But the old lie found no footing. He was not fine.
He needed to stay confined, needed to play the part of consort, needed to—
The old man is dead.
The plants began to shudder as the whining note in his skull peeled into a scream. He needed to get out of this room. Away from the plants. Away.
He placed a shaking hand on the wall and climbed down, one unsteady step at a time. His vision cracked as grief welled and welled and welled, until he almost fell, skirts hushing on the steps behind. His defences broke apart as he tried to hold back the flood with his bare hands.
On the landing, someone shouted after him. Aldreda’s voice responded, disembodied, echoing, ‘Let him go. Find Prince Osian.’
His blood roared, and he stumbled from the tower, past faces and bodies and halls saturated with people. Thefullnesspressed at the backs of his eyes, making them sting.
Wade Bevan was dead. Killed by Khaimlic crownsworn.
His parents had met the same end. A worse end. An ending he caused.
Was Wade Bevan dead because of him? Just as he could not save Idwal from the disease that had wasted him from the inside. No matter how much weaving Meilyr had attempted – no matter how much Celyn had begged him. Celyn – Celyn, who he also could not save. Could not save from Khaim – Khaim, whose clothes he wore, whose heirs hesmiled with– Aldreda –Osian—
Do not cry. If you cry, that’s it. Please, please do not cry.
Mam. Da—
Idwal. Celyn—
Osian—
He kept going. Allowed the castle to wash through him as the gust of his blood picked up behind, unrelenting at his back. Raising the hairs on his neck.
He needed to be away from people, needed to tamp this down where no one could see.
The roar caught the edges of his fear. Grew louder.
I am not in danger, he tried again. But it was impossible to lie to his own blood.
He wanted the gardens, but the sun shone for the first time in days, so they already teemed with staff and courtiers. He should not be here – had to be. Weaved towards the edges of the grounds as his blood pounded harder and worse the more he shied from it.
It had been a very, very long time since this had happened. All of the fright and all of the pain had coalesced into one singular demand: fight or flight, groaning against his skull. Rattling through him like a storm trapped inside a house.
He had to calm it.Now.
THIRTY-FIVE
‘Please’, the Fox begged,
‘do not look at me. Do not come near.’
For they were only brittle, wounded and lost.
But the man came anyway. Stayed, and waited,
a healing all of its own.
The Fox’s Tears,
translated by Idwal gan Hywel
THIRTY-FIVE