Something hit his head. He went down to his knees.
Someone jumped off their mount to stand in front of him. Caught his hair, jerked his head. Lord Leon's sneering face. Byren knew he was a dead man. It didn't matter. He'd failed Orrie.
'Not so proud now, eh, king?' Lord Leon said, breath heavy with ale.
'Cobalt's... sacrificed your warriors, b-burned them up,' Byren told him, the words chopped to pieces by his chattering teeth. 'What of your uncle?'
'Dead. He led the attack.'
Byren saw satisfaction in Lord Leon's black eyes. His uncle's death meant Leon was warlord of Leogryf Spar. What manner of man sent his own kin to their death?
'Do your men know you sacrificed -'
A fist slammed into Byren's face and the world went away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Piro sat up in bed, a cry on her lips. Her heart raced. In her mind's eye she still saw the wyvern with its gleaming green eyes laughing at her as its companions dragged Fyn and Byren away.
'What is it?' Isolt asked.
Pale dawn light fell across the foot of Isolt's bed where her pet wyvern slept. Loyalty lifted her head like a curious puppy and made a soft, interrogative sound. Isolt crawled up her bed to rub the beast's head reassuringly.
'A bad dream,' Piro confessed. 'I was with Byren and Fyn. We were running away from something. It caught them and now it's coming for me.'
'It could be a nexus point,' Isolt said. 'Piro, you must tell the mage.'
Piro hugged her knees. Tell the mage? What good would that do? There was no mage, only a half-trained apprentice, not much older than Byren.
And that half trained apprentice had entrapped her essence. In all this, who could she really trust but herself? She'd have to...
'Piro?' Isolt prodded. 'What are you up to?'
'Nothing.' She had promised not to reveal Tyro's secret, and the goddess knew he did not deserve her loyalty, but... she could not bring herself to destroy Isolt's faith. For once, her friend did not look haunted.
'I hate being trapped here. I've finished Fyn's jerkin and now I can't give it to him until he comes back.' Isolt gave an odd little laugh and sprang off the bed, pacing the room. Loyalty followed her, making soft worried noises.
Piro's foenix woke up then flew across the room to land on the head of her bed. She sat with her back to the headboard and he climbed into her lap for a cuddle. 'There, there, boy. There's nothing to worry about...' But she feared there was.
Isolt spun to face Piro. 'You've got Affinity. Could this be a warning for your brothers?'
Piro hugged the foenix. He made a purring sound as though sympathising with her.
'It's possible,' Piro admitted. 'But I don't know. I had dreams of wyverns prowling Rolenhold for ages before Palatyne captured the castle and finally made it come true.'
'We must warn them.' Isolt lit a candle, shielding its flame. 'The mage can use the Fate Fyn wears to contact him. It will be faster than a messenger bird. Come on.'
'Yes... but we'll go to Tyro.' Piro pushed the foenix aside and swung her legs off the bed. The cold floor made her toes curl. 'The mage is old and grumpy and we don't want to wake him.'
Isolt accepted this without question.
They hurried down the dark hall with the wyvern and foenix following. Piro rapped on Tyro's bed chamber door. 'It's us. Wake up. It's important!'
After a moment, Tyro opened the door, blinking in the light of Isolt's candle. His chest was bare and his hair hung down his back, tousled from sleep. It was the first time she had seen him looking vulnerable and Piro forgot what she was going to say.
'Piro's had a dream and we think it's a nexus point,' Isolt announced. 'Tell him, Piro. He can decide if we should wake the mage.'
Tyro caught Piro's eye. 'By all means, tell me, Piro.'
She did so, finishing with, 'If you use the Fate, you can contact Fyn, see if he is all right -'
'And warn him!' Isolt insisted.
Tyro hesitated.
'Use the Fate,' Piro urged.
'Now,' Isolt added.
Tyro smiled. 'Very well.'
He pulled on a pair of slippers and tugged a shirt over his shoulders, reminding Piro that she and Isolt wore nothing but their silk nightgowns. It didn't matter. Tyro saw them only as annoying game pieces, which he had to shelter until they could play their parts in the Duelling Kingdoms.
Tyro borrowed Isolt's candle to light a lamp and adjusted the wick. 'Come with me.'
