{"id":3777,"date":"2026-01-03T23:48:40","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T23:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/crown-of-stars-03-the-burning-stone-elliott-kate\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T23:48:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T23:48:40","slug":"crown-of-stars-03-the-burning-stone-elliott-kate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/crown-of-stars-03-the-burning-stone-elliott-kate\/","title":{"rendered":"Crown Of Stars 03 – The Burning Stone – Elliott, Kate"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Book Preview<\/h3>\n
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\nKATE ELLIOT<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
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\n**VOLUME Three of CROWN OF STARS**<\/i><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

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\n<\/span>
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\nThe Burning Stone<\/span>
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\nPROLOGUE<\/span>
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>HE had ran this far without being caught, but he knew his Quman master still followed him. Convulsive shudders shook him where he huddled in the brush that crowded a stream. His robes were still damp. Yesterday he had eluded them by swimming a river, but they hadn’t given up. Prince Bulkezu would never allow a slave to taunt him publicly and then run free.<\/span>.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>At last he calmed himself enough to listen to the lazy flow of water and to the wind rustling through leaves. Across the stream a pair of thrushes with spotted breasts stepped into view, plump and assertive. Ai, God he was starving.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The birds fluttered away as if they had gleaned his thoughts instead of insects. He dipped a hand in the water, sipped; then, seduced by its cold bite, he gulped down handfuls of it until his skin ached. By his knee a mat of dead leaves made a hummock. He turned it up and with the economy of long practice scooped up a mass of grubs and popped them in his mouth. Briefly he felt their writhing, but he had learned to swallow fast.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He coughed, hacking, wanting to vomit. He was a savage, to eat so. But what had the Quman left him? They had mocked him for his preaching, and therefore had taken his book and his freedom. They had mocked him for his robes, his clean-shaven chin, and his proud defense of Lady and Lord and the Circle of Unity between female and male, and therefore treated him as they did their own female slaves or any man they considered sheath instead of sword\u2014with such indignity that he winced to recall it now. And they had done worse, far far worse, and laughed as they did it; it had been sport to them, to make a man into a woman in truth, an act they considered the second worst insult that could be given to a man. Ai, God! It had not been insult but pain and infection that had almost caused him to die.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But that was all over now. He had run before they took away his tongue, which truly mattered more to him than the other.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Water eddied along the bank. A hawk’s piercing cry made him start. He had rested long enough. Cautiously he eased free of the brush, forded the stream, and fell into the steady lope that he used to cover ground. He was so tired. But west lay the land out of which he had walked in pride so many years ago that he had lost count: five or seven or nine. He meant to return there, or die. He would not remain a Quman slave any longer.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Dusk came. The waxing moon gave him enough light to see by as he walked on, a shadow among shadows on the colorless plain. Stars wheeled above, and he kept to a westerly course by keeping the pole star to his right.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Very late, a spark of light wavering on the gloomy landscape caught his attention. He cursed under his breath. Had the war-band caught and passed him, and did they now wait as a spider waits for the fly to land? But that was not proud Bulkezu’s way. Bulkezu was honorable in the way of his people\u2014if that could be called honor\u2014but he was also like a bull when it came to problems: he had no subtlety at all. Strength and prowess had always served him well enough.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>No, this was someone\u2014or something\u2014else.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He circled in, creeping, until in the gray predawn light he saw the hulking shapes of standing stones at the height of a rise, alone out here on the plain as though a giant had once stridden by and placed them there carelessly, a trifle now forgotten. His own people called such stone circles “crowns,” and this fire shone from within the crown. He knew then it was no Quman campsite\u2014they were far too superstitious to venture into such a haunted place.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He crept closer on his hands and knees. Grass pricked his hands. The moon set as the first faint wash of light spread along the eastern horizon. The fire blazed higher and yet higher until his eyes stung from its glare. When he came to the nearest stone, he hid behind its bulk and peeked around.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>That harsh glare was no campfire.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Within the ring of stones stood a smaller upright stone, no taller or thicker than a man. And it burned.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Stone could not burn.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Reflexively, he touched the wooden Circle of Unity he still wore. He would have prayed, but the Quman had taken his faith together with so much else.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A woman crouched beside . She had the well-rounded curves of a creature that eats as much as it wants, and the sleek power of a predator, muscular and quick. Her hair had the same color as the height of flame that cast a net of fire into the empty air. Her skin, too, wore a golden-bronze gilding, a sheen of flame, and she wore necklaces that glittered and sparked under the light of that unearthly fire.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Witchfire.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She swayed, rocking from heel to heel as she chanted in a low voice.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The stone flared so brightly that his eyes teared, but he could not look away. He saw <\/i>through as through a gateway, saw another country, heard <\/i>it, a place more shadow than real, as faint as the spirit world his ancient grandmother had told tales about but with the sudden gleam of color, bright feathers, white shells, a trail of dun-colored earth, a sharp whistle like that of a bird.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Then the vision vanished, and the stone snuffed out as though a blanket of earth thrown on the fire had smothered it.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Stone and fire both were utterly gone.<\/i><\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A moment later the lick and spit of everyday flame flowered into life. The woman fed a common campfire with dried dung and twigs. As soon as it burned briskly, she made a clucking sound with her tongue, stood, and turned to face him.<\/i><\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Ai, Lord! She wore leather sandals, bound by straps that wound up her calves, and a supple skirt sewn of pale leather that had been sliced off raggedly at knee length. And nothing else, unless one could count as clothing her wealth of necklaces. Made of gold and beads, they draped thickly enough that they almost covered her breasts\u2014until she shifted. A witch, indeed.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She did not look human. In her right hand she held a spear tipped’ with an obsidian point.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Come,” she said in the Wendish tongue.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>It had been so long since he had heard the language of his own people that at first he did not recognize what he heard.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Come,” she repeated. “Do you understand this tongue?” She tried again, speaking a word he did not know.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>His knees ached as he straightened up. He shuffled forward slowly, ready to bolt, but she only watched him. A double stripe of red paint like a savage’s tattoo ran from the back of her left hand up around the curve of her elbow, all the way to her shoulder. She wore no curved felt hat on her head, as Quman women did, nor did she cover her hair with a shawl, as Wendish women were accustomed to do. Only leather strips decorated with beads bound her hair back from her face. A single bright feather trailed down behind, half hidden. The plume shone with such a pure, uncanny green that it seemed to be feathered with slivers from an emerald.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Come forward,” she repeated in Wendish. “What are you?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I am a man,” he said hoarsely, then wondered bitterly if he could name himself such now.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You are of the Wendish kin.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I am of the Wendish kin.” He was shocked to find how hard; it was to speak out loud the language he had been forbidden to j speak among the Quman. “I am called\u2014” He broke off. Dog, worm, slave-girl, <\/i>and piece-of-dung <\/i>were the names given him among the Quman, and there had been little difference in meaning between the four. But he had escaped the Quman. “I\u2014I was once called by the name Zacharias, son of Elseva and Volu-sianus.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“What are you to be called now?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He blinked. “My name has not changed.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“All names change, as all things change. But I have seen among the human kin that you are blind to this truth.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>To the east, the rim of sun pierced the horizon, and he had to shade his eyes. “What are you?” he whispered.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Wind had risen with the dawning of day.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But it was not wind. It sang in the air like the whirring of wings, and the sound of it tore the breath out of his chest. He tried to make a noise, to warn her, but the cry lodged in his throat. She watched him, unblinking. She was alone, as good as unarmed with only a spear to protect her; he knew with what disrespect the Quman treated women who were not their own kin.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Run!” he croaked, to make her understand.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He spun, slammed up against stone, and swayed there, stunned. The towering stone block hid him from view. He could still flee, yet wasn’t it too late once you could hear their wings spinning and humming in the air? Like the griffins who stalked the deep grass, the Quman warriors took their prey with lightning swiftness and no warning but for that bodiless humming vibrating in the air, the sound of their passage.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He had learned to mark their number by the sound: at least a dozen, not more than twenty. Singing above the rest ran the liquid iron thrum of true griffin wings.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He began, horribly, to weep with fear. The Quman had said, “like a woman”; his own people would say, “like a coward and unbeliever,” one afflicted with weakness. But he was so tired, and he was <\/i>weak. If he had been strong, he would have embraced martyrdom for the greater glory of God, but he was too afraid. He had chosen weakness and life. That was why They had forsaken him.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She shifted to gaze east through the portal made by standing stones and lintel. He was so shocked by her lack of fear that he turned\u2014and saw.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>They rode with their wings scattering the light behind them and the whir of their feathers drowning even the pounding of their horses’ hooves. Their wings streamed and spun and hummed and vibrated. Once he had thought them real wings, but he knew better now: They were feathers attached by wire to wooden frames riveted to the body of their armored coats. That armor had a scaly gleam, strips of metal sewn onto stiff leather coats. On a standard fixed to a spear they bore the mark of the Pechanek clan: the rake of a snow leopard’s claw. The Quman had many tribes. This one he knew well, to his sorrow.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>At the fore rode a rider whose wings shone with the hard iron fletching of griffin feathers. Like the others he wore a metal visor shaped and forged into the likeness of a face, blank and intimidating, but Zacharias did not need to see his face to know who it was.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Bulkezu.<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The name struck at his heart like a deathblow.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A band of fifteen riders approached the ring of stones, slowing now, the hum of their wings abating. From a prudent distance they examined the stone circle and split up to scout its perimeter and assess the stone portals, the lay of the ground, and the strength of its defenders. The horses shied at first, made skittish by the great hulking stones or by the shadow of night that still lingered inside the ring, but taking courage from their masters, they settled and agreed to move in closer.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The woman braced herself at the eastern portal with her spear in one hand. She showed no fear as she waited. The riders called out to each other. Their words were torn away on a wind Zacharias could not feel on his skin\u2014audible but so distant that he could make out no meaning to what they shouted to each other, as though the sound came to him through water.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>At once the whirring began again as all the riders kicked into a gallop and charged, some from the left, some from the right, some from the other side of the circle. Wings hummed; hooves pounded; otherwise they came silently except for the creak and slap of their armored coats against the wooden saddles.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>With the rising sun bright in his eyes, Zacharias saw Bulkezu as iron wings and iron face and gleaming strips of iron armor. The two feathers stuck on either side of his helmet flashed white and brown. The griffin feathers fletched in the curving wooden wings that were fastened to his back shone with a deadly iron gleam. Where the ground leveled off, just beyond the eastern portal, he galloped toward the waiting woman, lowering his spear.