Princeweaver

Chapter 47

FORTY-SEVEN

Darling,

Not to be dramatic, but when you read this, I will be

gone.

I know you are trying, and that my disappearance will be an

admittance to something I am not responsible for. Be cross, because you

should be. But know there is not a book in the world I will miss as much

as your smile.

I have also written to Nabeel, so you can burn this if you

like.

Perhaps in another world, we will laugh about this one day. For

now, I simply did not wish for you to have to make a choice that would

cause you pain.

So, Dearest, I have made it for you.

Anonymous letter penned to Her Majesty Aldreda Arden-Draca, 713 A.S.

FORTY-SEVEN

Half drowned from the rain and the climb, they finally clambered into the washed-out streets of the small, sloped town of Glan Ystwyth.

Hunkered in Eascild’s shadow, Glan Ystwyth was far enough from her walls and small enough to have grown without comment, but still large enough to have several inns for the comers and goers not tying up in Eascild’s walled harbour.

There were signs of travel everywhere, emptied carts, hurriedly stored wagons.

The back streets were blessedly deserted, but the six of them waited out of sight of the inn Osian had suggested, brushing as much sand from their wet clothes as possible. Then it was time.

With more people came improvisation, but it should work. Hopefully.

Meilyr, Pedr and Haydn sneaked around the small inn, into the alleyway behind. Celyn, Faina and Deryn went to secure rooms.

Celyn had, of course, protested separating from Meilyr, but Meilyr was the most likely person to be recognised, and Pedr and Haydn the most injured. Besides, one young man and his two sisters made a better cover story than anything else they could spin.

The three of them waited, hoods pulled low, crouched in a merciful clutch of bushes. After what felt like bells, the low creak of a window above made them all jump.

It was Celyn. Catching sight of them, he looked both ways and waved them up.

Time for a little more blood.

They moved to the wall. Meilyr half expected it not to work, but as he opened his hand and scraped his dirtied palm across yet more climbers, they took up the call and stiffened, thickened, grew.

Thankfully, Celyn and the others were only one floor up. Celyn suspended himself out to haul in Pedr, then – a small, hushed argument, which Meilyr won – Haydn went and, finally, Celyn’s hands were on Meilyr’s arms and shoulders, heaving him in. Down to the now-dirtied floorboards of the inn room.

He let himself crumple, still held by his brother, the roar of his blood so rough it would be a blessing if he passed out. The world was not so kind, but they had all made it, collapsed around the small room, knackered.

‘We had to get two rooms,’ Faina said, ‘attached. I had to use most of the coin – I’ll pay you back.’

Meilyr made a noise of dismissal and let Celyn prop him up beneath the window. ‘Not a worry. I split it between us in case we got separated, I do not need it back.’

Osian had given him a small mountain of coin: golds and silvers, Khaim-wrought but also comforting Cyngaleg-made. Princes did not carry money, but he had procured it, somehow.

Osian.

Meilyr had been trying so hard, and failing wretchedly, not to think about him. Wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and stop.

But he had helped them get this far. They needed him to push just a little further.

‘We have to keep our voices down.’ He rose, with Celyn’s assistance. ‘Be prepared to hide if there is a knock.’

‘Is anyone intending to sleep ever again?’ Faina sank into a chair.

Haydn had propped Pedr near the bed and leaned heavily on the wall. ‘I might sleep for a year.’

‘We should dry our clothes,’ Meilyr said. They were all dripping. ‘Get warm, prepare for the journey.’

Tired, easy agreement.

His head pounded, but there was more to do.

As the others sorted their clothes, he redressed Pedr’s wound with the aid of the supplies he and Osian had set aside, and laid out the rest of the plan in excruciating detail.

The journey to Llwyn Diffaith, who they would meet.

The ship that would carry those of them willing, in a handful of weeks.

He had already conveyed the main beats to them all in case something happened – now, he needed to know they could survive without him.

It was the single strand of bindweed holding him to the cliff, the only thing he could cling to.

He would see them all safe. Everything beyond that was a howling, endless blackness, which he could not look at.

‘So is Prince Osian meeting us there, or…?’

Faina’s question was innocent. All their eyes went to him.

‘No.’ Meilyr finished tying off Pedr’s bandages and stepped away from the knight. ‘No, he is staying behind to give us a chance.’

