The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

He was happy … or at least content. The day-to-day rhythms of the journey kept him moving, and when he moved, he didn’t think. If he stayed still for too long, the old nightmare clawed up, as it had this night—and most nights—in his dreams.

He touched his throat, realized he had done so, and shook his hand violently as if to shed the chains that had once shackled him. He was free. But the memories still weighed as heavily as the chains ever had. He had been Bloodheart’s prisoner for a long time.

Something rustled in the trees, and he spun and growled, caught himself. Froze.

A wolf padded out into the clearing. Its amber eyes gleamed softly as it stared at him. A second wolf, lighter, emerged from undergrowth beside the first. He drew his sword. Its ring, coming free of the scabbard, drew an answering bark, crisp, short, and clear, from the lead wolf. A third ghosted into the clearing a short way from the first two, and halted.

How many more were out there?

“Liath,” he said softly.

She stirred but did not wake.

He eased a step sideways, toward her. The Eika dog slept on, too, and it usually woke at once if any danger threatened him, but it had remained terribly weak since Werlida.

A fourth wolf, black enough that it seemed more shadow than body, arrived in the clearing. It growled softly, and he, that fast, unthinking, growled in reply. The lead wolf barked again, like an order. Two more wolves loped into the clearing and halted.

“Liath!” he said, more sharply.

She stirred, yawned sleepily, and murmured his name on a question.

“Get your weapons,” he said without varying his tone of voice.

Three of the wolves broke away to circle them. Liath sat up, grabbing her bow.

Light streaked off the shelter, a silvery thread more thought than form. It bore human lineaments, but in the darkness it shimmered. It slid under the nose of the lead wolf, evaded a snap, and a moment later was joined by one of its comrades. Together, they pulled on the tails of the wolves and otherwise pinched and teased them until the entire pack turned tail and vanished into the forest. The servants disappeared after them, their laughter as soft as the wind.

“Cover yourself.”

Sister Anne emerged from the shelter with the third servant hovering at her side. Liath yanked the blanket up to her shoulders. Sanglant ignored her and went to the edge of the clearing to listen, but although he stood there for a long time, he heard no trace of wolves.

When he turned back, Anne had gone inside. He sheathed his sword and knelt beside Liath, kissed her, then recalled that Anne was, presumably, still awake. He sat back on his heels.

“What happened?”

“Wolves. The servants chased them away. Go back to sleep. I’ll stand watch.”

“I thought my mother said that the servants would stand watch.”

“And so they do, but I can’t sleep now.” But he didn’t tell her it was more because of dreams than wolves. The servants had done a better job of dispelling the wolves than he ever could have. She hesitated, then lay back down, a sumptuous curve under the blanket. For an instant he was tempted—but two of the servants had gone into the wood and had not yet returned. He pulled on his tunic and bound up his sandals, then dragged a fallen log close to the old, ruined way house, midway between Liath’s bed and the shelter, and sat down.

As he sat, he watched the stars. He tried to imagine fixed stars and wandering stars, spheres and epicycles, all these words that Liath used so easily—but it only made him impatient. He got to his feet and began pacing; he couldn’t sit still although he knew full well that a sentry needed to be still. But when he was still, the weight of chains seemed to settle on him, whether Bloodheart’s chains or the chains his own father wanted to bind him with.

King and emperor, with every prince and noble going for his throat.

He shuddered, spun to walk back the way he had come—

They had returned without him noticing.

He stared.

He had seen enchantment while under Bloodheart’s rule. As a child, he had seen certain small creatures hidden in the shadows, peeking out from bushes, half-hidden among the leaves of the deep forest where children weren’t allowed to play, but he had explored there nevertheless. He knew magic lived in the land, and although he hated the thought of it, he knew some part of it lived in his blood, his heritage from his mother.

This was enchantment of a different order, creatures from another plane of being—from a higher sphere, Liath would say.

They danced on the grass, hands interlinked and perhaps even melded in some inhuman way, because they were made more of light than of flesh. They sang an eerie, angular melody that had no words but only a kind of keening throb. Their dance was at once joy and sorrow, braided together until they could not be unwoven one from the other.