There were six Lightborn in the tent, all persons she knew. They moved among the wounded, pausing to inspect a bandage here, gauge the progress of a Healing there. Servants moved among the beds as well, and offered water or medicine or changed a bandage at the direction of one of the Lightborn. Isilla Lightsister was the first to acknowledge Vieliessar's presence. She finished her work at one bedside, paused to speak to her assistant, then walked across the tent.

"Lord Vieliessar?" she said, her voice low.

"I would..." Suddenly it was an effort to shape the question. I have grown haughty and over-proud in these last moonturns, if I cannot speak to a sister of the Light as an equal! she told herself contemptuously. "I would not take you from your work. But I would also know if I yet have Lightborn to command."

"Ah," Isilla said. "I do not think we should speak here. Leuse will finish my work. We await Dinias Lightbrother, so we may draw on the farther Flower Forests."

Vieliessar nodded and stepped from the tent. She did not say anything further. She had asked her question. Let Isilla answer it in her own time. When Isilla came to join her, they walked in silence for several minutes before Isilla ventured to speak.

"We had thought, my lord, that you had set aside your Light to rule Oronviel, as did Ternas Lightbrother of Celebros when he became War Prince. Aradreleg had said this was so," Isilla said.

Vieliessar could feel Isilla's fear at speaking to a War Prince so boldly, her confusion at not being certain whether she was speaking to one who held the rank and power of a lord of the Hundred Houses, or to a sister of the Light.

"It was what I meant you to believe," Vieliessar answered. "I had also meant to come to you with my arguments of necessity, to speak to you and hear your thoughts, before doing what I did today."

"Yet you would still have done it," Isilla said, a questioning note beneath what seemed to be a flat statement.

"I cannot know now," Vieliessar answered. "Perhaps. I cannot know what you would have said."

"Ambrant Lightbrother says you will not void Mosirinde's Covenant. Celeharth Lightbrother had the same words of you before all in the Great Hall. It may be that you hope you would not, and then a day would come where you saw no path to victory but that."

"Where is the victory in madness and death?" Vieliessar answered. "Or in ruling over a desert? If the princes swear to hold their domain's welfare as dear as they hold their lives, shall a High King hold the whole of the land less dear?"

"And see what care our prince has of her people, who give their bodies to be broken in war," Isilla said bitterly. "You take from the people, and you will take from the land. Kill me if you wish for speaking so. It is nothing to me. I have no family left."

"I am sorry for that," Vieliessar said quietly. "I have no family either. And I would do ... better ... than has been done before."

"All say the High King will give justice," Isilla said. "And will end Lord and Landbond, High House and Low, and bring peace. But you are not High King yet."

"Nor will I be without the Lightborn beside me," Vieliessar said. "I cannot become High King by saying I am. I cannot cause the Hundred Houses to acknowledge my claim and submit to my rule except by war. I cannot do all I have said I will do as High King until I am High King."

"Easy enough to say you will do it then, when you have no more need of our aid to help you to your throne," Isilla said.

"I cannot show you the future until it comes. I must ask you to believe that what I say, I will do. I have begun it in Oronviel. The Lightborn are not kept from their homes. They are free to use their Magery as they choose. My knights respect each steading and Farmhold, taking nothing save what is freely offered. Yet I cannot say to Aramenthiali, to Caerthalien, to Daroldan: do this. I am not High King."

"You fled the Sanctuary," Isilla said, after a pause.

"I could not become High King from the Sanctuary," Vieliessar answered dryly, and Isilla was startled into laughter. She sobered quickly.

"You ask us to ride to war. I have no skill with a sword, nor am I interested in gaining such." Isilla hesitated, then continued, "the Covenant can be hard to keep."

"Then help one another to keep it," Vieliessar answered. "Help me to keep it. I do not think I shall be tempted, but I cannot know. What I will ask of you is more than you have done. But I will not ask you to impoverish the land, to take your power from the living, to do anything which-were I to die in the next moment-would leave the land or the Lightborn less than they were."

"We are less than we were for knowing you, I think," Isilla said, sounding disgruntled. "What, then, would you ask?"

"That I cannot say. I can only say the sort of thing I might ask. Spells to give fair weather for battle. Seeking and Finding to locate my enemies. Should my foe attempt to force me to besiege him, as Laeldor did, I require the siege broken. A thousand things I cannot now name, for who can know how a battle will run before it is fought?"

"Were we to Overshadow your enemies, you might be High King tomorrow, for they would all swear fealty at once," Isilla said.

Vieliessar had wondered what Isilla Lightsister's Keystone Gift was. Now she knew. "And will you Overshadow every lord and prince of every domain for all the years of their lives? For that is what it would require. I might have Overshadowed any of the princes who now ride in my meisne whenever I chose. I might have Overshadowed Lord Ablenariel. And I did not, for an oath forced by spellcraft does not bind."

