Child of Flame

“Here?” asked Henry.

“This far.” Hathui indicated the stone circle. “She went in. She did not come out, nor have I seen any evidence she walked through the stones and on into the forest beyond. There isn’t a path, nothing but a deer track that’s mostly overgrown.”

He beckoned to Rosvita. “Your company passed through one of these gateways, Sister. Could it not be that the Aoi have hidden themselves in some distant corner of Earth, biding their time?”

“It could be, Your Majesty. But with what manner of sorcery I cannot know.”

“Yet there remain mathematici among us,” he mused, “who may serve us as one did Adelheid.”

She shuddered, drawing in a breath to warn him against sorcery, but he turned away, so she did not speak. Light spread slowly over the meadow, waking its shadows to the day, and these rays crept up and over the king until he was wholly illuminated. The sun crowned him with its glory as he stared at the silent circle of ancient stones. A breeze stirred his hair, and his horse stamped once, tossed its head, and flicked an ear at a bothersome fly. He waited there, silent and watchful, while Hathui made a final circuit of the stones.

“What news of the mountains?” he asked as the Eagle came up beside him at last.

“Most reports agree that the passes are still clear. It’s been unseasonably warm, and there is little snow on the peaks. If God will it, we will have another month of fair weather. Enough to get through the mountains.”

On the ride back he sang, inviting the soldiers to join in. Afterward, he spoke to them of their families and their last campaign. At the stables, a steward was waiting to direct him to the chapel where Adelheid, Theophanu, and their retinues knelt at prayer.

Henry strode in like fire, and Adelheid rose to greet him with an answering strength of will. Theophanu waited to one side with inscrutable patience as the king made a show of greeting his fair, young queen. But he did not neglect his daughter. He kissed her on either cheek and drew her forward so that every person, and by now quite a few had crowded into the chapel, would note her standing at his right side.

“Theophanu, you will remain in the north as my representative.” He spoke with the king’s public voice, carrying easily over the throng. The news carried in murmurs out the door and into the palace courtyard, where people gathered to see how Henry would react to the news of Sanglant’s departure.

What Theophanu’s expression concealed Rosvita could no longer guess. Was she glad of the opportunity or angry to be left behind again? She only nodded, eyes half shuttered. “As you wish, Father.”

Henry extended an arm and took Adelheid’s hand in his, drawing her forward to stand by his left side, as he would any honored ally. “Tomorrow,” he said, addressing the court with a sharp smile, “we continue our march south, to Aosta.”

3

LIGHT lay in such a hard, brilliant sheen over the abandoned city that Liath had to shade her eyes as she and Eldest Uncle emerged out of the cave into heat and sunlight. The stone edifices spread out before her, as silent as ghosts, color splashed across them where walls and square columns had been painted with bright murals. She retrieved her weapons from the peace stone and the water jar from the pyramid of skulls. Her hands were still unsteady, her entire soul shaken.

She and Da had run for so many years, hunted and, in the end, caught. She had been exiled from the king’s court, yet had not found peace within her mother’s embrace. Now this place, too, was closed to her. Was there any place she would ever be welcome? Could she ever find a home where she would not be hounded, hunted, and threatened with death?

Not today.

The huge carved serpent’s mouth lay empty, although she heard the incomprehensible sound of the councillors’ distant conversation, muted by the labyrinthine turnings of the passageway, each one like a twist of intrigue in the king’s court, muffling words and intent.

“I have been given a day and a night,” she said to the old sorcerer. She had learned to keep going by reverting to practical matters. “Can I walk the spheres in that length of time?”

“Child, the span of days as they are measured on Earth has no meaning up among the spheres. You must either return to Earth, or walk the spheres.”

“Or wait here and die.”

He chuckled. “Truly, even with such meager powers of foretelling as I possess, I do not predict that is the fate which awaits you.”

“What fate awaits me, then?”

He shrugged. Together they walked back across the city toward the bank of mist. “You are new to your power,” he said finally. “The path that leads to the spheres may not open for you.”