King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

At those rare times she was granted solitude, she knelt in the empty chapel, not praying, usually not thinking at all, just resting in the silence of God. Sometimes she dreamed memories of Da.

“Liath, you may let your fancy play with the letters. Treatises have been written about the various schools of calligraphy in old Dariya. But when you learn the old patterns, when you draw the Rose, it must be drawn as exact, each time, as at its creation. There are no elaborations. What you draw with your hand is simply the pattern to which you exercise your mind, until you need no physical link to bring the Rose into your mind. Or, for a sorcerer, to make it manifest at will.” He spoke at times with such confidence, such clarity. But now his expression fell and his shoulders hunched, and he looked weary again. “Anne would have taught you better than I can.”

Liath rested her hand on Da’s white hair, gone white so early. “Don’t say so, Da. You said yourself I must learn for the sake of knowing these things, for passing them on, perhaps, but never to expect to have these powers myself.”

He sighed. “Do you wish you did?”

She shrugged self-consciously. “I suppose so. I wish you had begun to teach me sooner, Da, about the arts known to the sorcerers, at least. Why did you wait so long?”

“You aren’t strong enough yet. It isn’t safe, child. It will be a long, long time before I can know we are safe.”

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THE next day Hugh hired a woman and man from the hamlet down near Count Harl’s holding to come in daily and do all the work about the church.

They dutifully cleaned out the cell next to his while he rummaged around in the storage rooms and found a serviceable table and one broken chair, soon mended. The hired man, Lars, killed a goose, and while Dorit cooked it, Liath made quills. Hugh opened two locked chests from the storage room, and they revealed unexpected treasures: parchment and ink, a wax writing tablet and stylus, and other necessaries of a church schoolroom as well as two more rugs (neither as fine as the Arethousan carpet in his cell) and other comforts.

Liath studied. If she studied, she could forget everything else, push it away as if it didn’t exist. For part of the day they spoke only Dariyan together. For the second part he taught her, letter by letter, word by word, the language of Arethousan, and she taught him Jinna with its curling letters she herself could only write awkwardly. For the last part she read aloud to him from the books her father had left. She read about healing herbs and the pharmacology of flowering plants in the Inquiry into Plants. She read about omens and portents and visions seen while sleeping in Artemisia’s Dreams. She read history, of the trials and blessed acts of St. Thecla, founder of the Church of Unities in Darre, first and greatest disciple of the blessed Daisan and the first martyr to the faith when she stood firm against the persecutions of the pagan emperor. And she read of the early days of the Dariyan Empire, during its greatest triumphs, as written by Polyxene, an Arethousan scholar in the imperial Dariyan court whose stated intent in writing her history was to discover “by what means the Dariyans, who are known to us as being not of human kin, succeeded in less than fifty-three years in bringing almost the whole of the inhabited world under their rule.”

Together, as well, they proceeded slowly through the lessons in The Acts of the Magicians. Once he made a candle light without touching flame to it. Once he predicted a storm. She remained deaf and mute to all but the sense of the words. She translated the Jinna for him and began to puzzle out letters and words in the column written in Arethousan. On this she concentrated her being. All else passed in a haze, especially the time they were together in the night. She felt so utterly detached from herself that it was as if she were two people, one to whom all this was happening, one watching from her safehouse within the frozen tower.

Sometimes he was called away to give last rites, to bless a newborn child or perform a healing. The first time he was gone overnight she crept out in the morning, past Dorit baking bread in the brick ovens built outside the kitchen, and went into the yard. But the cold blast of air and the heaping snow struck such fear into her that she escaped back into the church and did not venture forth again.

Every Hefensday the folk from the village gathered to hear the gospel. Before, she had never shirked from attending. Now she dreaded it. But the first time she had refused to go, he had slapped her hard and threatened to leave her out with the pigs, so she gave in. He wanted to display her; she understood that well enough. He had hidden her old clothing, forcing her to wear the fine gowns. She was afraid to speak to anyone and, with her silence, feared they all thought her prideful of her new consequence.

At those rare times she was granted solitude, she knelt in the empty chapel, not praying, usually not thinking at all, just resting in the silence of God. Sometimes she dreamed memories of Da.

“Liath, you may let your fancy play with the letters. Treatises have been written about the various schools of calligraphy in old Dariya. But when you learn the old patterns, when you draw the Rose, it must be drawn as exact, each time, as at its creation. There are no elaborations. What you draw with your hand is simply the pattern to which you exercise your mind, until you need no physical link to bring the Rose into your mind. Or, for a sorcerer, to make it manifest at will.” He spoke at times with such confidence, such clarity. But now his expression fell and his shoulders hunched, and he looked weary again. “Anne would have taught you better than I can.”

Liath rested her hand on Da’s white hair, gone white so early. “Don’t say so, Da. You said yourself I must learn for the sake of knowing these things, for passing them on, perhaps, but never to expect to have these powers myself.”

He sighed. “Do you wish you did?”

She shrugged self-consciously. “I suppose so. I wish you had begun to teach me sooner, Da, about the arts known to the sorcerers, at least. Why did you wait so long?”

“You aren’t strong enough yet. It isn’t safe, child. It will be a long, long time before I can know we are safe.”

Only they hadn’t been safe.

“Liath!” The whisper was soft but sharp.

Liath started, banging her knees on the hard floor, then scrambled to her feet and whirled. Stood for a moment, registering this stranger. “H—Hanna?”

“You’re so … well, not pale, but so gray.” Hanna strode forward. She wore a frown on her face. Her energy radiated like heat in the stillness of the cool chapel, warmed only by the brazier of coals which Liath had brought out, for she could no longer bear cold. “Old Johan is passing up through the spheres this time for certain, they say. I saw Hugh ride off. He’ll be gone at least ’til evening, so I came over. Mama said I might, and I haven’t talked to you since—” She hesitated. Liath simply stared at her. She was having a hard time understanding words spoken by a voice other than Hugh’s. “Since that day he struck you outside the inn. Do you remember that man who was there that day? He was traveling through to Freelas. He asked about you, after Hugh took you back to the church. He asked about your Da.”

“I don’t remember him,” said Liath tonelessly. Hanna’s words had no real meaning, except perhaps to someone else, someone who was no longer here. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Hanna stiffened. “Do you want me to go?”

Liath shook her head. That wasn’t what she meant, but she hardly knew how to speak anymore, only how to recite aloud words written down by others. “No. But you shouldn’t be here.” Suddenly nervous, she looked back over her shoulder, toward the archway that led into the nave. “He’ll come—”

“He’s ridden down to River’s Bend. He can’t possibly be back until evening.”

“He’ll know. He’ll come back. He’ll know I’m seeing someone. He always knows.”

“Liath. Sit down. You’re shaking all over.” Hanna touched her. That touch was like fire sparking up Liath’s arm. She could move but only found the strength to do so when Hanna steered her toward a bench and sat down beside her, pressing an arm around her back. Liath gave in to sudden exhaustion and rested her head on Hanna’s shoulder. “Lars is gone to visit his old mother, and Dorit is down at the inn gossiping with Mama, so Hugh can’t possibly know. Dorit says you’re silent as a ghost, slipping around this place. Says you never speak unless the frater speaks to you, and then half the time in some devil’s tongue. Or at least, that’s what she says.” Hanna fell silent and stroked Liath’s arm, a rhythmic caress. They sat this way for some time.

Suddenly Liath flung up her head. “What day is it?”