Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire by Melanie Rawn Page A

Goddess.”
    “Better to thank the Storm God. But I’d like to see it snow someday. I’m told it’s beautiful.”
    “I’ve ridden through it, walked on it, and even slept on top of it, but I’ve never seen it fall, either.”
    “From what Princess Iliena says, it’s rather like a freezing sandstorm—only it blows down, not across.”
    “Down, if you’re lucky,” Pol corrected. “Across, with a vengeance if you get stuck in a blizzard.”
    Such polite, social conversation; they might have been friendly strangers. “Iliena must find Graypearl a nice change after Snowcoves.”
    “Strange, isn’t it? That she and her sister married brothers.” He hesitated, then shrugged and went on, “And that Ludhil and Laric visited Snowcoves and fell in love at exactly the same time.”
    He sounded wistful. Perhaps his parents were hinting that with Dragon’s Rest livable, if not finished, he ought to start looking for a wife. If she steered the talk away from love, he might suspect—no, he had never suspected a damned thing. Arrogant, insufferable, and blind.
    “I think Iliena got the better geographical bargain by marrying Chadric’s heir,” she replied lightly. “Lisiel may be Princess of Firon now as Laric’s wife, but she’s still in blizzard country.”
    “Do you know what Firon means in the old language? ‘Silent hoof.’ A tribute to the snow, no doubt.” He paused again. “I’m supposed to go find myself a princess, you know,” he finished irritably.
    So he wasn’t ready yet. Interesting. “In your position, they’ll come looking for you. ”
    “Don’t I know it. In a way, I’d like it to happen quickly—it’d save me years of nonsense. Trying to find the right person must be awful. I haven’t even started yet.”
    “But they have,” she said before thinking, remembering all the highborn maidens who had clustered around him during the Rialla. Sionell had removed herself from the vicinity as often as possible, accompanied by her own clutch of admirers—who for some reason only annoyed her.
    “I just hope she’ll be somebody I can talk to the way I can to you. It’s wonderful, Ell, finding out you’ve grown up sensible!”
    She smiled wryly at the backhanded compliment.
    “I mean it. The girls here, the ones at Graypearl—gigglers and gawkers, all of them. I can talk to you like I’d talk to Riyan or Maarken or Sorin. It’s a relief to find there’s at least one intelligent woman my own age in the world.”
    How nice of him to categorize her as one of the boys.
    He had fixed his gaze on the delinquent flowers nearby. “Damned roses,” he muttered.
    Sionell laughed at him. “As if all you had to do was wave your hand for them to appear! Prince and Sunrunner you may be, but not magician.”
    “But I wanted them to be spectacular. My grandmother Milar loved messing about with gardens, too, you know. I think I inherited it from her.” Glancing down at her and then away, he asked, “Ell, what do you think of Tallain?”
    “I think very highly of him,” she responded. “He’s very capable, as he’s shown since his father died last winter.”
    “He’s determined to keep the Cunaxans and the Merida pent up in the north so we won’t have to worry about them ever again.”
    Sionell nodded, wondering why he’d mentioned the young lord of Tiglath. An additional honor for him, perhaps? Tuath Castle had no direct male heir; perhaps Pol and Rohan were considering a union of the two holdings.
    “Tallain’s a fine man—he was my father’s squire for years,” Pol went on.
    “I know.”
    “I like him a lot. A prince is only as good as the people who support him, the athr’im who’re loyal to him. Tallain’s one of the best.”
    “I like him, too,” she said, a trifle impatiently, wishing he’d either tell her why he wanted to discuss Tallain of Tiglath or go away and leave her alone.
    Pol did not enlighten her. She did, however, receive her second wish. From the Princes Hall