Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
I am not long for this world, calon bach. We discussed it
already, but it is my parting wish that Meilyr and Celyn be taken into
your care in Caer Tarian.
I know it is dangerous, but they deserve to live a life.
Especially Meilyr. This will be hardest for him, and I wish above all
things I could spare him yet another grief. He is trying, even now, and
it is breaking him.
Lo, come see us when you can. I promise with every part of my
stubborn soul that I will still be here to annoy you before I bow
out.
Personal letter from Idwal gan Hywel, to his sister, Lowri
THIRTY-THREE
The edge of the horizon burned iron grey as they made their way back towards the castle, the coming dawn dimly illuminating the striated rooftops and the sea beyond.
Meilyr had promised Deryn he would return when able, and she would send word if her father’s condition worsened.
But he was not Idwal. The sickness ran deep but had not yet fully claimed his life.
The sea mist was clearing, but the rain was sharper, more biting.
Meilyr could feel Haydn everywhere. He walked beside Osian without touching him, his senses blistered. He flexed his hands until they were numb with the chill.
He should never have let Haydn get the wrong idea. He should have – he should have… Damn it, Haydn.
‘Are you certain you do not wish to visit?’
Osian. Osian’s mouth. His lips, his hands—
‘No, thank you, Majesty.’ Gods, what had he done…? ‘This is safer.’
Their boots were muffled on the cobbles. There were even fewer people around now.
He should not have opened up to Haydn. Should have known exactly where that would lead, because Haydn was Haydn, even years later.
His wants and needs were uncomplicated, whilst Meilyr was…
Meilyr. Confused, hesitant – wanting until that became too real.
Until his body and mind and heart stopped speaking the same language, leaving him tangled and bruised and… broken.
That had been the start and end of their relationship: Haydn wanting Meilyr, Meilyr wanting Haydn to be happy. No matter how uncomfortable that sometimes made him.
He had loved him. Still cared for him beyond words.
But part of Meilyr would always be a ship tossed to pieces by a storm long passed.
He knew desire – had felt it frequently with Haydn, and in brief fumblings with others.
But there would always come a point where he would find himself amidst the wreckage.
Would no longer know where his own feelings separated from those of another.
His mind would grow too loud, and desire would perish like poisoned crops in a field.
No matter how hard he tried, there was no coming back from that – and he had tried, for Haydn.
Haydn, who had wanted him so intensely: want that had crawled through Meilyr like ivy with every touch of their skin.
Their stolen kisses had led naturally to wandering hands – to Meilyr’s startled mind asking to slow down.
Haydn had agreed, no matter how far they had gone; Meilyr had chastised himself, trying to curse himself unbroken.
That night of the rainstorm, only days after Idwal had passed. When Celyn had gone into town with bitter, heartbreak-driven words stinging his tongue, to drink and sleep around through the pain.
Meilyr had crumpled, ears ringing with Celyn’s blame. His own blame. Because he had not been enough to save Celyn’s father, his own foster-father. The man who had raised him from the shattered, half-drowned child who had been led to his door.
For some things, there is no cure.
And there had been Haydn, tapping on the glass. Drenched. Worried. What could Meilyr do but let him in – let him press wine and lips and more to his wounds, pressing him to the bed as the storm raged.
He had truly tried, after that. He had tried.
Haydn’s hurt and confusion still painted the inside of his eyelids when he thought of him that morning Meilyr had ended it, some long months after that storm. When the dissonance had finally shattered him.
Celyn had chosen to honour his father’s final wish to move them into Eascild, to live with Idwal’s sister, Lowri.
The perfect excuse to break things off, not that Haydn had seen it that way.
There had been flowers in Haydn’s eyes when they had been together, but Meilyr had always known, deep in his heart, he would never wear the braids Haydn sometimes imagined him in.
Braids he wore now, for the world’s unfairness. Osian’s mercy. Their bargain.
His fingers were ice as Osian grasped his hand to help him up the wall beneath the watchtower. He pressed his nails into his palms as they sneaked wordlessly into the gardens, through the cloisters, into the tunnels. Up the Eagle Tower.
He shivered as they returned to Osian’s rooms. The prince discarded his dripping cloak and went into the parlour. Meilyr followed but could not look at him.
‘Might I… read for a time, Majesty? I will tend the fire before—’
‘I will do it,’ Osian said. Too distant to be gentle, too kind to be cold. ‘Rest however you need. That was… remarkable, what you did.’
