The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

“They’re speaking in Dariyan,” he said finally, in disgust, “and I can’t follow more than one word in ten. It’s something about that hound, I swear it, as if they recognize it, or know why it’s come. But why would they be talking about Emperor Taillefer?”

“Hush,” she said, glancing toward the others. Meriam and Zoë had gone back into the tower, and Sister Venia was still fussing over Heribert, who appeared eager to free himself from her attention. Anne and Severus remained oblivious, deep in their profound debate. Servants clustered near Anne, pale shapes curling in the wind. Liath’s constant attendant, the watery nymph, had sidled closer to brush up alongside Sanglant. Liath hissed at it, and the creature slid away quickly. “Come,” repeated Liath. “Let’s see what we can see.”

No one seemed to mark them as they walked away from the cluster of buildings: the new wooden hall, the old stone tower, and the half dozen sheds and shelters. They passed the aromatic pits, crossed the orchard, and skirted the meadow and the pond. Beyond the pond an animal trail cut upward through forest to a clearing bounded on one side by a sheer cliff. Here the valley ended, blockaded by a fall of boulders.

An old hovel lay abandoned in the clearing. It looked rather like an old way station, long since fallen into disuse. But the floor was sturdy enough; she and Sanglant had tested it several times before she got too pregnant to be energetic. It was one of the only places they had any privacy, although in truth, with the constant presence of the servants, they never truly had privacy. But they still liked to come here, since none of the magi ever did.

A ring of stones under a sagging thatch roof constituted the cookhouse, and she crouched here, knees wide to accommodate her belly. He sat cross-legged beside her, the dog at his back. The water nymph slithered through the rafters and curled around one beam, peering nervously out at them. None of the other servants had followed them, still drawn to the confusion below.

Sanglant had laid in a store of firewood, and with kindling and small logs she built a simple edifice in this primitive hearth. Then she called fire. She was aware at first of the servant fleeing to a safe distance. Sanglant glanced up, marking its swift, fluid motion with his gaze.

Liath touched his hand. “Look.” She said it every time, even though it did no good. She fashioned an archway in the flames and looked through it, seeking— “Count Lavastine’s not there,” she murmured. “I can’t find him.”

The fire flickered, then leaped higher, casting shadows through a narrow cavern that resolved itself

into the nave of a church where a young man kneels, praying beside a stone bier. His head is bent and his hair hangs forward to conceal his face, but she knows him at once. She would know him anywhere even without the two black hounds sitting beside him, his faithful attendants.

“Alain,” she whispers as heat sears her face and he falters as he prays as if he has heard the echo of her voice in his heart. He looks up, but it is only to mark a servant entering with a lit candle. The inconstant light falls on the bier, and there she sees Count Lavastine at last, silent as he rests, until she realizes it is not him at all although it could as well be him, the image is so astounding lifelike. For an instant she feels a profound amazement, respect for the unknown craftsman who has carved this monument in stone; then, curiously, she feels sorrow, as she might for a kinsman.

“He’s dead,” she says.

But the words spin her away and she slips through a second archway, the familiar one that draws her always into its grip like desire. Through the burning stone she stares at the empty glade and dying trees. An azure feather lies discarded in the dirt. The Aoi sorcerer is gone.

“Liath!” he said sharply, hand on her wrist as he tugged her back.

Her face burned, and for an instant she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t remember where she was.

“Hush,” he said. “You’re crying!”

She remembered him and who he was and what he was to her, and for a while she only rested her face against his chest while she sniffled. But it was so uncomfortable, with her huge belly always getting in the way.

“Ai, God,” she muttered, half laughing. “I’ll be glad to get this child out of me!”

He kissed her on the forehead and released her. “What did you see?”

“You didn’t see it?” she demanded, as she always demanded, no matter how many times they tried. “I thought your mother’s blood tuned you to magic.”

“So it might have,” he said with a half grin, “but it still doesn’t make me able to see through fire, nothing more than shadows. Did you see Lavastine?”