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Zacharias hissed out a breath, but he did not act. He already knew he was a coward and a weakling. He could not stand boldly against the man who had first mocked him, then violated him, and then wielded the knife.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He could not stand boldly\u2014but he watched, at first numb and then with a surge of fierce longing for the woman who waited without flinching. With an imperceptible movement she opened her fingers. From within her uncurling hand mist swirled into being to engulf the world beyond. Only the air within the stone circle remained untouched, tinted with a vague blue haze. An unearthly fog swallowed the world beyond the stones.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>All sound dissolved into that dampening fog, the whir and hum of spinning feathers, the approach of the horses, the distant skirl of wind through grass.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>With a sudden sharp exclamation, the woman leaped to one side. A horse loomed, became solid as griffin feathers cut a burning path through the mist. In stillness the horse jumped out of the fog and galloped into the ring of stones, hooves clattering on pebbles. Bulkezu had to duck so that his wings did not strike the lintel stone above.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\nThe other riders could be seen as fleeting figures searching for a portal to enter, yet they were no more substantial than fish swimming beneath the cloudy surface of a pond. They could <\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>not leave their fog-enshrouded world. They could i circle.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The war leader quickly scanned the interior of the oiuiie ring, but the woman had vanished. As he turned his horse in a tight circle the griffin feathers left sparks behind them in the blue haze. Of all things in this place, those feathers alone seemed immune to the witchcraft that had been brought to life.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Dog!” he called, seeing Zacharias through the haze. “Crawling one! You have not escaped me!” He nudged his horse forward, tucked his spear between leg and horse’s belly, and drew his sword. Zacharias shrank back, trapped against the stone. He had nowhere to run.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But the horse had taken no more than three steps when the earth began to shake and the huge stones groaned and creaked and seemed to swing wildly from side to side, although Zacharias felt nothing at his own back except solid, unmoving stone. Bulkezu’s horse stumbled to its knees, neighing in terror, and Bulkezu himself was thrown. Stones swayed as if whatever spell had set them in place was at this moment unweaving itself, and Zacharias shrieked, flinging up his hands to protect himself, although mere flesh could not protect him against stone.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>This was more than witchcraft.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The woman appeared again in the center of the circle, surefooted and unshaken by the earth’s tremors except for the flashing shimmer and sway of beads dangling among her gold necklaces. Bulkezu struggled up from his hands and knees behind her. Zacharias tried to call a warning, but the breath sucked into his lungs congealed there and he could only gasp and choke and point.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>With a grunt, the woman swung around to bring the flat of the obsidian blade down between the two arched spines of Bulkezu’s wings, onto his head. The blow laid him flat on his stomach, and his helmet canted awkwardly to one side, almost torn off. Blood swelled from the base of his skull to mat his black hair. The shaking subsided, but the haze remained. Outside the circle the other riders flitted by this portal and that, still searching for an entrance.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The woman stepped closer to Bulkezu\u2014that fast he rolled to one side and jerked himself up and back around in a half turn. The tips of his deadly wings hissed through the air to slice her across the abdomen and through her sheath of necklaces. Beads of jade and turquoise, pellets of gold, rained onto the ground around her. He leaped backward, up to his feet, sword held before him. His helmet he slapped down, and again when it would not settle right around his eyes, and then, with an angry grunt, he wrenched it off and flung it to one side so that, finally, his face was exposed\u2014proud and handsome in the Quman way.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Ugly red welts bloomed on the woman’s bronze-dark skin. Blood welled from the cuts and snaked down in vermilion beads to lodge in the waistband of her skirt.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>They faced off, each wounded, each warrior now. In this way they measured each the other: the Quman warrior made fearsome by the glint of the griffin feathers bound into the wings at his back\u2014only a man who had killed a griffin could wear such wings; and the foreign woman, not of human breed or birthing, with her bronze cast of skin and hair, her own blood seeping unheeded down her belly. Her gaze on her opponent was as unyielding as the stone behind Zacharias’ back.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Bulkezu sprang forward, batting at the spear with his sword and closing the distance between them. Zacharias gasped aloud. But her spear circled around Bulkezu’s blow, and as she stepped aside, she caught him with the haft, a strike behind his knee. She was neither frail nor slender; the force of her blow dropped him to his knees, but he sat down hard, locking the haft beneath him, and lashed out with his sword. She leaped back, abandoning the spear. But as he rose to pursue her, the spear moved. <\/i>Like a serpent come to life, it twined around his legs. He fell, catching himself on his hands, but where his sword struck earth, it sank into the dirt as if hidden claws dragged it down into the depths. No matter how hard he scrabbled, he could not grab it.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She raised her arms again, chest naked now except for a single strand of gold that curved along the swell of a breast. The shaking resumed, more violent than before. The great lintel stones rocked and teetered and began to slide. Wind battered Zacharias to his knees. With his dagger Bulkezu hacked at the magicked spear wound around his legs, but to no avail. With each cut it merely grew spurs and flourishes, and these spurs sprouted roots that embedded themselves into the ground until its many-limbed net pinned his calves to the dirt and twined up his arms. In frustration he threw his dagger at her. With her arms outstretched and blood trickling down her breasts to pool in the folds of her skirt, she merely stared.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But the dagger slowed\u2014or was that a trick of the haze and the trembling earth? As the shaking subsided, the dagger froze, suspended in the air.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Impossible. Zacharias staggered up to his feet, leaning on the stone for strength. What was she?<\/i><\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Damn you, witch, what do you want?” cried Bulkezu, but she did not reply; she did not appear to understand him, and neither did she appear to care. In the seething fog beyond the stone circle, riders still quested back and forth and around the ring of stones for some way to get inside.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Bulkezu struggled on the ground but could not free himself from the rootlike tangle that bound him hand and foot. His sword had vanished into the earth. He looked furious. Brought down by a mere woman, and one armed with the most primitive of weapons! But Bulkezu’s hatred could not be more tangible than Zacharias’ exultation.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Zacharias actually crowed, the rooster’s call. He had lived to see Bulkezu brought low.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Sorcery is a weapon more powerful than a blade,” Zacharias cried in the tongue of the Quman people. “What matter that she is a mere woman and you are a strong warrior? What matter that the tribes sing your praises because you slew a griffin, the first warrior in a generation to do so? You may be adept at war, mighty one, but she is armed with something more dangerous than brute strength. Her sorcery binds you. You can only kill her, never compel her to your will as she does to you now. And the truth is, you can’t kill her either.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Dogs can bark, but it is all noise,” snapped Bulkezu without looking at him. He did not look away from his opponent. “As for you, you who are only a woman, you have made an enemy this day.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But the woman only smiled, as if she found his threats so insignificant as to be laughable. At that moment Zacharias fell in love with her\u2014or with what she was, and what she had: She was no coward, and her gods walked with her. What matter that he no longer possessed that portion of a man that some considered to be all the measure of manhood? Hadn’t the blessed Daisan himself said that the peace of true love lasts until the end of days, and has nothing to do with carnal desire? She was everything he was not.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I beg you,” he called hoarsely in the Wendish tongue, “let me serve you so that I may teach myself strength.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She looked at him, then turned away to catch the horse and hobble it. To one side of the fire lay a basket and a quiver. She unearthed bow and arrows, and with some care she approached the furious warrior and plucked a griffin’s feather from the wooden frame which, like two shepherd’s crooks, arched over’ his head. Her fingers bled at once, and profusely, but she only licked her fingers and murmured words, like a prayer, under her breath.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Nay, I beg you, let me do it.” Zacharias stumbled forward as Bulkezu cursed out loud. “Let me do it. For he has shamed me, and in this way I may return shame upon him threefold.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She stepped back to regard him with narrowed eyes. He had never seen eyes of such green before, fathomless, as luminous as polished jade. Measuring him, she came to a decision. Before he could flinch back, she nicked his left ear with her obsidian knife, and when he yelped in surprise, she licked welling blood from his skin\u2014and then handed him the knife and turned her back on him as she would on a trusted servant.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Strike now!” cried Bulkezu, “and I will give you an honorable position among my slaves!”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“There is no honor among slaves. You are no longer my master!”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Do you not recognize what she is? Ashioi, <\/i>the tribe of gold. The ones who vanished from the bones of earth.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A chill from the stones seeped into Zacharias’ skin and soaked through to his bones. It all made sense now. She had come from the spirit world. She was one of the Aoi, the Lost Ones.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Bulkezu grunted, still struggling. Only a man who never ceased striving could stalk and slay a griffin. “I will lay a blood-price on her. My riders will track you, and kill her, and bring you back to grovel at my feet.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Zacharias laughed, and at once his fear sloughed off, a trifle compared to the prospect of victory over the man who had humiliated him. “You bargain and then threaten, Bulkezu, mightiest son of the Pechanek clan. But what you took from me is nothing to what I am about to take from you, because the flesh is given by the god to all men but your prowess and reputation can never be returned once they are taken from you. And by a|<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>dog, a piece-of-dung who was used as you use slave women!” He reached for a feather.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I curse you! You will never be more than a slave, and always a worm! And I will kill you! I swear this on Tarkan’s bones!”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Like an echo of the threat, the iron-hard feathers sliced Zacharias’ skin with each least touch until his palms and fingers were a mass of seeping cuts. Blood smeared his hands and made them slick while Bulkezu struggled and cursed but could not free himself from his bindings as Zacharias denuded his wings.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He took everything, all but one, and when he was finished, his hands bled and his heart rejoiced. “Kill him now!” he cried.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“His blood will slow me down.” She said it without emotion, and by that he understood there was no possible argument. “Nor will you touch him,” she added. “If you will serve me, then you will serve my cause and not your own.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She grasped Zacharias’ hands and licked them clean of blood, then let him go and indicated that he should stow most of the feathers in the quiver. She fletched several of her stone-tipped arrows with griffin feathers, afterward hefting them in her hand, testing their weight and balance. When she was satisfied, she went to the eastern portal and began to shoot, one by one, the riders who circled her sanctuary. At once they sprayed a killing rain of arrows back into the stones. She had downed four of them before they truly understood that although neither they nor their arrows could get into the circle, her arrows could come out. At last they retreated out of arrowshot with their wounded. As from a great distance Zacharias saw them examine the arrows and exclaim over them while one rider galloped away eastward.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“My tribe will come soon with more warriors,” said Bulkezu, even though he knew by now that the woman did not understand his words. He had recovered himself and spoke without malice but with the certainty of a man who has won many battles and knows he will win more. “Then you will be helpless, even with my feathers.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“And you will be helpless without them!” cried Zacharias.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I can kill another griffin. In your heart, crawling one, you will never be more than a worm.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“No,” whispered Zacharias, but in his heart he knew it was true. Once he had been a man in the only way that truly counted: He had held to his vows. But he had forsaken his vows when God had forsaken him.