Child of Flame

“Sister Anne claimed that the Aoi would bring in their wake a great cataclysm.”

“Sister Anne claimed many things, but she also would have let Blessing starve to death. She spent years hunting down her own husband, and in the end she killed him because she wanted to get her daughter back. No one has ever explained to my satisfaction why a man like Bernard would run away with Liath in the first place, or hide her so desperately. What if he knew something we do not? Nay, Sister Anne may say many things, and twist the truth to serve her own purposes, and in the end we cannot know what is truth and what is falsehood, only that she is heartless when it comes to those she would use to advance her own objectives.”

“You’ll hear no argument from me on that score,” murmured Heribert. “I built her a fine hall, yet I do not doubt that she would have disposed of me without a second thought once I was of no further use to her.” He sighed suddenly and sheathed his knife. Running his fingers over the finely carved tower which now crowned his oak staff, a crenellation, arrow slits, a suggestion of stonework etched into the wood, and the Circle of Unity rising from the center, he spoke softly, his voice shifting in tone. “All ruined, so you said.”

“Everything. The hall burned like kindling.” He lowered his stick and set a companionable hand on Heribert’s shoulder. “You can’t imagine their power.”

“The power of Anne and her sorcerers?”

“Nay, although truly Sister Anne commands powers greater than anything I can understand or have ever seen before. I spoke of the fire daimones who stole Liath away. Everything their gaze touched burst into flame. Even the mountains burned.” Just as his anger burned, deep in his heart, fueled by helplessness and frustration. The words came unbidden. “I could do nothing to stop them.” Grief made his voice hoarse, but then, after the wound to the throat he’d taken in battle five years ago, his voice always sounded like that.

A breeze had come up in the trees. He listened but could not make words out of their rustling: they were not spirits of air, such as Anne had commanded, but only the wind. Yet that sound of wind through autumn leaves reminded him that he still had hope. In the palace at Angenheim, he had seen a gateway opening onto a place veiled by power and distance and the mysteries hidden in the architecture of the universe as Liath would have said. He had heard Liath’s voice. “She’s still alive,” he whispered.

“It is amazing anyone survived.”

Sanglant hefted the stick in his hand, weighed it, eyed the ragged thistles and, choosing mercy, lowered the stick again. “I know Sister Anne survived the maelstrom. How many of her companions did as well, I don’t know.”

“Sister Venia survived,” said Heribert grimly.

“How can you know?”

“She’s the type who does survive, no matter what.”

“You would know that better than I. She was your mother, and the one who raised you.”

“Like a dog on a leash,” muttered Heribert. Sanglant watched with interest as that smooth cleric’s amiability peeled off to reveal an ancient resentment, nurtured secretly for many years. But, like a dog, the young cleric shook himself after a moment and put the veil back on. His expression cleared, and he glanced up at Sanglant with a cool smile. “Where might such sorcerers go, burned out of their home? Would they try to rebuild at Verna?”

“I wouldn’t stay there, not after daimones of such power had come calling. There’s a mystery here, Heribert. Those daimones were looking for Liath. Bernard fled from Anne and her company because he feared that the Seven Sleepers might twist Liath to their purpose. But maybe he also feared the daimones. Nay, there is much I cannot explain. What I know is this: Anne will not rest. She will look for Liath, and even if she cannot find her, she will still try to stop the exiles from returning. She hoped that Liath would prevent the Aoi from returning, but just because Liath is gone, Anne won’t give up. I have to stop Sister Anne and her companions. I have to make sure the exiles can return.”

“Well,” said Heribert, gesturing toward the camp rising among the ruins. “You, and a cleric under ban, and seventy men, and a baby, and one aery sprite. That’s a weak army to take against a sorcerer as powerful as Sister Anne.”

“So it is.” He bent to pick up one of the thistle heads, cut off raggedly just below the crown. It prickled and stung his palm, but at least pain muted the anger and bitterness swelling in his heart. “I suppose this is how a loyal hound must feel when its mistress abandons it at the side of the road. I actually thought my mother—” He cursed, shaking off the thistle as his skin pulsed from its bite. “I actually thought—”