Fyn woke with the feeling that something was wrong. Then it came back to him… Rolencia was at war with Merofynia.
He rolled over, his hand going to his chest to stop the royal emblem from tangling in its chain, but he'd left the foenix pendant in Halcyon's Sacred Heart. That was when he'd planned to leave the abbey to protect his sister's secret, and needed to hide his identity.
He hadn't wanted to leave but he couldn't stay, not after Piro had revealed her Affinity to him. The mystics master would have uncovered Fyn's guilty knowledge as soon as he began training. But now that the mystics master had gone off to ambush the Merofynians, the unexpected dawning of Piro's Affinity was the least of his troubles.
He told himself his sister would be safe as long as she stayed in Rolenhold, for the castle's defences had never been breached. It did no good. Fear for his mother and Piro gnawed at his belly. Before this, he had never understood how his brothers could cheerfully lead war parties against upstart warlords, but the thought of thirteen-year-old Piro in the hands of Merofynian warriors ignited his blood.
He suspected the same feelings had kept the other acolytes awake, talking long into the night boasting how they would prove their bravery, if only they had the chance. But Halcyon's warrior monks did not send children to war, even if those acolytes were due to become monks this spring cusp with the responsibilities of men.
War with Merofynia…
Fyn didn't understand how it had come to this. His father's betrothal to King Merofyn's daughter had heralded thirty years of peace. When Myrella's younger brother had died in suspicious circumstances, her cousin had seized the Merofynian throne. This meant Fyn's eldest brother could become betrothed to the new king's daughter, and it should have ensured another thirty years of peace. But, early yesterday, a message had arrived from King Rolen asking the abbot to send the warrior monks. So the weapons master had marched out with every able-bodied monk, leaving only the frail and the lads in Halcyon Abbey.
At nearly seventeen, Fyn and his fellow acolytes thought themselves men and had railed against being left behind.
Unable to lie still Fyn rolled over again and, once again, his hand went to settle on the absent foenix symbol. He felt its phantom presence, its shape, its weight… and the niggling sense of wrongness solidified with an uncomfortable jolt of fear. The seal on the king's message had been a fake. The foenix symbol was too small to belong to his father.
Fyn sat up in bed, nauseous with the realisation that the weapons master and nearly six hundred of Halcyon's finest warriors were skating into a trap.
He sprang out of the bunk, heart racing.
'Bad dream?' Feldspar whispered. 'Don't worry, your sister will be -'
'I'm not worried about Piro.' Fyn crouched between their bunks. For a heartbeat he considered telling Feldspar his fears, but decided against it. He'd creep upstairs to the abbot's chamber, light a candle and check the seal. If he was right, they could send someone to warn the weapons master. A single skater could travel the frozen canals faster than hundreds of warriors. If he was wrong, he'd come back to bed and put it down to a vivid imagination and no one would be any the wiser.
'Go back to sleep, Feldspar. It's probably nothing.' Fyn kept his voice low so as not to disturb Hawkwing on the other side.
Already dressed in his breeches, Fyn slipped on his indoor shoes, soft-soled slippers, and tugged his saffron robe over his shoulders. The abbey was built into the side of Mount Halcyon and warmed by her hot springs, but even so the night was cold.
Leaving the sleeping acolytes, Fyn entered the hall leading towards the spiral stairs. He was already beginning to doubt his memory of the seal and wondered if he should simply go back to bed, when an odd noise made him stop. It sounded like the distant pattering of rain. The abbey had been unnaturally quiet since the warriors set off, its empty halls and chambers magnifying every sound.
Fyn tilted his head, straining to hear. The sound made no sense. It was too cold to rain. Silent on his indoor slippers, he ran to the window which looked down into the courtyard.
Illuminated by brilliant starlight, the courtyard rippled with life. Hundreds of warriors hurried across the stone flags, their boots making a soft susurration. Fyn's mind refused to accept what he saw, even as the men crept across the courtyard, flowing into the abbey's formal ground-floor chambers.
How could the enemy have penetrated this far without sounding the alarm? The old monk on night duty must have been tricked into opening the gate. The abbey was defenceless!
