Child of Flame

Why wasn’t the sun rising beyond the stones? He saw it, swollen and hazy, riding low over the indistinct palisade in a blaze of vivid red-gold. Smoke drifted in streamers among the distant trees.

Nauseated, he lay back, and after a moment, beyond the agonized throbbing in his head, he heard the clash of battle. “What happened?”

“You were hit in the head by a stone.”

It was a struggle to recall what had happened. “They’ve broken through on the east slope, by the sacred threshold!” He got up to his feet before she could stop him and staggered, catching himself on one of the hounds before he could fall. It was hard to tell which one; he couldn’t quite focus.

“Adica?” He turned, and saw her.

She had bound on her gold antlers and bronze waistband, the regalia of a Holy One, a woman of power. He could still hear the battle, but the sun now set in the west.

“How long?” he demanded hoarsely. Where once had lain the birch shelter where they had slept, and made love, now lay smoldering coals and white ashes lifting on the dusk breeze.

“All day,” she said. “We’ve held them off all day.”

At what cost?

He saw, then, that what he had first thought was the setting sun was in truth the village in flames, all of it burning or fallen in. The palisade had been breached in a dozen spots; in some places fire had eaten it away. Bodies filled the ditches, pinned on stakes or simply broken. He could not see what had happened to the villagers, but what remained of the Cursed Ones still fought desperately along the tumulus, trying to break through. Yet as desperately as they fought, the White Deer people fought more desperately still. He caught a glimpse of Sos’ka down by the cleft. Streaked with blood, she vanished in a hail of spears. The other hound ghosted in just as he sagged forward, and he caught himself on that strong shoulder.

“Are they all dead? Did I lie here all day, while they died?”

Behind him, she spoke. “Beor and the other fighters broke out of the village in the afternoon to try to reach this place. When the attack came, Weiwara led the children and old people into the forest. I made a prayer for them. I burned pine leaves, to grant them invisibility. I hope some made it. It will be safer for them there.”

“Kel? Tosti? Urtan? Beor?”

“I don’t know what became of them.” Her tone sounded so distant, too calm, as though Adica had gone and the Hallowed One, a detached, unapproachable woman he didn’t really know, had kidnapped her form and now walked the Earth in his beloved Adica’s body.

The sun’s lower rim touched the horizon.

“Alain.” Her voice, so sweet to his ears.

He turned. She had come forward. They stood alone on the height, with the stones behind her and the fighting raging all around. Every last soul had gone down to try to stem the Cursed Ones, just for this one final hour. That was all she needed now.

Weeping, he caught her by the arm. “Must you do this, Adica? Ai, God. How can I bear it?”

“Think how many will die if we do not succeed. Think how many have already died, protecting me!” Anger flared at last. “My heart grieves to leave you, Alain. You know how much I do love you. But don’t stand in my way. Don’t break the love we share by bowing to selfishness. My life does not belong to me but to my people. And it does not belong to you either.”

“You lied to me! You knew all along!”

Blinking back tears, she kissed him. “I couldn’t bear to see you unhappy.”

She kissed him again. Hugged him for a long time, arms wrapped tightly around him. And left him, walking proud and tall, her antlers towering above her as though they would touch the heavens. She walked to the calling ground. She set her feet in that chalk circle, with her head raised proudly as the light waned and twilight crept up the eastern sky, although the last purple-rose ot sun’s glow lingered in the west. The bowl of night began to fill up with darkness. The last glint of the setting sun caught and tangled in her shining antlers, making her seem no longer human.

She had lied to him all along. But had her lie been any different than the one he had spoken to the dying Lavastine? She had only wanted to spare him pain and fear.

He broke forward to come up behind her. “So be it. Then I’ll die with you.” Behind him, Sorrow and Rage whined.

Her back stiffened, tensing as she heard his words. She did not answer, but neither did she tell him to leave. The first star winked alive in the dusk sky, brilliant Somorhas setting in the west, almost drowned in the last glimmer of the sun. With a shuddering breath, she raised her mirror to catch its light. Stars bloomed quickly now, as if in haste, and with her staff she wove them, one by one, into the loom. Through the soles of his feet he heard the keening of the ancient queens and the cries of anguish from the battlefield. Threads of starlight caught in the stones and tangled into a complex pattern made strong by the bright light of Mok shining on the cusp between Healer and Penitent.