Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

The court feasted for three days, for it took a feast of such magnificence to properly thank God for Their blessings upon the royal house. Sapientia was as yet too weak to appear, and in any case it was traditional for a woman to lie abed for a week in seclusion before receiving visitors. That way she might not be contaminated by any taint brought from the outside or any unholy thoughts at this blessed time.

Hanna was astounded yet again at the sheer amount of food and drink the court consumed. She could only imagine what her mother would say, but then, her mother might well say that as the king prospers, so does the kingdom.

Ai, Lady, at this time last year she and Liath had just left Heart’s Rest behind, riding out with Wolfhere, Hathui, and poor brave Manfred. She touched her Eagle’s badge. Where was Liath now?

2

LIATH hunkered down, arms hooked around her knees. The ground was too wet to sit on, and everything was damp. Mud layered wagon wheels and dropped in clumps from the undersides when they jolted over the roads. Every branch scattered moisture on any fool sorry enough to touch it. The grass wept water, and the trees dripped all day even when it wasn’t raining.

Though they had waited until the first day of the month of Sormas to leave, it was still a wet time to be marching to war. But that deterred no one—not with such a prize within reach.

“Can you do it?” whispered Alain. He kept a cautious three steps back from her. Sorrow and Rage sat panting a stone’s throw away.

She did not reply. That the hounds would still not come near her only made her wonder if they sensed the awful power trapped inside her. Wood burns. She shuddered. Would she ever learn to control it? She had to try.

“We don’t have much time,” he said. “They’ll come looking for me soon.”

“Hush.” She lifted a hand, and he shuffled another step back. Behind, the hounds whined. In wood lies the propensity to burn, the memory of flame. Perhaps, as Democrita said, tiny indivisible building blocks, hooked and barbed so that they could fasten together, made up all things in the universe; in wood some of these must be formed of the element of fire. If she could only reach through the window of fire and call fire to them, they would remember flame—

And burn.

Wood ignited with a roar. Fire shot upward to lick the branches of the nearest tree. Liath stumbled away from the searing heat. The hounds yelped and slunk backward, growling.

“Lord Above!” swore Alain. He took another step away from her and drew the sign of the Circle at his breast—as if for protection.

Falling to one knee, Liath stared at the fire. Gouts of flame boiled up into the sky. Branches hissed. Grass within the ring of penetrating heat sizzled and blackened. Only when it was this wet dared she attempt to call fire; only when it was this wet was it safe to attempt an act whose consequences she could not control.

A light rain began to fall. Alain pulled his hood up over his head and took a hesitant step toward her. Liath stared into fire and in her mind twisted the leaping flames into an archway that would let her see into another part of the world.

“Hanna,” she whispered. There. The sight was more of a whisper than a scene unfolding before her. Hanna stands beside Hathui; all else is shadow. But Liath could see by the set of Hanna’s shoulders, the sudden grin she flashed at a comment made by the older Eagle, that she was well. Hugh hadn’t harmed her.

Reaching inside her cloak, she drew out the gold feather. It glinted fire, bright sparks, a reflection of the blaze. Alain murmured an oath. The hounds growled.

“Like to like,” she murmured. “Let this be a link between us, old one.”

As a curtain draws aside, revealing the chamber behind, so the fire’s roar without abating shifted and changed in pitch. A low rumble like distant thunder shivered around her. The veil parted and within it, beyond it, she saw the Aoi sorcerer.

Startled, he looks up. Flax half twisted into rope dangles from his hand. “What is this?” he asks. “You are the one I have seen before.”

She sees through the fire burning before her, which is fed by wood, but sees also through fire burning an upright pillar of stone. This mystery attracts her notice. She must speak, even if it might attract those who are looking for her. But her first words are not those she had intended. “How do you make the stone burn?” she demands.

“Rashly spoken,” he replies. With that, he begins to roll flax into rope against his thigh. But he appears to be thinking. He regards her unsmiling through the veil of fire, but he is not unfriendly. “You are of the human kin,” he says. “How have you come here? Yet I see my gift reached you.” She grasps the gold feather tightly, mirror to those trimming his leather gauntlets. “You have touched that which I have touched. I do not know how to read these omens.”

“I beg you,” she says. “I need help. I made fire—”

“Made it?” His smile is brief and sharp. “Fire exists in most things. It is not made.”

“No, no.” She speaks quickly because she does not know how long she has before she and Alain are interrupted, and this man—no man—this Aoi sorcerer is the only creature she can ask. “I called it. It’s as if the element of fire lies quiescent within the wood, and remembers its power suddenly and comes to life.”

“Fire is never quiescent. Fire rests within most objects, in some more deeply than in others.”

“Then in stone it rests more deeply than I can touch. Why can that stone burn?”

He pauses, flax rope draped over his thigh. “Why do you ask questions, child?”

“Because I need answers, old one. I need a teacher.”

He lifts the rope and twirls it through his fingers. The white shells on his waist-length cloak clack together as softly as the whisper of leaves on the forest floor. He turns, glancing once behind him, then back at her. “Are you asking me to teach you?”