The Burning Stone

Ai, God. Memory flooded, surfacing, as she turned back to face the one who held the globe of light. “Muh—Mother?”



She had a headache from the pounding her head had taken against the wall. Sparks swirled around her eyes, and then everything vanished, leaving her with a steady gleam of magelight and a cool, pale woman of vast power and middling height who regarded her with a thoughtful gaze unsullied by emotion.



“You have grown up, of course. Your beauty is unexpected and has caused you trouble, I see.”



“Why have you come?” Liath asked stupidly.



She released the globe and it bobbed to the ceiling, sank, and drifted to a balance just below the eaves. “I have come for you, of course. I have been looking for you and Bernard for a long time. And now, at last, I have found you.”



4



DURING her reign as Queen of Wendar and Varre, Sophia of Arethousa had been accused by certain clerics of the sin of living in luxury beyond what was seemly for humankind, and some had muttered that God had punished her for the excessive luxury of her habits by striking her down with a festering sore: as inside, so outside.



But Sanglant recalled her fondly. She had always in her cool way suffered Sanglant to roam in chambers made opulent by the extravagant display of the many fine possessions she had brought with her from Arethousa. As a child he had loved to explore those chambers: the bold tapestries, the rich fragrance of incense smothering the air, the bright reliquaries and crosses set on elaborately-carved Hearths inlaid with ivory and gems, the plush carpets on which a young boy could lie for hours while tracing their intricacies with a finger, the sumptuous silks that he would run his hands through just to feel their softness. Once he had accidentally broken a crystal chessman, one of the handsome horsemen he loved to play with as he imagined himself among their number, and although the piece was irreplaceable, she had merely ordered a matching piece carved out of wood and had said no more about the incident. His freedom in her chambers had ended when he turned nine and was sent off to learn to fight—to his fate, as he thought of it then.



But he had never forgotten the feel of that cloth. Around Queen Sophia’s bed had hung a gauzy veil that seemed to dissolve like mist when he clenched it in his small fist.



Now he clawed at a substance as filmy, struggling to free himself from a tangle of gauzelike sleep that had wrapped around him: The dogs would kill him if he couldn’t wake up.



Never let it be said that he did not fight until his last breath.



Dreams fluttered at the edge of his vision: Hugh of Austra, his handsome face poisoned by jealousy, setting a knife to his throat; people and animals dead asleep throughout the palace grounds like so many corpses left strewn on the field after a battle; an owl skimming east; depthless waters roiled suddenly by the movement of creatures more man than fish; the Aoi woman whose blood had healed him loping at a steady pace over interminable grasslands with a filthy servant riding at her heels on a pony decked out in Quman style.



She stops to scent the air, brushes her hand through the wind as if reading a message. The servant watches her almost worshipfully; he has no beard, and wears a torn and dirty robe that might once have belonged to a frater as well as a Circle of Unity at his neck. He waits as she lifts her stone-tipped spear and rattles it in the wind. The bells attached to its base tinkle, shattering the silence around him—



“And now, at last, I have found you.”



He bolted up, growling, and was on his feet with arms raised to strike before he came entirely awake. In Bloodheart’s hall, speed had been his only defense. Speed—and a stubborn refusal to die. From under the window the Eika dog growled weakly but did not otherwise stir.



“Sanglant!” Liath crossed to him and pulled his arms down, then stood there with one hand on his wrist. An uncanny light gleamed in the chamber, sorcerer’s fire: heatless and fuelless. He steadied himself on her shoulder, and she winced—not from his touch, but from pain.



“What has happened?” He moved to stand in front of Liath, to protect her from the intruder, but she stopped him.



“This is my mother.”



The gauze still entangled his mind. Her mother. He could see no trace of Liath in this woman’s face, except that the unconscious pride with which Liath carried herself was made manifest in this noblewoman’s carriage and expression: That she wore a gold torque did not astonish him, although it surprised him. Was she of Salian descent? She watched him without speaking and indeed without any apparent emotion except a touch of curiosity.



“What do you want?” he asked bluntly. “We are wed, she and I.”