Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

“You walk with the servants of the Enemy,” he croaked, letting go of the staff with one hand in order to indicate the line of Ashioi. “There they are! There they are! Begone, foul daimone!”

He curled his thumb around his middle and ring fingers to make the beast’s head, raising fore and little fingers as its horns: the sign of the phoenix, the mark of the heretics whose word had spread throughout the realm.

“Don’t you see?” she said, with a soft laugh. “I am not a servant of the Enemy. I am the phoenix, who walks living out of fire.”

She sought deep in the heart of heaven and Earth. The aether ran shallow, drained by the cataclysm, but with an effort she found the stream that trickled through the distant stone crown. She gathered as much of it as she could, pulled it to her as carded wool is spun into thread—and her aetherical wings blossomed.

o;You are a sorcerer. Is that a lie?”

“So is he.”

“You have killed men by burning them alive with fire called from your very hands. Is that a lie?”

“It’s true. God help me. Yet he has killed. The trail of death that follows him goes back many years.”

“Why should I believe you? You are excommunicated, are you not? Is that a lie?”

Sanglant would have fought this battle of words better than she could. Now that she had Hugh trapped, and knowing he had Blessing in his grasp, she lost hold of what little patience she had mustered. She lifted her left hand, thumb and forefinger raised.

She did not turn. She did not need to. She saw that her allies answered her signal by the expression of fear that fixed itself on Prior Ratbold’s face. He backed up slowly, like a man easing away from a rabid dog. Along the stockade, some folk screamed in terror while others shouted in anger; a child bawled; one man cried, “God help us!”

“Hold fast!” called the prior. He reached the gate but, instead of retreating inside, grabbed a stout staff handed out to him by another monk, hefted it in two hands, then twirled it to get his balance and grip. “The Lady will protect us.”

The mask warriors loped up to fall in on either side of Liath. All wore masks lowered, presenting a fierce array of animal faces: eagles and ravens, dogs and spotted cats, foxes and vultures and lizards and sharp-tongued ferrets. Zuangua had led a reserve force in a circuit of the stockade. He had given Liath a bone whistle, hanging from a leather cord around her neck, and she put this to her lips and blasted it three times—shree shree shree. An answer shrilled out of the eastern edge of the forest.

“They think you are allied with the Enemy,” whispered Anna.

Liath ignored her. All this was merely a skirmish distracting from what really mattered. She walked forward, alert to any movement along the stockade that would mark the release of an arrow. Arrows were the only weapon she really feared, beyond the galla. She guessed that one or more men accustomed to hunting in the wild wood stood among this group, and as she neared the stockade, she swept her gaze along the length of the palisade. She looked at every pale face in turn, no longer than it took to blink one’s eyes, and they shifted uneasily and betrayed by the cant and leveling of their shoulders what manner of weapon they hid.

There.

She sought with her mind’s eye the precise vision that saw into the essence of things and found those substances most thirsty for fire. She had learned over time how these textures and shapes felt from a distance: the cold slumber of iron, the sluggish whisper of stone, the eagerness of wood clasped in a warm embrace of flesh. There, a bow curved, the breath of flame quivering in its layers. With all her concentration fixed to the finest point of control, she called fire in a line along its length.

A shriek. A clatter as a person dropped it. Shouts and consternation broke out about twenty paces to the right of the gate. A man began sobbing hysterically. Someone was slapped.

She reached Prior Ratbold. He did not move, but his eyes were wide. His fear reminded her of Lady Theucinda, only he was a brave man ready to lay down his life to protect those who lay under his charge.

“I do not intend harm to anyone,” she said. He stared at her as he would at an adder and—as with an adder—he did not move, fearing perhaps that he might provoke a strike. “I want my daughter, and I mean to get her. If I am touched by any manner of weapon wielded by your people, this place will go up in flames.”

“It is wrong to surrender!” he gasped. “We must fight the Enemy. Better to die than to stand aside and do nothing while innocents perish.”

“I do not intend to harm any person within these walls, unless Hugh of Austra defies me. Let me retrieve my daughter, and you and all those with you will be left untouched. I promise you, on God’s holy Name.”

“You walk with the servants of the Enemy,” he croaked, letting go of the staff with one hand in order to indicate the line of Ashioi. “There they are! There they are! Begone, foul daimone!”

He curled his thumb around his middle and ring fingers to make the beast’s head, raising fore and little fingers as its horns: the sign of the phoenix, the mark of the heretics whose word had spread throughout the realm.

“Don’t you see?” she said, with a soft laugh. “I am not a servant of the Enemy. I am the phoenix, who walks living out of fire.”

She sought deep in the heart of heaven and Earth. The aether ran shallow, drained by the cataclysm, but with an effort she found the stream that trickled through the distant stone crown. She gathered as much of it as she could, pulled it to her as carded wool is spun into thread—and her aetherical wings blossomed.

The sound of her wings unfurling cracked like distant thunder. The air sparked, and for an instant those wings blazed so brightly that the prior staggered back, covering his eyes. Folk wept, cried aloud, and prayed. Dogs began barking.

But the breath of aether was too weak to sustain her. The splendor faded as quickly as it had bloomed. Yet that glimpse had been enough. Folk fell back, hiding their eyes. They lowered their crude weapons, and the prior dropped to his knees and braced himself as for a blow.

This was not awe. It was terror.

She pushed open the gate. A wide dirt way led past outbuildings, past the guest compound where a score of faces peeped at her through gaps in the fence, past the beehives, past the stable with a half dozen horses poking their heads out to see what was up, and past a village of tents strung up where sheep would have grazed in more peaceful days. A cold wind chased her, growing in strength. That blast of winter air turned to ice as she broke into a run. Its chill fingers tugged at her. Its chill voice whispered.