Crown of Stars

She looked up first. As usual, Liath was so intent on what she was doing that it took her a moment to notice the arrivals. Not so with him; she could not enter any room he was in without him immediately being aware of her presence.

Ah, well.

“Sanglant,” she said, beckoning. She nodded to Waltharia, not needing to greet her. Somehow, it made the relationship between the two women seem more intimate than the one she shared with him.

“Here is Hedwig,” Liath added. “She was an Eagle.”

The old woman stirred, groping for a cane and looking quite startled—but not, he thought, because of his presence.

“I pray you, Eagle,” he said, “no need to rise. I recall your old injuries. I’ll sit here.”

There was a chair. He grabbed its back and swung it over.

“I thank you, Your Majesty,” she said with a hint of sour humor as she cast an accusing glare at Liath. She released the cane to rest against her bedding.

He sat beside Liath, facing the old Eagle. Waltharia remained standing at the foot of the bed. Hathui circled around to warm her hands at the hearth fire. Smoke swirled in the lamplight. A servant hurried forward to place more wood on the fire. It was so cold in the cottage, despite the blaze, that Liath’s breath steamed when she spoke.

“Repeat what you told me, I pray you, Hedwig.”

The old woman frowned, first at Liath and afterward upward at the loft of darkness that hid the ceiling. She was measuring her words in her mind before she spoke them. He almost laughed, because the look of her made him feel so young. She was exactly the kind of old woman who had frightened him most as a boy because this sort were apt to scold a hapless child for stealing tarts from the kitchens when it was only hunger that drove him. This kind was merciless, even in the face of honest need. Even to a royal prince who in other hands might expect a little leniency.

“Wolfhere brought the Eagle’s Sight to our order,” she said.

“Did he?” The statement surprised him.

“I thought this knowledge was handed down from regnant to heir. Before that time, we rode, and we observed, but we could not see or speak through fire.”

“No wonder King Arnulf made Wolfhere his favorite. Eagle’s Sight granted him a powerful advantage.”

“Yet Eagle’s Sight is closed to me now. I can see only snatches, glimpses.” She nodded at Liath. “This blindness affects all of us, so this one believes. The sight has been somehow damaged in the wake of the tempest that swept over us last autumn.”

“That’s what we were speaking of,” said Liath to Sanglant, “just now.”

“Explain it again, I pray you.”

Liath had a way of frowning that wasn’t actually a frown but more of a thoughtful grimace as she collected her thoughts, a task of undoubted complexity since she knew so many complicated things.

“I think that Eagle’s Sight runs on the threads of aether. Aether resides in the heavens, beyond the mortal Earth. Normally it is rarefied and weak here in the lands below the moon. The crowns channel and intensify these threads of aether, which is how they can be woven into a gate. But Eagle’s Sight touched the aether differently. It was drawn through a portal, which some of us saw as a standing stone burning with blue fire. That stone acted as a crossroads. The stone was itself the portal, between this world and the higher spheres. It was created by the spell woven in ancient days when the country of the Ashioi was torn from its roots and flung into the heavens. Through that portal aether filtered down to Earth in greater quantities than it normally would. So, once the portal between the aether and Earth was severed by the return of the Ashioi land, then the Eagle’s Sight was diminished, so damaged that it is as if we cannot see at all. The crowns were raised long ago, before the portal was opened by the spell in ancient days. The crowns should still weave, but our Eagle’s Sight is lost to us. Possibly forever. I don’t know.”

“My lady.” The old woman’s voice and demeanor had changed. She bent her head respectfully. “I thought you were an Eagle, one like me.”

“So I am! Well. So I was.”

“Now I see you are not who I thought you were. Else you would not address the king regnant with such familiarity. Who are you? Are you the one—?” She broke off.

“What one?” asked Liath.

Hedwig shook her head. “No need to ask. You are the one Wolfhere sought when he came back from his exile.”

“His exile?” asked Sanglant.

“Yes, Your Majesty. You must know of this, surely. When Arnulf died, Henry exiled Wolfhere. Or perhaps it was later, after the prince was born. That would be you, Your Majesty.” Her hands shook as she smoothed down the rumpled bedclothes. “Nay, nay. My memory weakens. You were a boy when King Arnulf died, Your Majesty. You had already been born and survived some years.”