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Niniane sprang up and down in excitement. “Yes, I do! I do. I’m beginning to see a pattern here. Don’t you remember before when I said cooperation was the key?”
“Cooperation?Oh. I thought you saidconcentration.” Another puff of purple smoke arose, blinding them. When it vanished, the two apprentices were back to their original forms. “Look,” Niniane exclaimed, wafting the sleeves of her gown. “You were right, Illusius. Arms! And hands!”
“And lips!” Illusius shouted, whirling her off her feet in his elation and planting a kiss on her mouth before he knew what he was about.
He set her down as suddenly as he’d picked her up. Niniane stared at him, dumbfounded. For once in her entire existence she found herself speechless. Two major revelations in one short span of time were more than any apprentices should have to deal with. They blushed and looked at one another shyly.
“Uh, that was…nice,wasn’t it? Would you mind very much if I, uh, did that again?” he asked.
“Why, um, not at all,” she said, smiling up at him from beneath her lashes.
But before they could repeat the experiment there was a tremendous crash from the far end of the cavern. The apprentices jumped guiltily and turned toward the source of the sound.
On the night of Lector’s reception, the sunset sky was like a lake of bloody fire over Cador’s new camp at the forest’s edge. Several of the rebels took it as an evil omen and made the signs to ward off the evil eye. Cador and Brand exchanged signals. It was time.
As the rebel chief barked out his orders, Cador went to his tent where Tressalara was dressing. When he first swept the flap aside, she was perched on the edge of his camp bed in a circle of light from the lamp, brushing her waist-length hair. It gleamed like skeins of red-gold silk. A long, slitted tunic of gleaming white silk shot with gold threads pooled around her on the mattress, and a pair of silvery white kid boots lay beside her dainty feet.
He drew in a deep breath. Cador knew he would remember this sight as long as he lived. Tressalara, with her hair like flame, sitting on the bed where they had made love only days before. Now it was almost like something he had dreamed. And, like all dreams, it had ended with the waking realization that it had been just an illusion. The gold and amethyst coronet that she wore upon her brow, emblazoned with the dragon symbol of the royal house, was proof of that.
As he entered, she looked up and caught her breath. He was so handsome in his armor of embossed leather and chased steel, so much the fierce golden warrior who had stolen her heart that Tressalara knew she would never forget this moment. The bittersweetness of it pierced her like a sword—for good or ill, it was the last time they would meet like this.
She wanted to tell him everything that was in her heart, but the stony look on his face made her forget the words she had practiced so carefully. His eyes, glowing with blue fire, melted her very bones. She remembered when they had blazed with desire for her, and felt her body respond to the memory. If only she could step into his arms and lose herself in his embrace once more.
But it was not to be. Her rank, his pride, and their bitter quarrel had driven a wedge of steel between them. Not even the passion they had once shared could overcome it. Now he addressed her only as Amelonia’s future queen. Since their quarrel he had not once called her by her given name, much less touched her.
It was Cador who broke the silence. “At the risk of drawing down your wrath upon my head, I will ask you one more time, your majesty. Will you let me send you to a place of safety and go to battle myself in your place?”
Her face was pale in the lantern light. “And at the risk of invoking your wrath, I will repeat: My place is in the midst of the fight.”
He started to reply, then stopped. It was no use. “Come, then. Let me present you to your army.”
She twisted her mass of hair into a neat chignon at the back of her neck and held it in place with two ivory pins. The moment of truth had come. She was no longer young Trev, or even a lovelorn princess with a broken heart. From this moment on, she was in all respects Amelonia’s uncrowned queen.
The future held either death or glory.
Brand had assembled his men for an announcement. “When it comes time for battle, every man needs a symbol to remind him of what he is fighting for and what he stands to lose.”
At Brand’s signal a banner was raised. “Here is our standard. This white dragon you all recognize as the symbol of Amelonia’s royal house and the true heir. Added to it now at the behest of the Princess Tressalara herself is this oak tree, symbol of the freedom to which every man and woman and child in this kingdom is heir.”
A cheer went up from the throng. Brand stilled them with a raised hand. Cador stepped into the torchlight, leading a figure costumed in a long white tunic with flowing sleeves. She held a glittering sun mask on a gilded rod before her face, such as noblewomen used on state occasions. A hush fell over the assembly. In the stillness that followed, a great white hawk speared down from the highest tree to perch on the white-garbed woman’s arm. A frisson of excitement went through the crowd.
Tressalara peered through her mask at the mass of rebels gathered in camp. The new banner, which she had designed and stitched herself during the past five days, stirred in the breeze. It gave her a strange thrill of pride, yet humbled her at the same time. She had baptized it with her own blood—and it had been worth every knot and curse and needle prick. Cador took the mask from Tressalara’s hand.
“Behold, men and woman of Amelonia! I bring you another symbol, a living one this time, hidden for safety in our midst for lo, these many weeks. Behold your princess, soon to be crowned your queen!”
Tressalara stepped forward into the glare of the torches. Not a one recognized the disheveled boy Trev in the elegant woman she had become. A murmur arose from the crowd, like the whispering of a mighty wind through the ancient forest. Singly and in groups, the assembled rebels sank to their knees in homage. Then the sound grew, a low, throaty rumble changing to a mighty roar.
“Long live our royal princess! Long live Tressalara! Life and victory to our noble queen!”
Brand swung up onto his horse. “To arms, then!”
As he rounded up his men, Cador readied to help Tressalara mount a fine black mare. Once she had thrown her dark-blue hooded cloak over her shoulders she would be almost invisible in the night. He stopped and drew his sword, then nicked his palm. “My life’s blood for you, lady. I swear it.”
His words chilled her. “I would rather that none of yours was spilled in any cause,” she replied shakily. “Guard yourself well, Cador.”My love.
He didn’t reply, only wiped his hand and prised out the dome of rock crystal set into his sword pommel. He removed the amulet inside. She saw that it was suspended from a fine chain. It caught the light with a flash of luminous fire that reminded Tressalara of the great Andun Crystal itself.
“Wear this for me,” he told her, “to bring me luck. And if I fall, return it to my father, Laird of Kildore.”