Alarm made his heart race. Fyn's feet hardly felt the ground as he ran back to the acolytes' chamber, waking Feldspar. 'To arms! We are under attack!'
Feldspar threw back the covers.
Hawkwing rolled out of bed, reaching for his boots. 'Merofynians?'
'I didn't stop to ask,' Fyn admitted.
'Did you have another vision?' Feldspar asked. 'Is that why you woke?'
His last vision had been of his brother's betrothed, Isolt. What manner of king would promise his daughter in marriage then make war on his future son-in-law's kingdom?
An unscrupulous man, a cunning man. The kind of man who would send a fake message to lure Halcyon's monks away from the abbey, leaving only acolytes and old men to defend it.
The boys… they didn't stand a chance!
'What's going on?' an anxious voice asked.
'We're under attack,' Hawkwing answered. 'Get everyone up.'
Word spread like a forest fire.
Their surprised exclamations made Fyn impatient. They had no time for this. He grabbed Hawkwing's arm. 'Wake the abbot, tell him the abbey's been breached.' Fyn turned to Feldspar. The boys, aged six to twelve, were on the floor below, between them and the intruders. 'Feldspar, take the boys down to the inner sanctum and bolt the door. Do it quickly, before the Merofynians find the great stairs.'
'This would never have happened if the grucranes hadn't left us,' Feldspar muttered, putting on his slippers.
He was right. The god-touched beasts had lived in the abbey for generations. One of their flock always stood guard ready to call a warning, but…
'No time for ifs,' Fyn snapped, thinking of the day the grucrane leader had been injured, the day the old seer had foreseen this very attack. When she'd spoken of Halcyon Abbey in ruins, he'd laughed. The seer must not be proven right. 'Hurry, both of you!'
Hawkwing and Feldspar darted away.
Fyn turned to the others. They'd tugged on boots and robes and faced him. 'The rest of you, come with me.'
He snatched a lamp someone had lit and ran out the door and down the corridor. Behind him, he could hear the acolytes' boots slapping on the tiles, hear their hurried explanations as the younger acolytes poured out of their sleeping chambers. He couldn't possibly lead thirteen-and fourteen-year-olds against grown warriors. Fyn stopped in his headlong race for the armoury and spun to face them.
'You.' He pointed to a youth of fourteen, whose name escaped him. 'Take the younger ones down to the sanctum, the rest of you come with me. We must defend the abbey.'
There was muffled shouting as boys of thirteen insisted they should stay and take up arms. The thought made Fyn sick to his stomach. True, they'd been studying weapons since they were six, but experienced warriors would cut them down like chaff. Besides, the best weapons had gone with the warriors, which meant the abbey's defenders would have to make do with blunted practice swords.
Furious, he signalled for silence. The acolytes obeyed, watching him expectantly, hopefully. Who was he to decide who lived and died? Who had elected him their leader?
'I need the youngest acolytes to go down to the sanctum where they can protect the boys and Halcyon's Sacred Flame. Can you do that?'
Put that way, they nodded and ran off. He only hoped they reached the sanctum in time. 'The rest of you come with me.'
Down one flight of stairs and along the corridor, Fyn flung open the armoury, hung the lantern high on a hook and began handing out padded chest protectors, swords, long knives and pikes, whatever he could find.
'I don't understand,' a youth muttered, 'the abbeys have always been sanctuaries in time of war. Why would the Merofynians attack us?'
'Booty,' Fyn guessed. 'Both the abbeys contain great wealth, gold icons, jewelled chests -'
'Fyn?' The abbot hurried in, with half a dozen elderly monks. Hawkwing brushed past Fyn, intent on grabbing a weapon.
'Abbot.' Fyn gave an abbreviated bow. 'The message from Father was a fake. The foenix was too small to be the king's seal.'
The abbot winced. 'You're sure?'
Fyn nodded.
'The attack on the abbey is all the proof we need,' muttered Sunseed, the gardens master. Gnarled hands that had nurtured delicate seedlings strapped on a sword belt with equal efficiency. 'So, our warriors were lured into an ambush?'
