Free Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire by Melanie Rawn

the Sunrunner’s nine rings were quivering delicately against the bronze.
    “Mark this,” Urival breathed. “When others do sorcery while I am nearby, the rings burn. The stronger the magic, the more heat. But when I myself perform a spell, my rings merely tremble. I am of the Old Blood.”
    “And so am I,” Morwenna whispered. Rohan stared at her. She was chafing the rings on her hands and the muscles of her face had tightened with pain. “Get on with it, won’t you? This hurts.”
    “It’s the one sure way to tell,” Urival said. “I never understood one particular part of fashioning our rings, but now I do. A . . . warning . . . is set into them. Last year I taught young Torien that part of the Chief Steward’s duty, but I didn’t know what it was for, any more than the rest of us do. Our devious Lady Merisel didn’t mention the why of it in her scrolls—only that it was essential.”
    “Urival, please!” Morwenna’s hands had curled into fists. Rohan brought the pitcher of water from the sideboard and she gratefully dipped first one hand and then the other into it. “That helps a little,” she said, but he read no easing of the pain in her eyes.
    Rohan’s attention was snatched by the bowl, where the cup had begun to glow softly. His eyes widened as the golden light spread, permeated the water, swirled slowly and coalesced not unlike the way faradh’im used Fire. Water was not the Goddess’ element; Sunrunners were all violently ill when they attempted to cross it. Fire and Earth, these were the children of the Goddess. As for Air and Water—the Father of Storms obviously had dominion over them. Destruction and life were in each, balancing the world, and all four were used in the most somber and powerful of faradhi conjurings.
    He saw Sioned, slim and vigorous in pale riding leathers, thick fire gold hair braided around her head. She was speaking to Sorin, who nodded and unrolled a parchment on which architects had sketched and resketched plans for rebuilding Feruche. Beyond them the castle itself rose, fleshed out in stone for its first two floors, a skeleton of steel supports above that. Rohan saw girders for two towers, a balcony running the length of the Desert side of the keep, and a watchspire reaching skyward with steel fingers.
    Old Myrdal, long-retired commander of Stronghold’s guard, limped into the vision, leaning heavily on her cane. She pointed to the design parchment, then to the keep, and laughed. Sorin looked startled; Sioned, thoughtful. Myrdal drew patterns in the dirt with her cane, speaking rapidly, then wiped out the sketch with her boot.
    Rohan knew what the old woman had proposed—in principle if not detail. She knew every secret of every castle in the Desert—including the gutted ruin that had stood where a new keep was now being built. She had frankly admitted that her reason for accompanying Sioned to Feruche was to remind Sorin to sneak secrets into a design where no one suspected them. Beauty had won over preparedness for war in most of the final plans for the new keep, but Myrdal’s adamant face told Rohan she would insist on precautions just the same. There were ways in and out of Stronghold, Remagev, Radzyn, Tiglath, and Tuath that no one but Myrdal knew of, ways she had imparted to him and Sioned but not, in most cases, to the owners of the keeps. By just such a secret passage, Sioned had entered the old Feruche and taken Pol from his mother, Princess Ianthe.
    Urival drew in a shuddering breath and his hands fell away from the bowl. The vision faded as he sagged back in his chair. Rohan forced him to drink some wine, and color gradually returned to the old man’s face.
    “It would be easier to sustain if I’d taken dranath first, of course,” he said. “But I assume you understand.”
    “I understand that you now can do certain things—which Andry also knows how to do from his copy of the Star Scroll,” Rohan said slowly. “And you propose to teach