Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

Yet was it already too late?

Because Da did nothing but run the last years of his life, he had taught Liath to run, to turn away, to hide herself. She couldn’t even truly love the ones she wanted to love, because she could not reach out to them, not with her heart entire. She had taken the key and thrown it away long ago, escaping from Hugh, but she hadn’t understood then that she had also walled herself away, that the city of memory Da had taught her to build in her mind’s eye was another barrier against those who sought to embrace her with friendship and love.

Ivar had never threatened her. But she had seen his infatuation as a threat. She had disdained him because she did not know how to be his friend.

Hanna had given her friendship without asking anything in return, but Liath had walked away from her to go with Sanglant.

Yet she had not even been able to love Sanglant with a whole heart. She had loved him for his body and his charisma, but she had never truly known him. He remained a mystery; despite his protestation that he was no onion with layers of complexity and meaning to be uncovered, he was not as simple as all that. No one ever is. She had never looked to see what lay beneath the surface, because the surface was easy enough to polish and keep bright.

Ai, God, even Blessing. She had watched Sanglant love the baby unreservedly. But she had always held a part of herself back, the crippled part, the part that had never learned to trust.

The part that was afraid of being vulnerable, killed by love, and by hope, and by trust again, and again. And again.

“No,” she said, from this height looking down over the glorious palaces and the river of fire, looking down at her kinsfolk gathered in a flock beneath, hovering halfway between the heavy silver sheet of the sky and the river’s flashing, molten surface. “I’m not ready to leave them behind because I don’t even know them yet.”

She opened herself to the measure of their wings and let them see into her heart, into the burning bright soul that was the gift her mother had given her. “Maybe this will be my home one day,” she added, “but it can’t be now.”

“Child,” they said, in love and as a farewell.

What need had they to mourn her leaving? The span of one mortal’s years on Earth might pass in the same span it took to cross one of those shimmering bridges that linked the golden palaces: a thousand steps, or a song. Her soul was immortal, after all, and half her substance was fire.

She could return.

“So be it,” she said. Eldest Uncle had taught her that in the secret heart of the universe the elements can be illuminated, touched, and molded. She reached, found fire, and drew out of the invisible architecture of the aether the burning stone that marks the crossroads between the worlds.

Blue fire flared all along its length. She stepped through to find herself landing with a surprisingly hard thump in the midst of flowers, heavenly blues, blood-soaked reds, and so many strong golds and piercing whites that her eyes hurt. Her buttocks and hips ached from the impact, and even her shoulders were jarred. She was stark naked, hair falling loose past her breasts and down her back. In a heap beside her lay her cloak and boots, her clothes, her sword, belt, and knife, and her quiver, although it was empty. All her arrows were missing. Her bow and Sanglant’s gold torque lay tumbled on top, as though all this had fallen here in company with her descent.

She was back in the meadow of flowers, in Aoi country.

Still shaking, she reached out to touch the cold, braided surface of the gold torque, frowning as she picked it up, no longer hers to claim. No longer hers to fear and retreat from.

Anne is not my mother.

She laughed out loud, awash in an exhilarating sense of freedom.

“So,” said a man’s harsh voice not ten paces away, “more than one day and one night have passed, Bright One. Feather Cloak’s protection no longer shields you. Now I will have your blood to make my people strong.”

Startled, she looked up to see fully fifty Ashioi surrounding her, fearsome animal masks pulled down to conceal their faces. Every one held a weapon, and the one in front had lowered his spear to point at her heart.

Cat Mask and his warriors had come to kill her.

3

HOME.

He had come home, and Adica was here, whole and alive, waiting for him, just as he had hoped and prayed and dreamed. For the longest time he simply held on to her, wanting never to let her go, breathing in the lavender scent of her hair, but at last he became aware of the hounds butting into them and the villagers, around them, waiting to greet him.

That, too, took a while. Even Beor laughed to see him, and he was surprised how happy he was himself to see all these familiar, cheerful faces. His people, now. His home.