Radnor shot wide – into the stands. The arrow punched hard into someone’s shoulder.
Uproar. Half the royal table rose, including Osian. Demelza grabbed Meilyr’s arm in shock, motion and noise expanding as—
Armiger Kynaston screamed in utter, bloodless terror.
Kenelm Radnor’s mouth had erupted in a font of verdant, red-green leaves and blood-soaked little flowers that should have been white. His eyes peeled in horror, and he stumbled as if to escape, even as more leaves tore loose. From his mouth, his nostrils, his ears. His eyes.
He sank to the compacted earth, barbs blooming from the thin skin of his throat, his wrists, his stomach.
The suspended instant of petrified shock snapped. People screamed and shoved and fell and ran. The stands descended into chaos.
‘Hold!’ Osian shouted. ‘No one leaves! Do not use force!’
But dozens fled. More. The crownsworn could not hope to halt them all; people spilled from all sides, even the boxes. It was utter, unsalvageable disorder.
Meilyr could only stare at the still-flowering mess that had been Kenelm Radnor.
Little white flowers and sturdy, unmistakeable leaves.
Bran’s alder.
TWENTY-ONE
There was one more wicked than any.
She, the cause of the Sundering –
that cataclysmic death of hope, and the ruin
of the Isles and their allies.
She, whose name shall be a curse –
she, who single-handedly tore the world to war and bloodshed.
She, whose blood poisoned the fold,
giving our Holy Majesty no choice but to wield his gods-givenright
to smite the heretical wickedness of sorcery from this good greenearth.
Biography of His Holy Majesty King Uhtric Arden-Draca,
Holy Devotee Godwine Airaldi, 686 A.S.
TWENTY-ONE
‘He did this!He did this!’
Captain Radnor had to be held back by three knights. Osian ordered Pedr and Blythe to escort Meilyr immediately to his rooms. Demelza went with them, dragging Meilyr beside her, shaking and near-deathly pale but determined.
The captain’s shouts turned to wordless curses, cries of soul-rending grief.
Meilyr’s body succumbed to shaking when Demelza, still trembling,left to see if she was needed elsewhere. Blythe helped her down thestairs, and Pedr shut the door to Osian’s chambers, leaving himalone.
They thought he was the killer.
Bran’s alder.Surely it was a coincidence?