The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“Nay.” She shook her head emphatically. “You can’t compare yourself to them. You did it to protect me. You waited until I was strong enough to act. I don’t doubt you meant it for the best.” She tried to be better than she was, but she couldn’t keep the irritation out of her voice. Then she laughed bitterly. “Surrounded on all sides by villains. Even the trees might hear our whispers and give away our secrets.”

Because he stood behind her, she couldn’t see his expression but she felt him shift and God help her she almost turned at that moment; she wanted to set down the baby and have done with caution. But she could not. As Sanglant had so bluntly phrased it, a second pregnancy might kill her.

“I do see it,” he said suddenly, then added, “the line of sight.”

It was a timely reprieve. “A star should rise in that notch. If I’m right, then its thread of starlight brings the crown to life. Once the magic is alive within the stones, then the other stars and planets, and the moon, can be woven into the crown so that it makes—well, I don’t know. It’s the gateway we came through to get here. It’s a way of moving from one crown to another.”

“Then if you can weave the starlight through this crown, we can leave. Can’t we?”

She smiled wryly. “It’s never that simple, is it? First of all, this crown is limited because the mountains cut off the horizon. There’s a narrower band of sky than there would be on a plain, or on a hill, for instance. Second of all, I don’t know how old these stones are. They might have been raised in the last twenty years. They might be perfectly aligned to the stars as we now see them. But if they were constructed by the Aoi, if they’re that old, then because of the precession of the equinoxes it would have been other stars rising at that notch at this day and time of year, other threads of light laying the weft into the shed than the ones that rise in these days at this time. The stars change more than the mountains do.”

He was shaking his head again, fiddling with the ax as he did when he grew impatient with her explanations. Maybe battle seemed more straightforward than astronomy. “But you said they’re fixed stars—”

“Nay, nay,” she said, chuckling. Hadn’t she explained this before? “They’re fixed in relationship to each other. But, for instance, look there—” Standing to the west of the stone crown they gazed east, of course, and along the eastern ridge a few faint stars could now be seen blooming as twilight faded to dusk. Again she used the feather to point. “That’s the Penitent rising in the east. In truth, a bit to the northeast. There aren’t any really bright stars rising at this time of night, this time of year, but the Crown of Stars—you know, the little cluster of seven stars—will rise later, although I don’t think it will rise, just there, in the notch.” He said nothing, just set the ax down with a thud. He seemed discontent, with life, with imprisonment, with her answer. She pointed overhead. “See there, above us. The summer evening sky is the Queen’s sky. There she rides, and there are her Staff and Sword and Crown. And those three bright stars—”

“Are the Sapphire, the Diamond, and the Citrine. I remember that much.”

“But because the wheel of the heavens slips backward bit by bit over the years, if we had stood here in the time of the Aoi two thousand and more years ago, the summer evening sky would have been—Well.”

She had to think about it. Blessing stirred, fussing in her arms, and she rocked from side to side as she calculated.

She had worked so hard to regain her strength in these two months after the shock of Heribert’s escape and the sudden bald revelation that Anne wanted to kill Sanglant and even Blessing. The magi claimed that Liath was not their prisoner but rather their colleague, but that was, as the old Dariyan orators might have said, just splitting hairs. They had stolen from her the one thing she had come here for: to learn unencumbered by anything but pure knowledge. They didn’t truly care about pure knowledge at all, that was the frightening thing. It was war. Sanglant had said so, and he was right. He knew war when he saw it.

o;They betrayed me,” she went on, lowering her voice, knowing that the servants could be anywhere, could be listening and would be listening. There were no secrets in this valley from the one who ruled over it. But she went on anyway because anger left burning inside will only blacken the heart. “I thought this would be a place where I could study in peace, but it isn’t true. I’m nothing but a tool to them. Now I learn that my own mother has tried to kill you, and I can’t trust any of them with Blessing, because they might try to kill her as well. I can’t trust any of them at all. They all lied to me.”

“I lied to you, too. I didn’t tell you what I suspected and later knew.”

