trickled over Wintertide's face as if he was weeping. It would be many years before he was completely encased like the older monks. The candle, which had been left in his cupped hands, had burned down. Hidden in its wax puddle was Fyn's royal emblem. It could stay there, safe for now. It might give him away while he was trying to cross Rolencia.
'Master Wintertide looks happy. I miss him,' Lenny confided, then looked up at Fyn. 'At least we have you.'
'A poor exchange.' Fyn felt like a fraud. From across the cavern a boy spoke too loudly, his voice echoing in the vast chamber.
Feldspar joined them. He held up the Fate between them. It gleamed, an opal the size of a sparrow's egg, shaped like a spiral seashell. It hung on a silver chain. 'You might as well take this, Fyn.'
Fyn stared at the stone. During the Provings, he and Feldspar had found the Fate, ensuring their place with the mystics. Back then, he hadn't thought they would be saving it from renegade Power-workers before spring cusp.
'Halcyon's Fate?' Lenny marvelled. 'They say it can bring visions. Why didn't the mystics master take it with him?'
'Who knows?' Feldspar shrugged. 'Keep it safe, Fyn. I'm sure the mystics master would rather you had it than some Merofynian Power-worker.'
He was right but, first chance he got, Fyn intended leaving the abbey's survivors to warn his family. 'You take it, Feldspar. Your Affinity is stronger than mine.'
'But you had the vision when you found it,' Feldspar countered.
Fyn shook his head. He was going to leave them. He did not deserve the Fate. 'Keep it.'
'For now.' Feldspar slipped the chain over his neck and tucked the stone inside his robe.
'Uh, Fyn, there's only one way in and out of Halcyon's Heart,' Joff muttered. 'We're trapped down here.'
'It's worse than that,' Feldspar whispered. He glanced to the other boys and dropped his voice even further. 'There's a rich Affinity seep, here in Halcyon's Sacred Heart. It'll draw the Merofynian Power-worker. He'll find the entrance eventually. He'll force the lock.'
Lenny's fingers tightened on Fyn's hand, his fearful eyes glistening in the light of the sacred lamp.
Fyn squeezed the boy's hand. 'It's all right. There's another way out of Halcyon's Heart. Sylion's way.' Fyn prayed he was right. Yesterday, when he'd listened to the ceremony, he'd heard a woman's voice in Halcyon's Sacred Heart. Since no woman was allowed to enter the abbey and the woman had answered the abbot as his equal, he'd guessed she was the abbess of Sylion. If only the abbot had had time to tell him how to find the Sylion passage.
A boy muttered something about being trapped like rats on a sinking ship. Others took up the cry.
'Quiet!' Fyn leapt onto the back of Wintertide's dais, silently asking his old teacher's forgiveness. 'This is Halcyon's Sacred Heart. Unless we want to remain here and end up like the monks, we must keep going. Follow me.' He nodded to Feldspar and Joff, who herded the boys and acolytes together.
Fyn jumped down, then led them through the kneeling monks. The boys' many candles reflected off the gleaming surfaces of the natural columns, flickering like fiery pearls. At the far side of the chamber there was a wall of carved stone embossed with Halcyon's symbols, the goat, the grain and the foenix.
Fyn studied the carvings intently. The hidden entrance to Sylion's passage had to be here. He wished the abbot had told him how to find it. He could hear the boys whispering behind him.
'Quiet,' Feldspar ordered.
'Yeah, quiet,' Lenny ordered. 'Fyn's thinking.'
Fyn smiled grimly. Then he saw a single sylion, the embodiment of the god. The sinuous lizard had been carved dancing on a bed of flames. The god of winter sometimes took the form of a sylion to walk amongst them, bringing frosts in spring and autumn, and blizzards in winter. This man-sized lizard could quench the flames of the hottest fire with its icy breath. Fyn stroked the carving's embossed surface, felt it give and pushed in. Lenny gasped as a panel slid open.
