Child of Flame
“For an alliance. A child born of two peoples has the hope to live in both their tribes. We are hoping that the boy will be the bridge who will be bringing your people into an alliance with mine. We knew you would not be trusting us. That is why I left him with you, so that you and your people would come to love him. I was thinking he would be raised to be the ruler after you, in the fashion of humankind. In this way our task would be made easy. Now I return and I find him as an exile. Why were you not treating him as you promised to me?”
“I raised him as my own!” cried Henry indignantly. “No man treated a son better! But he was a bastard. His birth gave me the right to the crown, but it granted him nothing save the honor of being trained as a captain for war. I did everything I could, Alia. I would have made him king after me, though everyone stood against me. But he threw it back in my face, all that I offered him, for the sake of that woman!” He was really angry now, remembering his son’s disobedience.
Sanglant walked in from the garden. Folk parted quickly to let him through their ranks. He came to rest, standing quietly between the king and the Aoi woman, and all at once the resemblance showed starkly: his father’s forehead and chin and height, his mother’s high cheekbones and coloring and broad shoulders: two kinds blended seamlessly into one body. But he had nothing of Alia’s inhuman posture and cold, harsh nature. In speech and gesture he was entirely his father’s child.
“Liath is the great granddaughter of the Emperor Taillefer.” Without shouting, Sanglant pitched his voice to carry strongly throughout the long chamber. “Now, truly, my father’s people, my mother’s people, and the lineage of Emperor Taillefer, the greatest ruler humankind has known, are joined in one person. In my daughter, Blessing.” He indicated Brother Heribert, who had come in behind him carrying Blessing. “Is that not so?”
“Do you accuse me of lying, Eagle?” he asked softly.
“Who would know to claim such a thing?” He shook his head impatiently. “This is an argument that matters little. If proof you will have, then I will get proof for you, and after that no person will doubt Blessing’s claim.”
Most of Henry’s retinue still seemed to be staring at Blessing, who had stirred in Heribert’s arms, yawning mightily and twisting her little mouth up as she made a sleepy face and subsided again.
But Henry was listening. “What cataclysm do you mean?” He regarded her intently.
“You are knowing an ancient prophecy made by a holy woman among your people, are you not? In it is she not speaking of a great calamity?”
“Are you threatening my kingdom?” asked Henry gently.
“By no means,” retorted Alia with a rare flick of anger. “Your people exiled mine ages ago as you know time, and now my people are returning. But the spell woven by your sorcerers will rebound against you threefold. What a cataclysm befell Earth in the long ago days is nothing to what will strike you five years hence, when what was thrown far returns to its starting point.”