Chapter 347: I Am Going To Kill Him

She could not speak. She knelt on the floor of her mother’s kitchen with a tiny wooden dragon in her fist, and her eyes brimming, and a hundred things swarming in her throat. She felt Kaelen’s hand settle on her shoulder, warm and steady. She felt Draeven’s gaze, quiet and golden, resting on her face.

"Thank you," she said, in a voice that was hardly a voice at all.

"Don’t thank me."

"I want to."

"Then thank him." Elara’s mouth twisted. "When you meet him. If you do. You may find you’ve a good deal to say to each other."

"Ma."

"I know." Elara reached out, and cupped her cheek. "I know, my darling. I know. It’s too much. It’s far too much. It isn’t fair." Her thumb wiped away a tear. "But you were never any good at being a child. I think it’s why you’re so good at this."

"At what?"

"At being brave."

Morgana laughed.

It came out wet, and cracked, and broke in the middle. She pressed her face into her mother’s knee, and Elara’s hand came down on her hair, thin and warm and steady, and stroked it, slowly, the way it had when she was small.

"There," she whispered. "There. It’s all right. I’ve got you."

"I’m supposed to be looking after you."

"You are." Elara’s voice shook. "You’re doing it beautifully."

***

It was nearly eight when they left.

The cottage was dark behind them. Elara had gone to lie down, grumbling, under the combined threat of three people, and was now asleep in the little room behind the loom with the goat curled up at the foot of the bed. Two of Rhen’s men stood at the gate, in plain brown cloaks, with their hands on their swords. A third was already walking the back lane. Thomas had gone to stand at his bakery door, with a lantern and a very large rolling pin.

The night was cold and clear.

The stars were out. The whole sky blazed, thick and bright and silent, and a faint wind stirred the dry grass. At the end of the lane, the inn showed a long rectangle of yellow light.

She walked between the two kings.

She wore her coat buttoned to the chin, and the little wooden dragon in the inside pocket, close to her heart, warm as a living thing. Her face was washed. Her hair was neat. She held her head high, and kept her hands loose, and felt the dragons in her chest, all three, stir and rise and turn toward the light like hounds on a scent.

"You felt something," she said.

"Yes," said Draeven.

"In her chest."

"Yes."

"What was it?"

He was silent for three paces.

"A seed," he said at last.

"A what?"

"Magic. Very old. Very small. Planted, not grown. It lies under her ribs like a splinter in the flesh." His voice was quiet. "It has been there for a very long time. Years. Decades, perhaps. It was dormant. It is not now."

"Someone put it there."

"Yes."

"Him."

"I think so."

She felt Kaelen go rigid on her other side. The air around him dropped by ten degrees.

"I am going to kill him," he said, very softly.

"Not yet."

"I’m going to freeze him and break him and—"

"Not yet, Kaelen."

"When?"

"When we know how to undo it." Draeven’s voice was steady, and iron-cold. "If we kill him, and it is bound to him, it may die with him. And so may she."

Nobody spoke.

She walked on. Her feet moved on the packed earth. The lights of the inn grew larger. She heard laughter from somewhere far off, and realized it was only the wind in the thatch.

"I won’t let her die," she said.

"Nor will I."

"I won’t."

"I know."

"If he wants me..." Her voice shook. "If he wants me to go to Valorhold, if it’s the only way...."

"We will find another."

"You don’t know there is one."

"I know that there is always one." His hand closed around hers. It was warm, and steady, and very strong. "It is rarely the one we are offered. You taught me that."

"Astraea taught you that."

"She said it to you. I am only repeating it." He smiled. It was small, and fleeting, and very tired. "But I find it holds."

She squeezed his hand.

***

The door of the inn was open.

It stood wide, spilling a long bar of golden light across the lane, and in the doorway, bowing, stood the man in the dark coat. He wore the same polite smile. He had taken off his hat.

"Lady Morgana," he said. "Your Majesties. His Grace is most grateful."

Nobody answered.

"If you will follow me?"

The common room had been cleared.

It was a long, low, smoky chamber, with a beamed ceiling and a stone floor, and in the daytime it must have been loud and crowded and stinking of ale. Tonight it was empty. The benches had been pushed against the walls. The tables had been stacked in a corner. In the center of the room, set end to end, stood a single long board, spread with a white cloth, and laid with silver.

Silver.

It struck her more than anything else. It was absurd. It was a village inn, a squat grey building with a crooked sign, and somebody had hauled a dozen silver candlesticks and a service of silver plate up three days of road to put on a table in front of a hearth. The candles burned tall and white. The wine glittered in crystal. The whole room had a quiet, polished, deliberate glow, like a stage set for a play.

At the head of the table, a man was seated.

He rose as they came in.

She had known what he would look like. She had heard it in Tavish’s voice, and she had built a picture in her mind, tall and pale and cold. But the picture had been wrong. It had been too simple.

He was so ordinary.