“Nay.” She shook her head emphatically. “You can’t compare yourself to them. You did it to protect me. You waited until I was strong enough to act. I don’t doubt you meant it for the best.” She tried to be better than she was, but she couldn’t keep the irritation out of her voice. Then she laughed bitterly. “Surrounded on all sides by villains. Even the trees might hear our whispers and give away our secrets.”

Because he stood behind her, she couldn’t see his expression but she felt him shift and God help her she almost turned at that moment; she wanted to set down the baby and have done with caution. But she could not. As Sanglant had so bluntly phrased it, a second pregnancy might kill her.

“I do see it,” he said suddenly, then added, “the line of sight.”

It was a timely reprieve. “A star should rise in that notch. If I’m right, then its thread of starlight brings the crown to life. Once the magic is alive within the stones, then the other stars and planets, and the moon, can be woven into the crown so that it makes—well, I don’t know. It’s the gateway we came through to get here. It’s a way of moving from one crown to another.”

“Then if you can weave the starlight through this crown, we can leave. Can’t we?”

She smiled wryly. “It’s never that simple, is it? First of all, this crown is limited because the mountains cut off the horizon. There’s a narrower band of sky than there would be on a plain, or on a hill, for instance. Second of all, I don’t know how old these stones are. They might have been raised in the last twenty years. They might be perfectly aligned to the stars as we now see them. But if they were constructed by the Aoi, if they’re that old, then because of the precession of the equinoxes it would have been other stars rising at that notch at this day and time of year, other threads of light laying the weft into the shed than the ones that rise in these days at this time. The stars change more than the mountains do.”

He was shaking his head again, fiddling with the ax as he did when he grew impatient with her explanations. Maybe battle seemed more straightforward than astronomy. “But you said they’re fixed stars—”

“Nay, nay,” she said, chuckling. Hadn’t she explained this before? “They’re fixed in relationship to each other. But, for instance, look there—” Standing to the west of the stone crown they gazed east, of course, and along the eastern ridge a few faint stars could now be seen blooming as twilight faded to dusk. Again she used the feather to point. “That’s the Penitent rising in the east. In truth, a bit to the northeast. There aren’t any really bright stars rising at this time of night, this time of year, but the Crown of Stars—you know, the little cluster of seven stars—will rise later, although I don’t think it will rise, just there, in the notch.” He said nothing, just set the ax down with a thud. He seemed discontent, with life, with imprisonment, with her answer. She pointed overhead. “See there, above us. The summer evening sky is the Queen’s sky. There she rides, and there are her Staff and Sword and Crown. And those three bright stars—”

“Are the Sapphire, the Diamond, and the Citrine. I remember that much.”

“But because the wheel of the heavens slips backward bit by bit over the years, if we had stood here in the time of the Aoi two thousand and more years ago, the summer evening sky would have been—Well.”

She had to think about it. Blessing stirred, fussing in her arms, and she rocked from side to side as she calculated.

She had worked so hard to regain her strength in these two months after the shock of Heribert’s escape and the sudden bald revelation that Anne wanted to kill Sanglant and even Blessing. The magi claimed that Liath was not their prisoner but rather their colleague, but that was, as the old Dariyan orators might have said, just splitting hairs. They had stolen from her the one thing she had come here for: to learn unencumbered by anything but pure knowledge. They didn’t truly care about pure knowledge at all, that was the frightening thing. It was war. Sanglant had said so, and he was right. He knew war when he saw it.

And yet, if it wasn’t for their hatred of Sanglant, might she not have joined willingly in their cause? If the Aoi return would cause a cataclysm that would rip apart the Earth, if sea became the mountains and the mountains became the sea, then wasn’t it right to stop the Aoi before they wreaked such monumental destruction?

They might be wrong about Sanglant and right about the obligation laid upon them.

But how could she know?

“The Sisters,” she said as the wheel of the heavens shifted in her mind’s eye, turning through the centuries. For this alone she loved the stars: They were eternal and silent, uninvolved in the tide of conflict that continually racked the earth. “I think the Sisters would have been rising, and the Guivre would have been at zenith. Different stars would have different influence. If it’s true the Aoi built these stone crowns as a loom for magic, then the threads they were using would have been entirely different in each season than the threads made by the stars today.”