Chapter 14 #2
Startled heat distorted the edges of the tent. ‘I can manage now, Majesty.’ He made himself mean it.
‘As you wish.’
The prince moved away to stoke the brazier and stir something in a metal pot that started to smell delicious.
Meilyr regretted protesting. His hands still shook and the cold-hot gnawed at him, but eventually he freed himself from the slightly damp under-tunic. Paused before struggling into the soft, thicker sleep-robe Osian had brought him.
‘Will I… be required elsewhere tonight, Majesty?’
‘Not tonight. We are to be undisturbed until necessary.’
There were raised voices if he listened, but the camp felt muted, far away.
Osian ladled something piping from the pot into a bowl and brought it to him. Even cuffed by a square of cloth, it was hot as it met his hands: stew.
‘You have more colour in your cheeks,’ the prince said. He took one of the blankets from the bed and draped it around Meilyr’s shoulders. ‘Please eat, if you can.’
A little dumbfounded, Meilyr said, ‘Thank you, My Prince.’
My Prince.
The slip, in private, made them both pause.
‘Majesty,’ he corrected, feeling that colour now.
Osian returned to pour himself some stew, and Meilyr pulled his gaze to his own bowl. The burn was good, the smell a blessing; it pushed down the metallic bile clinging to his mouth. The taste was simple, but good.
And there was no meat in it.
He became aware of his own exhaustion, the spike of ice driven deep into his flesh, that neither blanket nor stew could melt.
The pull of the fire was sorely tempting. Tugging the blanket tighter, he rose, Osian’s gaze meeting his. ‘May I?’ Meilyr asked.
‘Of course. More stew?’
‘Please.’
Osian broke off generous chunks of thick, crusty bread, and they ate watching the small fire. The prince’s mind was more tangible than the crackle of embers, the tang of leek; he was severely on edge, trying to hide it.
Meilyr was no better. Someone had killed Lord Leighton. Someone who had to have been in sight of the royal riding company, someone who had to have made physical contact with him sometime before his death.
Someone with Cyngaleg blood. Someone with weaver blood.
Khaimfolc called them sorcerers: accursed individuals believed long eradicated by Khaim’s own hand through the killing of Cyngalon’s princes and the hunts that followed.
Meilyr alone was proof some had slipped the noose.
Still, he had never truly imagined he might not be the last. Had certainly never imagined someone capable of this.
Weavers like him needed physical connection with a living thing to affect it, to naturally follow the threads of it: nurture it to full growth, pry away disease or toughen late shoots through a long winter.
But that was not all. He could bend nature’s pattern and pry a tree’s sap through its bark until it burst. If a weaver had a great enough connection to one form of life – say, a specific plant – they could also theoretically grow it from only trace amounts, without constraints of time or environment.
But such power was a thing of stories. Of the lies wrought by Khaim to justify the slaughter of not only the princes but countless innocent people. A thing of nightmares. Of the Sundering.
Or so Meilyr had believed, until someone had made rowan propagate from Lord Leighton’s living flesh, like he was a seed bed. A corpse in a field.
To do that, someone would need to have woven themselves with Lord Leighton’s life, most likely through taking his blood. The when did not matter: a woven connection lasted until death.
And they suspected Meilyr. Of course they did; he would suspect himself.
But Osian had vouched for him. Why? How could he be so certain of his innocence?
Gods, if he knew the truth…
The fire flickered across the prince, burned his hair to a pale, incandescent gold.
Meilyr should tell him the killer would need to have been nearby—
No, Osian knew that, or he would not have sent the crownsworn into the woods.
Any confirmation of Meilyr’s knowledge would be as good as outing himself: awareness of gwehydd magic was now uncommon and would lead to further suspicion.
Osian had vouched for him, but if he suspected the truth, Meilyr would be lucky if there was even a trial.
The prince would likely kill him himself, and Celyn too, even though they shared no blood.
It was a sobering thought, and a reminder.
He could not tell Prince Osian anything. He had to stay small and quiet. As out of focus as he could when the man who had laid hands on him had been slaughtered, torn apart with power that only flowered in Cyngaleg blood.
Gods, who could have done this?
Osian met his gaze. Meilyr had been staring – looked away.
‘You should sleep,’ Osian said. ‘We will return to Eascild as soon as the crownsworn have searched the forest.’
‘Yes, Majesty.’ Meilyr sounded dazed, even to his own ears.
He went and buried himself in the bed, keeping his eyes fixed upon the fire until they watered.
Part of him – some childish, foolish part – wished Osian would come to bed.
If only for the certainty of his proximity, the certainty of another body, far stronger than his.
His mind ran him ragged, in circles: he should tell Osian what he knew. He could not. The sound of Lord Leighton’s flesh, the startled look on his face. Flesh become root. Life become death. He should tell Osian, but doing so would be a death sentence, for him and for Celyn.
It did not matter what he said. Khaim would spend the night scouring the forest for any sign of a Cyngaleg sorcerer. A killer. A monster.
Another realisation crawled into the tent, and inside his skin.
There might be no need to search the forest. Because what if the killer was not out there?
Lord Leighton had probably been killed by someone with frequent access to him. Someone who could get close. It made the most sense that there was someone in the shadows and flickering firelight – amidst royalty, nobles, courtiers – crownsworn, stable hands, staff – feigning innocence.
Gods, please let him be wrong.