‘Or to send the crownsworn after us,’ Celyn said.

Everything hurt too much to even fathom a response. Thank the gods for Pedr. ‘His Majesty would never break his oath. He swore to protect Highness Cadogan and entrusted that oath to me. Do not dare imply—’

‘He is a prince of Khaim – his oath is worth as much as—’

‘Celyn.’ Meilyr’s voice betrayed the hurt. The exhaustion. ‘Please, do not do this now.’

Celyn’s jaw worked. At last, he said, ‘Fine. Let me look at your hand in the other room.’

‘My hand is fine.’

‘Now.’

Meilyr followed. Better to get this over with, so he could crumble to dust.

‘We have to be quiet,’ he reminded Celyn. ‘There are only meant to be three of us occupying—’

‘Close the door.’

He did. There were two candles near the window. Other than that, it was dark.

Celyn turned on him, lit with rage. Pain burned in the pyre. ‘It wasn’t worth it.’ His voice was little more than a hiss. ‘It wasn’t worth you, Meilyr. Why would you do this? Why?’

‘Please, listen.’ Meilyr was deathly tired, hurt to numbness. ‘I cannot ask you to understand, but it was not like that.’

‘Like that? How could it be any other way than that? He had you trapped, both our lives as collateral – anything he made you believe—’

‘Keep your voice down.’

‘You were his prisoner! I told you he would use any means necessary to get what he wanted, and you… Meilyr, it was not worth it.’

‘Celyn—’

‘I would rather have died! Rather have rotted than let him—’

‘Would you stop,’ Meilyr half begged, half spat. ‘You are going to wake the entire inn. I already told you it was not the way you think, at all. Osian would never—’

Celyn slammed his fist into the wall beside them. Meilyr barely flinched.

In the silence, Celyn breathed heavily. The next burst of motion marched him towards Meilyr, but he stopped short, more hurt in his voice than hatred. ‘You are a fool.’

Meilyr’s voice was utterly level. ‘So are you.’

Devastation worked its way through Celyn. Belatedly, Meilyr wondered how he had not seen it before.

Celyn blamed himself for everything that had happened. Everything Meilyr had suffered, perceived and real.

He should not have called him a fool, but dreigiau spare them, he was. A fool who jumped to conclusions. A fool whose view of the world was all the world could be. A proud, stubborn fool Meilyr had missed terribly.

Before he could find words, Celyn took his face in his hands and pressed their foreheads together. ‘You are a fool,’ he breathed, despairing.

He let Meilyr go and strode from the room, shutting the dividing door behind him.

Meilyr rubbed his arms, flexed the fingers of his still-bloodied hand. He had washed it as best he could to help Pedr, but it definitely needed a more thorough cleaning.

Every point of contact between him and Osian ached. He should have dragged him with him, should have given him no choice, should have…

There was a dull tapping against the window, urgent and repetitive. A moth. He went numbly to unlatch it, and the chilled night air stole in, leaving him shivering.

Dread crept up to him in the dim. Familiar. Awful. That same sensation from the gardens, the warning the fox had given him, that same feeling when he had needed Osian close. The day he had been poisoned, the day Wystan had died. Only yesterday.

Osian was going to die.

In the morning, in a handful of bells, Meilyr and the others would travel west. They would linger a handful of days, then they would board a ship, and leave Cyngalon and Khaim behind forever.

But Osian was going to die.

He was going to die, and Meilyr had ignored the signs. He had denied the instinct, the scent through the trees, the snap of the twig. The blood upon the snow.

Osian was going to die, and Meilyr was running away.

How long before the news found him? How long before that earthquake? Would he still feel these marks, the firm and needing press of Osian’s mouth, his body? His gentleness. His voice, and his steadiness, undampened by sea-spray and distance.

Osian was going to die.

It tore through him from the tip of his scalp to the bones of his heels.

He had to cover his mouth, his other hand instinctively moving to his chest – to the symbol of Y Ddraig Goch.

For the first time in months, it was there.

He pulled it loose from his layers, candlelight burning the silver and gold to russet, igniting the fire amber it curled around.

The way Osian had touched it, not even bells ago.

Clarity tilted the room. It was not even a decision, not really.

‘No fate, only choice.’

The Cyngaleg was an exhale. A declaration.

He tucked the dragon back inside his clothes and stepped into the other room.

