Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

He slipped out the doors before her attention drifted back to him. He was so ashamed. He didn’t want her to recognize him, to see what a poor wretch he had become, no longer a man at all, used and discarded many times over. He remembered the pride shining in her face on that day years ago when he had left their village to walk as a missionary into the east. She must never know what had really happened to him. Better that she believe he was dead.

He took the food and drink offered to him, took his goat and his worn pack and left the palace complex as quickly as he could in case she should come looking, to assuage her curiosity. West, Humbert told him, the road toward Bederbor.

So he walked, alone, nursing his despair. What he had seen, what had been done to him, what he had himself acquiesced to, had opened a chasm between him and his family that could never be bridged. All that was left him was the secret language of the stars, the clouds of black dust and the brilliant lights, the silver-gold ribbon that twisted through the heavenly spheres, the beauty of an ineffable cosmos in whose heart, perhaps, he could lose himself if only he could come to understand its mysteries.

Determined and despondent, he trudged west on the trail of the prince.

2

USING a stout stick as his sword, Sanglant beheaded thistles one by one, an entire company hewn down by savage whacks.

“You’re in a foul mood,” observed Heribert. The slender cleric sat on a fallen log whittling the finishing touches into the butt of a staff. He had carved the tip into the likeness of a fortress tower surmounted by a Circle of Unity. Behind them, half concealed by a copse of alder, Captain Fulk supervised the setup of a makeshift camp among the stones of an ancient Dariyan fort long since fallen into ruin.

“The king was right.” Sanglant kept decapitating thistles as he spoke. He could not bear to sit still, not now, with frustration burning through him. He felt as helpless as the thistles that fell beneath his sharp strokes. “How can I support a retinue without lands of my own?”

“Duke Conrad’s chatelaine made no protest. She put us up in the hall at Bederbor for a full five days.”

“And Conrad did not return, nor would she tell us where he had gone or when she expected him back. Thus leaving us to go on our way. We’re dependent on the generosity of other nobles. Or on their fear.”

“Or their respect for your reputation, my lord prince,” said Heribert quietly.

Sanglant lifted his free hand in a gesture of dismissal. He did not stop whacking. The thistles made good enemies, plentiful and easy to defeat. “Nevertheless, my reputation cannot feed my retinue forever. Nor will my cousins and peers feed me forever, knowing it may bring my father’s wrath down upon them. He could accuse them of harboring a rebel and call them to account for disloyalty.”

“Then it will only bring his anger down on them twofold if they listen to your words. What are you speaking if not of rebellion, my friend?”

These words brought his hand to a halt. Battered thistles swayed and stilled. What, indeed? He turned to consider Heribert.

“What is it you want?” Heribert continued. “What is it you intend? You know I will follow you no matter where your path leads you, but it seems to me that you had better know in your own mind where you are going before you walk any farther down this road.”

Just in this way, a wineskin full to bursting could be emptied with a single precise hole stabbed into its side. He sank down onto the log beside Heribert. “Thus am I reminded of the burdens of ruling,” he remarked bitterly as Heribert continued his carving. “It was easier to do what I was told, back when I was captain of the Dragons.”

“It’s always easier just to do what you’re told,” murmured Heribert. His hands stilled as he lifted his eyes to regard the distant trees, looking at a scene hidden to everyone but himself.

Sanglant hadn’t the patience to wallow in self-pity. It made him too restless. He jumped up and began pacing. “If Eagles came with a report of a great invasion, and my father did not believe them, it would be left to me to counter that invasion, would it not?”

Heribert’s gaze shifted abruptly back to the prince. “Would it? If you could find safety for yourself and your people—”

Sanglant beheaded seven thistles with one blow. Then he laughed. “Nay, friend, you know me better than that. How can I rest if Wendar is in danger? I swore to guard the realm and every soul who lives under my family’s rule.”

Heribert’s smile was soft, but he did not reply.

“But I also have a duty to my mother’s people. My mother claims the Aoi who were exiled will all die if they do not return to Earth. Yet Sister Anne wants to deny them their rightful return.”