Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

Better to be done with it quickly. Weiwara lifts the tiny girl out of the sling, kisses her gently, and hands her up to Sos’ka. The infant shrieks outrage, but another centaur moves forward and, with a deft swoop, places the screaming infant at a breast. After a moment, the baby gets hold of the nipple and suckles contentedly.

The mist fades as the centaur women make silent gestures of farewell and move away. Better that the parting be swift. The sling sags, empty, against her chest. Her breasts ache as her milk lets down, and Wrinkled-old-man begins to hiccup little sobs, catching her mood. Sun streaks the blasted tops of tumbled stones.

“What about Alain?” cries Kel.

Too late. The sun drives the last of the mist from among the stones. The Holy One has gone, and the owl no longer perches in those vanished shadows.

“I saw her!” Kel momentarily forgets his grief as he staggers forward into the stones. “I saw her!” His head bows, and his shoulders shake. “But they’ll never know. Tosti, and Uncle, and Alain, they’ll never know.”

As soon as she feels strong enough and after she has nursed the baby, Weiwara leads Kel back down to where the ragged band of survivors waits. Most of the other White Deer people make ready to leave, wanting to return to their own villages to see how they have weathered the storm. As Weiwara surveys the destruction, she thinks maybe her people should leave, too. Ghosts and spirits swarm this place now. She can almost see them. Now and again she glimpses out of the corner of her eye the shades of the Cursed Ones, weeping and shouting curses because they are trapped forever on the road to the Other Side, neither dead nor living.

But the ancient queens have not done yet. Arrow Bright, Golden Sow, and Toothless have not forgotten the bonds that link them to their people. As the last echoes of the vast spell tremble in the earth, they grasp the fading threads and on those threads, as with a voice, they whisper.

When Weiwara and Agda carry Adica’s body on a litter into the silence of the ancient tomb, the queens whisper into her ears. Weiwara arranges the corpse as Agda holds the torch. She lovingly braids Adica’s beautiful hair a final time. She fixes the golden antlers to her brow and straightens her clothing, places her lax hands on her abdomen. The lapis lazuli ring that Alain gave her winks softly under torchlight. She stows next to Adica the things Alain brought with him but left behind. In this way a part of him will still attend Adica in death. Last, she places at her feet a bark bucket of beer brewed with honey, wheat, and cranberries.

“Let me share this last drink with you, beloved friend.” She dips a hand in the mead and drinks that handful down. As the sharp beer tickles her throat, it seems to her that the ancient queens stir in their silent tombs.

“Do not abandon us, Daughter. Do not abandon the ones who made you strong and gave you life. Do not leave your beloved friend to sleep alone. That was all she asked, that she not be left to die alone.”

Weeping—will she always be weeping?—Weiwara says the prayers over the dead as Agda sings the correct responses. Afterward, with some relief, she and Agda retreat into the light. At the threshold of the queens’ grave, they purify themselves with lavender rubbed over their skin before they return to the gathered villagers, those who remain.

“What shall we do, Mother Weiwara?” they ask her. “Where shall we go?”

Kel comes running. She sent him back to the village, and with great excitement he announces that eight of the ten pits where they store grain against winter hardship have survived the conflagration.

“This is our home,” says Weiwara, “nor would I gladly leave the ancient queens, and my beloved friend, who gave us life. Let us stay here and build again.”

Arrow Bright, seeing that all transpires as she wished, withdraws her hands from the world. “Come, Sister,” she says to Adica’s spirit, which is still confused and mourning. “Here is the path leading to the Other Side, where the meadow flowers always bloom. Walk with me.”

Their memories fade.

In time, as the dead sleep and the living pass their lives on to their children and grandchildren down the generations, they, too, are forgotten.

Ivar hit the ground so hard that his knees cracked. His arms gave out, and his face and chest slammed into the dirt.

He lay stunned in darkness while the incomprehensible dream he’d been having faded away into confusion. Dirt had gotten into his mouth, coating his lips. Grit stung on his tongue. His ear hurt, the lobe bent back, but he couldn’t move his head to relieve the pressure.

As he lay there, trying to remember how to move, he heard a man speaking, but he didn’t recognize the voice.