‘Why now?’ he asked, to distract her. ‘You have been at court for years. Why now?’ Behind her back, he reached.Gripped.Drew backfrom the feeling of wrongness. Back towards the form he knew, intimately. The shape Osian’s flesh longed to return to.
‘I was waiting for another like myself, waiting for you. The last part – you saw, did you not? A gwehydd’s heart-blood. A sacrifice to the land, from one closest to it.’
There was less resistance now. Perhaps she was preoccupied, or thought pulling him away bodily had been enough.
Hewouldsave Osian.
‘How thankful I am for you, for us. Two wild things Khaim could not kill.’ She gripped the back of his neck and pulled his gaze to her. ‘I am so genuinely sorry it has to be this way. But you can help bring her back and wash away Khaim like a righteous flood. There is nothing better to die for.’
‘Her?’ It was hard to keep up, but at least she was talking. ‘Who?’
‘Who else?’ Her smile warmed. ‘She who was the first scapegoat Khaim used against us. She upon whose shoulders rested the Sundering.’
His confusion was genuine.
‘Oh, darling, you did not think I did this so dramatically just for fun? No, I want Cyngalon to know – I want all of them to knowshewill return. As sure as I am of the blood, as surely as we both are, she will rise again and sweep all of Khaim from our home and from this good earth like the gods themselves. Only then will we know peace.’
She believed every word with a conviction like no other.
‘And I need you, Meilyr.’ With another display of physical skill that would have rivalled most crownsworn, she pulled him from the pillar and tripped him flat onto his back on the harsh stone floor. The air crashed from his lungs. ‘I need your strength and your beautiful, brilliant heart.’ She drew her own dagger, kneeling over him, sobered and pragmatic. ‘I need it to bleed for Cyngalon, not these monsters. I need you to bring her home, so at last we can behome, again.’ A bur of sadness as she straightened and pressed the gwaed-steel tip into the cloth beside his sternum. ‘I am sorry, Meilyr. I will make sure…’ She trailed off, stunned by something.
Osian’s sword burst through her chest. Her eyes shot wide and they both swayed, before Osian gripped her shoulder and pushed her aside, off the blade and away from Meilyr. The prince dropped to his knees beside him, shoulders bent.
Demelza’s blood hissed as she curled and writhed in agony. Bubbling red spread in a thick pool about her, staining her pale tunics.
Osian slumped sideways, and Meilyr scrambled up to hold him.
‘Osian – no, do not move, hold on.’ He steadied him in his arms, already at work.
The oak receded. Osian’s bones restitched themselves, withdrawing like folded wings inside his body. They both released a pained, jagged breath when it was done.
‘Meilyr…’
They pressed their foreheads together. Osian’s hand gripped the back of his head, fingers in his hair.
‘Aldreda,’ Meilyr said. He laid Osian down carefully and faltered as he rose, but made it to where she had collapsed beneath the dais.
There was enough of her blood spilled to weave a connection. It was still a far fiercer effort than with Osian, a more unfamiliar body and nature, but he was almost done when she grasped his wrist.
‘Our father…’
The king.
His chin had fallen, eyes hidden by the rim of his hawthorn crown and his white-gold hair. But something in him lived. Something held on.
There was not much at all left in Meilyr, and Demelza’s words burned. This was theking ofKhaim. All he had done…
But Meilyr was already moving. Who was he to pass judgement? If he could save the life of Osian’s father, he would.
He stumbled on the way to the dais, trying to steady his breathing. The king did not stir as Meilyr leaned on the arm of the throne and thumbed some of the blood from the older man’s shoulder. The taste sickened him, but he got to work, fighting his own eyelids.
Hawthorn and bone retreated. His own blood was so loud, pitching sharply, threatening to drain his consciousness as though in warning.
The bang ricocheted as the Throne Room doors were thrown open.
Meilyr started and turned, in time to see Osian struggle to his feet, expression split in horror.
‘No—!’