Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
To be born of Cyngalon is to feel home in all things.
To feel it as a grief, too vast for the body.
Too painful for words.
Blood in the Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year Slaughter,
H. M
THIRTY-SEVEN
‘Pedr.’ Meilyr gripped their arm tighter than he meant to. ‘Wait, I need some air, please.’
The edges of his vision trembled, his pulse so thick it hurt.
Pedr slowed but did not stop. ‘I am taking you to His Majesty’s rooms, you can rest there.’
‘The gardens.’ They were close. Down the stairs that led off from the entrance to the Eagle Tower. ‘Just for a moment, please.’ If he had to be shut inside, he would scream. His blood would swallow him whole.
Pedr struggled. Finally, they veered him sideways, almost lifting him down each step. ‘For one moment,’ they said.
Light rain misted the all but deserted gardens, settling on Meilyr’s lashes, his hair.
He allowed Pedr to walk him through the damp, the bowing of flowers, the still-working loudness of bees. The scent of summer filled him, left him light-headed.
Celyn had been captured. Lord Gelens and Wystan, probably Captain Radnor – they all knew he had killed a crownsworn. As a law-member of the royal family, he was legally exempt from punishment. But not for attempting to take Osian’s life. If they framed him for that, nothing could save him.
The fury he had drowned himself in, that he had aimed so fiercely at Lord Gelens, still brimmed in his flesh.
It thumped and pounded in his veins for release.
They had wanted to read him so desperately – desperately enough to use Celyn as bait.
So Meilyr had given them what they wanted.
A glimpse into his surface thoughts. Thoughts he had never, in all his years, shaped into being.
Thoughts that had crystalised in that awful, terrifying instant.
If you hurt my brother, you will regret it. I will make you regret it. If only I had the strength to stop you, I would. I wish I could. I would.
Whether it had been enough to dampen the truth, he could not be sure. But Lord Gelens had released him and kept Celyn. Meilyr flexed his hands over and over, trying to swallow back the surge. Trying to think.
Pedr led them to an overlook; the patchwork, rolling hills of Cyngalon lay drained of their vibrancy by the haze of late-afternoon rain.
Hopelessness gathered like the clouds. It was in Pedr too.
Meilyr asked, because what else could he do, ‘Have you ever thought of leaving? Never looking back?’
Pedr gazed out. ‘A knight swears their life to their prince. To the Crown.’
Meilyr had sworn many oaths. They had only brought him pain.
To his surprise, Pedr continued, ‘Sometimes, yes.’ They turned, earnest. ‘But His Majesty is a good man. Please, believe that.’
The thing Meilyr had suspected shone in Pedr’s eyes and through their very being where the two of them touched, aching alongside their genuine desire for him to believe.
The knight had feelings for the prince. Meilyr could not blame them, even as the lake and Osian’s body felt an entire world away. Another life away.
The leaflitter-sound of someone approaching at speed made them both tense.
‘Meilyr!’
‘Haydn?’
Haydn pulled up short. Glanced at Pedr, wild urgency in his gaze, in every muscle. He wet his lips, made a decision and grasped Meilyr’s wrist. ‘We need to talk.’
‘You will let go of His Highness!’
‘You will stay here if you know what’s good for you.’
‘Haydn.’ Meilyr pulled back enough to slow him. ‘What is it?’
‘Meilyr, please, I have to tell you before—’
‘Before what?’
Haydn swallowed, looked around. He was nervous – more than nervous. He was afraid.
‘What is it?’
Another furtive glance, another decision. ‘Fine, all right, bring your knighted escort – but please come with me. Now.’
Nothing had ever made Haydn afraid. Meilyr went willingly, the fingers around his wrist uncomfortably tight. Pedr followed.
They were led into cover, deep into the backstitching hydrangeas. Into the wilder reaches of the gardens, heaving with summer bloom.
When they had gone quite far, Haydn turned and gestured for them both to stop and stay silent.
