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“I cannot believe it,” said the old man. “Do you truly believe that Prince Sanglant has taken the field against his own father?”

“A black dragon?”Advertisement

“Saony flies the red dragon. It must be the prince. Just as you warned me.”

“He has turned against Henry. Will you ride with me, Burchard?”

He wept quietly, but his gaze on her was steady. Like most men, he adored her. “I will ride even against my own children, Your Majesty. I will not waver. You know that.”

She nodded. “We will ride together, old friend.”

All were gone except the servants. Antonia relished the solitude. The bees had buzzed so frantically, maddened by fear and uncertainty, but now the chamber lay quiet, the only noise the beat of the fan against the air. That rhythmic pulse was so soothing. It was cooling off as the sun set. In the city, the markets had opened and folk walked the streets, hunting their suppers.

Adelheid went back out onto the balcony. “See!” she called. “Have you seen it, Sister Antonia? It is brighter tonight. There it is, burning in the heart of the Queen.”

Antonia knew what the empress pointed at. She sighed and rose. The only good thing about the heat was that her joints didn’t ache as much as they did in the cold.

As the sun set, darkness rose in the east and the accustomed stars slowly burned, one by one, into view. In the constellation known as the Queen, now at zenith, a comet shone.

“The Queen’s bow is pointed at the Dragon,” said Adelheid. “Others have claimed this comet portends the end of the world, but now I know it signals my victory over Prince Sanglant.”

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Lamplight stippled the battlements of the distant city walls as well as the nearer palace walls that ringed the hill on which the two palaces stood. Dusk waned to twilight and twilight faded to night as they stared at the comet, which was noticeably brighter than it had been three nights before—the night the queen’s clerics had first marked it. Three nights ago it had burned in the Queen’s Bow.

“It moves quickly across the sky,” said Antonia. “How can you know what it portends? It might only portend God’s displeasure because of the manifold sins committed on Earth by the wicked.”

“It might.” Her tone changed, and her head tilted provocatively. “Do you know what is whispered in the streets? Some say the comet is a warning that God mean to punish us because the church mothers suppressed the truth.”

“Which truth?”

“That the blessed Daisan was brought before the Empress Thaissania and condemned to death, that he had his heart cut out of him while he yet lived.”

“Heresy! Foul heresy! You must pray that your ears should be burned off rather than another whisper of such foul lies touch them! This is the Enemy’s work!”

“Do you think so?” Adelheid’s voice was as light as that of a laughing child’s although her words were as heavy as lead. “The ancient Babaharshan astronomers said that a comet portends change. I will have need of you, Sister Antonia. One task.”

“If I can aid you, Your Majesty, I will.”

The queen nodded, as though she had expected this answer. As though she knew Antonia had few other options at this moment. “I fear it will come to battle, but we are ready, because we have been forewarned. Because we have already prepared the trap. Yet force of arms alone cannot win the day.”

At once, Antonia understood what Adelheid wanted. “What you ask is not a pleasantry, Your Majesty. Only blood can summon the galla. You are the one who must give me the lives I need to work the spell. Have you considered your part? Are you willing to do what is necessary? Are you willing to be the executioner?”

The queen placed a hand atop Antonia’s. Her fingers were surprisingly strong as they tightened on Antonia’s. “I will do what I must so that I and my daughters survive.”

XXVIII

HOLY FIRE

1

AT dawn he shook the leaves off his body that he’d used to make a nest for sleeping. The air was cool but promised heat later. He licked his dry lips. After he slaked his thirst, he could search for food. A haze blurred the valley, but he smelled water close by, and pushing through thickets he got in under the canopy of beech and headed downhill. The beech began to give way to a mixed wood of oak and hornbeam in the full leaf of summer; the shade made him shiver. The sun hadn’t yet risen high enough to penetrate the cover.

He heard a stream and kicked through wood-straw and fescue to the bank, where he knelt and drank his fill. For a while he lay on the grassy verge while insects crawled on his body and the sun’s light warmed his face, but at length hunger drove him on. pqdm.com