Child of Flame (Page 374)

She was like them. She had a soul of fire no different than their own.

Joy struck at her heart like lightning. The universe changed into purity around her, and in her heart and in her soul she knew she had entered a place existing beyond the mortal limits of humankind. Even her bow, Seeker of Hearts, had vanished. She had nothing of Earth left to her, nothing binding her to Earth any longer.

In the embrace of fire she burned for an eternity, or perhaps only for one instant.

Then she found her voice. “Who am I?”

Here in the realm of fire their voices thrummed as though they were themselves taut strings on which the music of the spheres played out its measure. “Step into the river of fire, child. Here nothing can be hidden that you call past, which binds you, and future, which blinds mortal eyes.”

She let herself fall, and the river swept her into the past.

She knows this handsome villa, its proud architecture and well-built structures, an entire little cosmos sufficient unto itself. She recognizes the vista of craggy hills and of forest so dense and green that the midday summer sunlight seems to drown in leaves. Fields surround the villa, a neatly tended estate. Not one weed grows out of place. Even the bees never sting. This is the place where she was born and spent her early childhood.

She knows this pleasant garden, once languid with butterflies and now made gold by a profusion of luminous marigolds. But the prize bed of saffron is quite simply missing, scorched and trammeled. A man stands with his back to the rest, surveying the ruined saffron. The other five weary, somber figures gather around the seventh of their number, which is in fact a corpse. It is one of these who kneels, face hidden, to gingerly examine the prone body.

One of the Seven Sleepers has died in the struggle, and Anne for the first time loses her majestic calm. She shrieks anger, an expression that on her face looks so startlingly wrong that it takes a moment for Liath to realize how much younger Anne is, here in the past. She has her grandfather Taillefer’s look about her, well built and excellently proportioned, with fine eyes and a dignified manner. She cannot be much more than thirty years of age, strong and extraordinarily beautiful in her prime.

“We were to bind a male daimone!” she cries, outraged at their failure. “It was to be the father! I was to be the one who would sacrifice my blood and my purity to bear a child.”

“This is the second death we’ve suffered,” says Severus, “although in truth I haven’t missed Theoderada’s incessant praying these last six years.” Taking years away from his face has not improved his sour aspect. “Can we risk a third death?”

“We must,” insists Anne as she glowers at the dead woman, crumpled on the ground, robes burned to nothing and her skin ash-white, still hot to the touch. “We must have a child born to fire who can defeat this half-breed bastard being raised by King Henry. Do you doubt that all is lost if we do not counter the influence of the Aoi? Do you wish to set their yoke over your neck?”

“No,” says Severus irritably, having been asked this question one too many times.

Meriam sighs as she regards the dead woman. “Where will we find another to join our number? Poor Hiltrudis was too young to think of dying.”

“Aren’t we all?” snapped Severus. His arms are burned, his cheeks flaming as though with fever. Blisters are already forming along his lower lip, and his eyes weep tears.

The youngest among them, a slight woman with wispy pale hair, stands back with a hand over her mouth to stifle the horrible stench. They are all marked by burns. “I’m afraid,” she whispers. She glances toward the seventh of their number, the man standing a stone’s toss away from the rest with his back to them. Light shines in a nimbus around his body, which by its position conceals something standing in the middle of the charred saffron. She begins to weep silently in fear. “I’m afraid to try again. You didn’t tell me it would be like this.” She gestures toward the corpse. “Hiltrudis didn’t know either. How could you not have warned us?”

“Hush, Rothaide,” murmurs Meriam, taking the young woman’s arm. “Surely you understood all along that sorcery is dangerous.”

The man kneeling beside the corpse looks up. At first, Liath does not recognize him. He looks so much younger than when she knew him, with only a trace of silver in his hair. He is even a little homely, the kind of man whose looks improve as he ages. “If we try again,” says Wolfhere, “it will surely be worse. Can we not make do with what we have? We succeeded beyond our expectations.”

Anne makes a noise of disgust, turning away. “Then I am forced to act alone, if I must. This day’s work is no success.”