The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

How had she won their loyalty? She could not guess.

Respectful of the drawn bow she held, the herd came to a halt out of range of arrow shot. They were all female; they wore no garments, only paint to decorate their torsos, and the shapely curve of their woman-bodies was impossible to miss. Two of the centaurs hauled a wagon between them, bar and tongue fashioned so that they might draw it without using their hands.

A silver-gray centaur trotted forward alone, bearing no weapon except a quiver of arrows slung across her back. It was a brave thing to do, considering the proximity of the griffins. She held no strung bow in her hands as she halted at the edge of the burned area. She had no way to defend herself if they sprang.

Now that she was closer, Liath realized that she was not gray as much as ancient, her coat faded because of her immense age as a crone’s black hair turns to silver. Green-and-gold stripes half covered the horn-colored skin of her woman’s body. Her eyes bore an inhuman luminosity. There was, too, something oddly familiar about her, a tugging sense of connection, as though they had met before.

had Mok stood, when last Liath walked on Earth?

It hadn’t been so long ago, after all, only seven or eight days, that she had last stared up at the glorious sky.

She searched into her city of memory, up through the seven gates that corresponded to the seven spheres, until she reached the crown of the hill where lay the observatory. Here, in nooks and crannies, she stored all her observations, marked with figures and images so she could recall each detail.

Mok’s path was easy to find and to recall, a golden alcove in which a robust woman presided from a throne, surrounded by cornucopia, sheaves of wheat, fatted calves and, on the domed ceiling of the alcove, sigils representing each of the Houses of the Night. Seven or eight or ten days ago, in Verna, she had marked the constellation of the Dragon with a tiny shining sheaf of wheat to indicate Mok’s progress.

Because Mok took about one year to travel through each House, that meant that the planet had in the intervening time journeyed through the Scales, the Serpent, and the Archer before reaching the Unicorn, spending about one year in each.

Four years.

Could she have been gone so long?

The heavens could not lie because, as the blessed Daisan had written, they had no liberty to govern themselves. Subject to the Lord and Lady’s immutable laws, they did what they were ordered to do and nothing else.

Four years, give or take six months. Would her daughter recognize her? Did Blessing even remember that she had a mother?

A worse thought intruded, as rot insinuates itself beneath the clean surface of a house, weakening the foundations and posts: Had Sanglant thought her dead, and remarried?

I have been gone too long.

In a year and a half at most, Mok would travel through the Unicorn and the Healer and touch the far boundary of the Healer.

When Erekes walks backward. When Bright Somorhas, walking backward, reenters the Serpent. When Jedu and Aturna enter the House of the Dragon. When Mok, retracing her steps, poises on the cusp between the Healer and the Penitent. On this same day, when the Crown of Stars crowns the heavens.

On that day, in less than eighteen months, when the Crown of Stars crowned the heavens, the way would be open for Anne to weave a great spell to cast the Aoi land back out into the aether, to create a second cataclysm. Unless Liath intervened.

Stopping Anne came before any other consideration. Even her husband’s life. Even her own happiness.

“I will not leave you again,” she whispered, but Sanglant could not hear her.

At dawn, Sanglant stirred without opening his eyes or seeming aware of his surroundings. He was hot to the touch but not gray with impending death. As the promise of the sun brightened the eastern sky, limning the crags with its pale glow, the griffins sank down on the sunning stone. She knew they were awake because of the way their lively tails flicked up and down.

She rose to stretch out her limbs, but at the movement the larger griffin startled up, staring eastward past the river. The second followed her lead. Liath, too, turned.

She had only seen centaurs in her dreams, majestic creatures more wild than civilized but immensely powerful and full of magic. There were not many of them—not more than a dozen—but as they approached, she stared in amazement and only belatedly thought to free an arrow from the quiver and draw her bow.

After marking her position, they turned downriver and disappeared from view. A little later she heard the rumble of hooves and saw them clearly in the light of the new sun spreading gold across the grass. The griffins padded restlessly back and forth on the sunning stone as though eager to retreat but unwilling to desert her.

How had she won their loyalty? She could not guess.

Respectful of the drawn bow she held, the herd came to a halt out of range of arrow shot. They were all female; they wore no garments, only paint to decorate their torsos, and the shapely curve of their woman-bodies was impossible to miss. Two of the centaurs hauled a wagon between them, bar and tongue fashioned so that they might draw it without using their hands.

A silver-gray centaur trotted forward alone, bearing no weapon except a quiver of arrows slung across her back. It was a brave thing to do, considering the proximity of the griffins. She held no strung bow in her hands as she halted at the edge of the burned area. She had no way to defend herself if they sprang.

Now that she was closer, Liath realized that she was not gray as much as ancient, her coat faded because of her immense age as a crone’s black hair turns to silver. Green-and-gold stripes half covered the horn-colored skin of her woman’s body. Her eyes bore an inhuman luminosity. There was, too, something oddly familiar about her, a tugging sense of connection, as though they had met before.

One of the griffins gave a shrill cry as an owl skimmed in over the river. The centaur lifted an arm to receive the bird on a forearm sheathed in leather.

Liath lowered her bow.