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She called fire
The rooone, torn away She stood on a featureless plain, rose-coloredof lies and deceit that had ensnared her In thather own flesh, she saw the pale glamour of a daimone actually inside her, part of her body
Fire raged at the horizon, a wall of flaate of the Sun
It faded as the tower cha her pulled her back into the dream, into the lie
One step she took, toward the Sun, then a second agonizing step as Hugh winced in pain and she wanted to reach to hiuish from his brow, to show him that he truly was her heart’s desire No one else No one else fit for her
A third step, like walking on broken glass, and she had crossed the plain The inferno that was the sphere of the Sun began actually to burn the clothes off her body
Scour herself clean She wasn’t afraid of fire She never had been The fire cut deeper,away her flesh, but that was not really her flesh but rather the dai as the sun’s fire forced it to twist out of her body It fled down along a gleah’s voice was almost lost in the crack of flame as the wall of fire rose in a sheet of brilliance in front of her
Had it all been a lie? Or had she seen truths within herself, far down in those depths, that she could not bear to acknowledge? Wasn’t it true, after all, that beneath the surface they shared a sih than she had ever had with Sanglant?
The truth was too horrible to conte furnace of the Sun
4
NO doubt the old Dariyan Ee part because of the corruption that had ripened within the i of putrescence Ancient is still fouled old corners and forgotten rooms in the skopos’ palace Not all had been chipped away and replaced by saintly figures more appropriate to a land presided over by the Daisanite church
Corruption still insinuated its tentacles into the heart of earthly ely apparent to Antonia as she sat at the Feast of St Johanna the Messenger and watched King John, known as Ironhead, publicly hter of the Lady of Novoitive Queen Adelheid last spring The girl was barely into pubescence, in the first flush of development Ironhead drank heavily and acted every bit the coarse bastard he in truth was, even fondling the girl’s sown That she wept silently, tears coursing down her face at this humiliation, open for all to see, did not stop hih did
He called over a steward and whispered instructions into the ’s whores--Ironhead had installed a dozen or ed to the sound of lute and drus, skilled in the art of lascivious dancing, so not meant to be viewed in such a public arena Their antics would have made Antonia blush if she were not made of sterner stuff She understood the attractions of the flesh though she had long ago strangled any such carnal desire in herself It only got in the way
Presbyter Hugh was no fool He understood the weak stuff that Ironhead was ht by the obscene undulations of the dancing girls, Hugh sent the king’s hostage away and substituted another of the king’s whores in her place Ensnared in the grasp of wine and lust, Ironhead either did not notice or in any case soon ceased to care
The feast dragged on in this s of the book of St Johanna, to remind the faithful of her apostolic journey and her noblepsalms or to declaim from the Holy Verses Feast days had always been celebrated with the solemnity they deserved in Mainni, when she had been biscop in that city But the skopos lay dying and could not control Ironhead’s excesses
In the h rose quietly and left Antonia one outside to the shelter of the colonnade Scattered cloudsrain fell
He was not alone By the heavy scent of lilac, she knew that the wo hi’s whores
"He’ll never notice I’ woman said in a breathless voice "I’ve wanted you since the first moment I saw you"
He set hands fir your pardon, Daughter My heart is already given to another"