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They arrive at Radzyn port on the evening tide, just as the sun is setting over the hills, when the moons are just easing themselves up over the horizon.Aldiara stands at the railing of Prince Arlis' ship as they're granted permission to dock and tries not to gawk like the veriest back-mountains fool. So maybe she is the veriest fool from the mountains, but in the last year she's seen enough of the world not to behave like a complete idiot. Nameless One, in the last ten days she's seen enough of the Princedoms - coast and land - to know that there's far more to the world than the mountains where she spent the first fifteen winters of her life.Still, as she looks up at the port and the castle beyond it, Aldiara consciously locks her jaw, lest her mouth drop open.When she was sent with Yarin to Balarat, it seemed large by her measure. Then again, her only point of comparison to that point had been Snowcoves and the village where she grew up. Balarat in turn paled when compared with the bustle of Port Adni on Kierst-Isel and the luxury of Zaldivar: the rug in her room at the palace in Zaldivar had surely been at least one inch deep.With the fiery sunset sky behind Radzyn Keep washing the port town with vivid light and limning the hewn stones of the keep with a gold sheen, the port and castle up on the shore before her seem somehow bigger than anything that's gone before.What is she doing here? Why did she agree to come with Prince Arlis instead of remaining in the familiarity of Firon? Yes, the court at Balarat was new, but at least she knew the people – familiar people, familiar ways, familiar country.
Go with Prince Arlis to this meeting of princes. Speak for the diarmadh'im, for those up here who have no care for princes and politics. You must show them that we only wish to live in peace as any of the princedoms. Prince Laric trusts you, and our people count on you to represent them before the High Prince.
In spite of her work that last morning of the war, joining in with High Prince Pol's weaving of light across the continent, Aldiara feels sudden pangs of terror. A mountain-bred diarmadhi far from Firon and the familiar mountains, about to step off the ship and into the Desert...."Ready to get back on a horse?" Prince Arlis inquires, coming to stand beside her.And that's another terror that she's facing – although at least this is one that's manageable. Aldiara doesn't have to hide her shudder. "I'm trying not to think about it, your grace."He laughs. "We'll find a suitably placid mount for you this time. Not one of the warhorses."The ride from Balarat to Snowcoves was an unpleasant one for Aldiara. Never adept on horses in the first place, the horse she'd been given was a restive, high-spirited mount who somehow knew that she was terrified of it. She'd clung to the back of it like a sack of flour, even as Rohannon tried to teach her how to sit, how to stay in the saddle, how not to terrify the horse...Her only satisfaction - and it's a small and petty one - is that the faradhi lordling has spent the last three days of sailing with his head in a bucket and no idea of which way is up or down. It doesn't help that the last two days have also been fraught with the memory of the last time he had to spend extended time on a ship, and the drug that got him through it.Aldiara has spent nearly as much time belowdecks distracting him from addictive thoughts - prodding him, poking him, making him hate the sound of her voice - as she's spent watching the sea.They dock as the light begins to fade from the sky, and Aldiara steadies Rohannon as he stumbles on the gangplank. "I'd do better carrying you like a sack of wheat.""You couldn't," he manages, his arm heavy over her shoulders.Aldiara snorts. His body is pressed up against hers, she's stabilising them both. "At least if I was carrying you over my shoulder, I'd have my balance!"They get him to solid land. He initially insists on his own horse, grumbling that the day he's not able to ride one of his grandsir's horses into his familial castle is one in which they should be building his pyre. But he's barely upright in the saddle, and it's Aldiara who climbs up in front of him, praying she can manage horse and man for the short ride up to the castle.The dockside handlers watch them go, more than a few of them nod at the man pressed up against her back. "Comfortable there, my lord?" One of them quips."Better than on the water!" Rohannon's return sets off good-natured laughter."Best get him up to the castle, my lady, and into a bed!"The innuendo is unmistakeable. Aldiara blushes, and retorts, "As though he's in any condition to be of use!"This