Fyn hid his relief and turned to others. 'This way.'
'But I haven't got any boots and I'm tired,' the skinny boy muttered.
'We're all tired and I haven't even got a shirt,' Fyn said. 'But we have to keep going.'
Fyn looked into the dark passage. Unlike the way down into Halcyon's Sacred Heart, he hadn't memorised this path. Somehow, he had to lead the boys through the mountain and out the other side. Then he had to slip past the Merofynians to warn his father. At least Piro was safe in Rolenhold.
Piro went very still like the trapped mouse she was.
Cobalt dismissed the warder with a wave of his hand. 'Get out and shut the door after you. The queen needs privacy.'
Autumnwind backed out, closing the door with a final, soft click.
Cobalt gestured to the king. 'There he is, Myrella.'
She ran across the room to the bed. 'Rolen, can you hear me?'
There was no response. She lifted the king's hand and squeezed it, pressing the fingers of her other hand to his cheek. 'Rolen. I'm here.'
'He can't hear you. He's taken a double dose of dreamless-sleep.'
The queen straightened up, slowly turning to face Cobalt, her face stiff and formal. 'Then why did you tell me he wanted to see me?'
Cobalt stepped closer. Her mother was even smaller than Piro, only coming up to the middle of his chest. He lifted one hand to the queen's face, brushing away an errant curl. She did not flinch, instead she glared at him.
'So imperious, Myrella.' His voice was soft and rich with amusement and the thrill of power. 'I can remember a time when you held me in your arms.'
'As you wept over your bride's murder,' she snapped, then thrust past him, going to the fireplace, a mere body-length from where Piro hid. 'I ask again, what do you want from me?'
'Little Piro has eluded all my best efforts to catch her. Where is she?'
The queen laughed. 'What makes you think I know?'
'Because I know that you both have Affinity.'
Piro gave a little start of fear, making the keys at her waist clink ever so softly. She covered them immediately, but it was enough to make both Cobalt and her mother glance in her direction.
The queen stepped closer to Cobalt. 'Why did you come back to Rolencia, Illien? What happened to you on Ostron Isle? You are not the youth I knew and loved.'
'Better to ask me why I left. My father was born on the wrong side of the blanket. That, only that, made him unsuitable to rule. My father, the Bastard, was a man of learning and insight, a kingly man. Instead we had a buffoon for king, a brash fool who was happiest hunting and roistering. He didn't appreciate you, Myrella.'
'He's my husband.'
'And the king. I know. I grew up in this court as surety of my father's loyalty. I was fourteen when you married Rolen on your fifteenth birthday. And I watched him treat you like a convenience. It wasn't fair, not when I loved you, not when the throne should have been my father's. As the eldest son of the eldest son, I would have been betrothed to you to cement the peace. But no, my father, curse him, was loyal to the buffoon. I bore it for eight years until I could no longer stomach the way Rolen treated you. So I went to my father and demanded we make a move. He chose his half-brother over his own son, swore to reveal me as a traitor if I ever returned to Rolencia. So I spent thirteen years in exile on Ostron Isle learning the art of intrigue.
'Now I am back to take what should have been my father's, by right of birth and worth. And that is why I want Piro. She's a brat, but a pretty brat. By the time I turn back the Merofynian invasion, the people of Rolencia will only be too grateful to have the Bastard's son on the throne, especially if he's married to King Rolen's only surviving heir.'
Piro's vision faded. Were Lence, Byren and Fyn already dead, murdered by Cobalt's assassins?
'Illien, what have you done to my boys?' the queen whispered, stricken.
'Nothing.' His black eyes fixed on her face. 'Yet.'
The queen's small body grew rigid. She tried to step away from Cobalt but he caught her by the shoulders. Her slender frame made his hands look huge.
'So you see, Myrella, you must be good to me,' he said softly, as his fingers made small circles on her