He led them through the quiet corridor. Far away, Piro heard the servants stirring in the kitchen. The smell of baking wafted up the stairwell as they entered the war table room. Her stomach grumbled.
'Stir up the fire, Piro,' Tyro ordered.
She crossed the floor and knelt on the hearth tiles, adding fresh kindling and stirring up the coals.
If Tyro contacted Fyn and there was nothing wrong, she would feel silly, but at least her brothers would be warned.
She turned and joined Isolt, who was sitting cross-legged on the brilliant Ostronite rug in front of the fireplace with her wyvern's head in her lap. Piro sat stroking her foenix for reassurance. Isolt met her eyes, impatient with the delay.
Piro glanced past her. Tyro was over near the war table. 'What are you -'
He joined them, holding up a piece. 'It's Fyn.' He sat down. 'I'll use it to help me focus.'
'I can help you find him,' Piro offered, recalling how Tyro, while playing Lord Dunstany, had inadvertently drawn on her Affinity back in Rolenton.
'No need. Fyn wears the Fate. Its power will draw me to him.' Tyro closed his eyes.
Piro watched him, his face lit by the glow of the fire. The lamp had been left near the war table and the room was dimly lit behind him. Dawn light filtered through the tall balcony doors.
'The Fate is a great source of power, a channel for Affinity. It calls to me. Ah, there...' Tyro whispered. 'Now, I'll wake its sleeping owner. I...' he stiffened. His face twisted in a grimace of shock, then pain.
Without another word, he toppled sideways across Piro's knees. Her foenix gave an indignant cry and darted aside.
At the touch of Tyro's flesh on hers, a powerful force swamped Piro and she felt herself being sucked under.
'Piro?' Isolt lunged across the carpet.
Dimly, Piro felt Isolt catch her shoulders, shake her, call her... to no avail.
Smack. A palm collided with her cheek, then another and another. Shock and pain made her eyes fill with tears.
As suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Tyro rolled off her lap onto the floor. Face down, he struggled to push himself up, arms trembling. The wyvern watched them all, tail lashing from side to side like a vexed cat.
'Are you two all right?' Isolt whispered. 'What happened, Piro?'
Piro looked to Tyro, who pushed his hair from his face with a shaking hand.
'It was an enemy Power-worker. He nearly had me.' Tyro raised shocked black eyes to them. 'You two saved me, distracted him long enough for me to gather my defences.'
'But you were looking for Fyn,' Isolt protested.
'Does that mean he's been captured by a renegade Power-worker?' Piro demanded.
'I found the Fate. I didn't find your brother.'
'Fyn's dead?' Isolt went pale.
'No. At least, I don't know.' Tyro confessed. 'The Fate has fallen under the power of an enemy.'
'Fyn wouldn't give it up without a fight. It belonged to the abbey,' Piro insisted. 'Something has happened to him, maybe to both my brothers.'
'I fear so,' Tyro agreed.
'We must wake the mage and tell him,' Isolt decided, coming to her feet.
Piro and Tyro exchanged looks.
'I'll tell him,' Tyro offered. 'He hates being woken. No need for you two to catch the sharp edge of his tongue.'
'It wouldn't worry me,' Isolt said.
Piro stood and slid her arm through Isolt's. 'I think we should let Tyro tell him. Let the mage deal with the enemy Power-worker.'
Isolt saw the sense of this. 'Come, Loyalty. Breakfast.' She turned to Tyro. 'But if there is any news you must send for us.'
He nodded and gave Piro a grateful look.
Fyn woke to the soft padding of heavy feet. A terrible sense of dread swamped him. He smelled wyverns and heard their harsh breath as they exhaled. They stalked him.
He could see nothing, but he felt the stone under his hands and knees. Crawling along, he came to a wall and stood up. By the feel of it, he was in the caverns under the abbey. His hand grazed the embossed wyvern symbol and he fingered its shape. Follow the wyvern to get out, the abbot had said. He had to escape the wyverns. Terror rose up in him, threatening to choke him.
Think!
How had he become lost down here? Where were the others?
Every time he tried to focus and find the answers, he came up against a kind of mental bruise that made him wince and gasp.
What was going on?
The soft padding of wyvern feet on the stone and their acrid smell came to him. No time to think. He must run.