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Bulkezu glanced toward the woman. He could move his neck and shoulders, wiggle a bit to ease the weight on his knees and hands, but he was otherwise pinned to earth, no matter how he tried to force or twist his way free of her spell. “I will raise an army, and when I have, I will burn every village in my path until I stand with your throat under my heel and her head in my hands.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Zacharias shuddered. But he had come too far to let fear destroy him. Against all hope he was a free man again, bound by his own will into the service of another. He might be a worm in his heart, but hearts could change. She <\/i>had said that all things change.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Come, you who were once called Zacharias-son-of-Elseva-and-Volusianus.” She had stepped back from the edge of the stone circle and hoisted two baskets woven of reeds and slung them from the ends of Bulkezu’s spear, then balanced and bound the spear as a pole over the saddle. To the saddle she tied three pale skin pouches, odd looking things that each had five distended fingers probing out from the bottom as if they had been fashioned from a cow’s misshapen udder or a bloated, boneless hand. She tossed dirt over the fire. She whistled tunelessly and wind rose, blowing the fog outside the sanctuary of the stone circle into tufts of a wicked, cutting gale. The distant riders retreated farther away.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Bulkezu strained against the spear with its many rootling arms that clasped him to the earth, but he still could not shift at all, The remaining griffin feather hissed and fluttered in the rising wind. While she tested the harness, ignoring him, he tested his shoulders to see how far he could slide his wings out, or if he could wedge himself down far enough to cut at the magicked staff with the iron edge of that last feather. “I will have my revenge!”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She took no notice of his threat. Instead, when everything was to her liking, she returned to the eastern portal to watch. Fog shrouded the land, and in this fog she\u2014and Zacharias with her\u2014could easily make their escape, concealed from the eyes and ears of the waiting riders. But how long would they have until the Quman riders tracked them down?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\nShe turned to smile at him as if, like the spotted thrush, she <\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>had divined his thoughts. Carefully, she wiped drying blood from her abdomen, then clapped red-streaked hands together and spoke words. A flash of heat blasted Zacharias’ face, and suddenly, as winked back into existence in the center of the stone circle, he knew that the Aoi woman would not leave this sanctuary by any earthly road.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The woman regarded him unblinking, as if testing his courage. Bulkezu said nothing. Zacharias dropped the horse’s reins and untied the bedroll behind the saddle, shook it out to reveal the fine knee-length leather jacket that Quman men wore when they did not wear armor. He offered this to her so that she could cover herself, because not even necklaces covered her upper body now, only the smears and drying tracks of her own blood.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The stone burned without sound. Wind swirled round them, whistling through the stones.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Bulkezu threw back his head and howled, the eerie ululation that according to the shamans was the cry of the he-griffin. Zacharias had heard that call once, from far away, when the Pechanek clan had wandered the borderwild of the deep grass\u2014 the land beyond human ken into which only heroes and shamans might venture. Ai, God! He had never forgotten it.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But he would not let it rip his hard-won courage from him now.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She stepped forward. Zacharias followed, leading the horse.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The heat of fire burned his face, but just before he could flinch back from the flame, they passed through the gateway. Bulkezu’s call, the high-pitched song of wind through grass and stone, the moist heat of a midsummer day blanketed by fog\u2014 all of these vanished as completely as though they had been sliced away by a keen and merciless blade.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>THAT WHICH BINDS<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>THE ruins stretched from the river’s bank up along a grassy slope to where the last wall crumbled into the earth at the steep base of a hill. Here, on this broken wall under the light of a waning quarter moon, an owl came to rest. It folded its wings, and with that uncanny and direct gaze common to owls it regarded the ring of stones crowning the hilltop beyond.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Stars faded as light rose and with it, shrouded in a low-hanging mist, the sun. The moon vanished into the brightening sky. Still the owl waited. A mouse scurried by through the dew-laden grass, yet the owl did not stir to snatch it. Rabbits nosed out of their burrows, and yet it let them pass unregarded. Its gaze did not waver, although it blinked once. Twice. Thrice.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps the mist cleared enough for the rising sun to glint on the stones that made up the huge standing circle at the height of the hill. A light flashed, and the owl launched itself into the air, beating hard to gain height. From above the stones it swooped down into the circle, where certain other stones lay on the soil in a pattern unreadable to human eyes. Flame flickered along the ancient grain of a smallish standing stone in the center of the ring. Out of the flame came faint words overheard in the same way that whispers escape through a keyhole, two voici in conflict.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It seems to me that you have all been too gentle. A firms hand would have solved the matter long ago and bent this ori: <\/sub>you seek to your will.”<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Nay, Sister. You do not fully understand the matter.”<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Yet do you not all admit that I have certain gifts none <\/span><\/i>f the rest of you possess? Is that not why I was brought amon your number? Is it not fitting that you let me try my hand <\/i>ii this in case your other plan fails? Then you will see what I <\/i>aiij capable of.”<\/i><\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I am against it. “<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Yours is not the final word. Let the others speak.”<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Wind sighed in the distant trees and hummed through ths stones. A hare bounded into view, froze, its ears twitching, anl then flinched and leaped away into the cover of mustard flowei and sedge.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“We risk nothing if she fails,” said a third voice. “If she suA, ceeds, we benefit, for then our absent sister can return her( quickly and we can return to our work that much sooner.”<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Hard upon these words came a fourth voice, “I am curious. I would like a demonstration of these methods we have heart so much about.”<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\n
\n“I care not, ” said the fifth voice, so faint that the sound <\/span>
\n<\/i>
\no it almost died on the wind. “This is a trifle. Do as you wish.” <\/i><\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Now the first spoke again. “Then I will attempt it. What hat eluded you for so long will not elude me! “<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The owl glided down in a spiral. With sudden grace it foldei its wings and, heedless of the flames, came to rest on the smooti knob at the top of . The sun’s light pierced th last strings of mist and broke brightly across the grandeur the stone circle.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Between one moment and the next, van ished\u2014and the owl with it.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>IN any village, a stranger attracts notice\u2014and distrust. But Eagles weren’t strangers, precisely; they were interchangeable, an arm of the king\u2014his wings, so to speak\u2014and they might come flying through and, after a meal and a night’s sleep, fly away again, never truly at rest.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Liath had discovered that as a King’s Eagle her only solitude on any errand she rode for the king came while actually on the road itself, because the roads were lightly traveled. Wherever she stopped to break her fast or for a night’s shelter, she had no rest as long as she stayed awake. Villagers, deacons, chatelaines, nuns, even simple day laborers: All of them wanted gossip of the world beyond because few of them had ever ventured more than a day’s walk from their home\u2014and even fewer had actually seen the king and his court.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Did the foreign queen die?” they would ask, surprised, although Queen Sophia had died almost four years ago.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Lady Sabella rebelled against King Henry’s authority?” they would cry, aghast and amazed, although all this had taken place a full year before.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“We heard the Eika sacked the city of Gent and are laying the countryside waste all around,” they would confide nervously, and then she would calm their fears by telling them of the second battle of Gent and how Count Lavastine and King Henry had routed the Eika army and restored the ruined city to human hands.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>To them, she was an exotic bird, bright, fleeting, quickly come and quickly gone. No doubt they would remember her, and her words, long after she had forgotten them and theirs.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>It was a sobering thought.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>In the village of Laderne full twenty souls crowded the house of her host, turning her visit into a festive gathering. They entertained her with songs and local gossip while she ate, but as soon as her host brought her a mug of beer after the meal, th turned their questions on her.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“What’s your errand, Eagle? Where did you come from’ Where are you going?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She had learned to judge how much to say: when to keerf close counsel or when to be more forthcoming. Many people favored her with better food the more she told them, and this old) householder clearly thought her visitor important: She hadn’ watered down the beer. “I’m riding to the palace at Weraushausen, at the king’s order. He left his schola there, many of his clerics and most of the noble children who attend the progress. His own young son, Prince Ekkehard, is among them. I’m to give the word where they are to meet him.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Weraushausen? Where’s that?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Beyond the Bretwald,” she said. They shook their heads, hemmed and hawed, and advised her to ride carefully and on no account to cut through the old forest itself.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Young fools have tried it now and again,” said Merla, the old householder. She had about six teeth left and was proud of them. “They always vanish. Killed by wolves and bears, no doubt. Or worse things.” She nodded with satisfaction, as in pleased at their dreadful fate.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Nay, I heard at market that foresters was cutting a roac through the heart of the BretwaJd at the king’s order,” protested one of the men. He had a face made bright red by many hours working in the sun.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“As if any could do so,” retorted the old woman. “But you’ve said nothing of the king. Has he named an heir yet? This Prince Ekkehard, perhaps?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“He has an eldest daughter, Princess Sapientia. She’s old enough to be named as heir now that she’s ridden to battle and borne a child.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Ach, yes, proven her fertility and led soldiers in war. God have marked her as worthy to rule.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>They nodded sagely all round, much struck by this sign oi God’s favor, all except one thin man in the back. He sipped beei and regarded Liath with pale eyes. He was almost as brown as she was on his face and hands, but where his tunic lay unlaced at his chest\u2014for it was still warm\u2014she could see how pale his skin was where the sun didn’t reach. “He’d another child, a son, with a Salian name\u2014Sawnglawnt, <\/i>or something like that. Hi was a grand fighter, captain of the King’s Dragons. But I heard from a peddler that he and his Dragons died when the Eika took Gent.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She flushed, and was grateful that people who did not know her well could not see any change in her complexion, dark as it was. “Not dead,” she said. How on God’s earth did she manage to keep her voice from shaking? “He’d been held prisoner, but he was freed by troops under the command of Count Lavas-tine. He is now safe at the king’s side.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>They exclaimed over this miracle. She gulped down her beer. But the damage had already been done. That night she slept restlessly and in the morning blushed to recall her dreams.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Ai, Lady. What had he said to her six days ago as the dawn light rose over the king’s camp, set up outside Gent?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Marry me, Liath.”<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>All day the sun shone as Liath rode northwest along the great northern loop of the Ringswaldweg. She passed only a few travelers during the day: two carters hauling coarse sailcloth weighted down by a dozen bars of pig iron; a quiet pack of day laborers seeking a harvest; a peddler pushing a handcart; and a trio of polite fraters walking south with bare feet, callused hands, and sun-chapped <\/i>faces. The ancient forest <\/i>known as the Bretwald <\/i>loomed to her left, so thick that it was no wonder travelers did not bother to try to hack through it but rather suffered the long journey round its northern fringe. Land broken up by trees, pasture, and the occasional village surrounded by strips of fields marched along on her right. She was used to traveling. She liked the solitude, the changing landscape, the sense of being at one with the cosmos, a small moving particle in the great dance of light.