The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

The shaman examined Anna as though the young woman were a particularly loathsome grub that she might, upon examination, decide to squish. That look was spell enough. Anna ducked her head. Maybe the end would come swiftly, a bolt of lightning called down from the heavens to burn her to ash.

“I have done nothing to Princess Blessing except spare her the brutal mercies of the beast who stalks in the grass. What affliction besets her, I do not know.”

“There are healers in the prince’s camp—”

“This is not an earthly affliction. There is nothing we can do.”

“There has to be something!”

“Does there?” The tone made Anna flinch, but no blow landed. “The storm blows itself out. A warm wind will finish it, and the first flowers of spring will bloom. We will wait. I will not interfere with the hunt.”

Anna wiped her eyes and knelt beside Blessing, clasping her hands over the girl’s heart. Blessing’s chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, but her eyes remained open, blind and unresponsive.

“What do you do?” asked the shaman curiously.

“The only thing left me to do. I’m going to pray.”

2

WHEN you have seen the world end and you are lost in a storm of ice, all you can do is fight forward toward an unseen and even unknowable destination.

Wind battered her. The ground became rocky as they began to climb. The stranger leading her dropped in and out of sight, screened by a blast of snow one moment only to be revealed as the wind shifted. His unbound hair whipped and curled in the gale like writhing snakes. Hunched over, he trudged up the steep slope into the teeth of the wind and did not look back to see if she were following.

Where else would she go?

They walked forever until her hands and feet were numb and she could not feel the weight of her bow on her back. Her cheeks burned. Twice she slipped and stumbled as loose rocks, unseen under the blowing snow, rolled away beneath her feet. Each time she cursed as she hit knees, once an elbow. The wind screamed down off the height, pummeling her; a pebble gouged a cut below her eye, the blood wicked away by the blast of the gale.

He vanished. She stumbled over rubbish, tripped, hit the ground knees first and found herself scrabbling among bones, but her hands were so numb that she couldn’t feel to get her balance. He hauled her up and shoved her forward into the shelter of a lopsided hut crazily woven of sticks and grass. An old and threatening scent pervaded the air, but at least the cutting wind had lessened enough that she could hear him speak in perfectly grammatical but clearly accented Wendish.

“If you light fire, we live.”

Out of the wind, she began shivering all down the length of her body. It was hard to concentrate, even to think of her own name much less remember how to call fire in such a dangerous place, with dry vegetation all around them ready to burst into an inferno.

ing stood and stepped forward, her little face creased with determination, her eyes black with anger.

“When are you going to take me back to my—”

She jerked and spun sideways as though a giant’s hand twisted her around. Her hands clutched at her throat, and her eyes rolled skyward. Light winked, flashed, in the corner of Anna’s eye—barely seen and gone as quickly.

Blessing screamed. “I hear her! I hear her! She came back! She’s all on fire!” She fell limp to the ground.

“Blessing!” Anna shook the girl, chafed her hands, but she did not respond although she was breathing and her eyes were open. A shadow covered the princess’ face, and Anna looked up to find the shaman looming over them. “What did you do?” she cried, then fell silent as the shaman’s gaze touched her.

The centaur said nothing, only gazed at Blessing, coolly appraising. Her face, despite its human shape, had an uncanny appearance, maybe only the luminous shine of her eyes or perhaps the oddly disturbing horn color of her skin and the contrasting gold-and-green-painted stripes across her torso.

It had to be a spell.

Slowly, Anna got up, although it still hurt to move. She was bruised and cut and aching, but it was incontrovertibly true that the centaurs had saved her and the princess from Bulkezu. For all their terrible strangeness, they didn’t look insane.

“Who came back?” demanded Anna rudely, forgetting prudence and courtesy. “Who is on fire?”

The shaman scented the air, facing east. “A powerful force has entered the land.”

Blessing could not speak, but Anna had not lost her tongue. Not anymore.

“What are you going to do with us? Where is Prince Sanglant? Why can’t we go back to our people? What have you done to Princess Blessing?”

The shaman examined Anna as though the young woman were a particularly loathsome grub that she might, upon examination, decide to squish. That look was spell enough. Anna ducked her head. Maybe the end would come swiftly, a bolt of lightning called down from the heavens to burn her to ash.