shoulders. 'I want you to help me find Piro. Send a message to her. Say you need to speak with her. Give me Piro. Refuse me and I will have the warder discover your Affinity. By law your marriage to Rolen will be annulled, making your children illegitimate.' He leant lower so that he could look into her eyes. 'Lure Piro out of hiding and I won't have to order your execution for hiding your Affinity.'
'I know the law, Illien,' the queen countered. 'All those who have Affinity must either serve the abbeys or leave Rolencia. The people know the law.'
'But you are their beloved queen. When it is discovered that you have been using your Affinity wiles on King Rolen all these years the people will demand your blood.' He smiled and traced the curve of her cheek. Capturing a tear on his finger tip, he lifted it to his lips to savour the taste. 'Don't weep, Myrella. Give me Piro for my wife and you can remain here, the dowager queen, loved and respected. You'll have your own wing of chambers and servants and we can be lovers at last. I've waited years for this.'
The queen drew in a shuddering breath and thrust away from him, turned and stumbled a few steps to the sandalwood screen, where she clutched the worked wood, resting her forehead on the carving.
'I will find Piro eventually, Myrella,' he warned, 'with or without your help. Be good to me and I can be very good to you.'
The queen met Piro's eyes through the screen.
Piro licked dry lips and lifted her hand to touch her mother's forehead through a gap in the screen. She felt a little surge of warmth, Affinity warmth. And for a heartbeat she did not feel so alone.
'Myrella?'
The queen fixed fierce eyes on Piro, then she shuddered and bowed her head as she turned to face her tormentor. Her whole demeanour was one of defeat. 'I would help you, Illien, but you are too late. Seela arranged for Piro to be smuggled out of the castle earlier today. She's on her way to Sylion Abbey, where the abbess will give her sanctuary. I thought it was the safest place for her.'
'Sylion Abbey?' His gaze turned inwards. 'Good. She can stay there until I am ready to fetch her.'
'Please don't expose my Affinity.'
'Expose you?' He lifted a hand, beckoning the queen.
She approached, stopping at arm's length from him.
'Why would I do that, Myrella? A sweet, compliant woman need fear nothing from me.' He closed the gap between them, lifting her hands to his lips to kiss her finger tips.
Piro saw her mother's shoulders stiffen, but Cobalt's head was bowed.
He straightened up. 'I think we understand each other at last.'
The queen nodded. 'I think we do. At last.'
The silence stretched. King Rolen moaned in his drugged sleep. Piro felt a moan of sympathy echo through her knotted stomach.
'I would like to go back to the tower now, Illien,' her mother said softly.
He slid a protective arm around her shoulders. 'Of course, my queen. Come.'
When the door closed behind them Piro sank to her knees, her legs too weak to hold her.
One thing was clear. If she remained here, someone loyal to Cobalt would recognise her despite the maidservant's smock. She must get out of the castle.
Her mother's message was clear. Sylion Abbey was a sanctuary, at least until Cobalt tried to claim her.
But it would never come to that. She refused to believe her brothers would fall victim to Cobalt's assassins. Fyn was safe in Halcyon Abbey and, like their father, Lence and Byren had always been larger than life. They would return, and when they did they would crush Cobalt.
Tomorrow she would flee the castle.
Fyn knelt on the floor of the tunnel to study another carving.
The first time he came to a branch he had hesitated. Then he'd noticed a sylion carved into the flagstone under his feet. The head pointed the way they had come, the tail to the passage on the left. Recalling the abbot's words, Fyn turned left.
Now he followed the sylion's tail and they plodded on. Fyn was tired and sore. It felt like they had been walking all night. At one point he'd heard running water and the walls felt warm to the touch, but they did not find the hot stream.
The smaller boys grew weary and had to be carried or helped along by the bigger ones. Every time Fyn's eyes glazed with tiredness, he relived flashes of the battle in the corridor, heard the almost silent grunts as the warriors fought with vicious intensity and saw the abbot stare at the sword point through his chest.
Shame seared him. He'd frozen. He'd failed his teachers. He shut the memory away, focusing on the task the abbot had given him.
Get the boys to safety.
Another branch, another sylion pointing the way. Where did the other branches lead? He was too tired to think.
Hawkwing and Master Sunseed, they would all be dead now and the Merofynians would be pillaging the abbey. It should have outraged him, but he was too tired to care. He must not think. Must go on.
Lenny's tummy rumbled loudly. 'The others are getting hungry.'
Fyn felt a smile tug at his lips. 'We are all hungry.'
He noticed his candle had burned down to a stub so he came to a stop in a cavern and turned to face the boys. 'Time to light more candles.'
Feldspar caught his eye with a warning. They did not know how far the passage went.
'Light every second candle,' Fyn ordered.
They lit half the new candles. What if they ran out? No point in worrying. They could not go back and he knew the path led outside eventually. Fyn trudged on. Weariness dulled his mind. Hunger gnawed at him, cramping his stomach. Bruises, from blows he didn't remember, throbbed now that his muscles had stiffened up.
There was time to wonder if the weapons master and mystics master had been drawn into ambush. It shamed him to think that he was half-Merofynian. Bitterness filled Fyn, leaving a vile taste in his mouth. But even that did not last as he walked on, dragging one weary foot after another. Was the castle already under attack? First he must lead the boys to safety then warn his father.
Surely the passage would end soon.
Chapter Five
Shivers woke Byren. He'd skated until lack of sleep made him stumble. Then he'd curled into a ball under an overhang and tried to sleep. He mustn't be stupid with weariness when he met the abbot, not if he wanted to impress the man enough for him to hand over command of the warrior monks.
Now Byren rubbed snow on his face to wake himself and stretched to get his weary muscles working. His thighs protested as he resumed skating. It had been a cold night without his cloak but he had consoled himself with the thought of the Power-worker drained by his own sorbt stone and little Dinni free.
His thigh and calf muscles soon warmed up as he headed across the lake. After a few bow shots he spotted the thin trickle of smoke from a chimney and grinned ruefully. To think he'd been so close to a farmhouse, where he might have claimed traveller's ease.
After rounding a promontory which jutted out into the lake he spotted the dwellings, their roofs so heavy with snow they were almost invisible. A sturdy defensive wall protected the farm buildings and animals from ravening winter beasts, but Byren spotted a girl of about seven wandering along the shore with nothing but a wolf hound for company, so the family can't have heard about the ulfr pack.
Behind the farmhouse, in the middle distance, Mount Halcyon rose high in the morning light. With renewed energy Byren set off, hoping the farmwife would give him breakfast. The dog barked once, a deep authoritative warning, then fell silent. The girl watched Byren approach, curious and only slightly wary.
He wanted to shake her, warn her. 'Watch out for Merofynians, take shelter in the mountains!' But that would only frighten her. He'd tell her elders.
As he glided up to the rough jetty, he smelt garlic sausages and fresh bread, and his stomach rumbled.
