The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

PROLOGUE

HE had run this far without being caught, but he knew his Quman master still followed him. Convulsive shudders shook him where he huddled in the brush that crowded a stream. His robes were still damp. Yesterday he had eluded them by swimming a river, but they hadn’t given up. Prince Bulkezu would never allow a slave to taunt him publicly and then run free.

At last he calmed himself enough to listen to the lazy flow of water and to the wind rustling through leaves. Across the stream a pair of thrushes with spotted breasts stepped into view, plump and assertive. Ai, God he was starving.

The birds fluttered away as if they had gleaned his thoughts instead of insects. He dipped a hand in the water, sipped; then, seduced by its cold bite, he gulped down handfuls of it until his skin ached. By his knee a mat of dead leaves made a hummock. He turned it up and with the economy of long practice scooped up a mass of grubs and popped them in his mouth. Briefly he felt their writhing, but he had learned to swallow fast.

He coughed, hacking, wanting to vomit. He was a savage, to eat so. But what had the Quman left him? They had mocked him for his preaching, and therefore had taken his book and his freedom. They had mocked him for his robes, his clean-shaven chin, and his proud defense of Lady and Lord and the Circle of Unity between female and male, and therefore treated him as they did their own female slaves or any man they considered sheath instead of sword—with such indignity that he winced to recall it now. And they had done worse, far far worse, and laughed as they did it; it had been sport to them, to make a man into a woman in truth, an act they considered the second worst insult that could be given to a man. Ai, God! It had not been insult but pain and infection that had almost caused him to die.

But that was all over now. He had run before they took away his tongue, which truly mattered more to him than the other.

Water eddied along the bank. A hawk’s piercing cry made him start. He had rested long enough. Cautiously he eased free of the brush, forded the stream, and fell into the steady lope that he used to cover ground. He was so tired. But west lay the land out of which he had walked in pride so many years ago that he had lost count: five or seven or nine. He meant to return there, or die. He would not remain a Quman slave any longer.

Dusk came. The waxing moon gave him enough light to see by as he walked on, a shadow among shadows on the colorless plain. Stars wheeled above, and he kept to a westerly course by keeping the pole star to his right.

Very late, a spark of light wavering on the gloomy landscape caught his attention. He cursed under his breath. Had the warband caught and passed him, and did they now wait as a spider waits for the fly to land? But that was not proud Bulkezu’s way. Bulkezu was honorable in the way of his people—if that could be called honor—but he was also like a bull when it came to problems: he had no subtlety at all. Strength and prowess had always served him well enough.

No, this was someone—or something—else.

He circled in, creeping, until in the gray predawn light he saw the hulking shapes of standing stones at the height of a rise, alone out here on the plain as though a giant had once stridden by and placed them there carelessly, a trifle now forgotten. His own people called such stone circles “crowns,” and this fire shone from within the crown. He knew then it was no Quman campsite—they were far too superstitious to venture into such a haunted place.

He crept closer on his hands and knees. Grass pricked his hands. The moon set as the first faint wash of light spread along the eastern horizon. The fire blazed higher and yet higher until his eyes stung from its glare. When he came to the nearest stone, he hid behind its bulk and peeked around.

That harsh glare was no campfire.

Within the ring of stones stood a smaller upright stone, no taller or thicker than a man. And it burned.

Stone could not burn.

Reflexively, he touched the wooden Circle of Unity he still wore. He would have prayed, but the Quman had taken his faith together with so much else.

A woman crouched beside the burning stone. She had the well-rounded curves of a creature that eats as much as it wants, and the sleek power of a predator, muscular and quick. Her hair had the same color as the height of flame that cast a net of fire into the empty air. Her skin, too, wore a golden-bronze gilding, a sheen of flame, and she wore necklaces that glittered and sparked under the light of that unearthly fire.

Witchfire.

She swayed, rocking from heel to heel as she chanted in a low voice.

The stone flared so brightly that his eyes teared, but he could not look away. He saw through the burning stone as through a gateway, saw another country, heard it, a place more shadow than real, as faint as the spirit world his ancient grandmother had told tales about but with the sudden gleam of color, bright feathers, white shells, a trail of dun-colored earth, a sharp whistle like that of a bird.