was back at midwinter, when the older man returned to Rolencia after a thirteen-year absence and Fyn returned to the castle with Halcyon's monks for the Proving ceremony. But they were kin and Fyn felt it was his duty to help Cobalt.
He had failed to save Piro and warn his father. The least he could do was rescue Cobalt and take him to Byren. Together they could plan how to retake the kingdom.
Fyn helped the carter unload, thanked him and set off. He knew the castle intimately. With hundreds of servants and several hundred Merofynians, the many wings and corridors were crowded.
It was the work of a moment to grab a servant's tabard from the laundry and slip it over his shoulders. He also snatched up a basket of fresh linen. No one would question yet another servant scurrying about. Then he remembered the fisherman's cap. He needed it to cover his tattoos. Or had his hair grown back enough to hide them?
Hurrying over to the little window he peered at his reflection. Without the cap he looked like a shorn sheep. After four days his hair was still too short to hide the tattoos and the acolyte's plait was a giveaway. It was the work of a moment to remove the plait, which would have been cut off when he became a monk. No time for regrets. He tossed it into the fire that warmed the great copper where the clothes were boiling. His hair burned swiftly, smelling bad.
He needed some sort of cap. There was only one thing for it — he would have to wear a high-ranking servant's embroidered skull cap. Taking one from the drying rail, he tugged it down into place, its points covering his ears. That would do. Fyn retrieved the basket of fresh bed linen and turned for the door.
At midwinter, when Cobalt arrived, his cousin had been given a bedchamber in the family's royal wing and Fyn went straight there. Two Merofynian warriors wearing the distinctive twin-headed amfina on their surcoats stood at the doors. It seemed Palatyne trusted only his own men for crucial tasks.
Fyn simply nodded to them and stepped past. When he couldn't manage the latch one-handed, one of them opened the door for him. He thanked them and walked into the chamber.
An abbey mystic stood beside the bed, a woman wearing the pristine white robes of Cyena. This winter goddess was most often represented as an elegant swan, but she sometimes walked amongst her people as a beautiful woman, or more dangerously as a siren, who sang sailors to their death.
There was no sign of a mystic from Mulcibar abbey, which was the equivalent of Rolencia's Halcyon. Unlike Halcyon, who nurtured the land, Mulcibar took the form of a great red bull. He revelled in war, with hot breath that incinerated anything it touched. But it was Mulcibar's dung that was most dangerous. It was said the dung could fly as far as an arrow, spreading flames. Some of his father's honour guard swore they'd witnessed it on the battlefield thirty years ago.
Fyn's mother had described the rivalry between the two great abbeys of Merofynia so vividly, Fyn had no trouble recognising the Cyena mystics mistress for what she was.
She glanced his way, revealing a young face, despite her white hair and eerie, pale pink eyes.
'I come to deliver clean sheets,' he said, his throat so dry he hardly recognised his own voice.
Dismissing Fyn as unimportant, she continued to study the man on the bed.
'He hasn't touched his food,' the Cyena mystic said, indicating a tray on a side table. Fyn wondered who she was speaking to.
'As you see, the healers can do no more for him.' A man stepped out of the shadows on the far side of the bed, into the light streaming from the tall casement window.
Every nerve in Fyn's body screamed danger. Even if it hadn't been obvious from the man's Utland dress and the fetishes woven into his hair, Fyn would have recognised the Affinity in him. It exuded from his skin like a bad smell.
Fyn glanced to Cyena's mystic. She didn't radiate as much intensity, though from her stiff stance he could tell she sensed the Utlander's power and found it offensive.
Shaking knees hidden under the tabard, Fyn came to the end of the bed and placed the basket of fresh linen on the chest there. His cousin lay on the bed, covered in a light sheet. His chest and shoulder were bound, covering the stump where his arm had been. Even now it seeped and Fyn smelt the distinctive scent of rosemary which was used back at the abbey by the Halcyon healers to prevent wounds putrefying.
