“Silver dish? I know naught of that,” he said. “You told me to stay near him. To safeguard his ring. But he vanished from sight, my lady. He vanished before the battle started.”
“Where is Morwenna?” Trynne demanded. “Didn’t she go with you too?”
“Aye, she did. She fought alongside us. She kept calling out to your father. It was mayhem, my lady. Utter mayhem.” His frown tightened, hard as a walnut shell. “Someone has betrayed us.”
“Go find the king,” Trynne said, feeling her stomach wrenching with agony. She put her hand on his armored shoulder. “Tell him what you told me. I must go back to Brythonica. Straightaway. I’ll come back if I can. I don’t think Gahalatine will attack us further. He’s . . . he’s strangely more honorable than that.”
“Aye, my lady,” Staeli said. He looked her seriously in the eye and then hefted the glaive. “I’d have been dead myself several times over if not for your training.” He gave her a look full of tenderness and appreciation. “Thank ye.”
She felt her throat catch at his expression of gratitude. Then she pulled inside herself, uttered the word of power, and clasped onto a series of ley lines that would bring her to the grove.
The sun had just risen in Brythonica when Trynne arrived in the grove full of house-sized boulders, hidden deep inside one of the hunting forests. The oak tree with the stream trickling through its roots was full of leaves, acorns, and buds of mistletoe, and birds of all sizes perched in its branches, calling out heartbreakingly poignant melodies. The grove was winter-like, full of crushed hailstones. The magic of the silver bowl had been invoked, although it was still chained to the plinth.
Trynne could see her breath coming out in puffs of mist. The song of the birds was intensely beautiful, but she wished she could silence them. Her boots took a few crunching steps over the icy shards before she stopped, her eyes bulging.
There was blood everywhere. The ice was melting, but the stain stood vividly against the white.
Trynne covered her mouth, feeling light-headed from more than the magic. Her knees were shaking violently.
There, on the ground in the middle of the grove, lay a severed hand.
“No, no, no,” she whimpered, dizziness threatening to make her faint.
Taking a few weary steps, she collapsed onto the wintry ground by the hand. It was as pallid as a lump of clay. Her skin crawled with dread as she reached out and touched it. So cold. The wedding band was missing from one of the splayed fingers.
She closed her eyes, unable to bear the sight of it. And then she groped the hand until she touched the press of metal on the ring finger. The invisible ring was still there.
Trynne slid it off the hand and the ring suddenly appeared in her palm. She felt a ripple of Fountain magic well up inside it.
“Papa,” she choked, staring down at the ring through her wet lashes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Broken
There were tears in Trynne’s eyes as she told the tale of what she had found in the hidden grove. She had not spoken a word about the Battle of Guilme. A hushed silence fell over the solar. King Drew took in a haggard breath, his cheekbone bruised from a buffet he’d taken on his helmet during the battle. Morwenna had brought him directly to the palace before returning to the battlefield to help tend the wounded. The king was stunned, his eyes betraying his despair, but also a spark of hope.
“Then Lord Owen may still be alive,” he whispered faintly. He turned to Sinia, who bore her suffering with quiet dignity.
“I don’t know,” Sinia whispered. “I’ve seen Gahalatine’s army attacking us again. My husband was not seated at the Ring Table. There was someone else in his stead. A knight with a painted face.”
Trynne nearly flinched when her mother said the words. She glanced at Genevieve, who returned the look but also said nothing.
“The painted knight,” the king said, nodding. “He was there at the battle.” He rubbed his mouth, beginning to pace. “No one knows who he is. Some say he hails from Atabyrion.” He shrugged. “Lord Iago cannot vouch for that.”
Trynne, anxious to cut off that train of thought, interceded. “My lord, there were signs of a struggle in the grove. Muddy boot prints and redwood fronds smashed into the ice. I don’t know how many were waiting there to ambush my father. Even with his Fountain magic, he would have been outnumbered and vulnerable. I didn’t feel . . . safe trying to find a hunter to bring back to the grove. I left it in the condition in which I found it and came to the palace to tell my mother and the queen.”