The Born Queen

The ground suddenly was colored with strange light, and Cazio looked up and saw a sun descending toward them, a ball of writhing flame and shadow that made the oldest, most animal parts of him quiver and long to run and never stop ru

Instead he held on to the stone, panting, fighting the fear with all the life he had left in him.

"Austra," someone said quietly.

Stephen was standing a few kingsyards away. He didn't look good. For one thing, one of his eyes was missing.

"Austra," he said. "You're the only one who can stop her. Do you understand? He's tricked her. He'll die, yes, but he'll take the world with him. A

"I feel it," Austra said. Her voice was that of a woman in the rising throes of passion.

"Fight her," Stephen said. "You have claim to the power, too."

"Why should I fight it?" Austra asked. "It's wonderful. I'll have the whole world in my veins soon."

"Yes," Stephen said. "I know." He stepped closer. "I didn't know what he was, Austra. That was what I was missing. He's been waiting in his prison for two thousand years, pla

"Why should I believe you?"

"Don't," he said. "Go see for yourself."

Flames began to dance on her garments. She looked at Cazio, and for a moment her face was that of the Austra he loved.

"Cazio?" she asked.

"I love you," he said. "Do what's right."

Then his legs went out from under him.

Aspar would have laughed if he could, but the joy was there in the leaves and blossoms for anyone to see. He healed the broken, ended the hopeless, and pulled in the poison, spreading and diffusing it, changing it into something new. He found the heart of the Sarnwood witch and took her in, too, took all of her children in, and reckoned at last she understood, because she stopped fighting him and lent him her strength.

Or perhaps it was that she saw what he saw, the deadly fire kindled in the west, the one thing that would stop life's rebirth and send everything to oblivion.

The real enemy.

He didn't need a summoning, not now, and so he moved his weight across the world, fearing it was already too late.

A

More! she shouted.

There is more, the dying demon replied. So much more.

Stephen tried to keep his focus, tried to stay in the world, but it was difficult with so much of him gone. Only the ancient, terrible obstinacy of Kauron had let him keep anything, but even that was fading, and soon A

It depended on this girl. He ached to take Austra in his arms and drain the life and power from her; she was a vein that tapped right into the thing A

But he no longer had that gift. He was less than a skeleton of himself.

He watched as she knelt by Cazio, murmuring, as her clothing finally exploded in blue flame and she was forced to step back from her lover to avoid charring him.

"You can't heal him, if that's what you're trying to do," Stephen said. "You can't heal anything. Neither can she. Always a storm, never a gentle rain. Do you understand? But you are her weak spot."

Austra stared at him with her blistering eyes for a moment, and then the flames began to subside, then smoke, until she was wreathed in dark vapor and her eyes shone like green lamps. Then she lifted toward the terror that hung above them.

A

But no, it was just Austra, bearing a fraction of her strength.

If you die, the Kept said, she inherits all.

She doesn't have the power to kill me, A

She can betray you more than anyone. You know that.

"Don't listen to him, A

"Of course I won't," A

"A

"No," she said. She hadn't realized until she said it that it was true.

Seize the Vhen throne, Qexqaneh interrupted. Then you can heal any of these worms if that is your wish.

"He's lying, A

"Why should he? He's sacrificing himself for me."

"He's using you to destroy the world."

"So he thinks," A

"That's crazy, A

"Like who?" A

Austra opened her mouth again, but then she looked beyond A

"I'll save you, A

A

She stood in a field of ebony roses, the pearls of her dress gleaming like dull bone in the moonlight. The air was so thick with the scent of the blooms that she thought she would choke.

There was no end to them; they stretched to the horizon in a series of low rises, stems bent by a murmuring wind. She turned slowly to see if it was thus in all directions.

Behind her the field ended abruptly in a wall of trees, black-boled monsters covered with puckered thorns bigger than her hand, rising so high she couldn't see their tops in the dim light. Thorn vines as thick as her arm tangled between the trees and crept along the ground. Through the trees and beyond the vines was only darkness. A greedy darkness, she felt, a darkness that watched her, hated her, wanted her.

"I've been here before," she told the forest. "I'm not frightened this time."

Something pushed through the thorns, coming toward her. Moonlight gleamed on a black-mailed arm and the fingers of a hand, uncurling.

And then the helmet came through, a tall tapering helm with black horns curving up, set on the shoulders of a giant.

But this time, standing her ground, she saw it wasn't mail but bark, and the helmet was moss and horn and stone. And of the face she could only see the eyes, wells of life and death, birth and decay-need and vengeance.

You have the power, the fading voice of the Kept told her. Kill him and complete yourself.

A

If he gets her, you lose, the Kept said. You must kill her now.

A

Kill her, Qexqaneh said more urgently. Do you understand? Through her he can defeat us.