The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3) Page 176

Some light was left him, as little as the hope left him. The hall had been set in order, tables and benches lined up neatly, but nevertheless he banged his shins on a bench and bruised his hip on the corner of a table before he stumbled on the first step of the small dais behind the high table. He hit his knee on the second step and cursed under his breath. Sorrow whined. He groped, found one leg of the count’s chair, and hauled himself up, then just stood there feeling the solid square corners under his hands, the scrollwork along the back, the arms carved like the massive smooth backs of hounds, each ending in a snarling face.

Not even rats stirred in the hall. He heard the whisper of Compline, muted by distance, stone walls, and the ripening comprehension of the Lavas clerics.

This morning, for the first time, Lavastine had not been able to be sat up in his bed. His body was now too heavy to move. Prayers and physic, all to no avail.

For the first time, Alain sat in the count’s chair.

The hall lay shrouded by twilight, but it was easier to test this seat in private, without the stares and bows, the expectations and petitions, that would greet him later when everyone assembled to see him take the seat of power. This way he could get used to it slowly—if he could ever get used to it.

He started up guiltily out of the chair as a procession entered the hall: Tallia with several attendants. They lit her by torchlight so she could cross to his side unmolested by benches and table corners.

“You didn’t stay for Compline.” She had certain secretive habits left over from her childhood, and now, touching the count’s chair, she leaned closer to him in the manner of a thief planning mischief with an accomplice. “I prayed for this… for God to strike him dead as an unbeliever. You see, don’t you, that it is best this way? God answered my prayers in this way because She wishes me to build a chapel in Her honor.” She faltered, pressed a hand over his as if to seal his approval.

Alain could only stare. Behind, a servingman hurried into the hall.

“My lord Alain!” The servant was weeping. “He’s very bad, my lord. You must come quickly.”

Alain left Tallia to the ministrations of her fluttering attendants. He took the steps two at a time. A servant held the door open as he strode into the chamber where Lavastine lay in his curtained bed as still as stone. Fear kept watch at his bedside.

Alain knelt at his side and took hold of one of the count’s hands: it had the grain of pale granite. It stirred only because Alain lifted it. Lavastine’s eyes moved; his lips parted. That he still breathed Alain knew because he still lived: His chest gave no telltale rise and fall, God’s breath lifting and descending to feed his soul.

A musky odor permeated the room, fleeting, gone. He looked up to see Sorrow, Rage, and Fear cluster around Terror, who lay at the foot of Lavastine’s bed.

Lavastine murmured words. His voice was almost inaudible, a thin wheeze, but Alain had spent many hours beside him these past fifteen days, and he could still understand his few, labored words. “Most faithful.”

It struck Alain as sharply as any blow had ever shuddered his shield in battle: Terror was dead, had died in the last hour, passed beyond mortal existence. That was why the others sniffed at him, seeking the smell of their father-cousin and not finding it. His spirit had fled. Ai, God! Lavastine’s would soon follow.

He pressed a hand to the count’s throat, but there was no warmth, no pulse.

“Alain.” By some astounding force of will he still lived, although he was by now completely paralyzed. “Heir.”

“Father. I’m here.” It tore his heart in two to watch Lavastine’s suffering, although in truth it wasn’t clear he was in any pain. His brow remained as unlined as ever, even as it took on that grainy, stonelike cast, as if he were transmuting into an effigy carved from rock.

But Lavastine was nothing if not stubborn, and determined. Had he had more expression left him, he would have frowned. One eyebrow twitched. His lips quirked ever so slightly. “Must. Have. Heir.”

From the chapel in the room below, the clerics began to sing a hymn from the Holy Verses: “A remnant restored in an age of peace.”

“On that day, say God, We will destroy all your horses among you and break apart all your chariots. We will raze the cities of your land and tear down your fortresses. We will ruin all your sorcerers, and no more augeres shall walk among you to part the veil that allows them to see into the future. We will throw down all the works made by your own hands. In anger and fury will We take vengeance on all nations who disobey Us.”

Alain was weeping, He could not bear to let Lavastine go in hopelessness. “She’s pregnant,” he whispered, too softly for anyone else to hear. Hearing himself speak, he said it again more boldly. “Tallia is pregnant.”