Chapter 1 #2
Still, assimilation had always been easier for those not directly impacted by the hunts.
Meilyr grimaced when he thought no one would notice, trying to ease the onset of a headache. It was warm for early spring, and the breeze blew from the east. From Khaim. It compounded the smell and the clamour.
More crownsworn surveyed the square in well-armed pairs.
Even in this sea of people, he felt exposed: a spindle of bright ragwort in an otherwise perfectly tended field.
‘Things were bad enough, now we’ve got royalty moving in. And what kind of Khaimlic prince has a Cyngaleg name?’ Celyn scoffed. ‘They’re mocking us, titling him Prince of Cyngalon, as though they didn’t kill all our—’
‘Celyn.’ Pain pricked behind Meilyr’s eye. ‘Not so loud, please.’
Celyn huffed. He had been showing off for the girls. ‘No one heard. Besides, I’m not the first to say it.’
He certainly was not, but that did not soften the treason.
Luckily, the din of other voices seemed enough.
No crownsworn parted the waves to shove them to the ground, on this day celebrating the beginning of the coronation of said prince and the establishment of his court.
Meilyr’s heart thrummed regardless; he placed his hand there by habit, to the soothing, secret press of metal beneath his clothes.
It had been a while since he had been amongst so many people. He was out of practice dulling the noise his weaver blood made him so sensitive to.
‘Everyone’s heading out!’ Cadi pointed to the head of the square. ‘Shall we? I want to see the sword tourney.’
Briallen agreed eagerly, tugging Celyn’s arm.
The tide of the crowd slipped around Meilyr’s ankles. ‘I think—’
‘Any excuse to watch some Khaimfolc smash each other’s faces in.’ Celyn turned his grin to Meilyr. ‘Come on, just for a bell or two.’
The current wrapped around Meilyr’s shins, carrying him into the throng.
The crownsworn called over the mess, moving to prevent chaos. One swept their eyes through the crowd and looked directly at him.
Meilyr stopped mid-stream and dropped his eyes, squeezed Heulwen’s arm and forced a smile. ‘I will find you all shortly. I need a little air.’
‘Meilyr?’
‘I’m fine.’ His pulse pressed against the roof of his mouth, and he pulled away. ‘Go with Celyn, I’ll just be a moment.’
‘Meilyr?’ Celyn’s voice.
Meilyr waded through the crowd, out into a now-deserted side street that jutted downhill. He stumbled, the wave of sound and pressure still looming behind, heavy and loud.
He plunged into the sunlight of the wide street beyond and sucked in air. It was blissfully empty, everyone heading for the tournament.
Celyn grabbed his arm. ‘What happened?’
The last thing Meilyr wanted was to ruin his day. ‘I’m all right,’ he insisted. ‘Go back, I will join you soon.’
‘You’re not all right.’ Celyn pulled him around to face him. ‘Is it happening again?’
‘Please, go back to the others, I will—’
There was a crash. Motion.
Down the street, someone had been hauled out of the smithy and shoved against the wall. Their assailant, cloaked and hooded, struck them hard in the stomach and head repeatedly.
Meilyr and Celyn moved together.
‘Hoi!’ Celyn shouted, veering in front of Meilyr, but neither of them slowed.
That was Sawel, against the wall. The blacksmith.
‘What are you doing!’ Celyn barked. ‘Stop!’
He grabbed the strongly built attacker and hauled them off. Meilyr stepped in to steady Sawel: barely conscious, mouth split, bleeding at the temple.
The assailant threw Celyn off with surprising force and skill.
‘This has nothing to do with you people.’
Meilyr put himself between the two of them. ‘Why are you doing this?’
But they had miscalculated. Beneath the plain cloak lay the gleaming whites of a member of the crownsworn. The attacker – sworn to Khaim and its laws – grabbed Meilyr, and everything happened appallingly quickly.
The air thudded out of his chest as he fell hard across the cobbles, losing his hat. Celyn’s shout, raw. A blurred struggle.
Through splitting stars of pain, above a rumble of thunder, Meilyr looked.
A flash. The glint of metal. The knife scored Celyn’s shoulder as he blocked it, and there was another heart-rending struggle.
Meilyr shoved himself to his feet. ‘Celyn!’
A lurch, and that slick, awful sound. Everything went very still.
Meilyr’s insides blanched cold as the taste of iron bloomed on his tongue.
Celyn stepped back, hands covered in blood.
No—
Meilyr grabbed him, pulse pitched to a gale, already reaching with his senses. Searching for the wound, the terrible splutter of wrongness. Finding nothing.
The crownsworn stumbled, their own knife embedded in their chest, seeping red.
The growling of thunder was not from the sky. A column of white-clad riders descended upon the street.
The crownsworn slumped and went down, curled inwards like a wilting flower.
Horses clattered to a halt, forms dismounted.
The empty echo as the life left the crownsworn’s body winded Meilyr again, throwing him back to a place of burning houses, suffocating smoke and blood.
One of the soldiers stood over the dead man. ‘That’s…’ They knelt, confirming. ‘That’s Bede. Gods.’ They rose, a hollow, metallic rush as they drew their sword and faced Celyn. ‘You’ve killed a crownsworn.’
The sound of more steel. Someone grabbed Celyn, another Meilyr, pulling them apart.
‘No! It was an accident,’ Celyn tried.
‘Silence!’
