Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
I would be his even in desolation,
even in death.
If the world were to burn to ash and to emptiness,
even our bones as dust,
I would remember him.
I would be his.
The Book of Heart
FORTY-TWO
Meilyr had run that night as well.
The night it had all come to an end, the night his parents had died.
The night Khaim had killed them, because of him.
‘Meilyr!’
Meilyr ran through the corridors, through cloisters and archways. Ran as his lungs burned and his muscles screamed as he flew into the gardens. The rain cut through the world, drenching him just as it had that night.
Even that had not been enough to quench the fires, burning his life to grief and guilt.
He fled down the terraces, metallic bile burning his mouth. He ran without direction, coursing with familiar fear: They know. They know, and you are dead.
Before his eyes, the storm-darkened grounds twisted into the press of the night-drowned forest. He was a child, running on his mother’s dying wish, as his heart broke open in his chest.
Just as it did now, for a very different reason.
Osian. Osian’s eyes, wide and knowing – knowing what Meilyr was.
If they find out what you are, they will kill you.
His mam’s voice. His da. Idwal.
It was always going to end like this. Yet somehow, his lonely and desperate heart had hoped. Hoped it could be some other way. Hoped they could each be someone else, and maybe—
But it was always going to end with the truth. With Meilyr’s blood on the stones at Osian’s feet.
Tears filled his eyes, streaming reality with memory. Bushes and branches swept past as he ran and ran. As through the dark and the trees came a flicker of presence, an ember in the depths.
The glimpse of cinders and fire, and golden eyes. Mottled fur.
The fox ahead, just as it had been. Urging him to follow. Leading him to the boy—
Osian all but crashed into him sidelong, catching his arms. Meilyr cried out in shock.
‘Meilyr, wait!’
He struggled like a snared hare, pulling away.
‘Meilyr—’ Osian held his wrists, not cruelly. ‘I knew, I already knew! I already knew.’
Meilyr froze.
Osian held his gaze, breathing ragged. ‘I knew, Meilyr. I knew, so please do not run from me. I could not harm you even if my life were the forfeit, if all Khaim and Cyngalon both were to burn because of it.’ He let him go, gently. ‘I could not harm you. I will not.’
Bewildered shock swallowed the terror, enough that Meilyr did not run. ‘You… you knew? How?’
‘I have always known. Since I first saw you.’
Yet again, the world tilted.
‘How? How did…’ He stumbled back, as from a physical blow.
Nothing was where it should be, nothing made sense.
Anguish and confusion bloomed beneath his sternum.
‘You knew – all this time, and… Why? Why did you pretend? Why didn’t you tell everyone?
I should be dead – why did you save me? Why let me…
’ Anger flared. ‘I thought I would die if you knew. Why did you let me believe that? All this time…’
‘I am sorry, Meilyr.’ Resignation and regret marked every inch of him. ‘I should have told you, from the very start. But I knew you would not believe me, would not believe I meant you no harm.’
‘So you let me believe that were I discovered, I would be put to your sword? That were I to even breathe wrong, I would be condemned for these killings? Why, Osian? Why?’
He searched for the answers in Osian’s eyes, blinking away the rain soaking them both.
‘I told myself the best way to keep you safe was by my side,’ Osian said.
‘To elevate you above their reach until I could get you to safety. It was selfish – the most selfish and easiest thing I have ever done. But I should have found another way, to not risk you like this. I can never make it right, and I will not flatter myself that my actions were solely to protect you. But I wanted you safe, I still do. I always will, no matter the cost.’
The impossibly tangled chaos of Meilyr’s emotions whined. Exhaustion strained his voice. ‘How did you know, Osian? How?’
It was as though the entire garden had stilled to listen.
Osian’s fingers lifted, ever so carefully, to touch the sodden hair falling close to his eyes.
His own gaze bared him utterly. ‘I heard you, Meilyr. As plainly as if you had told me yourself. Like an almost-forgotten song on the wind over the hills, I heard you, and I knew. There is only that song. Only you.’
His words were a different form of magic, opening the world. Reaching with ardent honesty through the bond of their blood.
In the wake of the agony and terror, those words made Meilyr want to burst into tears. Made him want to curl against Osian until the earth stopped shaking.
