She passed between the tall pillars, lowering and raising each brazier, filling the air with the thickness of sweet spices. It was late summer, and dawn came early, spreading light across the horizon. The southern mountains were hazy with distance but recognizable. The mountains that had been her home. For the first time in a long while, she thought of Granna. Crazy, ancient Granna, so withered, so stubborn, waiting for the return of a prophetess more ancient than she and scorning to look to the light of the Citadel.
Mouse shook her head and frowned. How was Granna getting on without her? she wondered. She did not doubt that the old woman still lived. Had she not already survived several generations? She was as old as the mountain itself, and she certainly had never needed Mouse.
But, Mouse thought, perhaps I needed her.
A dangerous path of thought. Mouse blocked it from her mind as best she could and resumed her work. One does not progress along the road to purification if one hesitates and looks back. Such was not the will of the Flame.
Suddenly the world went dark, as though Mouse and all around her had plunged into the depths of a moonless midnight. She froze, clutching the chain of a brazier in both hands, and though the morning was hot, she began to tremble.
Then, a light.
Mouse turned to it, surprise overcoming her fear. A stranger approached. Not one of the temple sisters. No, rather than the red of holy service, this woman wore green, save for a starflower tucked in her hair, the flower gleaming white rather than red as it would appear in daylight. It looked like a diamond in the thick blackness of that long hair.
Two enormous dogs flanked her, their eyes flaming red. But when Mouse blinked, sucking in a breath to scream, they were gone. Only the darkness remained.
The woman approached from the end of the passage. How had she penetrated the sacred Citadel grounds, her head uncovered, her feet unshod? The guards should never have admitted her, and yet there she stood, a small, shining figure.
“Who are you?” Mouse cried, clutching the brazier chain like a weapon. “What are you doing in the halls of the Flame?”
The stranger frowned. Her face was beautiful but earnest. Then her eyes widened, and she stepped forward with a cry, arms extended. “Fairbird!”
Mouse leapt back, pulling the chain so that the burning brazier swung between them. “Stay back!” she cried.
The stranger withdrew her hands, her fingers curling into fists and her brow wrinkled. “Don’t you know me?” she asked, her voice soft. “How long have I been away?”
“I don’t know you!” Mouse cried. “You shouldn’t be here! Get out!”
“You’re not Fairbird.” The stranger’s voice was dull with sadness. She shook her head, and her face could have broken the stoniest heart. “I was mistaken. You’re not Fairbird.”
“I don’t know any Fairbird!” Mouse said. Now that the stranger was closer, she appeared young, scarcely older than Mouse herself. But her voice was so old! And her eyes . . . they were the strangest thing of all.
Her eyes were like Granna’s.
Mouse could scarcely find the voice to repeat, “Get out!”
The stranger folded her hands, and her sad voice became demure, her face unreadable. “I come on another’s behalf,” she said. “I would speak to the Dragonwitch.”
Mouse stared at her. It was like looking upon a memory she hadn’t known she possessed. More of an instinct than an actual thought. She felt sweat soaking her woolen robe in damp patches on her back.
“I don’t know this Dragonwitch,” she said. “You are come to the Citadel of the Living Fire, abode of the Great Goddess. And you are unwelcome here!”
The stranger tilted her head to one side, her lips compressed. Then she said, “I will not harm you. I know the Dragonwitch is near, and you must take me to her. Tell her I have come on behalf of one she knows: Etanun the Sword-bearer. I bring a message from him. He wishes to tell her where Halisa is buried.”
The word Halisa rang through Mouse’s brain. Somehow it rearranged itself, and Mouse heard it again, this time as a name she knew.
Fireword.
“The demon sword that twice slew our goddess.”
Mouse could hardly breathe. “The goddess,” she whispered, “searches for Fireword.”
The stranger’s calm mask broke into an expression of pity. “Poor little thing!” She raised her eyes to the dark sky that only moments ago had held dawn, and she cried out to no one Mouse could see: “Are my people always to live enslaved?”
Mouse lowered the brazier slowly until it rested on the floor. Pungent smoke drifted between her and the stranger. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I was called Starflower,” said the stranger.
Mouse breathed, “Silent Lady!” and knew the name was true the moment she spoke it.
The Flame had purified this land and all the lands surrounding the Spire. Mouse felt the purification beneath her feet, the dryness of earth burned to cinders years ago. Even at night, with the star-filled sky above, the ground felt hot with the memory of that scorching.