Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

The priest cried out. “May He-Who-Burns take this offering!” He struck.

The centaurs cried out in fear and helpless fury.

Light ripped down from the heavens. The burning flash was followed by an explosive clap that threw every person to the ground.

Then it was silent, for the space of two breaths, or two hundred breaths, impossible to tell because his skin tingled so sharply that the sensation obliterated all his other senses. Blood trickled from one ear as his sight returned, and he pushed up to his knees. His hair had come alive, twisting like the living hair of the merfolk.

Only the Holy One still stood upright, unable to collapse because of the ropes binding her. Her flesh was burned and her black hair, mane, and coat singed. The priest had been thrown twenty paces away, his burned and contorted corpse smoking. Fire danced along the hem of his cloak and died. The obsidian knife lay at the centaur shaman’s feet, melted into a puddle of steaming glass.

Alain staggered to his feet just as the drivers fell from the wagons, clothes burned off their bodies, and stumbled away toward the safety of the woods. One of the horses, caught in the traces, tried to rise, but could not. Alain kicked down a nearby soldier who tried to stand. He made it, barely, to Li’at’dano. As he cut the ropes, she collapsed gracefully to the ground. Centaurs struggled up, their manes and hair standing straight up like that of frightened cats. Sos’ka was not among the standing.

The Cursed Ones were slower to rise. Some crawled away. Other were killed by those centaurs who recovered first, but Alain could do nothing to help them, any of them. All he could do was help the shaman to rise. This close, he saw the horrible bruises across her torso, the marks of a whip, and the mangled stump of one ear, its tip cut clean off.

At last, Sos’ka appeared at his side, singed but living. “In the wagon,” she said. It was not easy to get Li’at’dano in, and a tight fit besides to place a centaur’s body in a bed meant for carrying two-legged creatures and their cargo. When they had done, other centaurs had already unfastened the stunned horses and harnessed themselves in their place.

“What did she do?” Alain asked, leaning on the wagon to catch his breath. His hair was finally beginning to settle. A huge scar marked the center of the road.

“Li’at’dano wields the weather magic,” said Sos’ka. “She called lightning.”

A new herd of centaurs galloped up, wielding torches like clubs as they scattered or killed the rest of the Cursed Ones. Only now could Alain hear the distant clash of battle by the fort, fading as wind rose up out the dark, a rushing in the nearby trees. He heard barking, coming closer.

Sos’ka whistled, and a centaur with burnt-butter-colored skin and a glossy gray coat trotted up. She carried a bow, with a quiver of arrows slung over her back. “He’ll need to ride if he’s to come with us,” said Sos’ka.

“He is not,” said Gray Coat. “His companions come now, on the backs of Ni’at’s foals. They must return to their own herd with this news.”

“Let him come before me.” The Holy One’s voice was soft, labored, yet it still sang sweetly. He turned to look. The shaman lifted her head, seeking; she seemed blind, although her eyes were open.

“Here I am,” he said, reaching out to touch her questing hand.

“Yes.” She caught hold of his fingers, her grip uncomfortably strong. “You are here. What is it that you wish to ask me?”

How did she know? “Are you the one called Liathano?” He stumbled over the pronunciation, trying it again. “Li’at’dano.”

“I am called Li’at’dano.” A thin smile teased her swollen lips. “But there is one who will be given my name in the time yet to come.”

“Ai, God.” Her words shuddered through him like the tolling of a bell. He glanced around at the centaurs looming and pacing, impatient to go, to get their rescued shaman to a place of safety where she could heal. But he still had so many questions. “Where am I, truly?”

“You are here.”

“Where was I before? Where was I when I was alive?”

“You are alive now.”

“Alive where?” The words caught on his tongue, all tangled and heavy. He could barely speak. “Alive when?”

A dozen centaurs pounded up, Agalleos and Maklos clinging to the backs of two roan mare women. Agalleos looked grim. Maklos seemed, as he dismounted, to be flirting with the pretty creature he had just ridden in on. Torches shifted and bobbed in the darkness as more gathered, retreating from the battle at the fort.

And he remembered: the soldier prince hadn’t died. He wasn’t a shade. He remained as alive, at this moment, as Alain was. “Ai, God. I’m not in the afterlife, am I?”

“No,” she said sadly, “you are not. I found you only because the one you call Liathano dragged you off the path that leads to the Other Side.”

“You mean I was truly dying.” Bitterness took hold of him as he blurted out his next words. “I served the Lady of Battles as she bid me. I died on that battlefield.”

“You did not die only because the fire’s child dragged you off the path. I saw you in the crossroads between worlds and lives, in the place where all that was and that is and that will be touches. There I got hold of you, and I brought you here. To this time. To Adica.” Pain creased her features, but she managed to speak. “Who needs you.”

Ai, God. Adica!

Rage and Sorrow swarmed him then, bounding up fearlessly through the herd of gathering centaurs, leaping over the corpses of the dead, and jumping up to lick his face.