A bird flew in through the open window. There was a pause, Morwena and the bird looking intently at one another. Then alarm registered on her face and she dropped the goblet that was in her hands, wine spilling across the floor in a dark red puddle.
“We have to leave,” said Morwena, turning to someone else in the room. “Now.”
Then Morwena was with Princess Rhona in a small, square room. Barrels were stacked up one wall and another was hung with copper pots arching over a doorway. Before Morwena pulled the door shut, Kaetha had glimpsed rows of trestle tables in the room beyond. The great hall, she realised. Rhona went to an alcove in a corner of the room, partly concealed behind the piles of barrels.
“My mother took me here shortly before she died,” said Rhona. “There were those at court she did not trust and she feared for my safety.” She disappeared into the alcove and, after snatching a candle and lighting it from the hearth embers, Morwena followed. Rhona felt for a groove in the stone.
“A secret passage?” said Morwena.
“This kitchen is all that remains of the original keep,” said Rhona. “The tunnel could be hundreds of years old. I just hope it hasn’t caved in.”
Kaetha was still in the citadel, it seemed, but now a tall, curvaceous woman with a cascade of silver blonde hair stood before her.
“His bedchamber’s unguarded,” the woman said. “We’ve seen to that. There’s no danger to you. It will look like he died in his sleep.” She hesitated, uncertainly. “If you’re going to do it, do it now. Just tell me when it’s over.”
“You don’t wish to watch?” Svelrik looked younger with only stubble where Kaetha had expected to see a beard. There was a detached stillness about him as well as an unnerving intensity in his eyes. “Then you are weak, mother,” he said. “Your feelings make you weak. They are out of tune with your ambitions. Mine are not. I know what I want. I want to freeze his blood. I want to turn his heart to ice. . . .”
No sooner had these words sent a shiver up Kaetha’s spine than she was in another chamber watching Svelrik drawing back a scarlet hanging from around a large bed. The old king started out of his sleep. A stone, pointed like an arrowhead, was gripped in Svelrik’s fist.
“They’re coming,” said Morwena. Kaetha was standing beside her mother in the woods as she and her father helped Rhona up onto his horse. Rhona held Aedan tightly. “Go,” said Morwena. “Go now, Aedan.”
Her father gripped her mother’s hand. “I’ll come back for you.”
They shared a look which seemed to carry more meaning than words could. Then he turned and raced away with Rhona into the night.
Morwena leant against the wall of a small chapel, catching her breath, her eyes closed. Then they snapped open. Kaetha had heard it too – hooves.
“Quick – into the chapel,” said Kaetha, even though she knew her mother couldn’t hear her, that she couldn’t influence events which had already happened. Morwena put her hand on the door and was about to open it when a hooded figure emerged from the trees.
“Where is she?” The figure took a step towards her. It was Svelrik, his voice casual, as if he were asking when supper would be served. “Tell me – or die.”
“Gaoth,” whispered Morwena.
“This is your last chance, I will kill you unless you tell me where she is.”
Morwena looked up as wind rustled the branches above their heads. “Then kill me,” she said. “You know I’d never betray her.”
Kaetha’s heart crushed within her chest and tears stung her eyes. “No!” she screamed.
Her mother collapsed to the ground, like a doll dropped from a child’s hand, and Kaetha knelt beside her, trying to clutch at her but her hands went through her mother’s body as through air. Morwena lay there, unmoving. Then she blinked and Kaetha heard a shallow breath. Svelrik walked forward, holding up the Water stone but then Gaoth appeared like thunder and the force he slammed into Svelrik sent him crashing backwards into the nearest tree, wind whipping at him as if he was tied to the top of a ship’s mast in a storm. He broke away, staggering backwards and disappearing into the trees.
Gaoth crouched beside Morwena. “What can I do?” there was sorrow in his voice. His pale hand found hers.
“Find my daughter, Kaetha . . .”
All went dark and then Kaetha blinked, her cell coming into focus again. Despite the bursting of emotions within her, she kept as still as stone, glaring into Svelrik’s cold eyes with a burning hatred. He did it. He killed my mother.
THIRTY SIX
The Light of Dawn
Barely moments had elapsed, although it had seemed much longer. No one had moved. Svelrik’s tore his arm away from her grasp.
“Get off me,” he snarled, his gaze shifting uneasily to Sir Jarl then back to Kaetha. “Again, Brocair.”
The longer she was suspended, the more acute was the pain that blossomed through her body. She hung there, breathing careful, shallow breaths, scrabbling with her toes for an allusive footing. They left her alone, hanging for what felt like hours. She felt like crying when Svelrik and Sir Jarl finally returned to lower her down.
“Will you talk now?” asked the king.
She wanted to. She wanted this to stop. But she kept her mouth tightly shut and stared ahead, not meeting his gaze. He walked behind her. Hope leapt within her, as she wondered if he meant to lower her down, but then came a sound that brought her spirit crashing down. The warning crack of a whip. She thought of Finola then and saw the bloody
