The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

Where were Rage and Sorrow? He could not see, nor could he hear any trace of them. Ai, God, were they dead? Had the bandits killed them? He had been careless, such a fool, to turn his back even for a moment.

The current caught him and dragged him under.

XXI

TRUST

1

SANGLANT slid from wakefulness to sleep so imperceptibly that the transition happened while she blinked. Heribert tucked blankets in around him as Liath beckoned to Hathui.

“I pray you, give me a report of what has transpired while I have been gone.”

“Have you a day for the telling?”

Liath smiled wryly. “I have not. Tell me what is most important. I can learn the rest later. Come, you can speak to me while I sit with my daughter.”

“I’ll stay with Prince Sanglant,” said Heribert.

Liath found Blessing attended by an old man whose naked torso was entirely tattooed with intertwined animals. His eyes widened when he saw her, and he backed away respectfully, humming in his reedy voice. The sound shuddered up and down her spine like the wandering of an unfinished spell, seeking an entrance.

Others bowed, acknowledging her: the Kerayit healer and a trio of anxious Wendish attendants—the young woman with the peculiar skin color called Anna, a youth by name of Matto, and a young lord named Thiemo who seemed sweet on Anna and annoyed with Matto, although he and the other youth were of an age and might surely otherwise be expected to be friendly companions.

They are not so much younger than I am, thought Liath, but she felt immeasurably older. She had traveled so far that at times she felt as if she had aged one hundred years in the space of a few days. Still, as she stood over the pallet on which Blessing lay, she could not imagine being old enough to be the mother of a child who appeared to be twelve or so years of age.

Nor was she. Blessing was barely four years old; it was only the aetherical link to Jerna that had accelerated her growth. Would her little girl burn brightly and live only a brief span? She might soon be older than her parents, tottering around in her second childhood and losing her memory of what had passed for a life.

It was too painful to consider.

“What is your name? What are you?” Liath asked the old man.

He nodded. “I am Gyasi. I am shaman of Kirshat tribe. I owe my life to this one.” He indicated Blessing. “So I serve her.”

“Have you any sorcery that can wake her?”

He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, lifting his chin—a negative response. “This is powerful spell. I know not. I am helpless.”

She stared down at her child, fallen so far away from her. Anna worked a comb through the girl’s thick hair, and Liath wondered idly if it wouldn’t be more practical simply to cut it short. Was her daughter vain of her hair? She did not even know such a small, intimate detail. She knew nothing of her, not really.

Blessing was a stranger.

“Hathui, I pray you,” she said, voice choked with tears. “Tell me the tale of the years I have been gone.”

The sun had reached the zenith by the time she emerged from the tent. Sanglant still slept. The griffin napped beside its mate, content to doze in the noonday sun. The soldiers had moved the skittish horses upwind. As they went about their tasks, the men circled warily around the griffins. They kept their distance from Liath as well.

They all treat me as though I’m something dangerous.

She called Captain Fulk to her and asked him to have Resuelto saddled. “I will ride back to the centaur camp.”

“How many do you wish to escort you, Your Highness?” he asked.

“No escort. Heribert, you’ll stay with Sanglant?”

“So I have been doing these four years,” he said, but he kept looking over at the griffins. “Is it safe, my lady? Will they attack us once you are gone?”

“I hope not.”

“Are you sure you’ll have no escort, my lady?” asked Captain Fulk. “See there.”