'When the real target was the abbey,' Fyn agreed.
'Clever!' Old, half-blind Silverlode buckled a chest plate by feel.
'What of the boys?' the abbot whispered. 'We must protect the little ones.'
'Feldspar's taken them down to the mystics' inner sanctum,' Fyn said. 'It's big enough for all of them and the doors lock from the inside.'
'Well done, Fyn.'
'Abbot?' Hawkwing shuffled to the front of about forty lads of fifteen and sixteen. 'We're ready.'
'Good. Now listen. Their Power-workers must not steal our sorbt stones,' the abbot announced.
Fyn cursed under his breath. Of course. The stones held power drained from Affinity seeps. In the wrong hands…
'We should have destroyed the stones!'
'Power is like fire, it is only a tool. Evil is in the heart of the ones who wield it,' the abbot told him. 'They'll be heading for the great stairs -'
'To the stairs!' Hawkwing yelled and charged out the door and down the corridor, followed by eager shouting acolytes.
'There goes the element of surprise,' old Silverlode muttered, then ran after them.
Fyn was drawn along in the mad rush. He quickly outstripped the old monks.
Like the spine of a great animal, the abbey was united by the great spiral stairs, which connected the mystics' inner sanctum far below to the libraries and offices of the abbot far above. Between them lay seven floors containing the workshops, the kitchen, the bathing chambers and dormitories.
When Fyn reached the stairwell, the youths were milling on the large landing, whispering excitedly.
'Quiet!' Fyn warned. 'Quiet!'
At his order they fell silent. Far below, the rapid tattoo of running boots echoed in the stairwell, getting further and further away.
Fyn cursed just as the abbot and the old monks joined them. 'We're too late. They've sent scouts down to the inner sanctum.'
The abbot turned to the gardens master. 'Hold the stairs, Sunseed. Fyn, come with me.'
Piro had been in hiding since Illien of Cobalt had turned her father against her. As lord protector of the castle Cobalt had ordered her arrested, but she still had friends. And so she waited in the scullery for the cook to bring her food. For years she had been coming to the kitchens to collect the special meals prepared for her pet foenix. Now she was living on scraps and dressed in a maid's pinafore stolen from the laundry.
Rolenhold Castle was home to six hundred people. And Piro knew each one, from the lowliest stable lad to the lord protector. Tonight all those people had been fed and the last pots from the last meal of the day had been polished and hung on their hooks, gleaming in the light of the kitchen's remaining lamp. Like the kitchen boys and girls who slept under the tables, Piro was terribly tired. Soon she would slip into Halcyon's chantry and crawl behind the nave to snatch some rest. So far she had chosen a different sleeping place each night.
The spit-turners had crept off to their bed bundles and now only the cook remained awake, planning the menu for the next day. When the last of the whispers died away and it was clear the kitchen children were fast asleep under the long wooden tables, the cook put her notes away and rose, glancing to the scullery where Piro was hidden. Piro's stomach rumbled in anticipation. Just then two servants returned with laden trays.
'What's this?' the cook demanded. 'Didn't he touch his dinner? But it's his favourite.'
Piro went very still.
'The king suffers something awful. Won't eat. Can't sleep for the pain and there's nothing the healers can do for him,' the servant explained, sliding the tray onto the table. 'It's terrible to see.'
Piro's heart went out to her father. He was not the man he had been at midwinter. Back then King Rolen's deep voice had boomed across the great hall as he demanded a second serving. It was nothing for him to sit down to a meal that lasted for four hours, consuming great qualities of rich food and fine Rolencian red wine. She had always felt so safe with him but now… now he had been diminished by the renegade Power-worker Cobalt had placed in his service.
Under guise of treating her father's old war injuries, the man had been leaching the king's strength, making him dependent on a concoction of herbs that stole his will and left him a shell of the man who had saved Rolencia at eighteen. Piro and her mother had uncovered the trickery and removed the manservant, but the damage was done.
Despite her father's sudden frailty – no, because of it, Piro loved him fiercely.
