The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

Fourth Son strokes toward shore. He is not dead, of course, but he does not need to be dead. He only needs to be bleeding.

Waters part as a tail skims, flicks up, and slaps down. Too late Fourth Son realizes his danger. The waters swirl with sudden violence around him. He thrashes, goes under. Wet scales gleam, curving backs swirl, a ghastly head rears up, water streaming from the netlike hair which itself winds and coils like a living thing. Fourth Son emerges from the roiling waters clawing at his attackers. From his station at the height of the cliff, Fifth Son hears a howl of triumph as one of the merfolk shudders and sinks, while an inky black trail bubbles in its wake. The merfolk close in. Water boils. Fourth Son vanishes beneath the cold gleam of the fjordwaters. Like a churning mill, the eddies run round, slow into ripples, smooth over.

All is still again—except for the shattering roar of the falls. Blood stains the water and mingles with inky fluid torn out of the merman.

A back breaks the surface, slides in a graceful curve back into the depths, and turns toward shore. He waits. A rock shelf juts out along one side of the base of the waterfall. Suddenly, the waters part and the creature rears up to reveal its face: flat red eyes gleaming like banked fires, noseless but for dark slits over a nodelike swelling, and a mouth grinning with rows of glittering sharp teeth. As it rises, its hair and mane begin to writhe wildly, each strand with its own snapping mouth as if eels had affixed themselves to its head and neck. It has shoulder and arms, hands tipped with razor-sharp nails, and a ridged back that the light gilds to a silvery shine. The huge tail, longer than legs and far more powerful, heaves out of the water and slaps once, hard, echoing, on the rock. It makes no other sound.

It tosses two braids—one neatly shorn, one slightly bloody—onto the rocky shelf. The merfolk are as much beast as intelligent being—or so he has always believed. But they know the contest, and they know the rules. It would not do to underestimate them. An ambitious general can never have enough allies.

With an awkward roll, arching backward, the merman spills off the shelf and hits the water hard. The huge splash melds with the waterfall’s mist. The tail flicks up, as if in salute, slaps down again, and it is gone.

All lies still.

He climbs down the steps carved into the rock beside the falls. Down here, in the cavern hidden behind the spray, the priest hid his heart in a chest. He discovered it because he was patient; he waited and watched, and he listened to the priest murmur and sing about his hidden heart. And when at last one night the priest scurried from his nest cloaked with such shadows as he could grasp in the midsummer twilight, Fifth Son followed him.

Now he controls the priest’s heart—and the priest’s obedience.

He wonders, briefly, about Bloodheart’s curse. By his own testimony the priest turned the curse away from himself But where did it fall? Who will be cursed by the poison of Blood heart’s hatred and thwarted greed?

Hate is the worst poison of all because it blinds.

He reaches the shelf, pauses to scan the waters, but they lie unsullied by any evidence of the gruesome fight conducted a short while before. Water speaks in a short-lived voice, ever-changing, mortal by reason of its endless fluidity.

Yet even water wears away rock in time, so the WiseMother say.

Out beyond the thrumming roar of the waterfall, the sun make the water gleam until it shines like a painted surface. Is that a ripple of movement, or only a trick of the light?

He kneels to pick up the two braids. Deftly he binds then around his upper arms like armbands. Three brothers dead. He touches his own braid, making of it a talisman.

Only two left to kill …

… but they will be the wiliest and smartest and strongest of Bloodheart’s sons—besides himself, of course. For them, he has laid the most dangerous trap of all—the one not even he may survive.

Rage snapped at a butterfly and the bright creature skimmed away, lost in the spinning air.

Alain stood alone by the filled-in grave. Only Rage and Sorrow and a single servant, standing at a safe distance, attended him. Everyone else had gone. His knees almost gave out and his head swam as he staggered to kneel beside the fresh grave. But when he touched the soil, he felt nothing but dirt. Ardent’s spirit, with her body, had vanished. A bold robin had returned to hunt these rich fields and now looked him over from a saf distance, head cocked to one side.

“My lord?” The servant came forward tentatively.

He sighed and rose. Now the rest of them would go on, and leave her behind. “Where are the others?”

“My lord count has gone to begin preparations for leave-taking. The clerics have told him that tomorrow is a propitious day to undertake a long journey.”

“The curse,” Alain whispered, recalling his dream. “I must find out what he knows.”

“I beg your pardon, my lord?”

“I must speak to Prince Sanglant.” He whistled the hounds to him and went to seek out Prince Sanglant.

There was a commotion in the great yard that fronted the king’s residence: two riders spoke urgently with the king’s favored Eagle while a cleric stood to one side, listening intently. Princess Sapientia and a party of riders attired for a pleasure ride waited impatiently, but because Father Hugh lingered to hear the news, none of them dared ride out yet. The folk gathered to hear the news parted quickly to let Alain and the hounds through. But he had no sooner come up beside the Eagle when the doors into the king’s residence swung open and King Henry strode out into the glare of the afternoon sun. Dressed for riding in a handsomely trimmed tunic, a light knee-length cloak clasped with an elaborate brooch at his right shoulder, and soft leather boots, he waved away the horse brought up for him and turned on the steward who stood white-faced and nervous behind him.

“What do you mean, with no attendants?”

“He was in a foul temper, Your Majesty, after he went to the stables, and he was not inclined to answer our questions. And he took the … dogs … with him, and a spare mount.”

“No one thought to ride after him?”

“I pray you, Eagle,” said Alain, cutting in now that all others had fallen silent. “Do you know where I might find Prince Sanglant?”