Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire by Melanie Rawn

One was the iron-and-stone skeleton Pol had pointed out to his parents, and would become his private domain. The other was for servants, guests, reception chambers, and the machinery of Princemarch’s government. Of course the palace would be beautiful; it wouldn’t dare be anything else. It was Pol’s.
    Sionell got to her feet, pacing restlessly toward the central fountain. The pool was quiet now. Water had blossomed there during the Lastday banqueting, but she supposed that since there was nobody left here to impress, Pol had ordered it stilled. That night, he’d called and extinguished Fire to racks of torches in sequence, constantly changing the direction of light thrown onto the water. It had been a spectacular show as seen from the dining chamber of the Princes Hall, culminating in his casual gesture that had illuminated hundreds of white candles around the pool at the same time all the torches went out. The glow had spread from candles outward to ignite the torches once more, until the whole of the water garden was ablaze in Sunrunner’s Fire.
    And Pol had reveled in it. A season away from his twenty-first winter, he was taller than Rohan by a hand’s span, his hair a darker blond, his eyes green and then blue and then both as he smiled with a not-quite-innocent pleasure in his own skills. Wearing a shirt of Desert blue and a tunic of Princemarch’s violet, his shoulders beginning to broaden toward maturity, he had been a prince to his fingertips.
    But no faradhi rings sparkled on his fingers. Nor had Lord Andry offered them. Only the moonstone that had been Lady Andrade’s, reset into a ring sized to his hand, told of his Sunrunner gifts. The unspoken, unacknowledged antagonism between Pol and Andry had not been allowed to spoil the work or the festivities of the Rialla, but everyone knew it was there. Only a matter of time before they clashed, Sionell’s father had muttered one evening, shaking his head. She hoped it wouldn’t happen. But she also knew who would win.
    Seating herself on the blue tiles at the fountain’s rim, she trailed her hand through the water to wash leaf-stains from it and smiled grimly at her own unadorned fingers. Like Pol, she would never wear faradhi rings. But, unlike him, she had no choice in the matter.
    “What are you doing out here all alone, Ell?”
    She glanced around. Pol strode lithely toward her from the shell of his future home, long legs encased in tan riding leathers and tall black boots, white shirt open at his throat. His waist was circled by a belt dyed blue and violet, decorated with the gold buckle of his new knighthood and by a dagger set with amethysts that had been Chay and Tobin’s gift. Energy and power rippled from him; sunlight crowned his sun-bleached head with bright gold.
    How can I want him and hate him at the same time? Then, chiding herself disgustedly, Oh, grow up! You’ve always known it was hopeless—
    “It’s quiet here,” she said aloud. “After all the fuss, I was enjoying the silence.”
    “If it’s quiet you want, why are you staying to watch the dragons? Goddess, the racket they make! You will stay until they get here, won’t you?”
    “Of course. My mother wouldn’t miss them.”
    Pol chuckled and propped one boot on the fountain rim. “Feylin’s almost as scared of dragons as she is fascinated by them. But they don’t frighten you, do they? Remember years ago at Skybowl, when you nearly fell out a window trying to fly after them?”
    Sionell laughed easily. “As if you never wanted to do the same thing!”
    Grinning wry agreement, he gestured to the Princes Hall. “I haven’t had the chance to ask you how you like my two-fifths of a palace.”
    “It’s magnificent—as you don’t need me to tell you. Now that everybody’s gone, I suppose you can get back to work on the rest of it.”
    “Only until the rains. That was our big mistake—we never considered how much time we lose to winter. But no snow, thank the