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But now, as the late summer twilight overtook her, the wind began to blow, and for some reason she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was following her. She glanced back along the road, but it lay empty.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Never trust the appearance of emptiness.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Clouds brought an early dusk, and she unrolled her cloak and threw it over her shoulders as rain spattered down. Because the summer had been dry, the road did not churn instantly to mud, but even so, the way bogged down and she soon despaired of reaching any kind of shelter for the night.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>God knew she did not want to sleep outside on a night o storm and rain, far from any human habitation.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The rain slackened. From ahead, she heard a faint jingling ofj harness, and for an instant she breathed easier. She had no fear! of lawful riders on the king’s road.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>For an instant.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Out of the darkening sky behind her, she heard a low reverberation, a tolling like that of a church bell. But she had passed no church since midday.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Was that sound the echo of a daimone’s passing? Did such a creature pursue her again? She glanced back but saw no hollow-eyed daimone formed into the fair semblance of an angel gliding above the earth, saw no glass-feathered wings. Yet as the rising wind buffeted her, she felt a whisper: “Liathano.”<\/i><\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The air shuddered and rippled on the road far behind her, just where it hooked to the right around a bulge in the forest’s girth, Columns of mist rose into the air like great tree trunks uprooted from the forest and spun into gauze.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Surely it was only a trick of the light. But claws seemed to sink into her, into her shoulders and deeper yet, right down to her heart, and those claws clutched at her, tugging her back toward the tolling bells. Why not just wait? Why not just slow! down and wait?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Come to me, Liathano. Do not run any longer. Only wait for us, and you will find peace.”<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Her horse snorted nervously and flattened its ears.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Waitfor us. Come to us.”<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She hesitated.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Run, ” <\/span><\/i>Da would answer. “Run, Liath. “<\/i><\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The compulsion to wait slid from her like rainwater off a good roof. With fear and anger fueling her, she urged her mount forward. It eagerly broke into a canter. She glanced back, and her heart almost died within her. Creatures formed like columns of living oily smoke streamed along the road, chasing her. They; had voices, a rustling murmur like countless leaves stirred in a gale, underscored by that terrible dull tolling bell-voice. Thai they were living creatures she did not doubt.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>And they were gaining on her.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She freed her bow from its quiver, readied an arrow. On the wind she smelled a hot stench like that of the forge. Her ho: bolted, and she let it run while she turned in the saddle and, drawing, measured the distance between her and her pursuers. She loosed, but the arrow fell harmlessly onto empty road.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The shout came as warning. “Hey, there! Look where you’re going!”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Ahead, in the dimness, she saw a small party: two riders and an escort of four men-at-arms. A minor lord, perhaps, or a steward about the business of his lady: She did not recognize the sigil of a deer’s head on white that marked the shields. They swung wide to make room for her headlong flight.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But as she drew breath to shout a warning to them in turn, light flashed to her right, and beyond the road where the ground swelled up to make a neat little tumulus, fire flashed and beckoned from a shadowy ring of standing stones.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>An owl glided past, so close that her horse shied away right-ward, breaking off the road. She needed no more urging than that. With her bow in one hand and the reins in the other, she let the horse have its head. It jumped a low ditch to reach the grassy slope that marked the tumulus. From the road, men shouted after her.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A moment later she heard screaming.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The horse took the slope with the speed of a creature fleeing fire, and yet it was fire that greeted them in the center of the tiny stone circle: seven small stones, two of them fallen, one listing. And in the center stood an eighth stone as tall as a man of middling height; it burned with a blue-white fire that gave off no heat.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The shrieking from the road turned into garbled noises that no human ought to be able to utter. She dared not look behind. Ahead, the owl settled with uncanny grace onto the top of , and the horse leaped\u2014<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She shouted with surprise as blue-white flame flared all around her. Her horse landed, shied sideways, and stopped.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>With reins held taut and the horse quiet under her, Liath stared around the clearing: beaten earth, a layer of yellowing scrub brush, and thin forest cover made up of small-leafed oak as well as trees she had never seen before. But her voice failed her when the man sitting on a rock rose to examine her with interest. Not a human man, by any measure: with his bronze-tinted skin and beardless face and his person decorated with all manner of beads and feathers and shells and polished stones, he was of another kinship entirely. Humans named his kind Aoi, “the Lost Ones,” <\/sup>the ancient elvish kin who had long sinced vanished from thecities and paths trodden by humanity.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But she knew him, and he knew her.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>“You have come,” he said. “Sooner than I expected. You must) hide until the procession has passed, or I cannot speak for what judgment the council will pass on you and your presence here. Come now, dismount and give me the horse.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He looked no different than in the vision seen through fire,! although he was smaller in stature than she expected. The feathers with which he decorated himself shone as boldly as if they had been painted. The flax rope at his thigh was perhaps a finger longer than when she had last seen him, weeks\u2014or was it months?\u2014ago. A tremulous moan sounded from the depths of| the forest, and a moment later she recognized it as a horn call.j She shaded her eyes, and there along a distant path seen dimly under shadows she saw a procession winding through the trees. At the head of the procession, a brilliant wheel of beaten gold and iridescent green plumes spun, although no wind blew.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“How did I come here?” she asked hoarsely. “The creatures were chasing me, and then I saw an owl. . . and .” She turned in the saddle to see the stone still blazing, blue-white and cold. No owl flew.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“An owl,” he mused, fingering a proud feather of mottled! brown and white, one dull plume among the many bright ones that trimmed his forearm sheath. He smiled briefly, if not kindly. “My <\/i>old enemy.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Then the horse leaped, and I was here,” she finished haltingly. She felt like a twig borne down a flooding stream. Too much was happening at once.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Ah.” He displayed the rope and the fiber he twined to create it. “Out of one thing, we make another, even if there is no change or addition of substance. Sometimes it is the pattern that matters most. These strands of flax, alone, cannot support me: or aid me as this rope can, and yet are they not both the same; thing?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>” is a gateway between the worlds. All of the stones are gateways, as we learned to our sorrow, but this one was not fashioned by means of mortal magics but rather is part of the fabric of the universe. To use it, one must understand it.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I don’t know anything,” she said bitterly. “So much was kept hidden from me.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Much is hidden,” he agreed. “Yet nevertheless you have come to me. If you are willing, I sense there is a great deal you can learn.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Ai, God. There’s so much I need to know.” Yet she hesitated. “But how long will it take? To learn everything I need to know?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He chuckled. “That depends on what you think you need to know.” But his expression became serious. “Once you have decided that, then it will take as long as it must.” He glanced toward the procession in the forest, still mostly hidden from them in their small clearing. “But if you mean to ask how long will it take in the world of humankind, that I cannot answer. The measure of days and years moves differently here than there.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Ai, Lady!” She glanced at the stone. The fire had begun to flicker down, dying.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Why do you hesitate?” he pressed her. “Was this not the wish of your heart?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“The wish of my heart.” Her voice died on the words as she said them. Of course she must study. It was the only way to protect herself. She wanted the knowledge so badly. She might never have this chance again.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>And yet\u2014she could not help but look back.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You are still bound to the other world,” he said, not dismayed, not irritated, not cheerful. Simply stating what was true. “Give me your hand.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He was not a person one disobeyed. She sheathed her bow and held out a hand, then grunted with surprise and pain as he cut her palm with an obsidian knife. But she held steady as blood welled up, as he cut his hands in a similar fashion and clasped one to hers so their blood flowed together. His free hand he pressed against the stone. Fire flared, so bright she flinched away from it, and her horse whickered nervously and shied. But the old sorcerer’s grip remained firm.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Come with me,” he said. “What has bound you to the world of human kin?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The fire opened, and together they saw within.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>When he sprawls in the grass under the glorious heat of the sun, he can hear everything and nothing. He shuts his eyes, tk better to listen.<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A bee drones. A bird’s repetitive whistle sounds from the treei His horse grazes at the edge of the clearing, well out of <\/span><\/i>“I made him a promise.” As the vision faded, its passing throbbed in her like a new pain.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She knew better, she knew what she ought to do, what Da her to do. But none of that mattered. For a year she of his other companions: three Eika dogs in iron collars <\/i>and iron chains bound to an iron stake he has hammered into ground. Bones crack under their jaws as they feed. These th are all that remain to him of the beasts who formed his war-band in Gent’s cathedral. He hears their chains scraping each <\/i>she sounded. on the others as the dogs growl over the tastiest bits of marrow He merly <\/i>let go of her hand and regarded her. He had no A stream gurgles and chuckles beyond them: he has washel <\/i>expression on his face except the quiescence of great age. “It is there, although he will never truly wash the filth and the shame ever such<\/i> with those who are young. But I do not believe your of Bloodheart’s chains off himself no matter how often he spills, water over his skin and cleanses himself with soap or sand m oil. Now he lies half-clothed in the sun to dry in merciful solil tude.<\/i><\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\n
\nOf human activity he hears nothing. He has fled the captive ity of the king’s court and found this clearing next to the tram, that leads northwest<\/span>
\n<\/i>
\n\u2014in that direction <\/i>she rode off on the king’s^ errand eight days ago. Here, now, he relishes his freedom’, bathing in sun and wind and the feel of good mellow earth and, grass beneath his back A fly lands on his face and he brushes it away without opening his eyes. The heat melts pleasantly into his skin. Where his other hand lies splayed in the grass he has tossed down th square leather pouch, stiffened with metal plates and trimmed. with ivory and gems, in which he shelters the book. He feels its <\/i>sparks when her shoulder brushed weight just beyond his fingertips, although he does not need tii <\/i><\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\n
\ntouch it to know that it is still there, and what it means to him <\/span>