She had to see him. She was certain she could do more than the healers. Back before these troubles began, one of the spit-turners had burnt his hand and she'd helped ease his pain, using her Affinity to draw it off, and no one had been any the wiser.
The cook glanced once in Piro's direction and dismissed the servants. Piro waited until they had gone and hurried out on soft slippers.
'I must go to Father,' she whispered, no longer hungry.
'Cobalt's sure to have told the guard to be on the look out for you,' the cook warned, plump jowls wobbling with worry.
'I know. But I must go.'
'Cobalt's offered a bag of gold for your recapture,' the cook revealed.
Piro frowned. 'Only one?'
The cook smiled briefly. 'Take care, kingsdaughter. Cobalt cannot be charmed.'
'I know,' Piro whispered. 'For he has no heart.' When she'd learnt how his bride had been murdered by Utland raiders, she had tried to ease his sorrow, and found only emptiness behind his tears.
The cook shook her head as Piro slipped away.
Byren woke with a smile on his lips. He'd come up with a simple, elegant way to save the child and the Affinity beast. True, he could not defeat a Power-worker, but the Utlander had revealed the very tool that could kill him. Byren should have seen it right away. His only excuse was that he had no Affinity, so he wasn't used to thinking in those terms.
He mustn't fall into that trap again.
Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Byren checked the position of the wanderers against the backdrop of stars. Good, it was nearly midnight. Rising carefully, he went to find the sentry. Another man had taken the same place as the other and was dozing at his post, shrouded in a thick fur cloak. From this angle he would not see Byren enter the seep.
The hollow glowed softly, lit by the accumulated power in the sorbt stone. Byren's skin crawled as he approached the stone. It was the knowledge that this thing pulsed with untamed Affinity that made him wary, not an innate ability to sense Affinity. He'd been tested as a child and found to be blind to it, unlike his brother. Poor little Fyn.
His mother had put on a brave face when the six-year-old had to go to the abbey, but she had wept when she thought no one was looking. As a lad of barely ten summers Byren hadn't known how to console her. All he could do was hug her and bring her pretty things he'd collected especially for her.
Now Byren picked up the sorbt stone, grateful for his gloves and his lack of Affinity, and tucked it inside his vest. He needed his hands free for the sentry.
Byren did not enjoy killing a man while he slept, but it was necessary. The sentry didn't know what happened. With luck, the others would not discover his death until dawn.
Body thrumming with the heightened state of awareness that came during battle, Byren glided down into the dip and approached the Utlander's snow-cave. It had been built on a slight slope. A man does not like to sleep with his head lower than his feet, so Byren guessed that the Power-worker would be sleeping with his head at the highest point.
Feeling at his waist for the hunting knife, Byren began to cut a window in the snow-cave. This was the most dangerous part, for if the snow had not been packed tightly enough, fine powder would fall on the sleeping Power-worker and wake him. Or, when Byren tried to ease his knife under the circular window, he could lose control and it might drop into the shelter.
He was lucky. The circle of packed snow lifted out without breaking. Byren turned back to the shelter to find the girl peering out at him, head through the gap. Silently, he cursed the luck that had led him to choose the side she slept on.
Byren lifted his finger to his lips and gestured the girl aside. Her head sank back into the snow-cave and he peered inside. By the glow of the brazier, he made out the sleeping Utlander. Such was his awe of renegade Power-workers that for a heartbeat Byren doubted his plan.
The calandrius stirred, uttering a soft interrogative sound. The girl hushed it.
Too late for doubts. Byren cut away at the snow-cave, widening the window with great care. Too much and the roof would collapse. Then he pulled the sorbt stone out of his jerkin and showed the girl. Her eyes widened. Byren pointed to the Power-worker and mimed placing the sorbt stone in the Utlander's arms.
The Affinity-slave nodded.
Licking dry lips, Byren watched as she wrapped a blanket around her hands and accepted the stone. With great care, she knelt next to her sleeping master and slid the stone under the Utlander's bare hands. He slept on his side, so that he was now curled around it.
Byren knew the sorbt stone would absorb the Power-worker's latent Affinity while he slept. At best it might kill, at worst it would weaken him severely.
