The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

“They who wander far from God are lost,

and they are destroyed, who forsake Her.

But if I desire nothing on earth,

then God shall be my refuge forever.”

In this way, twilight came, and Prince Ekkehard joined them at dusk as they sang the service of Vespers, all of them joining in. Their voices blended sweetly, light tenors and strong ones, and a few deeper voices that still cracked sometimes.

“It stinks in that village,” said Ekkehard as the time of silence came upon them, although this night the moon was full and merry. “I’d rather sleep out here. Isn’t the fire warm?”

The fire was warm, and it hadn’t ceased bubbling in that odd way, but no one else seemed to think anything weird was going on. Ivar felt torn in two: frightened and yet unable to slink away because deep in some unlikely core of his being he could not shake the feeling that something very strange and wonderful was about to happen.

He slept as the moon swept upward to midnight. The crowing of a cock woke him. He lay on the dew-dampened ground with his cheek smashed against a hummock of cold earth and a piece of grass half stuck up his nose. Something was crawling on his face, and he cursed and flicked at it before he pushed up, hoping to get the kink out of his neck.

Nearby, Sigfrid was singing the Benedictus Domina, except Sigfrid couldn’t sing anymore, and yet Ivar recognized that voice; he had sung beside Sigfrid so often in Quedlinhame that the other boy’s sweet tenor had become his lifeline in the worst of his despair.

Sigfrid was singing, and weeping with joy, and as the auroral dawn breathed the first light and color into the heavy air Ivar saw that the mist had cleared to reveal the pyre grown to a monstrous height, golden-red coals like a thousand gathered stones heaped up upon each other until they rose higher than a man. Ekkehard, coming awake, stumbled up, arms pinwheeling as though he’d forgotten that he’d been injured, and staggered backward, and so did the others, but they ran up against the villagers, who had come in a throng to stare. Now even some of these ventured forward crying out that their toothache had vanished or their lameness been healed. Sigfrid sang with arms lifted toward the heavens, and Ermanrich, who was quite overcome but eminently practical, dragged him bodily back as the pyre heaved and shifted like a creature coming awake. Baldwin knelt so fixedly with hands clasped in prayer that Ivar thought he’d gone into a trance. He dashed forward to shake him, to wake him up, to warn him.

The rising edge of the sun glinted beyond the tumulus where the old stone ruins lay like the shattered and gargantuan crown of a long-dead queen. Day broke free from night.

The pyre opened. A cloud of fragrance burst over them. Flowers showered down around them, insubstantial petals vanishing as soon as they touched the earth.

It unfolded, wings unfurling, and the great beast rose as glorious as the day after a long, black, and hopeless night. It trumpeted. The sound rang from the heavens down to the Earth and back again, echoing on and on and on until Ivar knew that it wasn’t an echo at all but an answer.

“The phoenix,” cried Sigfrid. “It is the sign of the blessed Daisan, who rose from death to become Life for us all.”

It took flight and rose so swiftly into the heavens that the last star winking into oblivion as the sun spilled light everywhere might have been the last flash of its being seen from mortal Earth.

When it was gone, Prince Ekkehard cried out in astonishment and all the villagers exclaimed in surprise and awe: the hurts of every soul there had miraculously vanished.

“You have witnessed the power of the Son and the Mother,” said Sigfrid, who alone among them seemed unamazed. His faith had never wavered. “Thus you are healed.”

But Ivar knew that its beauty had scarred him forever.

4

“DO not be so impatient. This is only a minor setback. We have over five years to train her to fulfill her part, more than enough time. You are allowing your natural distaste for her conduct to overshadow your reason, Brother. All will unfold by our design.”

“So you say. But there have been far too many surprises and setbacks up to now.”

Sanglant had to concentrate on staking down the log walkway, swinging his mallet at the same rhythmic pace he had been using before Severus and Anne had emerged from the tower and begun walking toward him. He didn’t want them to suspect he was listening. After ten months, they still hadn’t figured out how good his hearing was.

“It is true that she must be brought to see what folly it is to be bound by earthly desires. I hope that her confinement and illness have shown her the senselessness of indulging in carnal pleasure.”