Crown of Stars

They held.



Facing the center of the cavern, she called her wings.



They flared and faded so quickly that it left afterimages against her eyes. She tried again, but it was no use. The undercurrents of aether still thrummed through this heart, but something was missing: Li’at’dano’s power calling to her from the far side of the gateway.



Had it always taken two to open the gateway of the burning stone? Was there a thread woven between one and the other? Did she need more of a focus, or was the burning stone fading surely and slowly from the compass of the world?



She wiped away stinging tears and scratched her itching shoulders and allowed herself one burst of frustrated overpowering thwarted despairing fury, not a scream but a wash of emotion like the tidal surge that had obliterated the shore.



“Liath.”



Just like that, she snapped alert. In like manner, a hound comes to point, sensing an enemy. Any creature does. She was clear and empty and as sharp as steel.



“Liath,” he said again.



It was like an hallucination, because there was no possible way that Hugh of Austra should be speaking to her in this place at this time when she was imprisoned at the very heart of the land belonging to the Ashioi.



But it was his voice, and it was obvious from his tone that he knew she was there.



When she did not reply, he went on.



“I am a prisoner of the Ashioi.”



This comment bestirred her, because for some reason she found it amusing. “Not so deep in prison as I am, it appears, since you are there, and I am here. How came they to capture you?”



“They caught me on the road as I was fleeing Queen Adelheid.”



He paused again, and she played along. “What cause had you to flee Adelheid? Before, as I recall the story, you were her ally.”



“No longer. Adelheid blames me for Henry’s death.”



“Can you possibly believe that I might believe you innocent of any share in Henry’s death?”



“Believe what you will. Adelheid desired to kill me.”



Liath forbore to comment, and in any case she was having a difficult time parsing his tone into its component emotions without the text of expression and his body’s language to study.



“I took Blessing away from Adelheid,” he added.



Blessing! The name felled her. She sank, found herself sprawled on the ground. Her hands had gone numb. Hugh’s smooth words flowed over her as though she were stone.



“I freed her from captivity. Adelheid would have murdered her in revenge for the death of Berengaria.”



She tried words on her tongue and found that she could speak. “Who is Berengaria?”



“The younger child. She had two by Henry, Mathilda and Berengaria.”



Two children, Henry’s youngest offspring. Of course she remembered them. They held a claim to the Wendish throne that many would consider more legitimate than Sanglant’s, even if their mother was Aostan.



“I stole Blessing away to save her from Adelheid. The Ashioi captured us. We are prisoners here, as you are.”



This story made no sense, but no matter. She wiped sweat from her forehead, although it wasn’t hot.



“How did Blessing come into Adelheid’s custody?”



“I don’t know. She and her party were discovered by Adelheid’s soldiers on the road near Novomo. How did the child’s father come to carelessly leave her behind in Aosta? I would not have done so.”



She hesitated, knowing she must phrase both questions and answers precisely in order to get the information she needed without giving away too much. “She was too ill to be moved,” she said as evenly as she could.



He laughed. “She has recovered. Her uncle Zuangua is training her to be a warrior. You and I, however, have common cause. We desire to escape. I will help you.”



She found herself trembling between one breath and the next, only there was nothing within arm’s reach to strangle. At last, she sorted past laughter and weeping and found pragmatism. “In exchange for what?”



“Nothing. I seek only to aid Wendar.”



The first shock survived, this made her smile cruelly. Surely Hugh was too subtle to believe that she would believe this!



“It is strange to me that small parties of Ashioi mask warriors strike in Wendar. They come unheralded and without any trace of how they have arrived and where they go after. Yet if a mathematicus had allied with the Ashioi, he might weave gateways through the crowns for such raiding parties. How would that be aiding Wendar?”



“My plan is deeper than it seems. I will destroy Feather Cloak.”