Follow the wyvern to escape the wyvern. If he kept that fixed in his mind he would be safe. Fyn ran.
And kept running.
Byren woke to find himself tied across a horse's saddle. His head ached. With each lurch of the horse's back his gorge threatened to rise. He couldn't breathe through his nose and suspected it was broken.
Men on horseback rode around him, visible in the light of the setting sun. He recalled waking more than once, tied across this horse's back. Each time he'd woken they'd knocked him senseless.
Now, judging by his upside-down glimpse of the world, they were nearing the top of the steep switch-back road that led to Rolenhold.
He bit back a groan as it all came back to him.
He'd been captured. He'd failed Fyn and Orrade. Soon he would face his traitorous cousin, Cobalt, and execution.
At least Florin was safe. He hoped she was safe.
Merofynians cheered as the returning warriors entered the castle courtyard. Someone jumped down and reached under the horse, cutting the rope that held him in place. They shoved him and he slid backwards off the horse, staggering, arms still tied at the wrist. His knees almost gave way. But he found his feet and looked up, blinking blood from his eyes.
Behind the cheering Merofynians, he saw the silent, sad faces of his father's people, watching from vantage points around the courtyard. They'd put their hopes in him. He'd failed them and now they were a subjugated people, slaves in their own land.
Lord Leon shoved Byren between his shoulder blades, driving him ahead of them into the stronghold, through King Rolen's great hall and up the stairs to the trophy chamber.
Here, his cousin waited across the other side of the war table, which had been shifted from its original room. He wore royal Rolencian red in the Ostronite style - nipped waist, lace at the collar and wrists. One sleeve hung loose and his long hair was threaded with red garnets, so that it gleamed in a shaft of setting sun that streamed through the oriel window.
Behind him, to one side, stood a Mulcibar monk, perhaps the very one who had sent the fire to consume Narrowneck and the warlord of Leogryf Spar.
Once, Byren had been blind to Affinity, but now he could sense power exuding from the monk's skin, so he had to be a mystic. Avoiding the monk's unnerving black gaze, Byren vowed to give Cobalt no satisfaction. He wouldn't plead for his life.
'A present for you, King Cobalt,' Lord Leon said. 'The pretender, Byren Kingson.'
So he was a pretender now? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Cobalt looked him up and down. 'Not so fine now, are you, cousin Byren?' A cruel smile lit his handsome face. 'Looks like I've won this game of Duelling Kingdoms!'
As Byren stood, hands bound in front of him, he did not regret trying to avenge his parents and brother's murders. But he did regret failing the men who had followed him. At least Piro still lived and she knew Cobalt for the treacherous liar he was. Which reminded him...
'The game's not over until the king takes a queen,' Byren said. 'Piro will never marry you. My mother cut off your arm. Piro will cut off your -'
'I'll cut out your tongue!' Cobalt lunged across the war table, grabbing Byren's vest, pulling him off balance and jerking him forwards so that their faces were only a hand's breadth apart. 'I'll cut off your balls and see how cocky you are then! Won't that make your lover weep?'
Byren's stomach lurched. Death he could face, disfigurement and torture he dreaded.
Mulcibar's mystic touched Cobalt's shoulder. It was enough to make Cobalt release Byren with a shove, so that he fell backwards, into Lord Leon's arms.
'How is Orrade, by the way?' Cobalt asked. 'Did you know he spied for me, reporting on your every move?'
'I know that's a lie.' Just as Byren knew denying Orrade was his lover would achieve nothing. 'And I know the people of Rolencia will never accept you as their rightful king, not as long as Piro could be their queen.'
'Speaking of queens...' Cobalt sneered. 'You'll never get the chance to claim Isolt. Palatyne has plans for her. And,' he glanced to the mystic, 'as much as I'd like to spike your head over the main gate of Rolenhold, Palatyne has plans for you. You're going to Merofynia, where you'll be tried for treason.'
'Against Rolencia? A child could see through that ploy!' Byren threw back his head and laughed. The sound echoed off the trophy chamber's high ceiling.
His laugh startled his enemies, who stared at him.
'You won't be laughing when Palatyne's finished with you!' Cobalt bristled.
'Now that I've delivered the pretender, I want my reward,' Leon announced. Clearly, he'd grown tired of waiting. 'You promised to appoint me overlord of the spars.'