‘Hold.’
The lead rider did not raise his voice. He had no need to.
He might have been beautiful, the way a wolf might be beautiful even as it hunts you. But in his radiant presence there was only terror. Recognition. He was golden hair and flowing white cloth, death made brilliant flesh, carved from legend atop his white horse.
Meilyr’s heart crumpled. The panic of a cornered rabbit – a cornered child, the woods snaring around him.
No, please. Anyone but him.
The soon-to-be-crowned Prince of Cyngalon steadied his horse, voice ringing through the stillness. ‘What happened here?’
‘That’s Bede.’ One of the crownsworn gestured. ‘Works with my cousin. Worked.’ They looked at Celyn, emanating hostility. ‘And that’s a ’sworn knife sticking out of his chest.’
Meilyr needed to stop this, needed to speak. But he was a little boy again, alone in the forest. Khaim was coming. Coming to kill him as well.
‘It was an accident,’ Celyn bit. ‘That sod hit my brother, drew his steel, so I defended.’
‘You expect us to believe he attacked you?’ Another voice. ‘Killing a crownsworn is a capital offence; you’ll lose your head for this.’
‘No!’ Meilyr heaved himself back to the present with the words, the fear.
Celyn could not die. He could not watch him die.
He tore free from the crownsworn’s grasp and threw himself in front of the prince’s horse. ‘Your Majesty, please, it was an accident.’
The prince looked as though something had physically struck him.
‘Please,’ Meilyr said, as arms grabbed him from behind. ‘He is telling the truth, they attacked the blacksmith!’
‘Hold.’
All of the crownsworn stopped.
‘Let him go.’
Meilyr was let go.
‘What happened?’
His blood pounded, thick in his throat. ‘Majesty, it was truly an accident. My brother was trying to protect Sawel, the blacksmith – trying to protect me. Your crownsworn drew the knife.’ He glanced at Celyn.
Scarred-over agony strained his chest.
Celyn had killed a crownsworn. They would kill him.
Faced with that great, merciless hunger – faced with the beast of Khaim, bearing down upon his family – he knew whose neck he would rather turn towards their teeth.
He would never again watch, useless, unable to save someone he loved.
His gaze settled on the prince. ‘It was my fault, I got between them.’ A blatant lie, but it would only be Celyn’s word against his. ‘If the law decrees someone be punished, take me in my brother’s stead.’
‘Meilyr!’
Meilyr dropped to one knee, bowing with every ounce of supplication he could. ‘Please, Your Majesty. It was my wrong. My life, I will readily forfeit in return for his.’
‘No!’ Celyn struggled fiercely but could do no more.
A beat of silence.
The prince dismounted. A gust hissed through the street, stirring stray petals, agitating hundreds of standards and shifting his heavy white cloak. He drew closer, measuredly.
Meilyr stared at a crack in the dirtied cobbles, where finely polished boots stopped.
Please, gods, he thought. Let Celyn live. Let this be enough.
He could not lose anyone else.
Prince Osian touched Meilyr’s chin and gently lifted his head, a touch that drew him all the way back to his feet. The prince’s eyes were devastatingly blue, brimming with disbelief.
‘There is no need for that. I… have been searching for you everywhere.’
The world tilted off its axis.
The prince took a moment to search for something in his gaze. Seemingly unable to find it, he leaned in as though to kiss Meilyr’s cheek. A brush of warmth beside his ear, and words barely more than a whisper. ‘Follow my lead. If you do, I swear no harm will come to him.’
What…?
The prince pulled back, released Meilyr’s chin and looked to his retinue.
‘All is in hand. Siddel, have the blacksmith seen to. Garrick, Macsen, cover and move the body. Pedr, Blythe’ – he called the two closer in an aside and nodded towards Celyn – ‘see him taken to the rooms in the southern wing, under guard. Speak of this to no one.’
The crownsworn moved, after only a flicker of hesitation.
Crownsblood, Meilyr remembered sharply, when they were sworn directly to royalty. Far higher-ranking than the crownsworn. Crownsblood knights.
Prince Osian’s knights, from the dark blue accentuating their otherwise pale uniforms.
What in the name of the gods was happening?
‘Meilyr!’ Celyn struggled, eyes wide in askance and fury. ‘Let us go!’
The prince turned, cloak sweeping behind him, and swung into the saddle with artful ease, offering Meilyr his hand. ‘We will return to the castle.’
Meilyr’s flesh screamed for him to run. The prince had pretended to know him, but why? He had certainly never met a prince of Khaim.
But the crownsblood pulled Celyn towards their horses, away from the body of the crownsworn being covered and hauled aside.
Follow my lead.
And there was the prince’s hand – his bare hand, and his white sleeve with golden embroidery. Waiting.
It was not a choice at all. Meilyr had offered his life, and if this was how the prince wished to take it, so be it. He stepped forward and took his hand, letting Prince Osian pull him up behind him, the warmth of his back sudden as a hearth in the cold.
‘Meilyr!’
Meilyr met Celyn’s defiant gaze. The prince slowed, allowing the exchange.
‘Celyn, do as you are told. For the family.’
Celyn’s expression fell.
But he was alive. Meilyr turned away as they began the climb to the castle. He should be dead – had expected to die there on the stones at the prince’s feet.
He would have, gladly, for Celyn.
Would he soon regret it had not ended so cleanly?