The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

“Are you saying,” said Liath slowly, astounded, “that you are the mother of Conrad the Black, duke of Wayland?”

“So I am.”

It seemed impossible to Liath that this tiny woman could have given birth at all, let alone to as robust a person as Duke Conrad. “But you have estates to administer. A child to watch over. Grandchildren! Why are you here?”

Meriam was too old to take offense at impertinent questions. “That I bore one living child and three dead ones did not change the path laid out for me. It only delayed it. Once my son came of age and gained his dukedom and a wife, then I had the freedom to retire. He no longer needed watching over.”

Liath choked back a snort of laughter.

“You have met him?” Meriam asked without smiling, but with the simple pride of a mother who knows the worth of her child.

Liath considered what to say, and chose caution. “He is hard to forget.”

“You are not at all like him.” Meriam brushed dry fingers over Liath’s arm. Despite her age, her hands bore no calluses; she had lived a noblewoman’s life from infancy to this day, never humbling herself with the day-to-day labor of living. Liath’s own hands bore calluses, the legacy of her life with Da, and Meriam’s light touch explored these briefly as well, as if Liath’s skin revealed her entire history, all from the brush of a finger. “You are not of Jinna blood. Who are your father’s kin? From whence comes this complexion?”

“All I know of my father’s kin is that he has a cousin who is lady of Bodfeld. But might it not come from my mother’s kin?”

Meriam looked at her strangely. “Has Anne not spoken to you of this?”

“Of what?”

“Then it is not my place to do so.”

When Meriam spoke with that tone of voice, Liath knew that it was useless to try to influence her to say more. Not even Brother Severus in all his arrogance could bully her. In the intimacy of a private meeting in the middle of a peaceful night, Liath couldn’t help but ask one more question. “You said that your path was laid out for you, but delayed. But you never really answered my question. Why are you here, Sister Meriam?”

Wind creaked the door. Shadows curled along the beams, a servant settling down to listen, or to sleep—if they ever slept. In the dim light it was easy to forget how old and frail Meriam was; her voice still had the strength of youth. “I was taken from the temple of Astareos, He who is Fire Incarnate, where I was to have been an acolyte in His service, a priestess of the Holy Fire. I had already learned enough then to know my task in life, for certain priestesses there had the gift of prophecy. That my fate led me elsewhere for a time is only another knot in the tangle of life.”

“The you were always meant to be a magi, the way I was?”

Meriam chuckled, age amused by youthful blindness. “Nay, not as you were. I came here to save what I can.”

“Save it from what?”

“‘When the crown of stars crowns the heavens …’ Ah. But you haven’t completed your calculations yet.”

That casual remark threw Liath again, like a flung stone falling to earth far from its original resting place. Those damned calculations. What had she overlooked?

“You will know it when you see it,” said Meriam, answering a question she hadn’t asked.

“Why must you all make it like a puzzle?” demanded Liath. “Why can’t you just tell me what I’m looking for?”

“Because you won’t truly understand what it is we work toward until you have discovered it for yourself.” Liath began to protest, but Meriam raised a hand for silence. “It is all very well to protest that because you have seen a horse ridden, you know how to ride. But you don’t know how to ride until you have yourself ridden. Isn’t that true?”

“I don’t see—”

“You don’t see because you persist in thinking that the art of the mathematici is like a story, something you can understand equally well whether it is read to you or you read it yourself. But the art of the mathematici isn’t a story, it is a skill, like riding a horse, or fighting, or administering an estate, something that takes time and effort to master. Would you set an apprentice weaver to weave the king’s royal robes? Ask a novice to illuminate the Holy Verses? Trust your life to a pilot who had never before sailed through these shoals? You, of all people, must understand fully.”

“Why?” Then Liath laughed, having picked up the habit from Sanglant. “Never mind, Sister. I know what you will say. You will say that when I understand fully, then I will also understand why I must understand fully.”