The girl looked to Byren, who nodded and smiled to show that she had done well, then held out his arms. He was a head taller than most men and easily big enough to lift her out of the shelter.
Without a word, the girl crawled back to the calandrius and gathered it in her arms. She passed the bird to Byren, who sat it on the snow. It seemed very docile, fed, warm and weak from injury. Even so, Byren suspected the girl had been using her Affinity to soothe it.
Then he turned back to lift the girl out. But she held up the chain and glanced resentfully at the Power-worker. Byren realised the end was fixed to the man in some way while he slept.
'I can prise open the links,' he whispered in Merofynian, drawing his knife.
The girl looked doubtful but crept over, offering her thin neck with the collar and attached chain.
Byren studied the chain. It was well made and so was the metal collar. The weakest point was where the chain had been soldered to the back of the collar. Slipping a finger inside it, he put the tip of his knife in the solder and exerted pressure at an angle. Careful not to slip and cut the girl or push too hard and cut his own finger, he increased the pressure until the solder gave way. The chain fell away but he caught it before it could make any noise. The girl placed it carefully on the blanket, so as not to wake the Utlander. Though she hated him fiercely, she obviously had a great deal of respect for his power.
Byren could do nothing about the metal collar. If he had time he could work on the joint, but, for now, he slipped his hands under the girl's arms and hoisted her out. She weighed less than he'd expected.
He set her on her feet and, with a signal for silence, led her away from the camp and the seep, towards the lake. He only had one set of skates and he was carrying out his father the king's orders. The best he could do was give her some food and send her on her way. The calandrius was almost too large for her to carry so she wouldn't be able to travel fast. But the Power-worker's escort would not be concerned with her. They'd return to report to their overlord. If the Utlander died, Byren would have dealt Palatyne a serious, though not devastating, blow. He knew the overlord was accompanied by at least two more Power-workers, rivals for their leader's trust.
'Here.' Byren paused at the lake's edge to strap on his skates, then stood up and dug into his pack, pulling out the last of his food, cold meat and two-day-old bread. The girl put the food away for later. He checked the wandering stars… midnight. He still had a long way to go.
Pointing across the lake to the mountain, which was a dark triangle against the foaming stars, he spoke in Merofynian.
'That's Mount Halcyon. Aim for it. Go around the base. On the far side is a fishing village. Tell them Byren Kingson said that they're to take you across to Sylion Abbey. The nuns will look after you, protect you.'
A shiver ran through the girl's thin frame.
Byren undid the clasp of his cloak and swung the heavy fur over her shoulders. She raised wondering eyes to him.
'We do things differently here in Rolencia,' he told her. 'For one thing we don't chain up children.'
'You're a kingson and yet you speak Merofynian?'
'My mother taught me.'
'Queen Myrella? They say her father was a good king. No one likes the new King Merofyn,' she confided, then cast a quick look at Byren to gauge his reaction. 'They also say the nuns of Sylion steal children who have Affinity and turn them into slaves.'
'It's not true. My brother has Affinity and he's been with the monks in Halcyon Abbey for ten years now. He comes to visit us every feast day. They feed him and teach him a trade. And his Affinity will be used to make Rolencia a better place for everyone.'
The girl blinked. The bird stirred.
Byren glanced at it. 'They'll care for the bird, too. I must leave. Remember, go that way.'
'Can't I stay with you?'
'I'm off to war.'
'I've been to war.'
Byren didn't doubt it. 'In Rolencia we don't send children to war. You'll be safe at the abbey.'
'I -'
'You'd slow me up. I'm on the king's business.'
The girl clutched his arm but said nothing. A light snow began to fall.
He squeezed her hand. 'The snow will cover your tracks. I've got to go now.'
She nodded, but her eyes never left his face.
There was no more he could do for her. 'What's your name?'
'Dinni.'
He realised she would be very pretty once she was fed and cleaned up, even with the lopsided eye.
'Halcyon's luck be with you, Dinni.'
'And with you, kingson.' She let him go at last.
He was wide awake now, so he set off at a good pace. If he skated all night, he should reach the abbey by mid-morning.