Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

Someone stood there, back to him, a soldier with a crested helm wearing a hip-length white cloak. Bronze greaves protected his calves. The wind caught the cloak and whipped the ends up to reveal a finely molded cuirass decorated with boiled leather tassels that reached halfway to his knees.

“You’re wrong,” he said as he turned to face some other person, who was hidden by the curve of the wall. “They will fall before us because our armies are stronger than theirs. They are no better than packs of wild dogs.” The pale light limned his profile as it came into view: it was the prince, but he was now dressed in the garb of a soldier, the same clothing Alain had seen him in before when he had appeared as a shade in the ruins above Lavas.

How strange, that he had changed clothing so quickly.

“Then you underestimate them,” said his unseen companion.

Their whispers made their voices sound much alike. “That is why we still fight.”

The prince laughed harshly. “This war will only be over when the pale dogs and the shana-ret’zeri cease to hunt us, and that they will never do. Because they are still beasts, they cannot live peacefully, nor will they ever let us live peacefully.”

“Spoken like a soldier.”

“Do not mock me, brother. You know they are our enemies.”

“I know there will never be peace as long as our leaders persist in thinking they are beasts.”

“Tell me you did not cry with joy when news came to the blood-knife lord that the witch who calls herself Li’at’dano was captured!”

The name made Alain slip in surprise. Pebbles fell in a spray, skittering onto the ground at his feet.

But the unseen man was already talking; neither seemed to have heard. “She is not even the most dangerous of those who oppose us. But at least once she is sacrificed, her power is lost to our enemies.”

“We don’t need magic to defeat them.”

“If you think so, then you are a fool.”

“You have been listening to the mumbling of the sky-counters again. We have spears and swords enough.”

“Why will you never listen, elder brother? Spears and swords will never be enough.”

“What great magic are the pale dogs hiding? How will they rise up and defeat the Feathered Cloak and her sorcerers? What are they waiting for? The witch mare will be taken to the temple of He-Who-Burns, and there she will walk the spheres. So we will be rid of her. The rest will die or surrender or flee.”

How could it be that this man, who was alive and not a shade, knew of Liath? Wasn’t she already walking the spheres? Or was it Liath he was in fact speaking of? She was no “witch mare.”

“That is what I am afraid of,” said the other man as he stepped at last into Alain’s line of sight. He carried the pale light, a simple oil lamp flaring and flickering as the night wind teased it, held away from his body to illuminate the face of the prince. “That as we march our armies out to the frontier and leave our cities unprotected, the pale dogs are hiding and hoarding their magic. That is how they will strike us. That is why the sky-counters have sent out raiding parties to the four winds.”

“To be eaten by guivres, clawed by sphinxes, and smothered in sandstorms!”

The man carrying the lamp shifted, and all at once the light shone on his face.

Which was a twin to that of the soldier prince. Here was the Seeker again, dressed in simple garb and adorned by feathers.

Maybe Alain made an involuntary squeak of shock. Maybe his foot slipped. The next thing he knew, the soldier had spun around and lowered his lance, balanced to slide right into Alain’s belly.

“Who’s there?” he demanded, squinting into the darkness.

“Do not act rashly.” The Seeker laid a restraining hand on his brother’s arm. “I have smelled this one before.” He lifted the lamp to shoulder height. He had a young face, handsome and proud, but not cruel. Feathers bobbed in his hair as he lifted his chin. “Come forward. You are trapped.”

With his staff held in his right hand, Alain stepped forward cautiously into the light.

“I am only one man,” he said quietly, “and I do not understand this long war. Wouldn’t you live more easily if you could make peace?”

The soldier hissed through his teeth. He held his lance steady, but did not lunge.

“Do you not mean to stab the pale dog through at once and have done with its barking?” asked the Seeker with some amusement. Seeing them together, side by side, Alain could now detect certain differences of stance and expression—the soldier tense and slightly thinner, as grim as death, and the Seeker with a gleam like mischief in his expression and a sardonic lift to his mouth. Otherwise they looked exactly alike except for their clothing.

“What are you doing here?” demanded the soldier as the point of his lance hovered an arm’s length from Alain’s abdomen. “How did you come to our walls without being seen by the sentries and patrols?”