The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“Nay,” she replied so quietly that a hundred misgivings congealed into a dreadful foreboding in Liath’s heart, and the night no longer seemed so tame. “I am here to save my child and my child’s children from what will come.”

Sanglant woke abruptly, was on his knees on the bed ready to lunge for his attacker before he realized that it was dawn and that Liath had just closed the door behind her on her way out. He shook sleep and fear and memory out of his head.

Sometimes he thought the dreams of Bloodheart would never end. Sometimes he remembered that one night out of two he slept in peace and didn’t dream at all.

He had woken in the night when Liath returned, and they had had a long conversation that he didn’t recall with any clarity now except that in addition to eating all the cheese and bread she had gone on about not being able to trust this nest of mathematici into which they’d been thrown. Maybe he hadn’t really been awake. Sometimes he didn’t know when Liath’s sudden attacks of foreboding were just shadows woven out of her own fears or real premonitions of a truth she only glimpsed. He knew better than to trust a nest of mathematici, especially ones as powerful and as hidden as these. Especially knowing that at least one among them wanted to kill him. Perhaps Liath only suffered because she wanted to trust them. She wanted them all to have her open delight in knowledge, to want to know things for their own sake. She wanted them to be simple, and honest, and pure.

But he had lived for a long time in court. He had fought in more battles than he cared to count, and he would fight again if need be and pray to God afterward for peace. He had seen a lot of people die. Truly, there were some people who could be trusted, some open, honest souls like his poor, dead, faithful Dragons, or even some old, wily ones, like Helmut Villam, who would hold fast at your back when you were fighting for your life. There might even be some pure souls in this world, but he doubted it.

Most people in this world, he had found, were agreeable—as long as you treated them agreeably in your turn—but they were far from pure. Even after a life of running and hiding, Liath could be remarkably naive.

But with God as his witness, he had never desired a woman as much as he desired her. And he had desired, and consorted with, a lot of women in his time.

He grinned, dressed, rousted out the dog, and went outside to find Liath shooting arrows at herself.

At first he gaped stupidly as he saw her out in the meadow beyond their hut: He had never before seen such a display of idiocy. She aimed directly above her head as if shooting at the heavens, drew, and loosed the arrow.

“Liath!” he shouted, bolting for her.

She had her back to the sun, and to him, and she had thrown her head back to watch the arrow fly up and up and up, and then, as any fool knew it would, slow, tumble, turn, and fall back to earth. At her. She took a step back, caught her foot in a hole in the ground, and fell down hard just as the arrow whoofed into flame above her head and showered to earth as ash, sprinkling her hair.

“Liath!” he cried, kneeling beside her, but she was laughing and rubbing one hip where she’d landed hard.

“I didn’t see the hole!” she said cheerfully.

“You would have seen it if you’d kept your eyes on the ground and looked where you were going!”

“But then I couldn’t have watched the arrow’s flight!”

“Ai, God,” muttered Sanglant, helping her up and, for good measure, taking the bow out of her hand. He rested a palm on her abdomen to listen for the child. Its heart beat steadily, quickening as it stirred, slowing as it settled again. No harm taken. “What on God’s Earth were you doing?”

“Just that. I’m trying to see if the Earth rotates. Because if it does, then surely an arrow shot high enough would land some distance away from the archer. That’s because the archer, standing on the Earth, would have moved as the Earth rotates in the time it takes the arrow to reach the height and fall—”

“On your head!”

“Not if you have sufficient height or speed of rotation.” She winced, kneading her bruised hip again, then rubbed the remains of the arrow into the grass with one sandaled toe, looking thoughtful.

The rising sun shone behind her, struggling up over the mountain peaks. She hadn’t rebraided her hair yet, and wisps of it trailed around her face, curling delicately along her neck. How often did he catch himself just admiring her, as if nothing else existed in that moment? It was as if a part of her had settled down inside him, taken up residency in his soul, long before he had realized she was there. He was more her captive than he had ever been Bloodheart’s, and yet in this case the chains were of his own making, and they weren’t truly chains at all. That which bound them remained invisible and yet no less strong because of that. It was at moments like this that he felt blinded by happiness.

She glanced up to see him watching her, then smiled brilliantly and indicated her bow, which he now held. “Do you want to try?” she asked brightly.

It was at moments like this that he thought he would probably never understand her.

X

IN PLAIN SIGHT

1

SORROW, Rage, and Fear woke him this morning as they did every morning, with dog kisses, sloppy tongues licking his face. They didn’t cease pestering him until he rolled out of bed, washed his face and relieved himself, and let a servant bring him tunic and hose. He led them down the stairs and outside, where they ran, tucking their tails and tearing around like wild things, barking with pleasure, snapping at garlands of ice on low-hanging branches. It hadn’t snowed yet, although Candlemass, the first day of winter, was only a week away, but every morning the ground sparkled with a coldly beautiful frost.

When the hounds had run off their high spirits, he whistled them back, and they followed him meekly to the hall. He seated himself in the count’s chair, and his people came forward as they did every day, wary of the hounds who lolled at his feet out otherwise respectful: this week so many apples had been pressed and laid aside into barrels for cider; goats had gotten into winter wheat at the Ravnholt manor, and the man who worked the field wanted the woman who owned the goats to pay him a fine for the damage they had caused; a laborer up by Teilas wished for the count’s permission to marry at the new year, the shepherds had cut out fifty head of cattle for the Novarian slaughter, those animals deemed unworthy to be wintered over; his clerics wished to know which grain stores should be opened next for the distribution of bread to the poor. Duchess Yolande had sent a messenger to say she would arrive to celebrate the Feast of St. Herodia with her beloved cousin. They had, therefore, about six weeks to make preparations to house and feed her entourage. The falcons and merlins must be flown There was hunting to do, both as sport and for meat to smoke against the lean months of late winter and early spring.

He took something to eat at midday and then, as always, he climbed the stairs to the chamber where Lavastine’s corpse lay as cool as stone, without any taint of decay. Terror lay on one side of the bed, Steadfast on the other, two faithful attendants seemingly carved out of granite. Here beside the draped bed Alain prayed every day, sometimes for an hour or more as the fit took him, but today he merely laid a hand on Lavastine’s cold brow, feeling for the spirit buried deep within. It was difficult to believe his spirit was flown when he lay here so perfectly hewn as by a master sculptor, in death as in life. Alair wept a little, as he always did, out of shame for the lie.

Ai, God. Tallia had not been visited by her monthly courses since the death of Lavastine over two months ago. Everyone said she was pregnant, and Tallia herself had begun to murmur about holy conception and a shower of golden light visiting her while she was at her prayers, which these days took up most of her waking hours. Alain could not help but hope against hope even though he knew what Aunt Bel would say: “No cow will calve without that a bull covers her first.” It was one of her ways of saying that work wouldn’t get done unless someone did it, and he was bitterly aware that he hadn’t done his work.

But he was simply too tired to fight past Tallia’s resistance It was hard enough to get her to eat more than a crust of bread each day. It was hard enough to get up each morning himself and sit in the count’s chair and ride the count’s horse and speak with the count’s voice; he kept expecting Lavastine to walk into the room, but Lavastine never did.