Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

The ceiling sloped up, and the thick stone walls rose higher and higher until he walked, unexpectedly, into a great chamber. A stone slab lay on the ground in the center of this chamber. Sorrow sniffed impatiently around it, as though he smelled a rat.

Alain held up the torch as Beor cautiously stepped into the chamber behind him, spear held ready for battle. Rage padded in his wake. There was no sign of Kel.

The high corbeled ceiling arched up into a darkness the hazy torchlight could not reach. Opposite Alain, and to either side, lay niches, each alcove carved with the representation of an ancient queen.

Here, deep in the womb of stone and earth, not even the wind could be heard. But someone was watching them.

“Where is she?” Alain demanded of that unseen presence.

The torch whuffed out as though a gust of wind had extinguished it. One moment, it hissed and threw smoky light all around them. The next, it was too black to see, and he smelled the scent of burning pitch curl and die away until all he smelled was earth and damp and cold, and the comforting aroma of dog. Beor swore under his breath, more prayer than oath.

Then even those sensations were gone, and Alain could no longer feel or hear anything, not the breathing of the hounds, not the stone itself beneath his feet. He was alone except for a shuddering, wheezing sigh that breathed in and out around him, as though the hill itself was a living creature, half asleep and half aware.

“Where is she?” he called again.

The vision hit like a blast of light, searing his eyes.

Three queens stand before him, one to the north, one to the south, one to the west.

“Who are you, to make demands of us?” cries the youngest. She holds in her hand a bow whose length runs writhing with gold salamanders, burning like fire. Her tomb is carved with two sphinxes. Their clever faces, as much feline as woman, gleam as though touched by phosphorus.

“Who are you, holy one?” She is no saint known to the blessed Daisan, but he can respect her nevertheless, for she is a woman of power even if she is dead.

Her voice rings through him with the fierce clamor of a thunderstorm. “I am the one called Arrow Bright. Have you not heard of me? Was I not fostered by the lion women of the desert, who taught me the secret ways known only to the Pale Hunter?”

“There is much I do not know,” he admits.

“What do you want?” asks the second queen, standing to the south. Her tomb glows with gold beaten into the shape of a sow, and she has herself the ample outlines of a prosperous woman, sleek and radiant.

“What do you want?” Only a rash man states his true purpose before he knows what he is facing.

She laughs. “I am Golden Sow. It was my magic that made all the women of my tribe fertile, and all their children healthy. Is this not what all people want?”

“How is it that death has marked you, and yet you stand living ?” asks the third queen. Her voice has a rasp that makes his skin crawl. Her cairn stands to the west, opposite the passageway. More primitive than the others, it consists of a simple mound of discolored stones like so many worn teeth that once belonged to a creature so vast that each tooth was as big as an adult’s head. She is ancient, and toothless, but her eyes are as brilliant as stars.

“How do you know I am living?” he retorts.

“Only living things suffer desire,” retorts Toothless in kind. “What can you give us in return for an answer?”

He laughs. “I have nothing to give you, for I came naked to this place.”

“Do not say you have nothing,” scolds Golden Sow. “You have youth and vitality. You have life.”

“You are untouched, still whole,” says Arrow Bright. “You are a virgin, as are all those sworn to the Pale Hunter’s service.”

“It is not the Pale Hunter I serve,” he says, as respectfully as he can, for it would not do to insult queens of such power, especially since they are dead.

“You serve the Lady, as do we all.” Toothless moves a step closer. The scent of the grave wafts from her as her cape, woven of grass, stirs in an unfelt wind. “The Lady commands both life and death.”

“Then I am in Her hands.” He bows his head under the weight of a greater presence looming beyond, an effortless stillness that pervades the chamber and, swelling, expands to fill the entire universe.

Toothless laughs. “Let it be witnessed.”

“I know where she went,” says Arrow Bright suddenly, “but it is the way of this place that no thing can be given without an offering pledged in return.”

He will give them anything, if only it brings Adica back to her village. He has lost so many; he will not lose her, too. “What do I have that you want? 1 came naked—”