The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“What do you mean?”

The blush still bled color into her cheeks. “I cannot speak of it. It would be prideful if people were to think that God had favored me, for I am no more worthy than any other vessel.”

“Do you think this a sign from God—?” He broke off as understanding flooded him. “This is the mark of flaying, is it not?”

“Do you know of the blessed Daisan’s sacrifice and redemption?” she asked eagerly, leaning toward him. “But of course you must! You were privileged to walk beside Frater Agius, he who revealed the truth to me!” She was very close to him, her breath a sweet mist on his cheek. “Do you believe in the Redemption?”

He scarcely trusted himself to breathe. Her gaze on him was impassioned, her pulse under his fingers drumming like a racing stag, and he knew in his gut that she had unknowingly revealed to him the means to soften her heart.

But it would be a lie.

“Nay,” he said softly. “Frater Agius was a good man, but misguided. I don’t believe in the sacrifice and redemption. I can’t lie to you, Tallia.” Not even if it meant the chance she would open fully to him.

She pulled her hands away from him and clasped them before her, resuming an attitude of prayer. “I beg you, Lord Alain,” she said into her hands, her voice falling away until the mice scrabbling in the walls made a greater sound. “I beg you, I have sworn myself to God’s service as a pure vessel, a bride to the blessed Daisan, the Redeemer, who sits enthroned in Heaven beside his mother, She who is God and Mercy and Judgment, She who gave breath to the Holy Word. I beg you, do not pollute me here on earth for mere earthly gain.”

“But I love you, Tallia!” To have her so close! Her hands pressed against an embroidered golden stag, covering its antlers and head. A pair of slender hind legs, a gold rump and little tuft of a tail peeked out from under her right wrist. “God made us to be husband and wife together, and to bring children into the world!”

The sigh shuddered her whole body. She climbed onto the bed and lay on her back, utterly still, arms limp at her side. “Then do what you must,” she murmured in the tone of a woman who has reached the station of her martyrdom.

It was too much. He buried his face in his hands.

After a long time, still hearing her ragged breathing in anticipation of the brute act she expected, he lifted his head. “I won’t touch you.” He was barely able to force the words out. “Not until you get used to the idea of— But I beg you, Tallia, try to think of me as your husband. For—we must in time—the county needs its heir, and it is our duty—Ai, God, I—I—” His voice failed. He wanted her so badly.

She heaved herself up and knelt on the bed, offering him her hands. “I knew Frater Agius could not be wrong, to speak so well of you.”

He dared not clasp her hands in his. It would only waken the feelings he struggled to control. “Agius spoke well of me?” That Agius had thought of him at all astonished him.

“He praised you. So I always held his praise for you in my heart, he whom God allowed a martyr’s death. Here.” She patted the bed beside her. “Though I am the vessel through which God has sent a holy vision, do not be afraid to lie next to me. I know your heart is pure.”

She arranged herself so modestly on her side of the bed that he knew what she meant him to endure, although perhaps it did not seem like endurance to her. But he must do what would please her if he meant to teach her to trust him—and to love him. Wincing, he lay down stiffly on his back and closed his eyes.

Her breathing slowed, gentled, and she slept. He ached too much to sleep, yet he dared not toss and turn. He dared not rise from the bed to pace, for fear of waking her. If he woke her, so close beside him, and she opened her eyes to see him there, limbs brushing, fingers caught in unwitting embrace, lips touching—

Madness lay that way, thinking on in this fashion. He did not know what to do, could not do anything but breathe, in and out, in and out. A plank creaked in the next chamber. Mice skittered in the walls, and he could almost taste the patience of a spider which, having spun out its final filament in one upper corner of the chamber, settled down to wait for its first victim. He had forgotten about the bread. Now, cooling, its mellow scent permeated the room and tickled his nose. Tallia shifted on the bed, murmuring in her sleep. Her fingers brushed his.

He could not bear it.

He slid off the bed and lay down on the floor. The hard wood gave him more welcome than the luxurious softness of the feather bed, and here, with his head pillowed on his arms, he finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

He arrived back at Rikin fjord first of all the sons of Bloodheart—those who survived Gent—and Rikin’s OldMother welcomed him without surprise.

“Fifth Son of the Fifth Litter.” An OldMother never forgets the smell of each individual blind, seeking pupa that bursts from her nests. But she will stand aside once the battle is joined, as all OldMothers do. She does not care which of her sons leads Rikin’s warband now that Bloodheart is dead, only that the strongest among them succeeds. Yet the WiseMothers know that the greatest strength lies in wisdom.

Now he waits in the shield of the Lightfell Waterfall whose ice-cold water pours down the jagged cliff face into the deep blue waters of the fjord, where stillness triumphs over movement. He waits, watching six ships round the far point and close in on the beach. Beyond them in the deepest central waters a tail flips, slaps, vanishes. The merfolk are out; they have the magic to smell blood not yet spilled, and now they gather, waiting to feed. Eighteen ships have so far returned from Gent and the southlands. Tonight when the midnight sun sinks to her low ebb, OldMother will begin the dance.

Has he built enough traps? Are his preparations adequate?

That is the weakness of his brothers: They think strength and ferocity are everything. He knows better.

He tucks the little wooden chest that he dug out from the base of the fall tight under his elbow and slips out from the ledge. Water sprays him and slides off his skin to fall onto moss and moist rock as he picks his way up the ladder rocks to the top of the cliff. There the priest waits, anxious. He wails out loud when he sees the box.

“I would have found it eventually,” Fifth Son says, but not because he wishes to gloat. He merely states the truth. Gloating is a waste of time. He does not open the little casket. He doesn’t need to. They both know what lies inside, nestled in spells and downy feathers. “You have grown lazy, old one. Your magic cannot triumph over cunning.”

“What do you want?” wails the priest. “Do you want the power of illusion, that Bloodheart stole from me? Your heart hidden in the fjall to protect you from death in battle?”

“My heart will stay where it is. Nor do I want your illusions. I want immunity.”

“From death?” squeaks the priest.