The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

“Bernard is dead,” said Liath. “He was killed by a daimone. Someone had been hunting him for a long time.”

The celestial globe sitting on the shelf beside the armillary sphere began to glow suddenly, the painted pinpricks on its surface—representing stars—brightening as if a flame, or one of the servants, had somehow wriggled inside. A ripple of light twined along one of the beams overhead, and the smell of charred wood scented the air. Outside, leaves rattled as a stiff wind shook them, then stilled. The gust shifted the door, which stood ajar.

Liath rose suddenly, as stiff as a dog which has scented danger. Carefully, she swung a leg over the bench, extricating herself, and as deliberately walked over to the door. “You killed him,” she said. The sun’s light limned her, made her even seem to glow a little, yet for all her taut anger, her expression was unreadable. The veil had fallen to reveal the monotone face and voice of anger overridden by shock.

It was unusual to see Anne stricken with more emotion than the adversary she faced. Her mouth tightened. Her hands closed over nothing, except, perhaps, memory. “He stole you from us. He almost ruined you in the years he had you in his keeping. He almost rendered you unfit, as we can see this day, as we have seen every day since you joined us. I did what had to be done. When you see the necessity of that, Liath, I will know we have finally undone the damage Bernard did to you.”

“He loved you,” whispered Liath. “He was your husband. Didn’t you care for him at all? Didn’t those oaths mean anything to you?”

“We cannot let affection, or hatred, cloud our judgment. We must be strong enough to kill the ones who stand in our way. We are all only tools in Their hands, and our lives are meaningless except as we act as the instruments of Their will.”

“My God,” said Liath, and she walked out.

There was silence, of a kind. The light in the celestial globe dimmed and winked out.

“Who was Bernard?” repeated Antonia.

“He was once one of us. He stole Liathano from us when she was only eight years old, and you can see what the years under his care wrought of her. That was eleven years ago. We have a great deal of work to do to make her into the vessel through which our plans can be fulfilled, our work completed, and Earth rescued from its terrible fate.”

“Indeed,” said Severus primly, “she was brought into this world precisely because she is, given what she is, the only one who has any hope of killing Prince Sanglant. ‘No disease known to you will touch him, nor will any wound inflicted by any creature male or female cause his death.’ She is the only one who can stop them.”

“But why would he steal her? Didn’t he understand the whole?” As a mother herself, Antonia found Anne’s cold-blooded statements startling, although one had to admire her singlemindedness. But wasn’t it a little unnatural for a woman to be so willing to sacrifice her only child? How many noblewomen, and poor ones, too, had come to make confession at the altar in the great cathedral of Mainni, begging God to give them a child? She had lost count. Indeed, for a long time Antonia had wondered if the one sin, the one slip that had led to Heribert’s birth, hadn’t been God’s way of allowing her to understand their desire. For as the blessed Daisan had said: “The road to purification arises out of conception and birth.”

“Bernard was misguided,” said Anne sternly. “He loved the world too well.”

Marcus sighed loudly, pulling the ivory-covered book back toward himself and tapping on the filigree with impatient fingers. “Have we done with this scene?” he asked. “I am reminded of the theater in Darre, which is quite the rage these days now that Ironhead has taken the throne and is quite eager to investigate the charms of every stage dancer who strikes his fancy, which seems to be most of them. But I have other news. I found Lavrentia, just where Brother Lupus said she would be.”

Anne turned and walked to the shelf. She reached toward the spinning armillary sphere, and its turning metal bands stilled abruptly. Without turning back, so that her face was hidden, she asked, “She is truly still alive?”

“She is Mother at the convent of St. Ekatarina.”

“Brother Lupus was misled,” said Anne quietly.

“Nay,” said Marcus. “He was baldly lied to those many years ago. She must have grown suspicious. She must have taken refuge there, and the nun who was then mother of the convent must have taken her in and sent the message that she had died. I call that lying, myself.”

“Forty years ago,” muttered Severus. “It is a long time to live concealed from us.”