Chapter 6
Richard kept his back straight as he strode through the hallways, though his skin itched and the reek of blood was suffocating. Servants and nobles alike scurried out of his way, a few young maids unable to contain their gasps.
He barely noticed, his thoughts circling the fight again and again.
The ‘how’ did not truly matter. ‘If a rat wants to slit your throat,’ Haldric had always said, ‘it will find a way to reach you. No number of guards or gates will stop that. Whether it succeeds, however, depends on the speed of your sword.’
But why had the witches attacked? Why had they wanted to spill Briony’s blood? Was it Galdran? Had he, through his harpy, managed to communicate with an unregistered coven? Was he trying to cut through Richard’s siblings before the veil fell?
“Your Majesty!” Cook Shirley was leaving a corridor that led to the kitchens. Flour dusted her forearms, and stray curls escaped her bonnet. “By the gods, milord!”
“I am well.”
“That’s good.” Shirley’s voice wobbled. “I’ll have some broth sent to your chambers, milord.”
He should thank her. She’d always been kind to him. He’d been eight when he shyly confessed her honeycakes were the best he’d ever had, and she’d baked a batch just for him every weekend. When she and William had wed, he’d even made a brief visit.
He should thank her.
But Richard could only nod. He brushed past and kept walking until he reached the bathing quarters in the lower ground, where vast pools overlooked the private eastern gardens. The waters steamed, heated by charmed hot stones beneath.
The boy in charge—a freckled youth with drowsy eyes—dipped into a bow, unperturbed by Richard’s state.
“Your Majesty.”
“I require fresh clothing,” Richard said. “Have it brought here, and ensure none enters while I am within.”
The boy nodded and closed the door behind him.
Richard gazed at the garden as he removed his crown—somehow still wedged on—and undressed.
The gated space bloomed with a mix of tulips, primroses and daffodils, and offered a distraction from his reflection in the pool.
For when his eyes did glimpse it, the face that stared back looked like something out of a horror tale.
Richard got to work methodically. He scrubbed his arms, chest, and neck again and again until the water was stained red and his skin stung. Once done, he dressed in a bathing robe and waited on the bench. The only noise came from the lapping of water and the birdsong drifting from the garden.
He picked at the blood under his nails. He should return. He should question the sorcerer. He should check on Briony. He should—
The door creaked.
Richard jerked, a hand darting to the dagger beside him. But it was only Lady Selwyn holding a bundle of clothes in her arms. She kicked the door shut with her heel and walked to his side. Her green healer pinafore was as immaculate as her grey bun, and her frown as stern as always.
“Any wounds, boy?” She placed his clean clothes down.
“None worth mentioning, my lady.”
“Is that so?” Selwyn clicked her fingers. “Open.”
Richard sighed and bared his chest. The line across his ribs smarted but had stopped bleeding.
Selwyn pressed her palm to it. Emerald light pooled, and Richard’s skin tingled as the wound knitted itself together.
“All done. It would scar otherwise.”
Richard peered down to find unbroken skin. “Father used to say scars were proof of the body’s will to survive.”
Selwyn rolled her eyes and reached for the towel. “Your father was certainly adept at saying things to you and dressing them as wisdom.” She circled behind him and began rubbing his hair dry. Her briskness was a far cry from his mother’s gentle towelling, but it soothed Richard all the same.
“I scared Briony,” he murmured. She’d never shrunk from him before.
“Yes, I saw the slaughter,” Selwyn said. “No matter. I will take a frightened child over a dead one. And you? Are you well?”
“Those witches were unused to combat and seemed reluctant to harm me. I held the advantage.” Richard shrugged. “Besides, this is not my first kill. I returned to the castle covered in worse all those years ago when I rescued Corwin and Kaelen.”
There had been ten Velari then, all intent on ransoming a seven-year-old Corwin to get more children’s blood.
Addiction must have addled them because Haldric never negotiated with those who took his own.
The king had instead sent Dain and his finest knights to retrieve the two boys.
Richard had left on his own under the cover of night.
It took him two days to track the Velari to a cave.
He found them looming over Kaelen, who shielded Corwin behind him.
