forgot the coins. “My mother? You can’t!” “My, my. I thought you loathed your mother for what she did to you. But never mind. I do not mean your mother. I mean Niah. The adulteress. I shall hunt her with as much appetite as I shall hunt WolfStar.”

Drago suddenly remembered Zenith. “StarLaughter, Niah is dead. She was but human. Forget her.”

StarLaughter turned her beautiful head and regarded Drago carefully. “Death means nothing, Drago. Surely you have learned that by now. Niah exists somewhere, and wherever she is I shall find her and destroy her. Adulteress.”

“She did not know who WolfStar was, StarLaughter. She meant you no harm. Hunt WolfStar if you will, but leave Niah alone.”

“She bore a child.” A live child. “I was left to rot amid the stars, left to bear my child as best I could.”

By all the stars in heaven, Drago thought, if ever I get back through the Star Gate I am going to live life as a humble carpenter or water carrier. If StarLaughter is an example of what happens to someone when they crave power and revenge, then I think I shall put aside all thoughts of power. Life is enough.

“My baby should be WolfStar’s heir!” StarLaughter added.

“And so it shall be,” a soft voice said from the shadows, and Drago tensed.

Sheol stepped forth, the other Questors behind her. “And what is the title of the heir to the throne, Queen of Heaven?”

StarLaughter looked inquiringly at Drago. “What is it now, Drago?”

“StarSon,” Drago mumbled.

“StarSon!” Mot cried. “Perfect! Son of the Queen of Heaven, StarSon, heir to Tencendor!”

“Heir to Tencendor,” Rox said, and smirked. “Once he’s caught his breath, of course.”

Wild laughter rang out and Drago’s heart hammered in terror. He shuffled the coins back into the sack under cover of a fold of his robe.

“The Queen of Heaven’s child,” Barzula chortled. “StarSon! And so we wish and so it shall be. A StarSon such as has never been before.”

An Army for the Asking Four weeks after the disaster of Kastaleon, Caelum stood alone on the windswept plain of northern Rhaetia and wondered at his father’s courage. He, too, must once have felt this alone, but from somewhere he’d found the strength to best both Borneheld and Gorgrael – and Timozel and every other traitor the star-damned Prophecy had thrown his way.

Except Axis hadn’t quite disposed of the one who really mattered, had he? Caelum’s eyes swept the sky, searching the stars hidden behind the sun’s brightness. Drago was out there somewhere, communing with his companion demons, plotting again for the destruction of Tencendor.

Demons that could dull the Star Dance? Wipe Icarü enchantments from Tencendor? Caelum shuddered, and tried to put from his mind the growing tarnish he could feel in his own powers; every day he had to reach harder to hear the Star Dance. His mother and father and WolfStar would see to that – they must!

Ah! What was he doing? Why did he let his fear of Drago consume him so? With considerable difficulty, Caelum cast Drago from his thoughts. He had treachery more close at hand to deal with.

Over the past weeks travellers had brought news from the West. Zared. He had “seized” Carlon, with the help of the Princess Leagh, and had declared himself King of Achar. Or was that King of the Acharites? Caelum did not care about the stylistic distinctions. All he knew was that Zared now styled himself King of Achar – the Carlonese, at least, cheered him through the streets – and that Caelum would need a war to wrest the West back from Zared.

A war. Well, if he had to go to war to bring peace back to this land, then he damn well would. Besides, wasn’t that what everyone expected him to do?

He sighed, and his eyes filled with tears. But war was the last thing, the very last thing that Tencendor needed. Why couldn’t they have peace for longer than a lifetime? Why couldn’t the hatreds and ambitions of the past lie peacefully in their graves? Why should he have to deal with something he thought his father had ended?

I wish I hadn’t been born first, he suddenly thought. It would all have been so easy if I hadn’t been born first. But only bleakness lay in following that train of thought, and Caelum forced his mind back to his current difficulties.

He turned and surveyed the plain at his back. Over the past two weeks he’d moved his five hundred south to this point just above the low mountain range of Rhaetia. He’d finally managed to re-establish contact with the Strike Force in Sigholt, and now most were flying south to join him. They’d be here in a few days. Caelum had ordered several units from Sigholt to free the Wings currently in Severin; they should join him shortly as well.

So at least the Strike Force was on its way – but not much else.

From the West reports drifted in that Zared, aided by Theod and Herme, had a force that numbered close to fourteen thousand and was growing each day. Word about Zared’s seizure of the Acharite throne had spread faster than a contagious disease, and Caelum had received information that Acharites from Ichtar, Zared’s home province, as well Theod’s Aldeni and Herme’s Avonsdale, were moving south to join their new King in Carlon.

Caelum should have expected nothing less from those provinces, controlled as they were by their treacherous overlords. No doubt many had been threatened with seizure of lands if they did not support their lords. But men from Romsdale – whose lord, Baron Marrat, supported Caelum – were also reportedly on the move to Carlon.

Have I judged wrong? Caelum wondered. Do these men crave a human King and an Achar more than they crave a SunSoar-led Tencendor?

But even if they do, he reasoned quickly before his doubts crippled him, they should not be allowed to have it. No, this rebellion must be stopped now, before it went too much further.

He walked slowly back towards camp. The West and North, traditionally the areas from which the majority of a ground force could be recruited, were largely lost to him. That left Nor in the south, and the vast eastern territories, governed by FreeFall, Talon of the Icarü, in conjunction with Isfrael, Mage-King of the Avar. In the spring or summer he could also have called on the Ravensbundmen, but now they were lost in the northern icepacks, hunting their seals.

Nor. Prince Yllgaine had sent word that he rode to Caelum’s side. But it would be some weeks before Yllgaine could get a force to help Caelum. Normally Yllgaine would have sailed troops up the Nordra, save that the traitorous Carlon sat on the waterway like a spider waiting to snatch at them, so they were coming north on horseback instead. Another three weeks at least. At least. It was not easy to raise an army in an hour or two.