Meilyr could not speak. It was a sorry, sour way to leave the day. The instant the door pulled to, he put his face in his hands. Slapped himself on his icy cheek, just enough to sting.
What a miserable mess.
He wanted to curl into a ball by Osian’s fireplace in his bedchamber, or here on the parlour floor.
But that would not help anything, so he peeled off his makeshift peasantry clothing down to his consort under-tunic, hung the rest by the fire and grabbed the first stack of books Faina had brought for him. Set them on the divan and joined them.
He would not think about Haydn. He would not think about Osian. He would not think about Deryn’s father, or Idwal, or Celyn, or his parents – he would not think. He would not.
He wanted a bath, hot enough to burn out his senses. Instead, he plucked the first book from the stack and leafed through it both desperately and carefully.
Khaimlic children’s bed-stories. Edeva had asked, one rainy day in the solar, if he could tell her a story different to the ones Aldreda, Faina, Crowned-Consort Nabeel, Osian, Demelza, Jocosa and Freda told her.
Faina had not been raised Cyngaleg, but knew well enough the position he was in; this book was probably a thoughtful backup.
Osian had listened to his tales with such genuine, fervent interest.
Meilyr set the slim book aside and reached for a heftier one. It opened naturally near the middle, where something had been pressed towards the spine. It was a piece of parchment, old and worn…
His scalp prickled. Every hair on the back of his neck stood up.
The parchment was battered but perfectly legible.
The central text made little sense, until Meilyr realised it had been written in Old Cyngaleg.
Several hands had scrawled annotations around it, and there were scribbled modern Cyngaleg translations beneath each line.
Key words leapt as horrors from dark waters: Rowan. Bran’s alder. Henbane—
What was this…?
Suffer not Cyngalon to fall
Recover thy past with help from us all
Blood, stone and iron shall mastery make
Steps of retribution you shall weave in my wake
Roots of rowan entwine, as taut as can be
Bran’s alder sanguine, corrupt for a thousand eyes to
see
With henbane restrain, and slow their path to the grave
With righteous yew, cleave dark secrets in twain
A betrayal of kin shall bindweed bud
Thy forebears’ footsteps cause fox tears to flood
Crowned in hawthorn, judge the faults He hath made
Beloved the oak, when death comes, be ye not afraid
A weaver’s heart-blood to turn back the tide,
restarting the blood that forged the wildest skies
Meilyr’s fingers trembled, his mind unable to take in anything save what lay beneath henbane: With righteous yew, cleave dark secrets in twain.
Was this what the sorcerer was doing? Rowan, Bran’s alder, henbane – did that mean yew was next? He did not dare touch the page. Could barely follow the words, because it was not only the text which pooled icy dread up through his bones.
The top of the page was emblazoned with two symbols, the first in ink still the colour of blood: a red dragon, curled towards its own tail.
The second was a wolf as black as pitch, leaping around the edge of the dragon, so they were all but curled about each other.
Meilyr wanted to shove the book away from him and shrink into the back of the divan. Run from the parlour. He clutched at his chest for something that was not there and nearly yelped when he knocked the children’s bed-stories onto the floor.
What was her emblem doing beside the symbol of Y Ddraig Goch?
What was this? This abomination?
Oh gods, had Faina known this was here…?
‘Are you all right?’
Meilyr snapped the book closed and sprang up. Osian stood in the doorway to the bedchamber. ‘Yes,’ he said too quickly. ‘Sorry. Forgive me, Your Majesty.’
Osian, more concerned, stepped inside and glanced at the book on the floor.
Meilyr snatched it and put it on the one he still held closed. ‘I must have fallen asleep. Did I wake you?’
‘No,’ the prince said distantly. ‘Are you sure you are all right?’
‘Of course. It was merely a long day. Apologies again.’
There was something pained in Osian. Meilyr watched it retreat behind walls that had not been between them in weeks.
‘You have nothing to apologise for,’ the prince said.
Too much like their old talk, pulling Meilyr’s mind from the book clamped in his hands.
‘If you would like to prepare for sleep, your clothes are in the bedchamber.’
The prince went to the steps that led to the tower-top and ascended into the dark.
Meilyr had been so wound up in himself that he had not spotted something was wrong. He set the books on the low table beside the divan and followed the prince.