At seventeen, Richard had slaughtered them all.
“How can I forget?” Selwyn’s voice quietened. “Out of my mind with grief I’d been, thinking our boys forever gone. When you walked down that hallway with them in tow, my legs lost their strength.” She chuckled. “Then, a month later, my brat decided to propose to his crown prince.”
Richard groaned. Would that he’d allowed the Velari their fill of the boy before he ambushed.
“Pray, do not talk to me of your son, Lady Selwyn.” He huffed. “Kaelen refused to take the dagger.”
“The dagger?”
“The one Princess Seola gifted me.” Richard pointed at it, peeking out from under his clothes. “Its worth is beyond measure. I tried to gift it to him at the podium, and he refused.”
“Is this, by chance, related to you tearing him down yesterday?”
Richard scowled. “I did not tear him down. I corrected him.”
Selwyn’s hum was sceptical.
“I had to. He had overstepped.” Richard’s scowl deepened. “In any case, that was why I was giving him the dagger.”
“To apologise?”
“I am king. I do not apologise,” Richard snapped, then moderated his tone as the towel tugged his hair sharply. “I thought it might make him feel better.”
Selwyn laughed. Richard glanced over his shoulder to see her clutching her midriff and tipping her head back.
“My lady?”
“Boy, you are just like your father,” she chortled. “Why, I recall the time Aralynn mentioned wanting the snowdrop gems from Frostheim, and Haldric vanished for two months before returning with a necklace. Hobbling on his crutches, he was. Grinning like the sun itself.”
“I know this story. Mother slapped him.”
“Because the fool thought it a grand gesture, but for her, he’d disappeared and returned with a broken leg.” Selwyn gave him an exasperated look. “You are much like him.”
Richard blinked. “I do not understand.”
She tutted. “Well, I shan’t be giving you any answers. You’ve a smart mind. You might try using it.”
The door slammed. A hulking figure swaggered in, boots muddied, a travel tunic clinging to his broad frame and thick biceps. Auburn hair threaded with grey, and a beard tied with a leather strap.
Sir Joffrey.
The man guffawed. “Well, Your Majesty. I see you’ve painted the yard red.”
Richard’s shoulders loosened. Joffrey had served as his father’s Crownsguard, only retiring from the service recently upon his fiftieth birthday. There were few as brave, and fewer who held the soldiers’ respect.
Selwyn slung the towel around Richard’s neck to hide the tattoo. “It’s not even been an hour, Sir Knight, for you to make light of such deaths.”
Joffrey grinned. “Come now, my lady. The whole Seven Realms know touching the Sun King’s little ones means death. Those bastards were well warned.”
Selwyn sniffed. “Regardless, mind your words.”
Joffrey pulled a face as she marched past him towards the back cupboards. Richard smiled. Selwyn’s dislike of Joffrey was well known in the castle. Too brutish, she often complained. Too crude. And far too hard on her son, who’d been Joffrey’s page, then squire till he was knighted.
As Selwyn busied herself with the cupboards, half-hidden by their doors, Joffrey crossed to Richard. He knelt, fist thudding to his chest.
“Your Majesty.”
“Welcome back, Sir Joffrey,” Richard said warmly. It had been Joffrey who taught him to joust as a boy. “How was the Sylari Realm?”
Joffrey straightened with a snort. “Wild. Lively. Dangerous.”
Richard leaned forward. The Sylari Realm had always called to him. A domain that defied being governed by the mundanity of a crown. A place where the Threads thrummed strong, and the people and creatures were as varied as the flowers blooming in the high gardens.
How he’d always longed to go explore. But travel to the realm was outlawed—too many had succumbed to the goblins, werecreatures and the other beasts lurking there.
“How fared the mission?” Richard held his breath. He’d tried to keep his hopes low, but if anyone could bolster the Sylari into accepting his invitation—
Joffrey winked. “The dryads’ matriarch—Myrafrond of the Highheart Grove—will come.”
Excitement swarmed through Richard, bright and boyish. “Truly?”
“Aye,” Joffrey said. “And the chief of the fauns, Tavrus. Wanted to kiss me to seal the deal, but I told him these soft lips are only for the good ladies.” He stroked his beard.
