Free Dragon Prince 02 - The Star Scroll by Melanie Rawn

made, and blew the Air of his own breath to fan the flames. In them he saw a face: his own, matured and proud, with his father’s strong bones and his mother’s long-lidded eyes. The Fire flared then, and another face appeared beside his own. It was an older version of Hollis that he saw, her tawny hair sleekly braided around her head and bound with a thin silver circlet set with a single ruby, marking her as Lady of Radzyn Keep.
    On his return, after more or less recovering from stunned happiness, he found a summons from Lady Andrade waiting. He was impervious to her wrath as she raged at him for disregarding the traditions of Goddess Keep. When she finally snapped out an angry question about his penitence, he smiled at her with perfect serenity.
    “I saw Hollis in the Fire and Water.”
    Andrade sucked in a breath and gave a terrible frown. But nothing more was said and neither Maarken nor Hollis had been punished. Still, he was heir to an important holding, a grandson of Prince Zehava, and cousin to the next High Prince. He could neither marry nor make a formal Choice without the consent of his parents and his prince. But he was only nineteen, Hollis was two years older, and there was time.
    On receipt of her fifth ring that next summer, Hollis had been sent to Kadar Water in Ossetia. The holding was close enough to allow occasional visits and easy communication on sunlight between a trained faradhi and a mere apprentice, and the facilitation of such contact motivated Maarken to excel at his studies. The days were endurable, with the touch of her colors available to him on the sunlight; the nights were very long.
    Hollis herself had been the one to plead patience. She was adamant that he not approach his parents or the High Prince until they each had a sixth ring, signifying they were capable of using moonlight as well as sunlight. “They have to know I can be of use to you and to them,” she told him quite frankly. “And you have to prove you’ve gained all the skills your gifts demand. I’m learning what I need to know about courts and manners, and how to run a holding—things I can only learn here at Kadar Water. I have to be able to function as your lady as well as a Sunrunner. Besides, if I’m to be at Radzyn one day, I’ll have to learn about horses—and where better to do that than at Kadar Water, the competition?” And though they had both laughed at this, she had quickly become serious again. “It’s important to me, Maarken—as important as your knighthood was to you.”
    He had reluctantly agreed. Now, looking down at the six rings glinting on his fingers as he held Isulkian’s reins, he wondered why he still hesitated. He could tell his parents, or wait for the Rialla until they met her and saw her worth for themselves. Andrade had recalled Hollis to the keep with the understanding that the young woman would be part of her suite at Waes. Maarken was grateful but suspicious; he knew his aunt, and she never did anything without a specific goal in mind. If she wished him to marry Hollis, it was not for reasons of their love, although she would have no objections to their being happy. No, Andrade must have something else in mind, and it worried him.
    He could not count on his parents as allies yet, no matter how often they said they wanted his happiness above all else. He was, after all, their eldest son and heir, a powerful position even without his blood bond with Pol. He would rule the only safe port on the Desert coast, through which all important trade passed: horses, gold, salt, and glass ingots going out; foodstuffs, manufactured goods, and especially precious silk coming in. Radzyn bred horses of a quality that brought higher prices every Rialla, but its real wealth was in the trade it administered. Maarken’s grandsire had been rich, his father was richer still, and he did not yet adequately appreciate just how rich he was going to be. By all the rules, he ought to marry a woman of birth