Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

Alain ghosted in beside her and settled down like a hound come to rest beside its mistress. He set his good hand on Adica’s shoulder and regarded the old woman with a compassionate gaze, neither too sorrowful nor too cool. “May you find peace, honored one,” he said.

At the sound of his voice, Horn turned her head so that the slack side faced them full on. She seemed, oddly, to be staring at Alain again with her vacant eye, as though it was the only eye that could focus on him properly. Her labored breathing made an erratic accompaniment to the other sounds in the cavern: whispering children, a light and steady snoring from off in the darkness, the insubstantial footfalls of unseen dancers and pipers caught forever in their ancient ceremony, painted upon the rock ceiling. A faint horn call seemed to resound, but surely it was only a trick of the ears or the echo of a child’s sigh.

Horn spoke in an altered tone, too resonant to come from that diseased throat. “You do not belong here, Wanderer,” she said in the language of the Deer tribes. “Go back to your own place. Your father weeps for you.”

Alain’s expression altered, pain and bewilderment replacing sincere sympathy. “I have no home. I have no father. No mother. No kin. I came alone, with nothing, from the place I once lived. I will not go back.” He stared fiercely at Horn’s slack eye before turning to Adica. The light in his expression made her heart flood with joy. “Here, I have a home. I will not leave her.” He clasped one of Adica’s hands between his own. Even the grasp of his injured hand felt strong, now.

“Many are they who wait for you in that place,” repeated Horn stubbornly. “I see your crown, brighter than stars. You have wandered off the path meant for you, and you must return. This is your fate, Wanderer.”

Throughout this labored speech, Alain’s hand tightened on Adica’s until her fingers hurt, squeezed between his. Horn’s words cut deeply, slicing open the scar that had sealed over her fear of dying. Was Alain to be taken away from her? Truly, she was no longer sure she could walk with the others, knowing where their path led, if she didn’t have him beside her. She had come to depend on his companionship; it made her last days bearable.

Alain did not quail. “I will not leave her.”

Adica recognized then, in his expression, the terrible pain he had suffered before. It was not only she who had found shelter in their bond. He had as well.

Horn snorted, made a whistling, throaty sound as a palsy shook her. Her apprentice rushed forward and bathed her face with what was left of the spilled potion, and this effusion calmed the old woman. When her body ceased its trembling, she lay slack, her good eye closed and the vacant eye staring unseeingly toward the ceiling as at a particular group of brightly-painted pipers dancing around an elk, coaxing it into their snares.

No one knew what to do at first. Cider was brought, along with rather fermented, withered, tasteless greens, and barley cakes that had been fried in lard and left to congeal in the recesses of the cave. Adica ate what was given her. She knew that, driven from their village and their stores, they had little enough to offer a guest.

Abruptly, Horn woke and, in her normal slurred whisper, began speaking where she had left off before Alain had knelt beside her. “Laoina and the Akka warriors she brings will shelter here, with my people, until the time comes for the great working. Afterward they will be free to return to their home. Those among my people who live will build a new village so that we need never again dwell in a place poisoned by the Cursed Ones. Those who die will catch up to me on the path that leads to the Other Side. Girl, take them to the Bent People. I still hold the power of fire over them, and they owe me one last boon.” She fumbled with her good hand at an armband, her fingers slipping as she tried to tug it off. “Return this to the Bent People. They will do my will in this matter.” Horn took in a breath, and as she let it out, spoke faint words. “Let that be the end of it.”

A feather floated down out of the darkness and came to rest on Horn’s lips. Adica waited for her to take in another breath, for the feather to stir, but nothing happened. Her chest did not rise. Her whole body slackened. The pale wisp that was her spirit rose out of her body, taking a form like that of the big-bellied woman carved into the cavern wall, so different than the frail, elderly body she now inhabited.

A wind rose sudden and strong. The torches blew out, plunging them into darkness. The pale substance of Horn’s spirit twisted as the wind spun it around.

“Hear me! Hear me!” It spoke in a new voice, deep and booming. “She is taken! Come quickly, or all is lost. The Holy One has been captured by the Cursed Ones. We have not enough strength to rescue her. Come quickly, or all is lost!”

“Shu-Sha!” cried Two Fingers.

A thunderous knock resounded through the chamber. Adica leaped up just as the wispy spirit shattered into a thousand glittering lights, quickly extinguished. The young apprentice wailed out loud.

Quickly, the torches were relit, but Horn was dead, and her spirit had vanished into the darkness.

PART FOUR

A MIRROR ON

THE PAST

XIV

JEDU’S ANGRY LAIR

1

THE flames scoured her clean. They emptied her of emotion, of her past, of all her links to any substance except fire, because she was fire. Long ago Da had constructed and then locked a door in the citadel of her palace of memory, hiding from her the truth of what she truly was. Even as the fire of the Sun consumed her, the pure fire of her innermost heart burned more brightly even than the blast of the Sun, waves of heat and golden towers of flame. The door remained in place, but now she could peer through that keyhole and understand exactly what it was she saw writhing and burning, the thing that Da had locked away from her: her secret soul, the blue-hot spark that had given her life and that permeated her substance.

I am only half formed out of humankind. She needed no words, no voice, because the fire itself was her voice. The daimones who took me at Verna are my kin.

I am fire.

Exultant, she reached easily into the blazing fire of the Sun and transformed it into wings. On these wings she rose on the updraft of an uncurling flare to the limit of the Sun.

o;Many are they who wait for you in that place,” repeated Horn stubbornly. “I see your crown, brighter than stars. You have wandered off the path meant for you, and you must return. This is your fate, Wanderer.”

Throughout this labored speech, Alain’s hand tightened on Adica’s until her fingers hurt, squeezed between his. Horn’s words cut deeply, slicing open the scar that had sealed over her fear of dying. Was Alain to be taken away from her? Truly, she was no longer sure she could walk with the others, knowing where their path led, if she didn’t have him beside her. She had come to depend on his companionship; it made her last days bearable.

Alain did not quail. “I will not leave her.”