Beyond the High Road

Epilogue

Tanalasta rinsed the sour taste from her mouth, then splashed her face with cool stream water. She was no longer suffering from the fever-under Owden’s care, the health of the entire company had been restored-but it was the third occasion that morning that some innocuous smell had triggered a bout of retching. This time it had been mountain bluebell, the time before that a field of fleabane. She was beginning to wonder if her journey into the Stonelands had given her some strange aversion to flowers.

“Feeling better, my dear?” Alaphondar asked from behind her.

Tanalasta nodded. “I haven’t been feeling bad-it’s all these mountain flowers.” She rinsed her mouth again, then rose and faced the sage. “Their perfume is so cloying.”

“A strange affliction for one of Chauntea’s faithful.” The old sage was sitting astride his horse, eyeing Tanalasta thoughtfully. “Very peculiar indeed.”

“I’m sure it will pass with prayer.” Tanalasta’s reply was almost sharp, for she had noticed the sage watching her with that same peculiar expression many times since departing the marsh. She gestured at his bandaged ribs. “And how are you?”

“Well enough to walk, which is looking increasingly necessary,” He nodded toward a little meadow at the edge of the valley, where Alusair and the rest of the company stood clustered amidst the bed of bluebells that had triggered Tanalasta’s latest bout. “Help me down, will you?”

The princess offered a shoulder, then the sage slipped from the saddle and led the way back to the small gathering. Tanalasta’s qualmishness returned as they approached the bluebells, but with her stomach already emptied, it was not so bad she felt it necessary to retreat.

“…definitely Cadimus’s hoof prints,” Alusair said, making a point of ignoring Tanalasta’s return. “Why Rowen would turn north when he was so close to Goblin Mountain is beyond me.”

After hearing Alaphondar’s description of Cadimus’s escape from the marsh battle, they had concluded that Rowen had taken the stallion and ridden off to carry the sage’s note to the king.

“Perhaps he had no choice,” Owden said. He rose from the middle of the group holding a small sheaf of brown-crusted flower stems. “This is blood.”

“No!” Tanalasta forced her way through the circle. “Let me see.”

Owden allowed her to take the stems, but caught her hands between his. “There isn’t much, and we don’t know what it means.”

“I do,” Tanalasta said. Despite a flurry of spellcasting back at the keep, they had seen no sign of the ghazneths, and the entire company had been wondering for the last three days where the phantoms had gone. “We’ve got to go after him.”

“Not we-me,” said Alusair. “You’ll return to Goblin Mountain with the others.”

“No,” Tanalasta said. “Rowen is my husband, and-“

“My scout.” Alusair glared at Tanalasta. “Don’t argue. If you were anyone else, you’d be returning to Arabel in chains after that stunt you pulled… and I still might change my mind about that.”

Tanalasta returned her sister’s glare evenly. “If I were anyone else, I wouldn’t have had to ‘pull’ any stunts.” Though the princess was boiling inside, she forced herself to continue in a calm and even voice. “Alusair, I apologize for deceiving you, but the time has come for you-and Vangerdahast and the king-to grant me the same privilege you have always claimed for yourself.”

Alusair frowned. “What privilege would that be?”

“The privilege to run her own life, of course,” said Alaphondar. The old sage took the sisters by their arms and guided them away from the others-and, mercifully, also away from the bluebells. “My dears, Cormyr is entering a time of crisis. If the realm is to survive, it will need both of its princesses.”

“And I will be there,” said Alusair.

“Good, but you cannot do this alone,” said Alaphondar. “If the realm is to survive, you and Tanalasta must work together a thing you cannot do if you don’t trust each other.”

Alusair eyed her sister coldly. “I’m not the one who’s been lying.”

Alaphondar’s retort was sharp. “But you are the one responsible. If you do not grant your sister the respect she deserves and trust her to do as she must, what choice do you leave her except to rebel or manipulate you?”

“Or to leave,” Tanalasta added pointedly. As a youth, Alusair had grown so weary of the burdens of her royal station that she had fled the kingdom altogether. “And now is not the time.”

Alusair shot her sister an annoyed look, but pursed her lips and nodded. “Fine. You can come with me, but the rest of the company-“

“I am not done,” Alaphondar said. He lifted a hand to silence Alusair, then turned to Tanalasta. “As for you…”

“I know. My value to the kingdom does not lie in my sword arm.”

Alaphondar raised his brow. “Very astute, but actually, I was going to say that as a worshiper of Chauntea, I should think you would realize by now it simply won’t do to have you gallivanting off into the Stonelands with your sister.”

“What does Chauntea have to do with it?” Tanalasta asked, confused.

Alaphondar rolled his eyes. “The retching, my dear. This morning it was flowers, the day before my horse, and once it was even the smell of pine trees.”

“I’ve been nauseous,” Tanalasta said. “Of course I have. If you had been fighting the ague and gripes for the last tenday, you might feel a little qualmish, too.”

Alaphondar said nothing, and Alusair simply stared at Tanalasta with a furrowed brow.

“What is it?” Tanalasta demanded. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

The answer came to her even as she asked. She was the only one from Alusair’s company still showing signs of illness, and she really wasn’t feeling feverish or achy, or even very tired. Her stomach had simply grown unpredictable, turning queasy and rebellious at the oddest times-especially in the morning.

“By the plow!” she gasped.

“Yes, I suppose that is one way to describe how it happened,” said Alaphondar. “You really shouldn’t be running around the Stonelands in that condition.”

Tanalasta barely heard him, for her mind was whirling with the ramifications of her “condition.” The timing could hardly have been worse. With Vangerdahast missing and the Scourges about to descend on the kingdom, it would be important for Cormyr to stand as one in the coming months. News of her pregnancy would only make that more difficult. If she named the father, the loyal nobles would be insulted and might prove reluctant to support the crown. If she didn’t name the father, people would doubt the child’s legitimacy and question its status as a royal heir. No matter what she did, the king might well be forced to name Alusair his successor-just when the realm most needed her in the field to battle ghazneths and reassure the people.

Somehow, Tanalasta was surprised to discover, none of that mattered to her. She felt blessed and happy and flooded with warmth, and in her heart she knew she had done the right thing for herself, for her kingdom, and for her people. She had been given the strength to see Cormyr through its crisis, not despite the child growing inside her, nor even because of it-but through it. That had been the true meaning of her vision.

“Why are you smiling like that?” asked Alusair. She laid a hand on Tanalasta’s shoulder. “When the king hears of this, you’ll wish you were in the Stonelands dodging ghazneths.”