Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

“Will you be safe?” he asked in a low voice. “I don’t like to leave you alone.”

“Nay, beloved, there is no danger to me here.”

After a moment’s hesitation he sat back down, although he did not relax into the pillows.

It was not particularly dim inside the tent because plackets of material lay open along the sides, where wall and ceiling met, admitting light. Hard-packed sand made the floor. Six stakes had been driven into the sand, poles tied to them to make two triangles, one overlapping the other. Through these triangles, in the manner of threads of starlight woven through the stone looms, six women wove an intricate cloth out of blue, purple, and crimson threads. A shape was taking form on the cloth, but Adica couldn’t see, yet, what it was meant to be. These women wore no face coverings, although shawls covered their hair and their pale robes covered the rest of them, flowing loosely over their bodies. They had dark complexions and startlingly brown-black eyes. All of them had hands hennaed in the way of the attendants outside, dots and zigzag lines painted onto their skin. The melody of their murmured conversation rose and fell as though it, too, were being woven into the cloth. The youngest among them glanced up to survey Adica with bold eyes, but looked down swiftly when her neighbor pinched her on the thigh.

The next curtain was drawn aside by an unseen hand, and they ducked low to enter a second, inner chamber. An old woman directed them to a basin gloriously shaped out of copper, where they washed their hands. This chamber was furnished with two chests carved with lion women, plush carpets, and a heap of pillows embroidered with flowers and vines. The curtains hanging on each side were woven of blue, purple, and crimson threads, and they, too, depicted the lion women in stately grandeur. The old woman rang a belt of bells hanging beside the innermost curtain.

The curtain concealing the farthest chamber lifted. Adica saw briefly into a dimly lit chamber: a table and chair wrought of gold sat on thick carpets and, beyond them, a filmy veil of fine linen concealed the back of the tent. A woman shuffled through, laden with the burdens of age. She wore the same flowing robes as did the others of her tribe, but her head and face were veiled by a linen shawl. Not even her eyes were visible, only a loosening of the weave so that she might see without being seen. According to the beliefs of her people, she had looked upon the presence of her god, and the divine radiance still dwelt in her face so brightly that it would kill any other mortal to look upon her.

“I greet you, Brightness-Hears-Me,” said Adica respectfully, waiting for Laoina to translate. “Grave matters bring me to this land, which is strange and perilous.”

Brightness-Hears-Me had a bit of a stutter. She spoke laboriously, yet there remained a profound sense of weight in her voice, as if each word had been handled beforehand by her god. “I greet you in return, Young-One-Who-Stands-Among-Us.” She paused then, waiting in a silence broken only by the murmuring chant of the women in the adjoining chamber. The curtains and walls muffled the sounds of the outside world. At last, she spoke. “From where comes this man who is not born yet?”

“From the loom,” said Adica, surprised. “The Holy One brought him off the path leading to the lands of the dead, so that he might be my companion until the last day.”

“He cannot be dead,” said the holy woman, “because he is not born yet.”

“Then how can he be here, in a man’s body?”

“It is a mystery. His soul is not yet meant to walk on this Earth.”

Adica wondered if Laoina had translated the holy woman’s words correctly. Yet truly, none of the other sorcerers, including Adica, had ever looked upon the naked face of their gods. Surely that changed a person. Surely that meant she might see things other mortals could not comprehend.

“I fear I do not understand what you are saying.”

Brightness-Hears-Me paused, as if listening, maybe to her god.

“Much of life remains a mystery. Even I, who have glimpsed God’s presence, am not given to know everything that shall come to pass. Tell me what passes in the lands beyond.”

At Adica’s direction, Laoina recited the events that had led to their arrival here.

“What must we do if Horn is dead?” Adica asked, fearing to hear the answer.

An uncanny silence settled over them. Adica could no longer hear the murmuring made by the weavers, no sound at all, not even the sigh of the tent’s walls billowing in and out with the wind. Had she gone deaf? That scritch was Laoina’s feet, shifting on the carpet. A chime rang faintly.

Brightness-Hears-Me spoke in a whisper, as slowly as if she were repeating words dictated to her from an invisible source. “If our companion Horn is dead, then we must raise our children to be warriors. There will be fighting in every generation, unto uncounted generations, and the fighting will never cease, for the Cursed Ones are our enemies from the day they first walked among us, to this day, to all the days that will come. Once my people were their slaves. The God of our people led us forth from slavery and we came to this wilderness. Here the servants of God who have the bodies of lions and the wings of angels and the faces of humankind have protected us against the wrath of the Cursed Ones. But even so the magic of the Cursed Ones leans against us. Every year there are fewer of the God’s servants, for the Cursed Ones hunt them for sport and for sacrifice.”