Child of Flame

Could magic ease war and bring peace? He had to hope so. He had to believe that Adica and the other Hallowed Ones knew a way to coax peace out of conflict and hostility. That was the purpose of the great weaving, wasn’t it? To end the war between the Cursed Ones and humankind?

In the morning, Adica carried her cedar chest out of the shelter, threw Alain’s few belongings out over the threshold and, before he realized what she was about, set the shelter on fire.

“Adica!” He grabbed her, pulling her back as flames leaped to catch in the crude thatched roof

She was shaking, but her voice was steady, almost flat. “It must be cleansed.”

Sorrow and Rage whined, keeping their distance from the blaze. Up here on the highest point of the hill, with the stone circle a spear’s throw away, they stood alone as the flames licked up to catch in bundled reeds. The refugees from the other villages had built their shelters down among the ramparts, well away from the tumulus’ height and the power of the stones. A few children scouted out the billow of rising smoke, but older children snatched them away and vanished down the slope of the hill. No one disturbed them. The shelter burned fiercely. A huge owl glided through the smoke, but when he blinked, it vanished.

Rage raised her head and loped away toward the lower ramparts. Many folk were climbing onto the walkway set inside the palisade, squinting toward the village below, pointing and murmuring.

Smoke rose from the village like an echo of the smoke beside them. It took him a moment to identify the house in the village that had caught on fire.

“That’s our house!” He tugged her forward to see.

She said nothing. She did not seem surprised.

“The only time people burn houses is when—” The knowledge caught as tinder did, burning as hot as the fire. “You do think you’re going to die!”

“Nay, I don’t think it, love. I know it.” She didn’t weep as she held his hands. She had gone long beyond weeping. She held his gaze, willing him not to speak. “I could not bear to tell you before, my love. That I have been happy is only because of you. Everything that is good you’ve brought to me. I would never have it otherwise. But my duty was laid out long before. I will not survive the great weaving.”

Panic and disbelief flooded him. Heat from the flames beat his face. It could not be true. He would not let it be true.

“I’ll never leave you, beloved.” His voice broke over the familiar words, spoken so often. Had they been meaningless all along? He hated the fixed, almost remote expression that now molded her features into the mask of a queen far removed from her subjects. “I’ll walk with you into death if I have to. I won’t let it happen. I won’t. I won’t lose you!”

“Hush,” she said, comforting him, embracing him. “No need to talk about what is already ordained.”

But he would not give it up. He had stood by while Lavastine had died. He hated the grip of helplessness, a claw digging ever deeper into his throat. “No,” he said. “No.” But he remembered the words of Li’at’dano, that dawn when he had fallen, bloody, dying, and lost, at the foot of the cauldron. That morning when the shaman had healed his injuries and given him a new life in a place he did not know. He remembered what Adica had said, the first words he ever heard her speak.

“Will he stay with me until my death, Holy One?”

Li’at’dano had answered: “Yes, Adica, he will stay with you until your death.”

“Hush,” she whispered. “I love you, Alain. How could I wish for anything more than the time we were given together?”

“I won’t let it happen!” he cried, anger bursting like a storm.

Was that thunder in the distance, rolling and booming? There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The shelter roared as flames ate it away. Smoke from the village, from their house, billowed up into the clear sky. The shrill cry of a horn cut the phantom calm lying over the scene. The adults stationed up on the palisade walkway, along the rampart, all began crying out, pointing and hollering. Rage, down at the cleft, began barking, and first Sorrow and then all the other dogs joined in until cacophony reigned.

“The Cursed Ones!” cried the people, clamoring and frightened. “They have come to kill our Hallowed One!”

Alain ran down through the upper ramparts and clambered up onto the walkway to see for himself. The Cursed Ones had come on horseback, more than he could count. He recognized their feather headdresses, short cloaks, and beaded arm and shinguards flashing where the sun’s rays glinted off them. Many wore hammered bronze breastplates. Each warrior wore a war mask, so that animal faces hid their true features. He saw only lizards and guivres, snarling panthers and proud hawks. With shouts and signals, they spread out to make a loose ring first around the village and also around the tumulus; he quickly lost sight of two dozen outriders who swung around to the east. The largest group, perhaps ten score, formed up on the stretch of land lying between the village and the hill. The sun’s light crept down the western slope of the tumulus as the sun rose over the stones.