Teetering on the precipice of panic, he investigated the rooms as much as his weariness allowed. They had a similar layout to those above: a parlour with books, a bedchamber, a separate washroom. The mildly surprised air of freshly cleared dust and disuse. All was extravagantly ordinary: polished wood and thick, colourful cloth and beautiful, unused furnishings.
Through the windows, he could see the dizzying fall to the muted gold lights of the town and the stretching dark beyond. To the north-west, the silhouette of Carnedd Cau’s craggy peak was inked blacker than the swathes of night sky. To the south, the crash of the sea was just audible.
In the bedchamber, the bed was huge, four-posted with thick dark blue curtains, like the prince’s. The bedding was fresh, the threads tight and smooth, the pillows clearly feathered from how forgiving they were. In one corner of the room there was a tiny, empty altar to the Khaimlic god-saints, beneath a tapestry of the White Dragon.
Meilyr was alone. Truly alone.
He fished the symbol of Y Ddraig Goch out from inside his tunics. He had recovered the pendant in a heart-rending moment when the prince had answered the door to his crownsblood. They had been apologetic, abysmally sorry to interrupt, sent by Harlan to bring the update that the blacksmith had still not woken – giving Meilyr just enough time to move to the bookshelf and stuff the pendant between two buttons and into his tunic, praying his belt kept it from falling out, which it did.
The curve of cool metal brought intense relief, and he let himself crumple on the bed with it in his hands.
A forbidden relic, like the truth of his blood. If anyone had found it…
But they would not, now. He could not risk wearing it, though he had done so since he was a child.
Tracing the shape of the small dragon, curled towards its own tail to form a pleasing not-quite circle, he let words come, quiet and pained. ‘Forgive me, I could not watch him die. I could not let him die, not after…’ His eyes stung. He rubbed them, and looked towards the windows, where a night breeze stirred in.
He would not cry. Crying would be the end of it.
Gods, he had done the right thing, but this new reality was… terrifying.
‘Forgive me,’ he repeated, and pressed the dragon fiercely to his lips and his chest one final time. Then he pried open the base of one of the small empty drawers of the bedside table and tucked it beneath.
He prepared himself as best he could for sleep. Every sound and lack of sound piqued his senses, and when he returned to the bed, he stared at the ceiling, not wishing to extinguish the final candle. The scene in the street replayed over and over: the ways it could have gone, the ways it had. The Great Hall. Celyn’s hatred. The eyes and the voices and the pounding of his heart.
The forest. The taste of the fire—
Stop.Celyn was safe. Meilyr was not in the forest.
And he had the prince’s blood.
That thought sat stark and chilling, rather than comforting: a dagger under his fingers amidst the soft warmth of the bed, plucking at his headache.
What did the prince want from this?The goodness of his heart, Celyn had mocked.
Meilyr was missing something, but was too exhausted to delve deeper.
Again, he thought of Heulwen. Hoped she was safe. He and Celyn had disappeared – had word spread? Had she tried to find them?
How was the apothecary? Could Heulwen tend to it, to all its patients and patrons, now he was here? Now he wasprince consort…?
The band of yellow Khaimlic gold sat, unfamiliar and heavy, on his heart-finger.
The candle flickered.
The fires in the fields made the cropsscream. It was themost awful thing, and he clamped his hands over his ears as his motherheaved him into her arms and ran into the night.
It distracted him just enough from the fact his father was movingtowardsthe noise.
‘Da!’
His mother hissed for him to be quiet, her determination blistering through her fear and grief. Meilyr could feel his father’s resolve too, like a light on the hill, brighter than all the torches.
He felt the agony as that resolve burst in pain, and then there was only hot, deafening emptiness. Like losing a limb. Like having his heart torn from his chest.
Meilyr screamed, but there was no sound. No way to release how much he felt.
‘Shh,’ his mother soothed, fingers tight in his hair where she held his head, pressed close to her shoulder. It began to rain. ‘It’s all right, Meilyr, it’s all right.’