Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4) Page 395

At the top, she passes the remains of a burned shelter, mostly ash and the bones of branches now, and heads toward the small group huddled outside the stone circle: the five surviving Horse people, already outfitted for travel, and one sobbing young man.

The sight of the blasted, fallen stones stuns her. The bronze cauldron lies in a misshapen lump, actually melted by the force of the spell. She thought nothing could hurt as much as the sight of the devastated village and the bodies of her friends and kinsfolk, but one thing hurts more. Adica sprawls on the ground, arms flung out, antler headdress thrown askew. No mark mars her body, except of course for the old burn scar on her cheek. She looks so young.

The twins stir. Wrinkled-old-man, the younger, makes a fist to pound on his mother’s back. Blue-bud, the little girl whose life Alain brought back from the path leading to the Other Side, wails as she wakes. She is often fussy, the kind of baby who flinches at bright light yet sobs if she wakes in the dark of night. The young man kneeling a stone’s throw from Adica’s body glances up at the sound.

“Mother Weiwara!” Kel has dug something out of the ground and now he leaps up to show her folded garments, a belt, knife, and pouch, and a heap of rusting metal rings. “These must be the garments that Alain brought with him when he came to us from the land of the dead. But he is gone, and so are his spirit guides. Even the staff I carved him is missing.” He breaks down again, weeping helplessly. Though streaked with dried blood, he took no wound in the battle. None, that is, except the wound of grief.

The gray centaur paces forward, grave but determined. She limps on three legs, making her walk awkward. Dried blood coats her flanks. After a polite courtesy, she speaks, but the words, such as they are and intermixed with throaty whickering, mean nothing to Weiwara.

The wind changes, blowing suddenly out of the east. An owl skims down and settles on one of the stones, a bad omen in daylight. Mist spins upward from the ground within the broken stone circle. Kel gasps aloud. The twins quiet. Weiwara drops to her knees as she sees a majestic figure pacing forward, half veiled by the swirling mist. She covers her eyes.

“Holy One. Forgive me.”

“Do not fear, Niece. You have given no offense. I have come for the infant, the elder twin.”

“The baby?” After so much sorrow, can she accept more?

The Holy One’s voice is as melodious as that of a stream heard far off, touched with the waters of melancholy. “We will raise her among our people. We will teach her, and her children, and her children’s children, the secrets of our magic. This bond between your people and my people will live for as long as she has descendants, for it is in this way that I can honor Adica, who was dear to me.”

Even as her mother’s heart freezes within, knowing that she cannot say “no” to the Holy One, knowing that she cannot bear to say “yes,” a cold whisper teases her ear. One infant will be easier to cope with than two. In such a time of desperation, with winter coming on and their food stores likely burned, feeding twins will be a terrible hardship, and there is Useti to consider as well, weaned early to make room for the younger ones. Blue-bud was never hers anyway, not really. She belonged to the spirits from the beginning.

But her lips refuse to form the words of acceptance. She has loved and succored the child for many months now. “What of my people, Holy One ? We have no Hallowed One to watch over us any longer.”

“Are not twins favored in the eyes of the power you call the Fat One? Let the younger twin be marked out to follow the hallowing path. I will see to his training myself, here in your own land, and when he is grown he will stand as Hallowed One to all the Deer people.”

Mist twines around the stones. A cold wind rises out of the north, making her shudder. Winter is coming, and they will all struggle to survive among the ruins. The spell the Hallowed Ones wove rid the world of the Cursed Ones, so it seems, but she has only to look out over the scorched forest to see that it touched every soul here on Earth with its awful power.

The Holy One continues, as if she understands Weiwara’s hesitation. “My cousins will bring the infant girl to me. They will suckle her as they would their own child. She will be safe and well cared for with them, as if she has five mothers and not just one. We treasure each of our daughters, here among the Horse people. You need have no fear that yours will suffer any neglect. Have you a name that is meant to be hers when she is older?”

“Kerayi,” Weiwara whispers, not even knowing she meant to say those words, almost as if another voice speaks through her lips.

Sos’ka moves forward, holding out her arms. Strange, now that she thinks about it, that all the centaurs she has ever seen are female.