\n<\/i>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>a promise. He keeps it always with him or, when he hunts on bathes, ties it to the collar of one of the dogs. The dogs are the,only ones among his new retinue he can trust.<\/i><\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Wind rustles in leaves, indifferent whispers so unlike the ones that follow his every movement among the courtiers<\/span><\/i>\u2014the one they think he can’t near.<\/i><\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>had thought him dead.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I have to go back.” Then, hearing the words as if someone else had spoken them, she hurried on. “I’ll come back to you. I swear it. I just have to go back\u2014” She trailed off. She knew young. But do not believe your path will be a smooth one.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Then I can <\/i>come back?” Now that she had made the choice, she regretted having to go. But not so much that she could bring herself to stay.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I cannot see into the future. Go, then.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“But there are creatures pursuing me\u2014<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“So many mysteries. So much movement afoot. You must make your choice\u2014there, or here. The gateway is closing.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The flames flickered lower until they rippled like a sheen of water trembling along the surface of the stone. If she waited too long, the choice would be made for her.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She reined the horse around and slapped its rump with the trailing end of her reins. It bolted forward, light surged, and her sight was still hazed with dancing spots and black dots and bright Each day of the king’s progress unfurls, flowers, and fades as in a haze. He waits.<\/i><\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Among the dogs, he has learned to be patient.<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“That which binds you,” said the sorcerer, but whether with: surprise or recognition she could not tell.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>s,out of the ragged circle of stones with a flash of afternoon sun in her eyes.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Disoriented, she shaded her eyes with a hand until she could make out the road below. It was not yet twilight; an unseasonable chill stung the air. The Bretwald lay beyond the road, alive with birds come to feed at the verge. Crows flocked in the tree-tops. A vulture spiraled down and landed on a heap of rags that littered the roadside.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Of the fell creatures that had stalked her, there was no sign.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>What had the old sorcerer said? “The measure of days and years moves differently here than there.”<\/i><\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Had she arrived earlier than she had left? Was that even possible, to wait here beside the road when she was herself riding on that same road, not yet having reached this point? She shook herself and urged the horse forward, looking around cautiously. But nothing stirred. The crows flapped away with raucous cries. The vulture at last bestirred itself and flew, but only to a nearby branch, where it watched as she picked her way up to the roadside and dismounted to examine the litter: a jumble of bones scoured clean; damp tabards wilted on the turf or strewn with pebbles as though a wind had blown over them; and weapons left lying every which way. With her boot she turned over a shield: A white deer’s head stared blankly at her.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She jumped back, found shelter in the bulk of her horse, who blew noisily into her ear, unimpressed by these remains.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The men-at-arms she had seen had borne shields marked with a white deer’s head. And she had heard screaming. How long could it have been? It would take months for a body to rot to clean bone.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The light changed as a scrap of cloud scudded over the sun, and she shivered in the sudden cold. She mounted and rode on, northward, as she had before. As dusk lowered, she studied the heavens with apprehension throbbing in her chest. Stars came out one by one. Above her shone summer’s evening sky. Had she lost an entire year?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Ahead, a torch flared, and then a second, and she urged her mount forward, smelling a village ahead. A low, square church steeple loomed, cutting off stars. They had not yet closed the palisade gates of the little town, which protected them against Wilfr animals as weft as ihe occasional depredations oJ what bandits still lurked in the Bretwald. The gatekeeper sent her on to| the church, whete the deacon ke^t mats fax txa e ets and a siut! mering pot of leek stew for the hungry.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Liath was starving. Her hands shook so badly that she could barely gulp down stew and cider as the deacon watched with! mild concern.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“What day is it?” Liath asked when at last her hands came back under her control, and the sting of hunger softened.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Today we celebrated the nativity of St. Theodoret, and tomorrow we will sing the mass celebrating the martyrdom of St.! Walaricus.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Today was the nineteenth of Quadrii, then; the day she had; fled the creatures had been the eighteenth. For an instant she breathed more easily. Then she remembered the bones, and the party she had almost met on the road.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“What year?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“An odd question,” said the deacon, but she was a young woman and not inclined to question a King’s Eagle. “It is the year since the Proclamation of the Divine Logos by the blessed Daisan.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>One day later. Only one day. The bones she had seen by the roadside had nothing to do with her, then. They must have lain there for months, picked clean by the crows and the vultures and the small vermin that feed on carrion.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Only later, rolled up in her blanket on a mat laid down in the dark entry hall of the church, did it occur to her that the clothing left behind with the bones on the roadside was damp but not rotted or torn. Had it lain there for months or years, it, too, would have begun to rot away.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>THE hunting party burst out of the forest and then scattered aimlessly into small groups, having lost the scent. The king rode among a riot of his good companions, al laughing at a comment made by <\/i>Count Lavastine. Alain had fallen back, to the <\/i>fringe, and now he reined in his horse to watch a trio of young men fishing in the river an arrow’s shot upstream. Hip-deep in water, they flung nets wide over the glittering surface.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Alain.” Count Lavastine halted beside him. The black hounds snuffled in the grass that edged the cliff, which fell away about a man’s height before hillside met river. A rock, dislodged by Fear, skittered down the slope, stirring up a shower of dust, and the other hounds all barked in a delighted frenzy as they scrambled back.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Peace!” said Lavastine sternly, and at once they quieted, obedient to his wishes. He turned his gaze to Alain. “You must come ride closer to the king, Son.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Their task seems easier than mine.” Alain indicated the fishermen below. Stripped down to their breechclouts, the fishermen enjoyed the purl of the water around their bodies and the hot sun on their glistening backs without any thought except for the labor at hand. He heard their laughter ringing up from the distant shore.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“A drought, a late freeze, a rainy Aogoste. Any of these could ruin their crops.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“But at least the rivers always breed fish. I’m never quite sure what the noble parties are hunting.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You do not like the form of this hunt. But it is one you must learn, and you must learn to judge which party will succeed and which will fail. In this way we make our alliances, The prince favors you.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“The princess does not.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Only because you are favored by the prince.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Because I am a bastard, as he is.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Were,” <\/span><\/i>said Lavastine with a sudden bite to his tone, like a hound’s sharp nip, more warning than attack. “You are legitimately claimed and honored now.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Yes, Father,” said Alain obediently. “But when she sees me and then sees Lord Geoffrey, it reminds Princess Sapientia that the king may choose another claimant over her when it comes time to anoint his heir.” The hounds sat, panting, in the sun: Rage, Sorrow, Ardent, Bliss, and Fear. Terror flopped down. Only I Steadfast still sniffed along the verge of the bluff, intent on a I scent that did not interest the others. A stone’s toss back from! the bluff, King Henry and his companions conferred, pointing toward the dense spur of woodland that thrust here into a scat-; tering of orchard and fields of ripening oats cut into a neat patchwork by hedgerows.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I have never much cared for the king’s progress,” said Lavas-‘ tine finally. He, too, looked toward the forest. The bleat of a hunting horn floated on the air.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You don’t like the king?” asked Alain, daring much since they were alone, unheard except by the hounds.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Lavastine had a hard, compelling gaze; he turned it on Alain now. “The king stands beyond our likes or dislikes, Alain. I respect him, as he deserves. I hold no grievance against him as! long as he leaves me and mine alone\u2014and grants me that which: I have won.” The flash of approval in his eyes did not extend to his lips. “That which we <\/i>won at Gent, you and I. There are many young men and some few women who would gladly join the ranks of your entourage, Alain, if you were to show them your favor. You have learned your manners perfectly, and you carry yourself as well\u2014or better\u2014than most of the young nobles whom we see here at court. You have done well to remain above their games and useless intrigues. But now it is time to build your own retinue.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Alain sighed. “My foster family brought me up to work and to be proud of that labor. Yet here, should I only gossip and hunt and drink? In truth, Father, I don’t feel at ease in their company. But if I don’t indulge in these amusements, then I fear they’ll think me unworthy.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Lavastine smiled slightly. “You are not swayed by their levity, as you should not be. You have made a name for yourself in war. Others have noticed that you also apply yourself to the study of scientia. <\/i>It’s such practical knowledge that will allow you to administer Lavas lands as well as I have done in my time. Your serious manner proves in the eyes of the worthy that you are cast of noble metal.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The praise embarrassed Alain. He did not feel worthy. Below, the fishermen had hauled their nets out into the shallows and now shouted and whooped with the good cheer of young men who haven’t a care in the world as they tossed fish into baskets that rested on the rocky shore. A few fish slipped from their hands in twisting leaps that spun them back into the river and freedom. But the baskets were by now almost full; their contents churned and slithered, scales flashing in the light like liquid silver.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The horn rang out again, closer. A large animal erupted from cover and scrambled into the orchard. The king’s huntsmen began shouting all at once, bringing their hunting spears to bear. Lavas-tine’s hounds sprang up and tore away, only to stop short when Lavastine whistled piercingly. They barked furiously as a huge boar appeared in the distance beneath the shelter of a cluster of apple trees.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>At that moment, two parties of about equal numbers galloped free of the woods, one from the southern edge of the spur of woodland and the other from its center. Princess Sapientia led the first party. Her banner rippled blue and white from a lance carried by a servant, and her companions thundered along beside her so colorfully outfitted that they obliterated the serenity of cultivated land. Some few even jumped hedgerows and trampled fields in their haste to reach the boar before the other party did.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>That other party had come clear of the woodland closer to the hunted beast, but their leader made such a clear point of avoiding any stands of oat and bypassing one stoutly growing field of beans that they closed on the boar from the north just as Princess Sapientia and her entourage circled in from the south. For an instant the two parties faced each other, as do enemy forces in a skirmish: the princess small and fierce on a skittish gelding rather too large for her; her half brother so at his ease with a hunting spear in one hand and the other light on the reins of a magnificent gray that he seemed to shine under the glare of the sun.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The king raised a hand, and his own companions paused, holding back. Everyone watched. The boar bolted away toward the river, the only stretch of open ground left to it.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>At once, Prince Sanglant galloped after it, leaving his party behind. He had so much natural grace that Sapientia, racing after him, had somewhat the appearance of a mongrel chasing a sleek greyhound. No one rode after them: to the victor, the spoils.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Sanglant broke wide to drive the boar back from the bluff and cut in from behind. Then he deliberately reined up to let Sapientia take the kill, as if it were her prerogative. As if he did not want what he could easily take.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She saw only his hesitation, his turning aside. The boar bunched, charged; she thrust at its ribs and lodged the point of her spear behind its front shoulder, but the beast got under her horse and the horse went crazy, bucking while she clung to the saddle.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Huntsmen came running, their brindle boarhounds coursing ahead. Sanglant vaulted off his horse and sprinted for the wounded beast. It saw his movement, and in its blind fear and fury charged him. Distantly, Alain heard King Henry cry out. But the prince only braced himself, showing no fear. The boar impaled itself on his spearpoint and drove itself into the lugs. Sanglant plunged his dagger into its eye to kill it.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Sapientia had calmed her horse and now claimed first blood. The boarhounds leaped yelping and biting in a mob around the dead boar, but they slunk back, whimpering, ears pinned down, as Prince Sanglant laid about him with his fist, battering them back as if he were the beast being hunted.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Only when the other riders approached did he shake himself, like a dog newly come from water, and step away to become a man again, tall and handsome in his fine embroidered tunic and leggings with a gold brooch clasping a short half-cloak across his broad shoulders. Yet the iron collar he wore at his neck instead of a gold torque of royal kinship looked incongruous; that, and the odd habit he had of scenting like a hound for smells on the air and of starting ’round like a wild animal at unexpected movement behind him.