Queen of Fire

“So you have no notion why it spared you? Why the stone didn’t take you when it took the Ally?”

“The Ally had touched it once before, I hadn’t. Perhaps it knew the difference.”

“He spoke of something looking back . . .”

“He spoke of many things, brother.” There was an edge to Erlin’s voice now, a patent weariness of questions. “And all best forgotten.” He brightened, slapping his knees and rising. “I think I shall seek out a sailor with some wine to spare. Care to join me?”

Vaelin smiled and shook his head. He watched Erlin disappear into the shadowed recesses of the hold and wondered if persuading Lyrna not to kill the ancient and now-giftless man would one day prove to be something he regretted.

• • •

“The future is ever uncertain,” she had said at the docks, fighting anger at the non-appearance of Weaver, an anger that was all too genuine today. “Find your deepest mine and bury it there, the location to be known only to you and myself. The Orders are never to learn of this thing’s existence.”

He waited until the captain advised him they had reached the deepest part of the Boraelin, whereupon he told him to trim his sails. It was only a little past dawn and he was alone on deck save for the night watch. They looked on in bafflement as he set aside the sledgehammer he had borrowed from the ship’s carpenter and cut away the rope binding the canvas. It duly fell away to reveal the smooth, unblemished surface of the black stone. He stepped back, hefting the hammer and lifting it above his head.

“Stop!”

It was Alornis, huddled in a blanket near the hold, staring at him, eyes wide and appalled.

“I have to,” he told her.

She frowned, puzzled, then shook her head. “Not like that you won’t.” She pointed an implacable finger at him. “Don’t move until I return.”

He watched her disappear below, standing uncertainly with hammer in hand as the crew looked on, curiosity or amusement on their faces.

“I’d never be able to face Master Benril again,” Alornis said, reemerging from the stairwell with her leather satchel on her shoulder. “Letting you break a stone like that.”

She placed her satchel on the deck and undid the straps, choosing a small hammer and a narrow iron chisel from the rows of tools.

“Don’t touch it,” Vaelin told her as she approached the stone.

“I know.” She made a face at him. “Reva told me.”

She placed the chisel in the centre of the stone, tapping it until a small crack appeared in the surface then delivering a series of well-placed blows with the hammer until no more than a few inches protruded. She retrieved two more chisels from the satchel and repeated the process, placing them on either side of the central peg and hammering away until the stone featured a crack across its surface about a half inch wide.

“As you will, brother,” she said, stepping back.

He stared down at it, seeing the way the surface seemed to swallow the light, suddenly uncertain. You don’t know what this thing is!

he had said. I looked into that world . . . and something looked back, something vast, and hungry. Touch it once and receive a gift . . .

He raised a hand, extending it to the stone, letting it hover over the surface, almost touching. What will it give me? Another song? The Ally’s gift?

“Alucius told me he loved me,” Alornis said, drawing his gaze. She held her blanket tight, blinking as the wind drove tears from her eyes, tracing across her pale skin like molten silver. “The freed slave came to me with a message, his last message. He said he loved me and begged forgiveness for not telling me sooner. He said he had done many things he regretted, but that was the worst. And he told me not to hate, Vaelin. He said there was sufficient hate in this world and he wanted to look at me from the Beyond and see at least one soul untouched by it. But I couldn’t . . . They killed him, and I hated them, and I burned them.”

“You did what we all did, sister,” he said. “You, the queen, Reva, Frentis . . . Alucius and Caenis . . . The woman I would have married. We won a war that needed winning.”

He looked down at the stone and withdrew his hand. His thoughts were full of many things as he raised the hammer, many faces, some gone, some still living, all changed or damaged. He thought of the battles he had fought and the brothers he had lost, and he thought of Dahrena. You are my Beyond now. For me to endure, so must you.