Osian knew. But Meilyr did not have to be afraid of him. Not at all.
The relief of that burned: small embers, then a conflagration.
Osian knew, and Meilyr did not have to be afraid.
Exhaustion took him, and they leaned their heads together, Osian’s voice close and earnest. ‘I could never harm you, Meilyr. I would sooner die.’
‘Do not say that.’
‘It is the truth.’
Meilyr’s lips were near his jaw, his throat. They were both succumbing to the tide, pressed against one another, not close enough.
‘I am sorry,’ Osian whispered, near his ear. ‘Meilyr, I am so, so sorry.’
Meilyr’s entire body trembled in a barely swallowed sob. ‘I thought… I thought you would have to…’
Osian kissed his hair, arms firming around him. ‘I am so sorry. You do not have to be afraid, not of me.’
Meilyr squeezed him so tightly he thought they both might rupture. Osian met him in that tightness, a sure and steady certainty.
All the knots of fear and grief and guilt that made Meilyr loosened slightly, an ache through his whole chest, stinging his eyes.
Osian knew. Osian knew, and was still here.
The rain rushed on, and the thought slipped in. ‘That first night, you gave me your blood…’
A small huff, nearly a laugh. ‘In fairness,’ Osian said, ‘I know no more than the average non-Cyngaleg person what enables your magic. I also never believed you would do what you did – that knife was gwaed-steel.’
Meilyr smiled, impossibly tired. ‘Not everything works as it does in the stories.’
Osian’s grip on him tightened. ‘I am very glad of that. And I meant my oath.’
‘I could have killed you, you had to know that.’
‘A risk worth taking.’ The depth of Osian’s voice, the rumble in his chest, chased heat through Meilyr’s flesh. ‘Besides, if you had killed me, I would probably have deserved it.’
An exhausted, delirious catch of breath. Meilyr wanted to stay like this, in this wild and unbelievable fondness.
They both drew back, feeling the shift together.
‘Osian, whoever killed Lord Gelens had to have been close.’ The words finally spilled, sap from a wound.
‘They will have had physical contact with them, at least once, and need to have been close when they transformed. I assumed within sight, but I do not know. Whoever the sorcerer is, they are very, very powerful. Someone present at every killing, and able to get close to each victim. Able to take in a part of them, somehow weave them with each plant and manipulate the life within their bodies.’
Osian’s eyes darkened. ‘Someone at court, as we assumed.’
‘Almost certainly. I also believe they are following instructions, or an old ritual. I found a parchment which suggests they have a larger goal than merely killing Khaimfolc, though I need to decipher it better.’
‘A parchment?’
‘Yes, it is in your rooms, I will show you. I – I should have told you all this sooner, but…’
‘You thought I would have you killed.’ Osian considered. ‘Almost everyone should be in the Great Hall. Whoever has done this will likely have made their way there to appear inconspicuous.’
The thought crept in, and Meilyr looked the way they had come. The gardens remained rain-washed and still.
‘What is it?’ Osian asked.
‘I wonder if that attack was meant for you.’
‘Or you.’
‘No – no, this is about revenge against Khaim, it has to be…’
Oh, gods—
‘Celyn!’ Meilyr lurched into a sprint back the way they had come.
‘Meilyr!’
They tore through the rain-weeping hydrangeas and rhododendrons, the forsythia and lavender. Back up the terraces and through the arches, wet boots pounding on stone, around the corner, and another—
‘Majesty! Highness, thank the gods!’
Osian had taken the lead as they neared the cloister. They both slowed at the sight of the crownsblood staring in horror at the mess on the floor.
‘Your charges,’ Osian said at once. ‘They are safe?’
‘Yes – yes, Majesty, I left Kinsey there. We heard awful sounds, and a struggle.’
‘You have seen no one else? Not a soul?’
‘None, Majesty. Swear on my own.’
Osian and Meilyr caught their breath. Osian said, ‘Thank you. Return to your post, and do not let anyone approach. We will deal with this.’
In the stillness after their departure, the two of them surveyed the state of what had been the king’s truth-reading adviser.
Osian retrieved his sword from where he had let it fall, and their eyes met.
There was only one thing to do.