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Princess Sapientia cut over to Prince Sanglant, but before she could swing down beside him, she was distracted by her chief adviser, Father Hugh. With elegant grace he lured her away to the heady congratulations of her entourage.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“There is one at least,” said Lavastine softly, watching the scene through narrowed eyes, “who wishes for no reconciliation between brother and sister.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>After twenty days riding with the king’s progress, Alain could not bring himself to like, trust, or even respect the handsome, charming, and ingenious Father Hugh. But he felt obliged to be fair. “Father Hugh is well spoken of by everyone at court. Everyone says his influence has benefited the princess immeasurably.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Certainly his manners are excellent, and his mother is a powerful prince. I would not like to make an enemy of him. Nevertheless, he has thrown his weight behind Sapientia, and all that influence comes to naught if she does not become regnant after her father.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I don’t like him because of what he did to Liath,” muttered Alain.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Lavastine raised an eyebrow and regarded his son skeptically. “You have only her word\u2014that of a kinless Eagle\u2014that he behaved as she describes. In any case, if she was his legal slave, then he could do what he wished with her.” That easily he dismissed Liath’s fears and terrors. “Still, the Eagle has uncommon gifts. Keep an eye on her, if you will. We may yet use her again to our advantage.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Prince Sanglant had retreated to the river, away from the kill and the commotion. His new hangers-on, uncertain of his temper as always, kept a safe distance although they made an obvious effort to distinguish themselves from those who flocked around Sapientia. The prince stood on the verge where the bluff plunged away to the water. The fishermen had stopped to stare at the sight of a noble lord and his fine retinue.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>“He’ll go in,” said Alain suddenly, and as if his words\u2014 surely too distant for the prince to hear\u2014triggered the action, Sanglant abruptly began to strip at the bluff’s edge.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Tittering came from Sapienta’s entourage. They had seen this behavior before: Prince Sanglant had a mania for washing himself. But to be without clothing in such a public setting was to be without the dignity and honor granted one by noble birth. Only common folk making ready to wash themselves or to labor on a hot day would as unthinkingly strip before all and sundry as kneel before God to pray.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The prince left his clothing on the ground and scrambled down the slope into the water. He had an astonishing number of white scars on his body, but he had begun to fill out. Alain could no longer count his ribs.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>As the wind turned and positions shifted, Alain heard Father Hugh’s pleasant voice on the breeze. “Alas, and like some dogs, he’ll leap into any body of water if not restrained. Come, Your Highness. This is not fitting.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Sapientia’s party retreated to the woodland while the huntsmen dealt with the kill, although some few of the ladies with her could not resist a backward glance.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Lavastine sighed audibly. A flurry of movement came from within the king’s party as certain riders\u2014mostly women\u2014made to leave with Princess Sapientia’s party while others, including the king, began to dismount.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Come,” said Lavastine as he signaled to his attendants. “I return now to the king. Alain, you must choose your place as you think fit.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>By this time half a dozen of Prince Sanglant’s entourage had begun to strip, to follow him into the water, and Alain saw that the king meant to bathe as well, as if to lend royal sanction to his son’s action.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Alain felt it prudent to stay near the king, so he followed Lavastine and in this way was able to jest with several young lords whom he had befriended. Steadfast forged ahead, still on a scent. She growled, and Fear padded forward to snuffle in the grass beside her.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Where the bluff gave way to a negotiable embankment, servants had come forward to hack through brush clinging to the slope to make a path for the king down to the water. The prince, waist-deep in the sluggish current, now plunged in over his head and struck out for the opposite shore. Upstream, the fishermen collected their baskets and made ready to leave. They lingered to stare as the king made his way down the embankment and left his rich clothing to the care of his servants while he took to the cool water. The splashing and shouting and laughter had long since drowned out any sound of Sapientia’s party as it retreated into the forest.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Do you mean to come in, Son?” Lavastine swung down off his horse. As soon as the count’s feet touched the ground, Terror tried to herd the count away from a thicket of brambles while the other hounds set up such a racket of barking that the prince paused half out on the opposite shore to turn and see what the commotion was, and King Henry spoke a word to an attendant who scrambled back up the embankment.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Peace!” Lavastine frowned at the hounds, who swarmed around him more like puppies frightened by thunder than loyal fighting hounds.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A creature rustled in the thicket. The hounds went wild. Terror closed his jaw over the count’s hand and tugged him backward while Steadfast and Fear leaped into the brambles, teeth snapping on empty air. Hackles up, Sorrow and Rage circled the bramble bush and Ardent and Bliss tore up and down between Lavastine and the thicket. But there was nothing there.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Peace!” snapped Lavastine. He so disliked it when his orders were not obeyed instantly.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Steadfast yelped suddenly, a cry of pain. The other hounds went into such a wild frenzy around the thicket that servants and noblemen scattered in fear, and then the hounds spun and snapped and bolted away as if in hot pursuit, the entire pack running downstream along the embankment. “Alain! Follow them!”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Alain quickly followed the hounds, with only a single servant in attendance. The hounds ran far ahead now, scrambling in a fluid, furious pack down to a rocky stretch of beach. He glanced back in time to see Lavastine strip and make his careful way\u2014as had the other courtiers before him\u2014down the slope to the river. While the younger men braved the crossing to follow after the prince, the king and his mature councillors took their ease in the shallow water and talked no doubt of Gent and the Eika and recent reports of Quman raids in the east and certain marriage alliances that must be accepted or declined.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The hounds had disappeared, so Alain broke into a trot and found them clustered just around the river’s bend on the last strip of narrow beach. Stiff-legged, they barked at the water. Alain thought he saw a flash of something tiny and white struggling in the current. Then, slowly, their barking subsided into growls, growls to silence, and the hounds relaxed into a steady vigilance as they regarded the flowing river.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Had he only imagined that flash of movement? The sun made metal of the water as it streamed along. Its bright flash made Alain’s eyes tear, and he blinked rapidly, but that only made the water shimmer and flow in uncanny forms like the shift of a slick and scaly back seen beneath the waves or the swift passage of a ship along a canyon of water.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Ahead lies the smoke of home, the cradle of his tribe. Who has arrived before him ? Will he and his soldiers have to fight just to set foot on shore, or has he come first to make his claim before OldMother so that she may prepare the knife of decision ?<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The fjord waters mirror the deep blush of the heavens, the powerful blue of the afternoon sky. The waters are so still that each tree along the shore lies mirrored in their depths. Off to one side a merman’s slick back parts the water and a ruddy eye takes their measure; then, with a flick of its tail, the creature vanishes into the seamless depths.<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Teeth closed on his hand and, coming to himself, he looked down to see Sorrow pulling on him to get his attention. Only three hounds remained; the others had vanished. He started around to see his attendant sitting cross-legged, arms relaxed, as if he’d been waiting a long time.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“My lord!” The man jumped up. “The other hounds ran back to the count, and I didn’t know how to stop them, but you was so still for so long I didn’t know how to interrupt you\u2026” Trailing off, he glanced nervously at the remaining hounds: Sorrow, Rage, and poor Steadfast, who sat whimpering and licking her right forepaw.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“No matter.” Alain took Steadfast’s paw into his hand to examine it. A bramble thorn had bitten deep into the flesh, and he gentled her with his tone and then got hold of the thorn and pulled it out. She whimpered, then set to work licking again.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A flash of dead white out in the streaming flow of the river distracted him. Downstream, a fish appeared, belly up. Dead. Then a second, a third, and a fourth appeared farther downstream yet, dead white bellies turned up to sun and air, gleaming corpses drawn seaward by the current. Beyond that he could make out only light on the water.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Rage growled.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“My lord.” The servant had brought his horse.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But he walked back instead, to keep an eye on Steadfast. The thorn had done no lasting damage. Soon she was loping along with the others in perfect good humor, biting and nipping at her cousins in play. Alain would have laughed to see them; it was, after all, a pleasant and carefree day.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But when, across the river, he saw the fishermen trudging home with their baskets full of plump fish, the image of the dead fish caught in the current flashed into his mind’s eye and filled him with a troubling foreboding\u2014only he did not know why.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>THE quiet that pervaded the inner court of the palace of Wer-aushausen had such a soothing effect, combined with the heat of the sun, that Liath drowsed on the stone bench where she waited even though she wasn’t tired. Fears and hopes mingled to become a tangled dream: Da’s murder, Hugh, the curse of fire, Hanna’s loyalty and love, Ivar’s pledge, the shades of dead elves, Lord Alain and the friendship he had offered her, the death of Bloodheart, Sister Rosvita and The Book of Secrets, <\/i>daimones hunting her and, more vivid than all the others, the tangible memory of Sanglant’s hair caught in her fingers there by the stream where he had scoured away the filth of his captivity.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She started up heart pounding; she was hot, embarrassed, dismayed, and breathless with hope all at once.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She could not bear to think of him because she wanted only to think of him. A bee droned past. The gardener who weeded in the herb garden had moved to another row. No one had come to summon her. She did not know how much longer she would have to wait.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She walked to the well with its shingled roof and whitewashed stone rim. The draft of air rising from the depths smelled of fresh water and damp stone. The deacon who cared for the chapel here had told her that a spring fed the wells; before the coming of the Daisanite fraters to these lands a hundred years ago its source had rested hidden in rocks and been worshiped as a goddess by the heathen tribes. Now a stone cistern contained it safely beneath the palace.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Was that the glint of water in the depths? if she looked hard enough with her salamander eyes, would she see in that mirror the face of the man she would marry, as old herbwomen claimed? Or was that only pagan superstition, as the church mothers wrote?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She drew back, suddenly afraid to see anything, and stepped out from the shadow of the little roof into the blast of the noonday sun.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“\/ will never love any man but him.” <\/i>Was it that pledge which had bound her four days ago in the circle of stones where she’d crossed through an unseen gateway and ridden into unknown lands? Had she really been foolish enough to turn away from the learning offered to her by the old sorcerer?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She shaded her eyes from the sun and sat again on the bench. It had heavy feet fashioned in the likeness of a lion’s paws, carved of a reddish-tinged marble. That same marble had been used for the pillars lining the inner court.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Because the king was not now in residence at Weraushausen, a mere Eagle like herself could sit in the court usually reserved for the king rather than stand attendance upon him. It was so quiet that she could believe for this while in the peace that God are said to grant to the tranquil soul\u2014not that such peace was ever likely to be granted to her.<\/i><\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A sudden scream tore the silence, followed by laughter and the pounding of running feet.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Nay, children. Walk with dignity. Slow down!”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The children of the king’s schola had arrived to take their midday exercise, some more sedately than others. Liath watched as they tumbled out into the sunlight. She envied these children their freedom to study, their knowledge of their kin, and their future position in the king’s court. One boy climbed a plinth and swung, dangling, from the legs of the old statue set there, an ancient Dariyan general.