They all listened, but there was only the rustle of soft wind.
‘I’m sorry,’ Haydn began, focused on Meilyr. ‘I should have told you sooner, and…’ He fumbled. Breathed a curse in Cyngaleg.
‘What is this about?’ Pedr demanded, gaze flitting to where Haydn still gripped Meilyr.
‘I’m getting to that, just – wait over there. Make sure no one is coming, please. You’ll be able to hear, and then you can arrest me or throw me from the castle wall, or whatever you want.’
Meilyr gave Pedr a look. ‘It’s all right.’
Pedr went to say something, probably about how that was what he said last time, but did not. They stalked to the edge of the leaves of a camelia, glaring outward.
Haydn grasped Meilyr’s other hand. ‘You have to believe me, I only ever did anything because I care about you, because I genuinely believed they could help. But I was wrong. I made a mistake, and I have to tell you before they realise I’m telling you.’
Fear twisted Meilyr’s already-threadbare nerves. ‘What are you talking about?’
Haydn hesitated, a catch of soul-deep regret framing his face and his ever-so-familiar eyes. He damned himself, and said, ‘The plant used to poison the prince – I’m the one who put it in their hands. I told them how to use it. I’m the one responsible.’
Yet again that day, horror pried open Meilyr’s chest. He backed away. ‘What?’
‘I should never have done it, but I thought he was hurting you. I thought it was the only way to save you, and I was wrong. That isn’t the point – Meilyr, these people—’
‘What people, Haydn? What people?’
The lacecap hydrangeas bristled.
Haydn bit his lip. ‘High-up people. People who made promises only high-up people could make. But I think they’re trying to frame Celyn, and one of them—’
The brief scuffle of feet on grass was the only warning.
Meilyr spun in time to see a hooded figure stab Pedr in the stomach.
‘No!’
He rushed forward – but Haydn grabbed his arms, as someone else detached from the hedges towards them both.
Haydn – idiot, foolhardy Haydn – stepped out to meet them, and they collided. He received a blow to the head and a crippling punch to the gut that bent him in half.
Someone else tried to grab Meilyr from behind, and something noxious passed over his face – a strip of dark cloth, bathed in something sweetly awful. The suffocating reek of poppy, hemlock, henbane, vinegar—
He aborted the instinct to gasp and shoved his arms outward, swift and unflinching as Celyn had taught him.
He swung around, aiming to strike their head – but not fast enough.
His attacker was far better trained. They grabbed his arm and shouldered him so hard in the chest his lungs burst, his body shoved to the ground, head cracking against the earth.
‘Meilyr!’
Something muffled Haydn’s cry. The cloy burned as Meilyr’s attacker bore down on him, trying to shove the cloth into his mouth.
He fought – kneed and kicked and grabbed at those thick arms, forcing them away.
He got a knee in the stomach for his efforts, but locked his elbows and refused to give in.
A flash of pale beneath the unremarkable cloak.
Crownsworn colours.
Terror drenched him. His attacker wore a plain dark mask beneath their hood, but there was no mistaking it.
They pushed with their full weight, their far superior strength laughable.
Meilyr’s blood lunged to a gale, uselessly.
Whoever this was, he had no woven connection to them.
His boots scraped the ground, trying to find leverage. Nothing.
Leaves and petals and shoots and stems hissed, as from the wind. The cloth inched closer, his arms and neck near-spasming from the strain of keeping it away.
‘Hurry up!’ barked the one who had wrested Haydn to the ground.
The hooded, masked crownsworn above Meilyr spat a curse in Khaimlic and pushed harder. As their ally stepped forward to help, they took that instant of distraction to force Meilyr’s arms wide, dissipating his pent-up force into nothing, and shoved the cloth over his mouth.
The terrible concoction leapt down his throat. Black pulsed. Numbness pooled.
Pedr—Haydn—
Osian—
Darkness devoured him.