Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

“Hush,” said Agalleos. “My friend,” he said to Alain, “you are a foreigner and do not understand what you see. Slaves may smile and bow, hoping to be spared the whip. Magic may twist a person’s mind until she sees colors that are not there. Now, come. We cannot bide here or we’ll lose track of our party.”

Maybe so. There was so much he did not understand. Here in these lands even the houses were different, built of pale bricks and roofed with wooden shingles. But as they journeyed on he saw other villages where humans and Cursed Ones worked and lived together. The only places where the Cursed Ones lived separately was at the small forts, spaced a day’s march apart, where the high priest and his escort sheltered each night.

That third night as they bedded down in the pine woods within sight of earthworks, Agalleos could see that the matter still troubled him. “You have not walked in those villages, friend Alain. You have not walked in the ruins the Cursed Ones made of the town where I lived as a boy. We follow the high priest and his escort, yet can you say you have looked into his eyes, have you seen his expression? We are too far away to know any of those people except by the color of their cloaks. That does not tell us what lies inside their hearts.”

They lit no fire that night because the terrain had forced them close in to the road, well within sight of the low embankment and the wooden watchtower. Maklos took the first watch. Much later, Agalleos woke Alain for the final watch and lay down next to Maklos. Rage and Sorrow both slept; better to let them lie. They had come a long way without complaint, good comrades that they were. None better.

Alain leaned against the trunk of a pine, taking in the night sounds: an owl hooted, insects chirped, Maklos snorted softly in his sleep and turned over. After a while he moved cautiously to the edge.

The woodland had been cut back about an arrow’s shot on all sides of the little fort, an astounding amount of work. Sentry fires burned on either side of the gate, illuminating the glitter of rectangular shields set up along the embankment like a palisade. There was no moon, but the stars burned piercingly, so bright that for a moment he had an odd desire to weep with joy at their beauty.

A single figure passed the limit of the sentry fires and, lighting its way with a lamp, moved slowly into the clearing toward Alain’s hiding place. The man swung the lamp from side to side, searching low along the ground. Twice, he crouched and, knife glinting in the lamplight, gathered plants best reaped on a moonless night. Alain dared not stir. Something about the figure seemed familiar to him, a haunting ache, a teasing memory, but he could not say what. Darkness shadowed the man’s face, but as he came closer, Alain could see that he wore odd garb, not much more than a loincloth tied in a knot and draped loosely at the hips and, over his bare chest, a hip-length white cloak. Beaded sheaths covered his forearms and calves. Was that a feather stuck in his hair, bobbing in and out of sight as the lamplight caught its color?

The man crouched to investigate a spray of leaves among the ragged grass, lifting the lamp up at such an angle that all at once Alain saw his features boldly outlined.

It was the shadow prince, but not dressed as a prince in martial array and certainly not a shadow.

This man he had seen and exchanged words with in the ruins above Lavas Holding while an unseen shadow fort burned down around them. This man had led a column of refugees past Thiadbold’s cohort of Lions after Alain had negotiated a hasty truce, if there could in truth be any true intercourse between shades and people.

Maybe he gasped.

Maybe knowledge, like a knife-edged flower, opened in his heart. If the shadow prince was alive, Alain certainly could not be in the afterlife, because shades could not dwell on the Other Side; otherwise they would not be trapped as shades on Earth.

“Who is there?” said the man, lifting his head. He doused the lamp, but he had a habit, not unlike that of Prince Sanglant, of tipping back his head as though he were sniffing the breeze, trying to catch a scent.

A sentry moved out from the fires, crossing the grassy clearing quickly. “Is there anything wrong, Seeker?”

The prince waited a few breaths, still listening. Alain was achingly aware of the creak of the trees, the sigh of the wind through lush summer leaves, the soft snort of Sorrow, a stone’s throw behind him, as she dreamed.

“Just an animal.”

“You shouldn’t be wandering out here, Seeker,” continued the soldier sternly, hands gripped tightly on his spear. “There are bandits still, you know what beasts the Pale Ones are. They’d rip you to pieces and then eat you raw. That’s what happened to my cousin. I hope we kill them all.”

“Even the folk in those villages we passed? Even the Rabbit Clan lady who sells incense in Western Market? Even the sailors on White Flower, whose captain is a half blood?”

The soldier gestured toward the sentry fires and the earthen walls, eager to return to their safety. “Wild dogs can be taught a few tricks, but they’re never tamed. And they’ll bite you when you try to feed them.”

“Hu-ah,” said the prince softly, “so swift a judgment and so harsh a cut.” He touched thumb and forefinger to the wick on the lamp, and fire flared, so startling that Alain jerked back, thumping his head on the tree behind him.

“What was that?” The soldier raised his spear threateningly and took a step toward the forest’s edge.

“A deer. Come, let’s go back.” The prince lifted a square of cloth overflowing with leaves and stems; tying diagonal corners gave him a means to carry his bounty. “I’ve got what I wanted.”

Waking his companions at the first blush of dawn, Alain heard a horn call, low and trembling.

Maklos grabbed his weapons hastily. “They’re off early today.”

“No need to hurry,” said Agalleos mildly as he stretched out the kinks that sleeping on the uneven ground had left in his body. “Aih! To be young again!” He grimaced. “I’ll never be free of these knots in my neck! There’s only one road, so we can’t lose them. We’ll reach the Spider’s Fort by afternoon. I wager they’ll stop there for the night.”

“Why so?” demanded Maklos. “Aren’t they in a hurry?”

“There’s a crossroads there, lad. West and north runs the path into enemy lands, as far out as they’ve forced the border. To the southeast they can march by the Carrion Road and cross the Chalk Path by the Bright River. It’s but a day’s march from Bright River to the City of Islands. They can sacrifice a prisoner there as easily as they can in the City of Skulls.”

“What is a Seeker?” asked Alain. When Agalleos looked at him strangely, he explained the encounter he’d had.

“Have you learned the language of the Cursed Ones as well?” asked Agalleos, surprised. Maklos had already started out and now, half hidden in the trees, turned to wave them forward impatiently.

Alain gathered up his gear, staff, pack, and the shield left by Shevros, while he gathered his wits as well. “I told you before: I only know the language of the Deer people, and that of my own country.”