"You would have the War Princes give up their power willingly!" Isilla said scornfully.

"You have seen that some will do so," Vieliessar answered. "Others I must conquer and slay." She only heard her own glib words after she had uttered them, and suddenly it was too much. She remembered being a child on her way to the Sanctuary of the Star, promising herself that someday-someday-she would return to Caerthalien and slaughter everyone within the Great Keep. She remembered being a Lightsister of the Sanctuary, a healer, a scholar, remembered fighting Death as if Lord Death were her dearest enemy. And now Death had become nothing more than a tool. "And so I end as I began, in asking: are my Lightborn yet mine to command?"

"Perhaps," Isilla said, and in her voice Vieliessar heard wonder that she might speak to a War Prince so. Trust that such boldness would not bring her harm. And-perhaps-the beginnings of hope. "I do not speak for all. It is no easy thing to set aside a lifetime's teaching."

"It is not," Vieliessar agreed. "Yet I must have one answer before this day ends. I must know if I may send a Lightborn as my envoy to Mangiralas, for I wish Aranviorch to surrender to me."

"I do not speak for all," Isilla repeated. "But I will ask." She bowed, hesitated as if she might ask leave to go, then turned away without asking.

And were I not prepared to receive such an answer, better I had not asked such a question, Vieliessar told herself.

"What?" Vieliessar looked up. The table within her pavilion was covered with maps of Mangiralas, marked over in charcoal with lines of march, the sites of watchtowers and great keeps. Mangiralas was a land of hills and valleys in which it would be easy to hide an army. Mangiralas's Great Keep stood at the top of a hill, so an army fighting beneath the shadow of its walls would be at a great disadvantage and an army fighting on the flat ground beyond would be in range of archers. If Mangiralas thought to use them.

"My lord," Virry said, bowing sharply. She had been born a Farmholder and was now a commander of archers. "The commons gather beyond the edge of our encampment. They wish to see you. No more than that, but they wish to be able to say they have seen the High King with their own eyes."

"I am not yet High King," Vieliessar answered. "But tell them I shall come as soon as I may."

"My lord," Virry said, with another sharp bow, then turned and walked from the pavilion. Vieliessar heard Thoromarth snort in amusement at the breach of protocol any War Prince would have slain her for.

"They'd better be satisfied with a look. You can't take them with you," Rithdeliel said, waving a hand as if dismissing the entire problem.

"Can I not?" Vieliessar answered mildly.

Rithdeliel frowned. "You'd never be able to feed them. Send them to Caerthalien. Or Aramenthiali, if you prefer. Let them go forth and carry word of the High King's greatness."

"Stop it," Vieliessar said, without heat.

"I'm serious," Rithdeliel said, though he didn't look serious. He was smiling, as if this were a great joke. "Don't you know this is planting season?"

"I'm surprised you do," she answered. She gave up on the map and sat down, certain she wouldn't be left to study it in peace until Rithdeliel had said what he wanted to.

"Of course I know," he said reprovingly. "When you've planned as many campaigns as I have based on whose lands I had to avoid lest I disturb their fields and had them run shrieking to my lord about how I was attempting to destroy them, you'd know too. If your army of commons can convince their fellows to flock to your standard, there won't be anyone left to get the crop into the ground."

"It could work," Gunedwaen said.

Yes, she thought, looking around the pavilion. It could work. It would not merely strip my conquered domains of the laborers who allow the princes to make war, but all the lands.

"They'll be killed," Vieliessar said. "Bolecthindial and Manderechiel will send their meisnes to turn them back, and kill them if they do not."

"If they kill them, the planting still won't get done," Rithdeliel said unsympathetically. "And this winter, there will be starvation. More than usual, that is."

"Because the lords won't open their granaries, or suspend the teinds and tithes," Vieliessar said in disgust. Her own storehouses-those of Laeldor, Araphant, Ivrithir, and Oronviel-could feed her army for a handful of years. Or feed all the folk of those lands through one winter. Perhaps. If my war continues more than a full wheel of the seasons, I have lost, she reminded herself. She had already sent forth knights-herald to summon Laeldor's absent lords to the keep, sending each messenger with a grand-taille of warriors in case her new vassals thought to rebel. To muster all of Laeldor's knight levies would require a moonturn or more, and she did not have the time; she would take fealty of her new lords and hope for the best. She knew everyone was waiting to hear whom she would leave in charge of Laeldor Great Keep; she must make time to speak with her senior commanders to tell them what she intended.

When Vieliessar is High King there will be a Code of Peace. One justice for all, be they highborn or low, and all voices heard.

When Vieliessar is High King, domain will not war with domain, for all domains will be one.

