Crusader by Sara Douglass Read Free Book Online

whatever it represents.”
    “The Star Dance!” Axis said, and he spoke the words as acurse, as a hated thing. “The time was when I loved that beyond anything, save Azhure.”
    “It may be,” DragonStar said, “that the Star Dance has been leading to this point, to us, for millions of years. Chasing the Demons through time and space, and being chased by them.”
    “We are the ultimate of millions of years of…manipulation?” Azhure said, and then laughed merrily, shaking out her hair. “Could the Star Dance have not made us less flawed? An Axis less arrogant and cruel? A DragonStar less resentful and ambitious? And I? I less determined to know my own power, and more willing to tend to my own family.”
    “Who knows,” DragonStar said. “Our flaws may yet save us.” And he smiled, as if he had made a joke to himself. “Ah, but you asked of Caelum and of myself. We both grew up amid lies—not of your doing, or even of ours, but lies bound about us by the Star Dance, via the Maze. These lies dictated our action, driving me into such overweening ambition I could contemplate the murder of Caelum, and making Caelum…”
    “A weak ruler,” Azhure finished for him, “and a murderer also, perhaps?”
    Ye gods, DragonStar thought weakly, what should I say to that ? Yes, mother. Caelum murdered our sister and your daughter. Do you want me to say that out loud, Azhure?
    “Perhaps,” he answered, and Azhure nodded and turned aside her head for a second time.
    “A murderer?” Axis said. “What do you mean?”
    “He means,” Azhure said, “that we all have the blood of others on our hands, beloved.”
    And Axis nodded, accepting what she said without truly understanding what she spoke of.
    “Caelum’s true role was as a false StarSon,” DragonStar said. “A decoy. I needed time to grow, to learn, and to allow Qeteb the confidence to destroy Tencendor…which he would not have done if he’d known the StarSon still lived.”
    Briefly, DragonStar told his parents of the hidden Acharite magic that could be touched only with the passage through death.
    Axis stared at Azhure, his eyes excited, then looked back at DragonStar. “But that means that I, too, can use the Acharite power!”
    DragonStar shook his head. “I’m sorry, Axis, but—”
    “I’ve been to death’s gate, even though the haggard old crone wouldn’t let me through. Why can’t I use my Acharite blood?”
    “Because of your overpowering use of the Star Dance.” DragonStar paused, feeling his father’s frustration. “And you have been a Star God. Your Icarii-bred magic has killed whatever potential Acharite magic you had. When you proclaimed yourself StarMan, you also literally killed your Acharite magic in favour of the Star Dance. I’m sorry, Axis.”
    Axis subsided, bitterly disappointed. For a moment, just a moment, he’d thought…
    Axis shook his head, putting his disappointment aside. “What else do you have to tell us?”
    DragonStar hesitated, still sympathising with Axis. Then he continued, telling them of Urbeth, the original Enchantress and mother of races, and Azhure gasped and fingered the now-dulled Circle of Stars on her finger. He told them everything he could of the time he’d spent with the Demons, and what had happened to him once he’d returned to Tencendor. He told them of the manner of Caelum’s death.
    And, finally, he told them of the Infinite Field of Flowers, and what awaited Tencendor once—if—the Demons had been destroyed.
    Axis and Azhure listened in silence, their faces growing more and more pallid, their eyes progressively rounder, as DragonStar spoke.
    “And Caelum,” Azhure said as DragonStar finally finished. “Caelum?”
    “Is in the Field of Flowers,” DragonStar said. “Be sure of that.”
    “Can we see him? You said that Zared and Theod saw the Field of Flowers. Can we—”
    “No,” DragonStar said. “Wait, let me explain. You cannot see it yet, but if all goes well, then, well,