The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3) Page 357

—and then she had lost him and tumbled free, landing hard on her knees with the wind knocked out of her lungs. Her bow lay beside her on the sandy ground. Branches rattled in a dry wind, and a gold feather drifted down through the air to catch in her hand. Coughing, she got to her feet.

“Well,” said the old Aoi sorcerer, letting the half-twined rope fall to the ground as he stood. “This time you have surprised me.”

“I didn’t expect to come here,” she admitted. She had to lean with hands braced on her thighs, catching her breath. Catching the sobs that shook her. She wanted to weep, but that was one of the lessons that Da had taught her, that she’d learned so well that it had become habit: “If you’re crying, you can’t hear them coming up behind you.”

Ai, God. There was nothing she could do for Alain. But she had to be strong enough to find Sanglant and Blessing; she had to be strong enough to come to their aid. She rose, letting her breath out with a shudder, tucked the feather away, and brushed dirt from the knees of her leggings and from her palms. She checked herself reflexively for her possessions: bow, quiver, sword, dagger, cloak, Alain’s ring, the torque Sanglant had given her. Of Blessing she had nothing but the link of shared blood.

“I meant to leave Verna,” she continued, still stunned by the departure of the creatures who had meant to take her with them. “But I didn’t know I’d end up here.”

“Yet you are here.”

“I am here,” she agreed, “But—” But still she hesitated.

“You are still bound to the other world,” he said, not dismayed, not irritated, not cheerful. Simply stating what was true.

“I am still bound to the other world.” Without thinking, she set her hand against the blue-white fire of the stone, and she looked inside.

He leans back against the rock face and lets the glorious heat of the sun warm him. They came clear of the valley an hour or so after dawn and, with the birds singing around him and his mother walking beside him, he understands he is free for now of Sister Anne and her threats and her war. Yet how can he be free from that war knowing what he has learned, that his mother’s people mean to return to Earth from whatever place they have been hiding, or exiled? True, his mother desires to go to Henry. But what will she tell him? And what will he say to his father? Whose story can he believe? On whose side will he muster?

He opens his eyes. Resuelto and the pony crop at what grass they can find upon the hillside. Below, smoke curls up from the cookhouse of the hostel below, and he sees robed figures hastening about. The monks are agitated today. Even the bees are agitated, swarming around flowers but not landing to sip nectar.

His mother crouches to one side of the path, spearpoint driven into the ground by her feet. With her forearms braced on her knees, she intently watches Jerna, who is suckling Blessing. The sight clearly fascinates her, although he isn’t sure why it ought to. Before he begged her to clothe herself in Liath’s spare tunic, it was obvious that the women of the Lost Ones are built no differently than human women in certain regards.

Ai, God. Where is Liath now? He listens, but he cannot hear her.

He dreams that she calls to him across the gulf of the heavens.

“Sanglant,” she says. “Beloved.”

Blessing pulls her head back from Jerna’s breast and babbles, batting at the air as if to grab something only she can see. But he sees and hears nothing.

“You are weeping, child,” the old man said as he rested a companionable hand on her shoulder.

“So I am,” she agreed. But this time she let the tears fall.

“Truly, there is more to you than even I first saw.” He regarded the burning stone with a frown as light flickered along its length and began to die. “I can only see through the gateways using the power of blood. Yet you can simply look, and thereby see.”

Startled, she turned on him. “I thought you were a great sorcerer. Can’t you teach me everything I need to know?”

He smiled at her and walked away, but he was only going to sit on his bench of rock. He picked up the rope and began to twist the strands against his thigh.

“In the end, only one person can teach you everything you need to know, and that is your own self. If you wish to learn with me, you must be patient. Now.” He gestured toward the burning stone. “You must make your choice—there, or here. The gateway is closing.”

The flames flickered lower until they rippled like a sheen of water trembling along the surface of the stone.

She was still weeping, gentle tears that slid down her cheeks. “Ai, Lady! What must I do? How can I leave them?”