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Lord Adelfred! Come down off there. I beg you!”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“There’s the Eagle,” said the boy, jumping down. “Why couldn’t we hear her report about the battle at Gent?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Next to the statue stood Ekkehard, the king’s youngest child. He resembled his father although he had the slenderness of youth. At this moment, he wore a sullen expression as if it were as fine an adornment as his rich clothing and gem-studded rings, in sharp contrast to the austere expression of the stone soldier. “I asked if I could ride back with her, to my father,” he said, “but it wasn’t allowed.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“We must be going back to the king’s court soon,” retorted the other boy, looking alarmed. By the slight burr in the way he pronounced his Wendish, Liath guessed he was from Avaria, perhaps one of Duke Burchard’s many nephews. “King Henry can’t mean to leave us here forever! I’m to get my retinue next year and ride east to fight the Quman!”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It won’t matter, forever,” muttered Prince Ekkehard. He had a sweet voice; Liath had heard him sing quite beautifully last night. In daylight, without a lute in his hand, he merely looked restless and ill-tempered. “Soon I’ll be fifteen and have my own retinue, too, and then I won’t be treated like a child. Then I can do what I want.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Eagle.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Liath started to her feet and turned, expecting to see a cleric come to escort her to Cleric Monica. But she saw only the top of a black-haired head.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Do you know who I am?” asked the child. For an instant it was like staring into a mirror and seeing a small shadow of herself, although they looked nothing alike except in complexion.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You are Duke Conrad’s daughter,” said Liath.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The girl took hold of Liath’s wrist and turned over the Eagle’s hand to see the lighter skin of the palm. “I’ve never seen anyone but my father, my avia<\/i>\u2014my grandmother, that is\u2014and my sister and myself with such skin. I did see a slave once, in the retinue of a presbyter. They said she had been born in the land of the Gyptos, but she was dark as pitch. Where do your kin-folk come from?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“From Darre,” said Liath, amused by her blithe arrogance.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The child regarded her with an imperious expression. “You just rode in from the king’s progress. Has there been news? My mother, Lady Eadgifu, should have had her baby by now but no one will tell me anything.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I have heard no news of your mother.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The girl glanced toward the other children. Ekkehard and his companion had moved off to toss dice in the shadow of the colonnade, and the others kept their distance. Only the old statue remained, like a trusted companion. He had once held a sword, but it was missing. Flecks of blue still colored his eyes, and in the sheltered curve of his elbow and the deeper folds of the cloak spun out in folds of stone from his left shoulder Liath could see the stain of gold paint not yet worn away by wind and weather. Lichen grew on his stone sandals and between his toes.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Was it not said that the Dariyan emperors and empresses and their noble court were the half-breed descendants of the Lost Ones? This stone general looked a little like Sanglant.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>“I’m a prisoner here, you know,” the girl added without heat. She had the rounded profile of youth, blurred still by baby-fat and the promise of later growth, but a distinctly self-aware expression for all that. No more than nine or ten, she already understood the intricate dance of court intrigue. With a sigh, the child released Liath’s hand and turned half away. “I still miss Berthold,” she murmured. “He was the only one who paid attention to me.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Who is Berthold?” asked Liath, intrigued by the yearning in the girl’s voice.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But the girl only glanced at her, as if surprised\u2014as Hugh would say\u2014to hear a dog speak.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A cleric hurried up the central colonnade and beckoned to Liath; she followed her into the palace. In a spacious wood-paneled chamber Cleric Monica sat at one end of a long table otherwise inhabited by clerics only half awake, writing with careful strokes or yawning while a scant breeze stirred the air. The shutters had been taken down. Through the windows Liath could see a corral for horses and beyond that the berm of earth that was part of the fortifications. Wildflowers bloomed along the berm, purple and pale yellow. Goats grazed on the steep slope.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Come forward.” Cleric Monica spoke in a low voice. The clerics worked in silence, and only the distant bleat of a goat and an occasional shout from one of the children penetrated the room, and yet there lay between them all a companionable air as if this hush reflected labor done willingly together, with one heart and one striving. Two letters and several parchment documents lay at Monica’s right hand. “Here is a letter for Sister Rosvita from Mother Rothgard at St. Valeria Convent. Here are four royal capitularies completed by the clerics at the king’s order. To King Henry relate this message: the schola will leave Weraushausen in two days’ time and travel south to meet him at Thersa, as His Majesty commands. Do you understand the whole?” “Yes.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Now.” Cleric Monica beckoned to a tiny deacon almost as old as Monica herself. Liath towered over the old woman. “Deacon Ansfrida.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Deacon Ansfrida had a lisp which, combined with the hauteur of a noblewoman, gave her an air of slightly ridiculous abstraction. “There has been a new road built through the forest. If you follow it, it should save you four days of riding time toward Thersa.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Is it safe to ride through the forest?” Neither churchwoman appeared surprised by the question. The forests lay outside the grasp of the church; they were wild lands still. “I have heard no reports that the levy set to do the work met with any difficulty. Since the Eika came last year, we have been peculiarly untroubled by bandits.” “What of other creatures?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Cleric Monica gave a little breath, a voiced “ah” that trailed away to Wend with the shuffling of feet and the <\/i>scratch of pens. But the deacon gave Liath a strange look. “Certainly one must watch out for wolves,” replied Ansfrida. “Is that what you mean?” Better, Liath realized, to have asked the forests that question and not good women of the church. “Yes, that’s what I mean,” she said quickly.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You may wait outside,” said Cleric Monica crisply. “A servant will bring you a horse.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>
\nThus dismissed, Liath retreated, relieved to get out from under Monica’s searching eye. Beyond the palace she found a log bench to sit on. Here she waited again. The palace lay enclosed by berms of more recent construction; in one place where ditch and <\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>earth wall stood now, she could see the remains of an old building that had been torn up and dug through when the fortification was put in. The palace loomed before her. With windows set high in its walls and six towers hugging the semicircular side like sentries, it appeared from the outside more like a fort than ! <\/sup>a palace. A jumble of outbuildings lay scattered within the protecting berms. A woman stood outside the cookhouse, searing a side of beef over a smoking pit. A servant boy slept half hidden in the grass.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Without the king in residence, Weraushausen was a peaceful place. From the chapel, she heard a single female voice raised in prayer for the service of Sext, and in distant fields men sang in robust chorus as they worked under the hot sun. Crickets buzzed. Beyond the river lay the great green shoulder of the untamed forest; a buzzard\u2014scarcely more than a black speck\u2014 soared along its outermost fringe.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>What would it be like to live in such peace?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She flipped open her saddlebags. The letters were sealed with wax and stamped with tiny figures. She recognized the seal from St. Valeria Convent at once by the miniature orrery, symbol of St. Valeria’s victory in the city of Sai’s when she confounded the pagan astrologers. Liath dared not open the letter, of course. Did it contain news of Princess Theophanu? Had she recovered from her illness, or did this letter bring news of her death? Was Mother Rothgard writing to warn Sister Rosvita that a sorcerer walked veiled in the king’s progress? Would Rosvita suspect Liath? Or would she suspect Hugh?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Liath glanced through the capitularies: King Henry grants to the nuns of Regensbach a certain estate named Felstatt for which they owe the king and his heirs full accommodation and renders of food and drink for the royal retinue as well as fodder for the horses at such times as the king’s progress may pass that way; King Henry endows a monastery at Gent in the name of St. Per-petua in thanks for the victory at Gent and the return of his son; King Henry grants immunity from all but royal service to the foresters of the Bretwald in exchange for keeping the new road through the Bret Forest clear; King Henry calls the elders of the church to a council at Autun on the first day of the month of Setentre, which in the calendar of the church is called Matthi-asmass.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>That day, according to the mathematici, was the autumn equinox.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Ai, God. If she held The Book of Secrets, <\/i>could she open it freely here? Would she ever live in a place where there was leisure, and such safety as this palace offered? Was there any place she could study the secrets of the mathematici, wander in her city of memory, explore the curse of fire, and be left alone?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She laughed softly, a mixture of anger, regret, and giddy desire. Such a place had been offered her, when she had least expected it, and she had turned away in pursuit of a dream just as impossible.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A man emerged from the palace gateway leading a saddled horse, a sturdy bay mare with a white blaze and two white socks. She took the reins, thanked him politely, and went on her way.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>AS the deacon had promised, the road ran straight east through the Bretwald. Birds trilled from the branches. A doe and half-grown twin fawns trotted into view and as quickly vanished into the foliage. She heard the grunt of a boar. She peered into the depths beyond the scar that was the road. Trees marched out on all sides into unknowable and impenetrable wilderness. The scent of growing lay over everything as heavily as spices at the king’s feasting table. Like a rich mead, she could almost taste it simply by breathing it in.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But she could no longer ride through the deep forest without looking over her shoulder. She could not forget the diamone that had stalked her, or the creature of bells. She could not forget the elfshot that had killed her horse this past spring, although that pursuit had taken place in a different forest than this one. Yet surely all forests were only pieces of the same great and ancient forest. She had traveled enough to know that the wild places on earth were of far greater extent than those lands tamed by human hands.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>There.<\/span><\/i> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>An aurochs bolted through the distant trees. Its curving horns caught a stray glance of sunlight, vivid, disturbing, and then it was gone. The noise of its passage faded into the heavier silence of the forest, which was not a true silence at all but rather woven of a hundred tiny sounds that blended so seamlessly as to make of themselves that kind of silence which has forgotten, or does not know of or care about, the chatter of human enterprise.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>As the last rustle of the aurochs’ passing faded, Liath heard, quite clearly, the clop of hooves behind her. She swung round in her saddle but could see nothing. What if it were Hugh?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Ai, Lady! That bastard Hugh had no reason to follow her. He would wait in the safety of the king’s progress because he knew she had to return to the king. She had no freedom of her own to choose where she went and how she lived; she was a mere Eagle living on the sufferance of the king, and that was all and everything she had, her only safety, her only kin.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Except Sanglant,” she whispered. If she said his name too loudly, would she wake herself up from a long and almost painful dream and find the prince still dead at Gent and herself sobbing by a dying fire?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The sound of hooves faded as a wind came up, stirring the upper branches into movement punctuated by the eruption into flight of a dozen noisy wood pigeons. That suddenly, she saw a flash of red far back in the dim corridor of the road. At once she slipped her bow free of its quiver and drew an arrow to rest loosely along the curve of the bow.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A branch snapped to her left and she started ’round, but nothing showed itself in the thickets. What use was running, anyway? She and Da had scuttled from shadow to shadow, but in the end his enemies had caught them.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She reined up her horse and peered into every thicket and out along an unexpected vista of tree trunks marching away into shadow like so many pillars lining the aisles of a cathedral. Nothing. What approached came from the road. And she heard no tolling of bells.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Yet her face was flushed and she was sweating. She nocked her arrow and waited. A King’s Eagle expected respect and safe passage. She had endured so much, she had <\/i>escaped from Hugh twice.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She was strong enough to face down this enemy.