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Ai, God. Where was Liath now?

Fire flared brightly among the coals before dying back as abruptly as if an icy wind smothered them.Advertisement

She sank back onto her heels, sweating and trembling. Tears streaked her face. Was she crying for Liath, for Alain, or for herself? She wiped her nose.

“Nothing,” said Hugh. “As I told you, Liath no longer walks on Earth.”

“Who is that young man she saw?” the skopos asked again. “He looks familiar…. Nay, I do not know him.”

“He was attended by hounds who might have been litter-mates to the one who guards me. Is this one not a descendant of Taillefer’s famous hounds? Why do I see its kinfolk at the side of a common boy? Eagle, what man was that you saw in the flames?”

How could she lie to a sorcerer so powerful that she could see into the vision formed by Hanna’s own Eagle’s Sight? “His name is Alain, Holy Mother. He was heir to Count Lavastine until—”

“Lavastine!”

Hanna winced at the sharp tone, but that slight movement alerted the hound, which scrabbled out from under the throne to loom over her. The growl that rumbled in its throat was so low as to be almost inaudible. She shrank back. With only a word’s command, it would rip her face off.

“Lavastine.” The word was whispered with the calculation of a general about to embark on a holy campaign. “Sister Abelia, you will leave tomorrow to seek out Brother Severus. I want the one called Alain found and brought to me.”

“Yes, Holy Mother.”

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The skopos rose and left the room with her attendant. The hound click-clacked after her; its nails needed filing. Hanna wondered, wildly, idly, who dared groom it.

“Do you know where Liath is, Hanna?” asked Hugh once the curtain had fallen into place behind the skopos and her attendant. “Have you seen her in the flames?”

“I have not, Your Excellency.”

“Do you know what happened to her, Hanna?”

“I have heard the tale Prince Sanglant tells—that fiery daimones stole her.”

“Do you believe it?”

She fixed her gaze on the mural. The temblor had shaken open a crack that split the plaster base right through the blessed Daisan’s left foot. “For what reason would Prince Sanglant lie, Your Excellency?”

“Indeed, for what reason?”

A glance told her everything she needed to know: he was not Bulkezu, who savored the battle of wills. He was not even looking at her; he had dismissed her already. The monster Bulkezu had seen her as a person of some account, almost as a peer, because she was the luck of a Kerayit shaman. Because she dared stand up to him. To Hugh she was only a servant. He recalled her name because of her bond with Liath. She did not matter to him at all; only Liath did, then and now.

Which gave her a measure of freedom she had never had with Bulkezu.

“Prince Sanglant is no poet, Your Excellency. It is poets who make up tales to confuse and beguile their listeners. I do not think he could have concocted a false trail to lead his enemies astray. That is not his way.”

He gave a slight noise in assent. “No, he is not an educated man. There is a child as well. Does she live still?”

“When I last saw the prince, she did.”

“Does she look like her mother?”

Strange that a cold draft should twist through the hall, chilling her neck. “In some manner, Your Excellency. She resembles both her mother and father. She is very young still.”

“Very young still,” he agreed, as if to himself, as if he had forgotten Hanna was there, “and soft, as youth is soft and malleable. It is too bad Brother Marcus failed. Still, there may yet be a way….”

She braced herself, expecting more questions.

None came.

He had forgotten her already. She shifted her weight to her heels to take some of the pressure off her knees. Outside, the raking started up again. As Hugh’s silence dragged on, she began to count the strokes.

She had reached four and ninety when Hugh spoke.

“Yes. That is the way to do it.” He walked toward the doors, paused, turned back. “Come, Hanna. You must make your report and a cleric will write it down.”

“Your Excellency.” She stood. “It is an Eagle’s duty to report to the regnant directly.”

He waited in a stripe of sunlight. “Your loyalty is commendable. But it will not be possible for you to give your report to the king today. He will be far too busy to see you.”

“Then I will wait. It is by the regnant’s own command that we Eagles report to him alone, when we come to his court. I dare not go against the king’s express command, Your Excellency. Pray do not ask me to go back on the oath I swore to King Henry.” pqdm.com