Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars #7)

She was cruel enough to enjoy the flash of alarm that widened his eyes and startled the smooth assurance of his heavenly smile. But he recovered swiftly. He always did.

“How can you not see it, my rose? To hurt me would be like hurting yourself. We are alike, you and I.”

“So is an adder like a phoenix, for they each have two eyes.”

“By denying it, you admit it. We are alike. You fear the truth, knowing it to be the truth.”

“It’s true we are alike in that we seek knowledge. I do admit it. I’ve seen it to be true. But the outer seeming does not necessarily reflect the inner heart. We are not alike, because you seek to possess and I seek only to comprehend.”

“Is that what you believe? You, who could have anything you wanted? Don’t you know the truth about yourself, Liath?”

“That my mother was a fire daimone, and my father born out of the house of Bodfeld. What else is there to know?”

He laughed. “You don’t know! You haven’t guessed! This is rich irony! Taillefer’s great grandchild does not wear the gold torque that is her birthright.”

“I am not Taillefer’s descendant! Anne was not my mother.”

“She was not. Truly, she was not. But who was your father’s mother? And who was your father’s mother’s mother?” He opened his hands in the manner of a supplicant. His voice was pleasing, and his grace and elegance might persuade any woman or man to listen, and to believe. “Have you ever met the hounds of Lavas?”

And here she stood, talking, talking, while the killing cold drowned the monastery and its inhabitants. She found the heart of the fire burning in the brazier, and extinguished it. It snuffed out, wisps of smoke rising with a last, sharp aroma of lavender.

“Enough! Your beauty is undeniable. Your voice is lovely. Your words and your eloquence astound me. But I no longer fear you, I can never trust you, and I will not fall prey to you, in any way or in any manner. Nothing you say can shake me. This is your last warning. Go.”

“Can it not?” he asked her. “Nothing I say? I am not done with you, Liath. None will have you, if I cannot. Sanglant is dead.”

“Is this the best you can do? Ai, God. You are become pathetic.”

She was not fool enough to turn her back on him. She backed up cautiously, felt for the step with a foot, and knelt down to gather Blessing’s body into her arms. The girl was all limbs, awkward to hold but not particularly heavy.

He did not move, preferring to remain in the light of the rose window that painted him with its pleasing glow. “I would think, my beautiful Liath, that after all this you would know better than to dismiss my words so lightly. I sent Brother Heribert north because he is infested by a daimone. Heribert is dead. I don’t know how he died or how and when the daimone got into his body, although I believe it happened at Verna. But the daimone seeks Heribert, whom it professes to love. I told the daimone to seek Heribert within the body of Sanglant. Once the bastard is possessed—”

She set the girl down.

She rose.

She stepped away from Blessing, for fear of engulfing her in that instant of unbridled rage and fear.

Hugh was ready. A cold howl of wind ripped in through the open doors, so strong that benches tipped over in the nave and slammed into the stone floor. Her clothing writhed around her body, tangling in her legs, and she had to lean backward, overbalancing into the force of that wind, to keep from falling to her knees before him.

Thunder boomed outside. In its wake, shouts and frightened cries split the air and folk shrieked and clamored as Hersford’s residents woke from their enchanted sleep to find themselves caught beneath a tempest. The wind screamed over the valley, rumbling along the roof, blasting into the nave like a raging current of water. Hugh’s hands were working, in fists and then open, part of the magic of binding and working.

Always, his fingers choked that which he wished to control. Always, he throttled that which did not obey him.

Struggling against the howling wind, she straddled her daughter, a foot fixed on either side of the child’s prone body. She fought against sorcery, no longer protected from it by the shield of Da’s magic.

How could it be that he knew the secrets of the tempestari and she did not? What would she give for such knowledge? How much would she give up?

They were alike, after all. Ai, God. It was true.

“I am afraid!” she cried in a voice that carried over the growl of the wind and the cracking shout of the thunder. “I am afraid of becoming like you. But I never will.”

At these words, she saw the truth within him: the twisted fury that distorted his expression as she defied him.