The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

The flush that stained her cheeks now was brighter and hotter than any brought to her skin by Alain’s presence.

“However.” Lavastine surveyed the curving stone walls and the tiny carvings of snails and rosettes that adorned the altar stone. “You may found a convent here with my blessing, one dedicated to Edessia and Parthios.”

“You are mocking me.” Her bright flush had faded to the pallor of anger.

“Not at all. That the holy Edessia and Parthios, wife and husband, brought the blessed Daisan into the world is not mockery.”

“He is the Son of God, not of mortal creatures!”

“So we are all the children of God, according to the teachings of the church. But the blessed Daisan was born out of the womb of the holy Edessia. Unless there is another way for children to come into the world, of which I am not aware.”

She sucked in air loudly, prelude to an outburst. With her head thrown back, chin raised, she looked every bit a king’s niece, aware of her power and willing to use it. But instead she burst into sobs and rushed out of the building.

Alain jerked round to follow her, but Lavastine’s voice stopped him. “I beg your pardon, but I refuse to offend the church merely to indulge her misguided whims.”

“You must not apologize to me. I didn’t expect her to want to build a chapel to her heresy.”

Lavastine sighed. “Perhaps her anger at me will make her confide in you. You must follow up any advantage, as I see you were already doing. Let her oversee the building here. Cleric Rufino may know of relics of the holy parents which we can bring here. It will do her good to be reminded that even the blessed Daisan’s parents married and were blessed with a child by God’s grace.”

Alain hurried outside. Tallia was snuffling noisily while her women gathered around her like so many flustered chicks.

“Tallia.” They parted to let him through, and he took Tallia’s arm firmly and let her aside out one of the gates into the wild field of grass and withering flowers. At once, she began to blurt out all her grievances, her thwarted heart, her desire to honor the Mother and Son. “No one ever listens to me! My mother never spoke to me except to tell me what to do and how to act, and my father is an idiot and he always used to spit up and pee in his pants and fondle the servingwomen and try to mate with them just like a dog right in front of everyone!”

She was so frail he feared that all this trembling and sobbing would shake her to bits, but it did not. After a while she wiped her nose with the back of a hand and they wandered along the stream without speaking. He knelt where the stream pooled, caught behind a bank of rock, and she sat down on the grass beside him. A few tears still rolled down her cheeks.

He leaned over the pool. A flicker of movement among the trailing weeds caught his attention. Barely breathing, he waited with one hand sunk in the cold water so long that his fingers began to go numb. But his stillness at last brought out a little green frog hidden among the rushes. It swam, fetched up against his hand, and he slowly lifted it out from the water, cupping his other hand over it to shield it from the sun.

“Look,” he whispered.

She bent, peered—and shrieked, jumping away. Birds fluttered up. The frog leaped and vanished into the stream.

“Such creatures are minions of the Enemy!” she cried. “They give you warts!”

“I was only trying to cheer you up!” He jumped the stream, slipped and got his feet soaking wet, and strode away from her. His heart thumped wildly, and a moment later Sorrow and Rage ghosted up beside him, silent shadows. He realized he was clenching his left hand and loosening it, clenching and loosening, to an erratic rhythm. He was furious, stung, insulted. Rage snapped at a butterfly. Lady Hathumod called his name, but he ignored her and tramped down to the forest’s edge.

Stumbled on rock.

He swore, a string of oaths heard long ago from the men who worked the quarries. Aunt Bel would have tweaked his ear hard to hear him speak so. But she wasn’t his aunt any longer. His stubbed toe hurt, and being cold and wet made it hurt more. Sorrow snuffled along the ground. Alain crouched to rub his toe, and his fingers brushed stone.

Here, concealed by grass, lay the broken paving stones of the old road, leading east into the forest. He pulled up grass until he had uncovered an entire paving stone. When he set his palm on it, the surface was cool and strangely smooth. An ant scurried across the stone. He shut his eyes. Long ago, Dariyan soldiers and merchants had walked on this roadway, their hearts lying elsewhere surely but their heads full of plans and dreams. The rose burned at his chest. Tiny legs—the ant—tickled the base of his thumb. And he fell…