When Vieliessar is High King, lords will not steal from vassals, from craftworkers, from Landbonds- When Vieliessar is High King ...

She would send the commons throughout the west to preach rebellion. She did not like it. But it would work.

"I shall ask this of them," she said reluctantly. "But now it is time to share with you another thing that is in my mind."

Quickly she explained. To conquer a domain did not strengthen the force she could bring to the field, for to hold what she had taken, she must leave a garrison force and a castellan. Should an enemy attack lands she held, she must retreat to defend them, or lose not only land, but reputation.

"Lord Rithdeliel has already said I should send the commons across the West to spread the word that I shall welcome them all to my banner, and his word is a good one. Now I say I shall do more: I shall strip my domains of every living thing. Let there be nothing for the War Princes to seize upon but empty keeps and deserted farms. Atholfol Ivrithir, I charge you to support me in this, and strip Ivrithir as I shall strip Oronviel."

The meeting exploded into loud argument, as all those in the room began talking at once, arguing vehemently against Vieliessar's plan.

"And put them all where?" Thoromarth demanded, winning out over the others through sheer insistence on being heard. "You're talking about four domains-five, if you take Mangiralas!"

"I have been paying attention," Vieliessar said dryly. "I shall send them east."

"East!" Rithdeliel burst out. "You don't hold any lands east of Oronviel!"

"But I shall," Vieliessar said. "And I tell you now: I shall strip each domain I take of all it holds and weld my folk into one great army. Every domain I can take and strip before the Mystral passes close for winter weakens the Twelve."

"Winter's going to come no matter what Lord Vieliessar has conquered," Dirwan said logically. "And I'd hate to try to get a flock of sheep over the Mystrals in winter, true enough."

"And eleven of the Twelve are west of the Mystrals," Gunedwaen said, a feral smile on his face as he began to understand the whole of what she intended.

"The Uradabhur is rich, wealthy, and fertile," Diorthiel said. He now commanded all the Araphant meisne. "If you are there and the Twelve are not, I believe much of the region will quickly fall to you."

"It is madness," Prince Culence of Laeldor said. "But Laeldor follows your command, Lord Vieliessar, and gladly."

Vieliessar inclined her head, acknowledging his loyalty. "Many Landbond and Farmfolk crossed the Mystrals to reach Oronviel. If my army were closer, I think even more of them would join me."

"It's ridiculous," Rithdeliel said flatly, "but ... it could work. If you're on their doorstep with an army and their commons are running off to join it-well, the lords don't have to know the commons are useless in a fight."

"They'll remember the Windsward Rebellion," Nadalforo said. "The Twelve stripped the Uradabhur bare as their armies passed through. They won't want to face that again."

Gunedwaen, Rithdeliel, Thoromarth, and even Dirwan were staring at her in disbelief, but Nadalforo was nodding.

"You will make of yourself a landless joke!" Thoromarth burst out.

"How so, when all this land is mine?" Vieliessar answered. "I do not care who shall ride over it for a handful of moonturns making a brave noise of dominion. It is mine, and it will be mine."

"It's going to be a cold winter," Gunedwaen muttered. "With no domain to return to."

"You and I, Gunedwaen, have both spent colder winters than we'll spend in warm tents with stoves to heat them. Did you think I meant to go back to some Great Keep and sit by the fire when Harvest Moon or Rade Moon came? I cannot. I fight until I win," Vieliessar answered. It was time she let them know this part of her plan, for if she waited until Harvest to tell them they were not to retreat somewhere to rest through the cold moons, they would be angry, feeling tricked. But everyone here was still so disturbed about the idea of carrying all the folk of her conquered lands with them that this new and outrageous statement passed almost unnoticed.

"Followed by an ever-growing army of Landbond who will be missing their pigs and their mud," Thoromarth grumbled. "And which can hardly defend itself if attacked."

"The War Princes will not attack an army of commons," Vieliessar said. "They will take my abandoned domains-and thereby lose a portion of their armies guarding them against one another-and will think only of reclaiming the servants and workers needed to make the land fruitful. Let it be done. And let word be carried across all land I now hold and all I shall take-a domain, a kingdom, is not earth and stone, but people."

Despite the thousand calls upon her time, Vieliessar visited Luthilion Araphant's pavilion, where Celeharth Lightbrother lay dying in the War Prince's own bed. That he was dying was something no one could doubt. He had not awakened from the swoon he had fallen into in the Great Hall. Lightborn of Laeldor and Oronviel came and went, as did the lords of Araphant, seeming stunned by the death-and the dying-of the two who had been Araphant since the time of their greatfathers. Vieliessar sat at Celeharth's bedside for as long as she could manage, but could never decide what she felt. Was it good fortune that Celeharth would not long outlive his friend and his lord? Was it bad fortune because his death could be twisted into a dagger for her back? Or was it merely unlucky that she should lose the good counsel of a Lightborn who had lived long and seen much? It was almost a relief when, as she returned to Luthilion's pavilion just at dusk, she was met in the doorway by Komen Diorthiel, who told her Celeharth Lightbrother was gone. She could see that a body yet remained in the chamber, with a Lightborn beside it, but it seemed to her that body was made tiny by death, as if the greater part of Celeharth had been summoned away.