'Dunstany and I have done all we can to heal his body,' the Utlander said. 'It is his will that is broken. The best healer cannot restore a man's will to live.'
'Overlord Palatyne needs him alive and well,' the Cyena mystic said. She spoke in the Utlander's general direction and Fyn realised she was blind to the Seen world. It made him glad he had not been exercising his Affinity when he entered, or she would have sighted him in the Unseen world. 'You know how Palatyne hates it when anything thwarts him.'
'Then you had better pray Cobalt finds a reason to live,' the Utlander said, 'for Palatyne intends to leave him in your care and he has plans for him.'
She stiffened. 'I will speak with the overlord.'
Catching the long points of her sleeves which hung almost to the ground, she swept them over her arms as she turned towards the door, and left the room without so much as a glance at Fyn.
The moment the door closed, Fyn felt the Utlander's Affinity drop and realised he had been deliberately trying to unsettle the Cyena mystic. The display must have cost him dearly, for now he leant heavily on his staff.
'Well, get to work. Change the bedding,' the Utlander snapped at Fyn then he too headed for the door.
'Yes, master,' Fyn muttered, hardly able to believe his luck. He reached for the first bedsheet, but as soon as the door closed he let it drop, running around the side of the bed to peer into Cobalt's face.
His cousin had turned away from the window. Even so Fyn could see the heavy shadow of beard, which lay on his jaw under skin that looked so pale it was almost waxen.
Fyn was shocked. He recalled Cobalt as being a handsome man, vain about his looks, with long hair that he wore loose, curled and threaded with semi-precious stones in the Ostronite way. It was to Ostron Isle that he had been banished for thirteen years.
'Illien?' Fyn whispered. It did not feel quite right calling a man of thirty-four, whom he hardly knew, by his private name. 'Lord Cobalt?'
Full black eyes hardly registered him. 'Leave me alone, boy. Didn't you hear him? I'm a dead man.'
'It's me, Fyn. Cousin Cobalt.' Fyn tugged off the cap to reveal the dark fuzz that didn't quite hide his tattoos.
Cobalt's eyes sprang open as his whole body stiffened. 'Little Fyn from the abbey?'
Fyn nodded.
Cobalt frowned, stunned, then amazement animated his features. 'It is you. How did you get in here?'
Fyn laughed softly, replacing the servant's skull cap. 'I've come to help you escape.'
'Oh, Fyn.' Cobalt shook his head sadly, then gritted his teeth and carefully manoeuvred himself into a seated position so that his back rested against the headboard. Even that made the sweat of pain and exhaustion break out on his skin. 'Come, let me look at you, lad. You've no idea how good it is to see your face.'
Fyn waited. While Cobalt stared at him intently he wondered how they would escape with his cousin so weak. 'Your arm…'
'You heard how this happened?' Cobalt indicated his stump.
Fyn nodded. 'I heard a rumour that Mother — '
'It wasn't Myrella's fault,' Cobalt assured him. 'She was deranged with grief for your father. Palatyne murdered him under a flag of truce. When she saw me with Palatyne she sprang to the wrong conclusion. She thought I'd betrayed Rolenhold. I don't know who opened the postern gate to the Merofynians. I was on the main gate tower telling them we'd never surrender when it happened. Dozens of men saw me there. But Myrella…' Cobalt shuddered. 'The overlord's a cruel man. He ordered me to execute your mother. Of course I couldn't.' He fixed on Fyn. 'She was a brave woman, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. She grabbed my own sword and turned it on me. Nearly killed me.'
Fyn could imagine his petite mother struggling to swing the great sword. Tears stung his eyes. 'And Piro?' His voice came out strangled.
Cobalt shook his head, unable to go on.
A sob shook Fyn's shoulders.
'I was injured, Fyn. There was nothing I could do. At least she wasn't violated. The overlord sent his men to
