Crown of Stars

“I wish I could. Is it bad of me to wish I could?”

Liath took her hand. “No. Come, let’s go see Sorgatani.”

A path frequented by sheep and littered with their droppings took them across a burbling stream into a meadow rimmed on three sides with an old earth berm, the remains of an ancient habitation. Along the fourth side the nuns, or their servants, had built a fence so they could corral livestock here. The painted wagon sat in the middle of the green, violets blooming around it. Four horses grazed peaceably. Brother Breschius crouched beside a fire, which was spanned by an iron tripod. He was crumbling herbs into an iron pot hung from the tripod’s upper supports when he heard their voices.

“Lady!” he cried, striding to her with an expression of delight. “Ai, God! We thought you lost!”

He would have knelt and kissed her hand, but she would not let him. He laughed when he saw she was determined in this, winkled his hand out of hers, unhooked a small bell from his belt, and slipped the tiny hood off its clapper. The overtones of its resonant ring echoed back from the forest.

The door at the back of the wagon opened, and Sorgatani looked out. She saw him, and saw Hanna—and Liath. Her mouth dropped open.

“Liath!”

“It’s safe for you to come out,” said Hanna. “We’re alone.”

Overtones still teased at the edge of Liath’s hearing.

“Does the convent have a bell? Do you hear it?”

“Hear what?” asked Hanna.

Sorgatani paused on the steps.

Breschius surveyed the clearing and the surrounding woods anxiously. “I hope you told them to keep well away. I only ring the bell when it’s safe for her to come out.”

The breath of that sound floated on the breeze, lighter than the kiss of a butterfly’s wings on waiting lips. Liathano.

“That’s no bell.” Liath got her bow out and an arrow free. “Get in the wagon. I’ll run into the trees to draw it away.”

“Galla,” said Hanna. “I’ve heard them before.”

“It’s after me. Get in the wagon. I can kill it easily enough with a griffin feather, but if you are in the way, it will devour you.”

Breschius watched them, nervous but uncomprehending. “It’s getting dark. An archer is blinded by night.”

“Not dark yet for me. Go, Hanna!”

Hanna grabbed Breschius’ wrist and tugged him after. “Get inside, Sorgatani!”

Liath ran out of the enclosure, then ducked into the trees, seeking open ground. Better to have met it in the clearing, but she could not control its movements there, where the wagon lay. As she jogged along, leggings rattling against underbrush, she felt its presence veer after her, heard the change of direction in its bell voice as it shifted its course. There was only one.

Twilight turned to gray. The last of the day’s cloudy light sifted down through the canopy, which here consisted mostly of bare branches and the occasional pine or lonely spruce, densely and darkly green. She saw a lightening beyond the trees, ahead of her, and dashed into a meadow cut by a trickling creek. She splashed through the water—it was no more than ankle-deep—and waded through knee-high grass until she reached a central place in the clearing. After turning, she listened; seeking, she examined the forest. The wind shifted, hiding the galla’s iron tang and muting its deep voice.

From the trees behind her a warbler droned its chiff-chaff call, answered by the chatter of a magpie. She squinted, wondering, marveling. There was hope still, if the birds had returned to build their nests.

She heard the sound more as a breath released, too late. She spun. An arrow bit into her thigh. Stumbling backward, she grabbed the haft of the arrow and to her amazement it came free, slipped right out of her flesh all bloody. Blood spilled down her leggings and around the curve of her knee.

Ai, God, it stung, worse than the arrow that had pinned her to the corpse of a horse. She staggered, fell, but caught herself on a hand.

Liathano. The galla’s voice rang in her heart like the pulse of her blood; it breathed with her as it closed in.

She fumbled for her bow, dropped in the grass, but the pain spreading from the wound in her thigh boiled so hot that it burned her flesh from the inside out.

This is what it feels like to be eaten alive by fire.

Still kneeling, she fought to keep herself braced up on that hand. If she fell, she died. Grass tickled her face as she swayed. Her entire leg had gone to fire, and the fire sped into her chest until she could not breathe, only burn.

When the shadows slid free of the forest and came running up to her, she understood at last. They were men with the faces of animals. The Ashioi had come. She had been poisoned.