In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

Berda glanced up as well. “It is sharp,” she said, touching her nose.

The lady frowned. She did not set down the lion. “Now it’s gone. I thought….” She, too, yawned, and caught herself.

Even Anna yawned and almost pricked herself with her needle. Her grunt of frustration set off an avalanche of yawns among all of them, except Heribert.

“The curve here, Your Highness. It is uneven.”

“I’m just tired! I can do better!”

“Yes,” he agreed. “So it appears from the way you are yawning. There is a sharp glamour in the air. It tingles in the bones.”

Berthold pushed the chess pieces aside and pillowed his head on his arms. “Just a nap, and we’ll start again.”

Elene’s head lolled back. The lion fell out of her hand, and when it struck the floor she jerked upright. “What is that?” she demanded. “A glamour … a spell …”

Anna was so tired. The languor smothered her. The walls spoke in whispers, reminding her of the peace of the sleep which awaits every soul, the crossing into death….

Soft footsteps mounted the stair-step ladder. A middle-aged man appeared in the opened trap. He was named Brother Petrus, one of the holy clerics who served the Holy Mother.

“Up here, my lord,” he said as he clambered out.

She pricked herself with the needle, and the pain woke her. A drop of blood swelled.

Blessing had fallen asleep against Heribert’s shoulder. Berthold roused dully, lifting his head. Elene struggled, reaching for the lion she had dropped on the floor. Berda snored softly, head lolling back against the wall, her throat exposed.

An angel climbed out of the trap and paused to regard the chess table and the pair of young nobles fighting sleep.

“Well,” he said in a melodious voice so soothing Anna was sure he tamed wild beasts with it. She recognized it immediately as the voice of the man who had been talking to Wolfhere. “Conrad’s doomed daughter and Villam’s lost son. How unexpected this is. How handsome they look together, dark and fair!”

Elene grunted, got hold of the lion, and dug it into her palm. Her eyes flared. “Who are you? What sorcery …?”

The chess piece rolled out of her hand, landed on a corner of carpet, and tumbled off that onto the plank floor. Her eyes fluttered as she fought to keep awake.

“You know tricks, Lady Elene, but you are inexperienced.”

Anna thrust the needle into her hand again, and the pain burst like fire and focused her mind, but it was so hard to fight. It was so much easier to sleep.

He turned and saw Blessing. “Ah,” he said, voice catching. “So old already. Just as I’d hoped….”

From this angle, seated crosswise to Blessing and slightly behind her, Anna saw his expression darken.

“How can it be that you still wake?” he asked.

Before she could answer, Brother Heribert said, quite clearly, “Who are you?”

“Better I should ask, who are you? You are Brother Heribert, a particular intimate counselor of the prince, guardian of his daughter. Before that you were a cleric in the schola of the biscop of Mainni, rumored to be her—” He laughed. Anna ducked her head and, feeling the dizzy drag of exhaustion pulling her down, jabbed the needle in. “God in Heaven! Look at your eyes! How comes this? I thought I was the only one who knew this secret. Why are you here?”

“I am looking for the one I love. They say it is the other one who stole him. The one called Sanglant.”

“Who stole him?” The angel shifted back on his heels as might a man who has been struck, then rolled forward to his toes, and regained his balance. “Who stole who?”

“Lord Hugh?” asked Brother Petrus, who was fingering an amulet looped at his neck. “Ought we not hurry, my lord? It will be dark soon.”

“Yes.” The angel nodded, but he looked only at Heribert, not at Brother Petrus. “Who is lost, and who is blind?” he said to himself. “Can it be? Tell me, friend, if the other one stole him, then do you want to get back this one you seek?”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“Gone utterly, I fear, if what my eyes tell me is true, and I think it must be. But I know who killed him.”