“That was all, I’m afraid. Met a clan of wolves, the Greyhide pack.
Some could talk, even, but their pack leader snarled that they’d sooner lick their arses than allow Ardenians to put them in kennels.
Met the centaurs too, but those stuck-up ponces”—he made a gagging motion—“decided they were far too important to lower themselves to human politics. Tried to track the naiads and other woodland folk, but they kept out of sight.”
“Still,” Richard whispered, “the dryads and the fauns will attend. The Sylari will sit at our table. A start.”
It was what he’d yearned for since he first began his statecraft lessons as a child.
Not to simply rule, but to stitch Ardenia into a larger tapestry.
To bridge what his father and foreparents had kept separate by suspicion and steel.
Perhaps that had been best for the kingdom in those times.
But now, with Rot advancing and Galdran readying to march, unity, Richard was certain, would be their greatest strength.
One day, he thought, a wild hope flaring, one day I shall find the dwarves, and I shall invite them too.
He flinched as the door burst open.
Kaelen entered, clad in full armour, his helmet tucked under an arm. “My king! Are you—”
He trailed off, eyes tracking the plunge of Richard’s bathrobe, before his gaze wrenched back up to Richard’s face with a heavy flush.
Richard was torn between a sigh and a smile.
It’d taken time for him to come to terms with the fact that Kaelen wanted him as a lover, to understand that Kaelen was now a man, and that the knight’s more carnal desires did not equal disrespect.
Elara had said it best—Kaelen yearning to hold Richard in bed was simply another way for him to show his love.
But Richard had made his rejection clear to Kaelen in the Nightbourne Realm’s springs. He’d explained his absence of human desire. “This is why I cannot give you what you hope for,” he’d said, and Kaelen had accepted it with a noble grace Richard had come to expect from him.
So why was it that the foolish man’s stares persisted?
And why was it that Richard’s own eyes could not help but flit to Kaelen? Even now, despite the sweat dripping down Kaelen’s neck and the graze on his cheek, he looked so very handsome.
“Stop ogling the king, you daft sod!”
Richard jumped in unison with Kaelen. He watched with some amusement as Kaelen registered Joffrey’s presence. The colour drained from Kaelen’s face, and when he next spoke, his voice was high-pitched.
“Sir Joffrey! You have returned safe!” He retreated to the door. “How wonderful.”
Joffrey’s grin held a feral edge. “Won’t you give your old master a hug?”
“Ah.” Kaelen blanched. “My—my lord father—he’s terribly ill, actually. I only came to—I should go attend him straightaway—”
“Is he?” Joffrey scoffed. “That’s curious, boy. Cause ‘fore I came here, I met the Lord Commander. Grouching, he was, about the absurdity that his son’s blood rushes south when he sees the king massacre.”
Richard’s brows rose as Kaelen squeaked.
“My—my father must be feeling better.” Kaelen scrambled to put on his helmet. He made for a ridiculous sight—armoured and helmeted in a bathing quarter. “My mother is—actually, she is at death’s door, I should—”
“I’m at death’s door?” Selwyn stepped out from the cupboards, a stack of linen in her arms—clearly trying to smuggle some for the healing halls. “How strange. I feel quite well.”
Kaelen gaped, jaw slack. “Oh, how wonderful, Mother. You’re—you’re looking improved. I—I am heartened to see it. Well, I should be getting to work.”
“I only want one answer from you, boy.” Joffrey’s grin dropped, his fist slamming into a palm. “Word is you stood right in front of the king before the attack.” He spread his hands. “Why am I hearing then about how the king had to defend his sister on his own?”
Kaelen fled, his footsteps echoing as loudly as the clank of his armour, and Joffrey cursed and gave chase. Something in Richard’s chest untangled, and he found himself laughing. He could not stop even when Selwyn neared, and it was only after Joffrey’s distant bellows faded that Richard stopped.
“Your son, my lady”—Richard wiped his eye—“is really quite silly.”
“Is that so?” Selwyn was smiling too, a knowing gleam in her eyes. “Strange. I’d say quite the same of his king.”