Aldreda closed the distance in two strides and buried her fist in Wystan’s guts.
He crumpled around her arm with a choke of air, then slumped to his knees in a ball of stunned agony.
Meilyr’s mouth fell open. Demelza clutched Edeva tighter to her chest.
Lord Gelens clenched their hands.
Osian stood firmed to stone, expression purposefully emptied. The courtyard had gone deathly quiet.
‘Just doing what our dear father would have done,’ Aldreda said quietly, stepping neatly away, with a pointed glance at Demelza. ‘Or perhaps should have done. If you have any sense, Wystan, calm the hells down.’ Her eyes landed on Meilyr. ‘Highness Cadogan. Care to make this easy?’
‘Aldreda,’ Osian warned.
High above, the bruised sky eased its stiff joints with a groan of thunder.
Meilyr touched his shoulder. ‘I’ll go.’ A little louder. ‘I will go. Lock me in my rooms, or a cell. But I did not do this.’ There was fire in his voice: desperation and certainty. It slipped away as he looked at the horror behind them, as the rain returned. ‘I swear it.’
His hand slipped away, but he remained close. Osian was not sure whose fingers laced with whose, but when Meilyr looked at him again, there was devastated focus in his eyes, his dark hair misted with a crown of suspended stars. ‘Henbane,’ he breathed, as though the sound alone might be the death of them both.
The drumming of Meilyr’s heart drowned out the night rain as Aldreda’s crownsblood Jocosa unlatched the old wooden box and the tang of iron filled the air.
‘King’s orders,’ Aldreda said, level.
Osian was a silent maelstrom just inside the door of Meilyr’s rooms, unable to look at him.
The chains on the polished shackles rattled as Aldreda lifted them out of the box and turned to face him. ‘Gwaed-steel, though maybe I don’t have to tell you that.’ She did not. He could taste them from there. ‘Left over from our great-grandfather’s days. An antique, but one that should shut some people up, at least. Hands.’
Meilyr held out his traitorously shaking hands and let her fasten each sharp-edged cuff. Forced himself not to flinch from the heat that bit into the thin skin over his wrist-bones.
Fears that had never taken true form solidified like nightmares in the waking world. Monsters of flesh and blood.
Aldreda grabbed his wrist above the shackle and jarred him closer, leaning in.
‘Aldreda!’ Osian snapped.
‘What was it this time?’ Her voice was low and deadly, and he was prey in her claws. ‘The plant. It was different to before, and I know you know.What was it?’
‘Henbane,’ Osian said, brimming with barely tethered anger. ‘You could have asked me.’
‘And does it matter that it’s henbane?’ She shook Meilyr’s arm. ‘Well?’
His tongue lay rotted in his mouth. ‘I do not know,’ he managed.
‘Do not lie to me, Meilyr Cadogan.’
‘He is not lying,’ Osian said. ‘You are not giving him air to breathe.’
‘Why is it henbane? Why does it keep changing?’
‘I do not know.’
Her nails dug in as she pulled him closer. ‘Look at me.’
He did. Fear spluttered in his chest, knowing her next words would draw blood. But he held her gaze and poured his honesty into it. ‘Ido not know.’
She stared at him for a long count, then let him go. ‘Fine. But you should know, every single Cyngaleg-blooded person within Eascild Castle is to be questioned. The town is to be placed under more stringent watch, with troops sent from Khaim to reinforce. If you know anything, now is the time to prevent the suffering of your people.’
Wretched guilt, fear and shame doused him. A boundless, petrifying hopelessness.