"I would see him honored in death as highly as the prince he served," she said, and something in Diorthiel's face eased at the words.

"It shall be done, Lord Vieliessar," he answered. "To Celeharth Lightbrother, all honor."

That evening, Vieliessar once again dined in Laeldor's Great Hall among her commanders, and her thoughts were unsettled, for no Lightborn had come to the feast, even Aradreleg. But she was on display, and she knew it, and so forced herself to behave as if this were any ordinary meal. It was not, for there was a constant churning of bodies moving in and out at the back of the Great Hall. She had sent a message to Virry, saying that the commons might come to the Great Hall in the evening, providing they made no disturbance. She suspected Virry of arranging the matter so that each was only permitted a short time within the Hall, but for the Landbond to see their prince's Great Keep was a liberty of which few of them had ever dreamed.

Tomorrow the first third of her army would depart for Mangiralas. Whether Lightborn rode with them or not.

The first course of the meal had just been served to the High Table and servants were still moving through the hall when she realized someone was approaching her from behind.

"I am here, Lord Vieliessar." Aradreleg spoke softly from behind the chair. "I am sorry for my lateness. It was not possible to enter through the main gates."

"Will you sit?" Vieliessar said. "I shall have a chair brought." Aradreleg's words might be simple truth, or they might be a convenient lie. There was no way to tell. The noise of so many minds would be deafening if Vieliessar tried to listen for one mind alone. But she thought Aradreleg seemed surprised to be asked.

"If it pleases you, then I will sit," she answered.

I shall be sad to lose your friendship if you withdraw it, Vieliessar thought as Aradreleg settled herself beside her. There were few to whom she could speak her mind and she valued Aradreleg's bravery and wry humor. In her first days as War Prince of Oronviel, Aradreleg's acceptance of her rule had given Vieliessar hope that she could find consent among the people of the Fortunate Lands to the things she must do.

"We send Celeharth to the Vale of Celenthodiel tonight," Aradreleg said, leaning over to speak softly in Vieliessar's ear. "Will you come?"

The Lightless went forth on their last journey by dawn's light, for they had no Light within them to show them their road. But the Lightborn walked the road to Celenthodiel by night, so that the Light of its flowers and leaves would show them the path.

"I will be honored," Vieliessar answered.

By the time the last course had been set out, there was no table that did not have two or three Lightborn present.

The pyre had been built down at the bottom of the orchard, upon the ashes of Lord Luthilion's. Vieliessar walked there with Aradreleg and the rest of the Lightborn who had been in the banquet hall. Other Lightborn were already there, in a ragged circle around the pyre. Vieliessar took her place among them. The blue gown she had worn to the banquet shone in the moonlight while the green of the Lightborn's robes blended with the darkness. None of those present paid any more attention to her than if she wore Lightborn Green as well.

Celeharth's body lay upon a green silk cloth spread over a pyre of aromatic woods and fragrant resins. A funeral pyre might be made of anything that would burn, but great lords surrounded themselves in death, as in life, with rare perfumes and costly essences, and she had given the order for Celeharth's going-forth to be conducted with all honor. His name would survive nowhere but in the rolls at the Sanctuary of the Star, for he had left behind him-so he had told her once-no Line to remember him. But in the moment of his death, he would be splendid, for the night air brought the scent of applewood and spicebark, the deep sweet notes of amber and the sharp green odor of pine resin.

They stood quietly in the darkness until the last Lightborn arrived. Araphant and Ivrithir, Oronviel and Laeldor, all were present.

"We come to celebrate the leave-taking of one of Pelashia's children." Pharadas Lightsister was the most senior of Araphant's surviving Lightborn. "Celeharth of Araphant, you have served long in the Cold World. Go now to the Warm World, where it is always summer, and go with joy."

Vieliessar knew to close her eyes against what came, and-greatly daring-added her own power to it. A flash brighter than the noonday sun, a wash of furnace heat....

Then nothing remained behind but night's blackness and a small drifting of fine white ash. In that instant of intense spell-kindled fire, the pyre and the body upon it had been consumed utterly. The going-forth of one of the Lightborn was swift.

"You said you needed an answer before the day ended," Isilla said, walking over to Vieliessar. "The day is not yet run."

"Nor will I presume I have my answer until you give it," Vieliessar answered.