“No,” he repeated. “When you were an Eagle, you had no power and had to endure what was cast before you. Now, you have defeated Anne and her Sleepers. Nothing keeps you here except the memory of Blessing—and your love for me. Otherwise, I have nothing you want, as my aunt suspects.”

“Does she?”

Perhaps not. She is the third child, after Henry and Rotrudis. She placed in the convent early and invested as abbess by the time was fourteen. Obligation and duty are the milk she has drunk all her life. She must believe you seek power or advancement. She may not be able to believe otherwise.”

“What do you believe?”

He shrugged. “I have nothing you want, Liath. Therefore, I believe you.”

She smiled, so sweetly that he laughed, although the sight of her pained him now that he was so close to bearing the full weight of the burden his father had thrust on him.

“With Da, I learned to run from place to place. Fugitives only want never to be caught. They never think beyond their next escape route. I set myself against Anne, and I defeated her—if what we have seen these past months can be called a triumph. What is left to me? I have outrun those who sought to capture me. I have lost my daughter.”

“As have Liutgard and Burchard lost theirs.” He sighed. “And I will become regnant, as my father wished. Will you leave me? It is true you haven’t the patience for court life.”

From this angle he could see, also, the hill on which the fortress and convent of Quedlinhame stood, ancient seat of his great great grandmother’s inheritance. Lucienna of Attomar had brought lands and wealth to the first Henry, together with allies enough to assure him of support when he reached for and took the throne of Wendar. Without Lucienna and her kin, the first Henry would not have become regnant. In honor of that connection, the old fortress had been turned into the most favored and wealthiest monastery in the land, shepherded always by a girl born into the royal line. Like young Richardis, his aunt, who had renamed herself Scholastica when she entered the church as a youthful abbess three decades ago. She was accustomed to wielding power, and to passing judgment. Henry had trusted her. But she did not trust Sanglant or his half-human wife.

A torch shone on the distant wall, marking the gate. Otherwise, it was dark. As usual, clouds obscured the sky. He let the canvas fall and turned to look at his wife. She remained outwardly as calm as a pool undisturbed by wind or debris. Like the stars, she was veiled. But he no longer believed she was hiding anything from him. All artifice and concealment had been burned away, first in her journey into the aether and then, finally, in the cataclysm itself.

“You said once—” To his surprise, he faltered with the words catching in his throat, but he drove himself onward. “You said that what you saw and experienced in the heavens, with your mother’s kin, gave you peace.”