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>As the rider came clear of the shadow of the trees, she drew down on a figure dressed in ordinary clothing marked only by a gray cloak trimmed with scarlet. A familiar badge winked at his throat.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Wolfhere!”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He laughed and, when he came close enough, called to her. “I’ll thank you not to look quite so intimidating with that arrow aimed at my heart.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Startled, she lowered the bow. “Wolfhere!” she repeated, too dumbfounded to say anything else.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I had hoped to catch you before nightfall.” He reined in beside her. “No one likes to pass through the forest alone.” He rode a surly-looking gelding. Her own mare, sensing trouble, gave a nip to the gelding’s hindquarters to let it know at once which of them took precedence.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You’ve ridden all the way from Darre,” she said stupidly, still too amazed to think.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“That I have,” he agreed mildly. He pressed his gelding forward into a walk and Liath rode beside him.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It took Hanna months to track down the king, and it’s only the twenty-fifth day of Quadrii.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“That it is, the feast day of St. Placidana, she who brought the Circle of Unities to the goblinkin of the Harenz Mountains.” She saw immediately that he was trying not to smile.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“But you know perfectly well that no passes over the Alfar Mountains are clear until early summer. How did you get to Weraushausen so quickly?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He slanted a glance at her, eyes serious, mouth quirking up. “I knew where the king was.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You looked for him through fire.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“So I did. It was a mild winter, and I made my way across the Julier Pass earlier than I had hoped. I watched through fire when I could. I know Wendar well, Liath. I followed the king’s progress with that vision and saw where they were bound. Once I saw that King Henry had left the children of the schola at Wer-auschausen, I knew he would have to return by that way or at the least send a message by one of his Eagles, who would know what route he planned to take. I had hoped it might be you.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>How much had he seen of her? Did he know Hugh was tormenting her again? Had he seen her burn down the palace at Augensburg, or fight the lost shades in the forest east of Laar, or kill Bloodheart? Had he heard Sanglant’s words to her? Had he seen her cross through the gateway of burning stone?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>As if he read her thoughts in her expression, he spoke again. “Although I couldn’t be sure you still rode with the king’s progress and not with Princess Theophanu or on some other errand. You are difficult to vision through fire, Liath. It’s as if there’s a haze about you, concealing you. I suppose Bernard laid some kind of spell over you to hide you. I’m surprised the effect has survived so long after his death.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Like a challenge, the words seemed to hang in the air between them. They rode some paces in silence while in the branches above the purring coo of turtledoves serenaded them and was left behind.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You strike straight to heart of the matter, and at once, do you not?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Alas, I’m not usually accused of such a weakness.” His tone was dry and his smile brief. “To what do you refer, my child?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She laughed, light-headed, a little dizzy. “I don’t trust you, Wolfhere. Maybe I never will. But I’m grateful to you for saving me at Heart’s Rest. And I’m not afraid of you anymore.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>This time the smile sparked in his eyes, a pale flicker in gray.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She did not wait for his answer but went on, determined to bring it all to light immediately. “Why were you looking for me? Why did you save me at Heart’s Rest?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He blinked. She had surprised him. “When you were born, I promised Anne that I would look after you. I had been looking for you and your father for eight years, ever since you disappeared. I knew you were in danger.” He looked away to the verge where road and forest met and intertwined. When he frowned, lines creased his forehead, and she could see how old he truly was; she had seen only a handful of people whom she supposed to be older than Wolfhere, and certainly none of them had been as hale and vigorous. What magic made him so strong although he was so old? Or was it magic at all but rather the kiss of Lady Fortune, who for her own fickle reasons blessed some with vigor while inflicting feebleness upon others? “Had I found you earlier,” he continued, still not looking at her, “Bernard would not have died.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You could have protected us?” He had not seen Da’s body or the two arrows stuck uselessly in the wall.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Only Our Lady and Lord see all that has happened and all that will happen.” A jay cried harshly and fluttered away from the path, its rump a flash of white among dense green. He turned his gaze away from his contemplation of a riot of flowering brambles that twined along the roadside, and with that pale keen gaze regarded her again. “What of you, Liath? Have you been well? You seem stronger.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Did he understand the fire she held within her, which Da had tried to protect her from? She didn’t want him to see its existence, her knowledge of its existence, as if some change in her might betray it to his penetrating gaze; she was sure he watched her so keenly to see what she might unwittingly reveal. Da always said there were two ways to hide: to scuttle from shadow to shadow, or to talk in plain sight on a busy road at midday. “Talk too much about nothing, or be silent about everything,” <\/i>he would say, but Wolfhere couldn’t be misled by babble, and she no longer dared hide behind silence. Once she had thought silence would shield her. Now she knew that ignorance was more dangerous than knowledge.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I was afraid to ask you questions before,” she said finally, not without a catch in her voice. “Even though I wanted to know about Da and about my mother. I was afraid you would make me tell you things. That you were one of the ones hunting us. But I know <\/i>you were one of the ones hunting us.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I would not have phrased it so: ‘hunting’ you.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Aren’t you named for the wolf. Doesn’t the wolf hunt?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“The wolf does what it must. Unlike humankind, it only kills when it is threatened, or when it is hungry\u2014and then only as much as it needs.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“How did you come to know my mother and father?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Our paths crossed.” He smiled grimly, remembering as well as she did the conversation, more like a sparring contest, they had had last spring in the tower at Steleshame. “What do you know of magic, Liath?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Not enough!” She reconsidered these rash words, then added, “Enough to keep silent on that subject. I’ve only your word that you made a promise to my mother to protect me. But she’s dead, and Da never once mentioned your name. Why should I trust you?”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He looked pained, as at a trust betrayed or a kindness spurned. “Because your mother\u2014” Then he broke off.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She waited. There was more than one kind of silence: that of the indifferent forest; that of a man hesitant to speak and a woman waiting to hear a truth; the silence that is choked by fear or that which wells up from a pure spring of joy. This silence spread from him into the forest; the sudden stillness of birds at an unexpected presence walking among them; the hush that descends when the sun’s face is shrouded by cloud. His face had too much weight in it, as at a decision come to after a hard fight.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>When he finally spoke, he said what she had never expected to hear. “Your mother isn’t dead.”<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>TEN steps, perhaps twelve, on a path through a dessicated forest whose branches rattled in a howling wind brought Zacharias and the woman to another hard bend in the path. Coming around it, coils of air whipped at his face as he followed the Aoi woman through a bubble of heat. The ground shifted under him, and suddenly he slipped down a pebbly slope and found himself slogging through calf-deep drifts of sand. The horse struggled behind him, and he had to haul on it to get it up a crumbling slope to where the Aoi woman stood on a pathway marked out in black stone. Barren land lay everywhere around them, nothing but sun and sand and the narrow path that cut sharply to the right.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Disorientation shook him, his vision hazed, and when he could see again, they walked through forest, although here the trees looked different, denser than that first glimpse of forest he had seen, like moving from the land where the short-grass grows to the borderwild beyond which the tall grass of the wilderness shrouds the earth and any who walk in its shadow.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The Aoi woman spoke in a sharp whisper, holding up a hand to stop them. Zacharias yanked the horse to a halt. In the distance, he heard a moaning horn call and saw a green-and-gold flash in the vegetation; someone was on the move out in the forest. They waited for what seemed an eternity, although Zacharias drew perhaps twenty breaths.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Hei!” said the woman, waving him forward. She looked nervous, and her pace was brisk.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>This time when the path veered left, Zacharias knew what to expect. The ground shifted, but he kept his balance, only to lose it as his boots sloshed in water and a salty wind stung his lips. Water lapped his ankles. He looked up in surprise to see waves surging all the way to the horizon. He staggered and barely caught himself on the horse’s neck. Where had all this water come from? Where did it end?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>On his other side, mercifully, lay a long strand of pebbles and beyond it hummocks of grass and scrub. A gleaming path shone under the water, cast in bronze.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“What is this place?” he whispered. The woman did not answer.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The ghost lands, <\/span><\/i>his grandmother would have said. The spirit \u2022world. <\/i>Was he dead?<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The path veered right, and the Aoi woman disappeared into a dense bank of fog. Zacharias shook off his fear and followed her to where light streamed in the mist, a fire flaming blue-white and searing his face with its heat\u2014and then it vanished.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He sucked in a breath of grass-laden air and collapsed to his knees next to a dead campfire. Water puddled from his robes and soaked onto the earth. An instant later he gulped, recognizing their surroundings. They had come back to the very stone circle where the witch had defeated Bulkezu. He groped for the knife, then saw the sky and hissed his surprise through his teeth.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>It was night, and the waning gibbous moon laid bare the bones of the stone circle and the long horizon of grass, a pale silver expanse under moonlight.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Four turns on an unearthly path had brought them not to a different place but back to the same place at a different time.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He knelt beside the old campfire and stirred the cold ashes with a finger. Chaff had settled there together with a drying flower petal. “Six days, perhaps seven,” he said aloud, touching ash to his tongue. He looked up, suddenly afraid that she would punish him for his fear…or for his knowledge. But if she had meant to kill him, surely she would have done so by now. “Did we walk through the ghost lands?” he asked.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She stood beneath a lintel, gazing west over the plain.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Bulkezu’s jacket, laid over her shoulders, gave her the look of a Quman boy.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But she was no boy.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She lifted her spear toward the heavens and spoke incomprehensible words, calling, praying, commanding: Who could j know? As she swayed, her leather skirt swayed, as supple as the finest calfskin.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Except it wasn’t calfskin.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Ah\u2014Ah\u2014Ah\u2014! Lady!” Terror hung hitches into his words, ! forced out of him by shock.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The skirt she wore wasn’t sewn of calfskin, nor of deerskin. It wasn’t animal skin at all.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Under the lintel, the Aoi woman turned to look at him. Her ( leather skirt slipped gracefully around her, such a fine bronze sheen to it that it almost seemed to shimmer in the moonlight.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Human skin,” he breathed. The words died away onto the night breeze, then were answered by hers.<\/span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

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Book Preview \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 KATE ELLIOT \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 **VOLUME Three of CROWN OF STARS** \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Burning Stone \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 PROLOGUE \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0HE had ran this far without being caught, but he knew his Quman master still followed him. Convulsive shudders shook him where he huddled in the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[216],"class_list":["post-3777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-kate-elliott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}