Toranth swung to Wryth, who looked equally shocked.
“You said the babe was dead,” the king accused.
“So we all believed,” Wryth answered, but his expression grew shadowed.
Toranth’s face darkened with fury. “A child you portended, Wryth. A girl, just as you prophesied. One who would end the Crown, and with it, the world.”
Mikaen knit his father’s words together, building the fabric of the tale of the Forsworn Knight. He and Kanthe had whispered such chilling rumors of their family’s secret history, nestled under their bedsheets at night, when they were still boon companions, before being separated between Kepenhill and the Legionary.
Haddan’s expression remained skeptical. “More likely the girl is nothing but a ploy of the Klashe, to sway a second-born prince to pair with a supposed daughter of the king, to use such stories to stir insurrection against the true heir.”
The general glanced back to Mikaen, who in turn pictured the small bump in Lady Myella’s belly.
“Even if she is Marayn’s lost daughter,” Toranth countered, “we don’t even know if the girl is of my loins or the traitor Graylin’s.”
Their discussion was interrupted by a pained cry from the chair. The prioress struggled against her bonds, her arms yanking at the cuffs that bound her wrists to the chair. Still, she could not stop the words from escaping her throat.
“Graylin … Graylin goes to her even now,” she gasped out. “To Havensfayre.”
The king swung back to her with a bellow. “What?”
Vythaas brought the copper box closer to the chair, clearly trying to grind the woman back under his thumb.
Mikaen knew from Anskar’s report that Kanthe and the others had fled up the Path of the Fallen. No one knew if they had survived such a climb, as Anskar’s men had been driven back by some scourge rooted there. Still, if Kanthe had made it to Cloudreach, his most likely goal would be to reach the woodland trading post of Havensfayre. There was nothing else up there. Knowing that, the king had already ordered a warship to be readied for a flight up to Cloudreach to scout for the missing prince.
Mikaen watched his father sag, as if he were a punctured wyndship. He knew how much the king had loved Graylin, a friend from his earliest years. Toranth had punished the oathbreaker but spared his life, banishing him instead. Everyone had thought the Forsworn Knight had died in exile.
Apparently not.
And if not, Graylin was proving himself to be an oathbreaker once again. He swore never to return to Hálendii, to never set a boot upon the kingdom’s soil.
Even Haddan recognized how mercy could bite you in the arse. “Can there be any doubt that insurrection is being stoked? The king’s son, a suspected daughter, and now a disgraced knight of the realm returned. They must be stopped before this rancor spreads and roots deeper.”
Toranth nodded, his face hardening with the general’s passion.
Wryth, though, was not done with their prisoner. He crossed closer. His eyes narrowed, watching her continued thrashing. Vythaas closed on her other side with his accursed screaming box.
“What are you fighting not to tell us, Prioress Ghyle?” he asked coldly.
Her eyes rolled back, showing only white. Froth flecked her lips, which stretched to lines of agony. Still, the copper needles glowed even brighter, stabbing deeper into her will.
She screamed, returning to her native tongue. Klashean words burst from her pained throat. “Vyk dyre Rha!… Vyk dyre Rha se shan benya!”
Wryth rocked back a step. Vythaas shuddered, almost losing hold of the copper box. He fumbled to keep hold of it—but it was enough for the prioress to regain herself.
Her eyes snapped to center. Pain turned to fury. She yanked an arm free of its cuff, ripping skin. She lunged out and snatched a long blade from the nearby table. Before anyone could stop her, she plunged the knife into her throat.
Wryth grabbed for her hand, but she twisted the blade and yanked it back out with a great fountain of blood. She stared with such hatred that the Shrive fell back a step.
Then in a few hard breaths, life faded from those eyes.
The king grabbed Wryth by the shoulder. “What did she say at the end? What did she mean?”
“I don’t know,” Wryth said. “Just nonsense churned up as she fought to free her will. She clearly did not want us to know more.”
Mikaen suspected the Shrive was lying. Even the king squinted hard at Wryth. But Haddan had heard enough.
“No matter. This is all further proof of a plot to spread discord and divide the kingdom,” Haddan said. “A scheme fueled by the Klashe and orchestrated by one of their own. We must stamp it out immediately.”
Wryth turned to them. “The general is correct. This must be ended before any war begins.”
Toranth nodded. His face was as red as Mikaen had ever seen it. “Haddan, you will command the warship headed to Cloudreach. In fact, double those forces. We will end this, once and forever.”
The king turned to his bright son. “And you will go, too, Mikaen. It is time for you to stake your claim against your brother’s betrayal. All of Hálendii must witness it, to end all possible question of lineage.”
Mikaen bowed, accepting this harsh duty. He knew, with the war to come, he would need to shine brighter than ever, to be the flag that the kingdom rallied around. Still, he also knew why his father risked his first son in such an endeavor.
He pictured Lady Myella’s belly ripening with promise.
The Massif royal line would hold—must hold—no matter what.
40
AFTER ASSIGNING ANOTHER of the Iflelen to guide the royal party back to Highmount, Wryth fled farther from the sun. He descended a half league to the true heart of the dark god’s domain—and the secret buried there for seven centuries.
He had left Vythaas in his scholarium, where the man intended to split the prioress’s skull and pick through her brain. Vythaas intended to discern what had worked and what had failed in his procedure, all to further hone his method. The Iflelen—like all Shriven—knew knowledge was seldom gained from sudden bursts of insight, but more through painstaking failures and tiny triumphs. Few appreciated the centuries it took to gather what the ancients had abandoned and to shine such artifacts back to life.
Which was especially true for what lay ahead.
Wryth reached a set of tall ebonwood doors, inscribed with the horn’d snaken. As he pushed through, he split the sigil into halves and entered the inner sanctum of the Iflelen. It was not unlike the main hall far above, a dome of polished obsidian. The chamber was also lined by doors marked for various avenues of studies, all pertaining to what this chamber held.
The breadth of the room contained a convoluted web of copper tubes and blown-glass tanks, running and bubbling with arcane alchymicals. It stretched from the arch of the roof to the polished floor. The immense apparatus huffed, steamed, and beat like a living beast.
Four bloodbaernes marked the cardinal points of the Urth’s magnes energies. The bound sacrifices were all children under the age of eleven, stolen from the crowded streets of the city’s Nethers. Such young consecrations were the most potent for the distillation process. Each child lay limp, their chests cleaved open like little windows. Bellows filled their lungs, blowing them up and down, revealing peaks of their beating hearts.