time, the laughter is louder and more raucous, and against her, Rohannon tenses. For a moment, she thinks he's going to protest or say something, or try to prove otherwise. Young men can be touchy about their prowess, and after the indignity and shame of his addiction to dranath, it would be no surprise that his pride might object to her sally. Then he sighs a little and turns his head to rest his cheek against her nape.Ahead of them, Prince Arlis glances back, brows raised. Aldiara shrugs, blushing, and he just shakes his head and continues on.They ride on, up through the streets. The horse she and Rohannon are on isn't as restive or spirited as the one she had to ride to Snowcoves, but she's still nervous."You're too tense," Rohannon mutters against her spine. "He can feel your uncertainty, you know.""I'm not sure how I'm supposed to disguise the fact that I don't want to fall off," she mutters back."You won't. I've got you," he shifts the arm around her waist, a warm weight around her waist. "Loosen your grip - not completely, just don't hold the reins in a death grip. Loose but firm."She forces her fingers to relax and is relieved when the horse also begins to relax. It makes the ride up to the castle almost pleasant, the breeze off the Sunrise Water at their backs, the silvery light of the moon sliding over her senses. Not yet trained in using moonlight, Aldiara can still feel the power in it. Sunrunners need light for their arts, but while sorcerers can use light as sunrunners do, the light itself is mostly a fuel for their sorcery. There are assorted schools of thought on why this is so, but Aldiara has never studied any of them. Something to do later, maybe, after this meeting of princes.The moons are well over the horizon when they ride in the gates of the castle, the torches lit to guide their way in.Someone holds the reins of her horse while she dismounts ungracefully. Someone else helps her steady Rohannon as he half-falls out of the saddle. The castle steward is babbling profuse apologies about the state of the rooms to Prince Arlis, who is brisk about it."We're just glad of a roof over our heads and solid ground under our feet," he says. "Particularly Rohannon. Although I wouldn't say no to a cup of wine if there's anything left--"There is a little wine, dug out of cliffside cellars and brought up to the castle. Aldiara doesn't stay to be offered a cup. Instead, she and a servant help Rohannon up the stairs to his suite in the family wing."It was shared with his sister, Lady Chayla, when they were children," the servant says. "Unfortunately, it's not what it was due to the Vellanti occupation, but--""'S fine, Druven," Rohannon manages. "Just need the room to stop rocking."Aldiara helps get him into bed, then leaves him with the servant updating him on the state of things. As she makes her way back down to the library where Prince Arlis promised to be, she reflects that if Radzyn Castle is 'not what it was', then she has no frame of reference to conceive what it looked like before the Vellanti occupied the place.On her way back down to the library, where Prince Arlis and his commanders are gathering, Aldiara pauses by a window that looks up the long coast of the Desert, the moonlight gleaming off the cliffs, and shimmering over the sea.Once again the homesickness hits, clutching in her chest.Something in her longs for the safe, snow-surrounded comfort of her village and her people, and she looks up at the glimmering stars in the night sky and thinks of using them to speak with her mentors.Instead, Aldiara steps into the moonlight and closes her eyes.Cool and silvery, not as fine as the starlight she was taught to use, but softer, like what she imagines silk feels against her skin. She can gather it together, even if she can't use it, and merely slipping the light through her fingers is a reminder that the moonlight pouring over her senses at Radzyn Castle also looks out across the mountains of home. It's a different princedom, a different place, among princes and highborns and faradhi, but if Aldiara doesn't belong here in this castle of riches and wealth, the moonlight is still the same.And, in a way, she does belong here.She is here to represent her people to the highborns of the Princedoms; to remind them that if there were power-hungry diarmadhi, then there were also those who want nothing more than to live their lives out in peace.It's been a long way to come, and she has a long way yet to go.With a deep breath, Aldiara lets go of the moonlight around her and steps back from the window and the ocean and the view of the Desert coast, and goes down to the library to see what Prince Arlis requires before retiring.