They all agreed to take watches for the scant time they would sleep.

They would leave before dawn, Meilyr and Pedr and Haydn out the window,

Celyn and Deryn and Faina through the front door.

Meilyr demanded the first watch, to the others’ disapproval. Celyn argued hardest against it, but Meilyr won out, saying, ‘It always takes me longest to fall sleep, remember? If I take a later watch, I will barely have dropped off before it’s my turn.’

His brother begrudgingly acquiesced. ‘Keep the central door ajar.’

‘We will.’ Then, because he needed to, Meilyr embraced him, firm and heartfelt. ‘I am so glad you are here. Please, can you save being cross with me until we are all safe? Otherwise, you will not sleep either.’

Celyn hesitated, then returned the embrace, vice-tight.

Into Meilyr’s hair, he said, ‘I can’t accept what happened, or believe you’re fine.

But we are leaving. Just promise me we’ll talk more – promise me you will be safe and stop endangering yourself on the journey.

I can’t lose you. Please, swear it to me. ’

Meilyr’s throat constricted with what he had to do, the words bunching. But he replied, ‘I promise.’

Celyn stepped back and pressed their foreheads together, expression fierce. Then he moved into the other room, to watch over Faina and Deryn from the floor.

Meilyr and Deryn clasped one another’s hands. Faina gave him a squeeze before following.

‘I’ll take the floor,’ Haydn said, stiffly angling down.

‘Absolutely not,’ said Pedr. ‘You were beaten half to death.’

‘Only the half that deserved it. If you jostle about, you’ll open stitches. Besides, I think we can agree Meilyr deserves some time on the bed, and he’s less likely to elbow you and finish the job.’

Pedr frowned, but left it.

Haydn gave Meilyr a watery smile, took his pillow and curled up on the floor with his back to the room.

Meilyr put out all save one candle and fastened himself back into his still-damp clothes, cracked the window and leaned against the sill, surveying the alley.

The hearth crackled, stoked to make Pedr and Haydn more comfortable. The slight muffle of rain was almost soothing. Almost.

He waited, and listened. Every instant dragged, his heart tight, reaching for something far away, back up the cliffs.

Night sounds drifted. Distant. Indistinct.

No one slept for a long time. Eventually, Haydn snored, and Pedr’s breathing deepened. He could hear nothing from the other room. Waited. Pressed the symbol of Y Ddraig Goch into his skin. Waited.

Time passed, excruciatingly. He inhaled and closed his eyes, testing outward. More heavy breathing, except…

Pedr watched him as he turned. They started to prop themselves up on the cushions.

Meilyr held up a hand and came quietly to the bedside.

Pedr studied him, words barely audible. ‘You are going back.’

Haydn did not wake up.

Meilyr took Pedr’s hand. ‘I cannot leave him. If I do not go back, he is going to die.’

‘Highn—Meilyr.’ Their grip firmed. ‘I am coming with you.’

Meilyr pressed their shoulder back to the pillows.

‘I need you to keep them alive. Pedr, you were sworn to me by Osian – you are sworn to him, to lay his life above all others, and I am asking you to honour that oath. I need you to tell them I will meet you all at the harbour. I need you to tell Celyn he has to get you all there safely, or I will never forgive him. I need you to do this for me, because I need to save Osian. Please.’

Pedr’s eyes searched him, pained.

‘Please, Pedr. I am the only one who can do this. Let me go to him, let me save him.’

Achingly, they nodded. ‘I swear I will do all I can to keep them safe. H—Meilyr, you swear the same. For his sake as well.’

‘I swear it.’ Meilyr squeezed their hand. ‘I will do everything in my power to keep him safe and return both of us to you.’ One of those held stronger sway, and Pedr saw it. Their concern tightened to a wince.

But they let it go. ‘Go safely. Go swiftly, with the will of the gods.’

Meilyr kissed their hand and turned away. There could be no more waiting now.

Unbearably slowly, he pushed the window wider, praying its hinges were not loud enough to wake the others. The bindweed beneath the sill had begun to bloom: white bells, like those that had enveloped Wystan.

Meilyr pulled himself into the frame and looked back.

Pedr watched, hands tense in the sheets.

‘Thank you,’ Meilyr mouthed. Then he eased forward, took a last glance through the deserted alleyway and dropped from the window.