Meilyr was quiet, considering. ‘What are you going to do about Prince Wystan?’
‘Likely only drink from his goblet in the future.’ Osian swallowed sharpness and went on. ‘As I said, we are likely not the only ones to come to such conclusions. I will move in the ways that are necessary, when I can get out of bed without stumbling.’
Meilyr bit his lip. ‘He also said he and Lord Gelens went… into town. Is there a chance…?’
‘That Gelens is involved? Likely more than Wystan himself.’
‘But why…’ A shaky exhale.
‘Why would they do such a thing?’
‘Yes. No. I’m sorry, it is such a foolish thing to ask.’
‘Far from it.’ Osian swallowed. ‘Wystan never had the… easiest upbringing. His mother was ambitious, named queen in a political marriage with Raak whilst the king still grieved my mother. Despite being my father’s third child, she raised Wystan as though he were destined for the throne, and not subtly. It made things between the three of us… difficult. Wystan was raised separately, aided by the difference in age and his mother’s insistence we were lesser.’
Still, he remembered the small, quiet boy who had hidden at the edge of the palace training grounds, watching Osian and Aldreda when he should have been at his books. Osian could picture the glimmer of awe and surprise in that boy on the third day, when Osian had ignored Aldreda’s half-hearted protest and called him over.
Wystan had not returned the next day. It was only years later that Osian had found out the queen had ordered his knuckles struck bloody for consorting with hislesser bastard siblings.
For days, Wystan had avoided their gazes and even simple greetings with winces and silence. Yet it still had not stopped him, months later, from bursting into tears and running to Osian’s side when the eldest prince had returned home with an arrow-wound in the gut.
‘Things became worse after his mother passed. He was brought under the wing of her family and allies, who had established comfortable positions at court. Lord Gelens was one of them.’
Meilyr tensed, as he did every time Gelens was mentioned. It was incredibly difficult not to touch him again.
‘Wystan grew more distant,’ Osian continued, ‘and I know Gelens and others used him as a figurehead for their own gains. I have never felt true malice, or even hatred, from him. It is as though they emptied him of all he could have been and filled him with their lies, their beliefs. Sometimes, I think he believes they are his own wishes, but most of the time…’ Most of the time, Wystan simply felt achingly hollow. Filling himself with drink and sex and sharp-tongued rhetoric, just as his mother had done.
‘So, there is a chance Lord Gelens oversaw this…’ There was sympathy in Meilyr’s face, in his voice.
‘Almost certainly.’
The weight of it sat between them. ‘The king’s adviser,’ Meilyr said. ‘Your father’s adviser…’
Osian allowed himself to touch Meilyr’s hand. ‘They did not succeed, thanks to you. And everything I know, Aldreda knows as well. If they are responsible, it will be put right.’
A little sadly, Meilyr said, ‘I am glad you and Her Majesty can be close, at least.’
Gods, the compassion in him.
‘She can be staunch, to say the least. But I am lucky to have her. To have grown beside her.’ He hesitated before saying it. ‘I am glad you have Celyn. It sounds as though things have always been… difficult.’
Meilyr’s gaze lost focus, the way it always did when immense pain brushed the surface of his mind. ‘I am, too. I do not know what I would do without him.’ Honest and unguarded, to the man who had locked Celyn up.
‘I am sorry,’ Osian said, the words unable to speak of the seas beneath. ‘I cannot imagine how difficult—’
‘No, I was not thinking of that. It’s done, and… It is done.’
I should never have done it, Osian wanted to say.I wanted to save you – both of you, but you especially. I should have found another way. I should have pardoned you both and spirited you away in the night, away from all this. I am so, immeasurably sorry, and I know that will never be enough.
Instead, he said, ‘You should rest.’
‘As should you.’ More gentle and forgiving than Osian deserved. ‘I am sorry for keeping you awake.’
‘Not at all.’
TWENTY-NINE
Oak.