Chapter 34

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Chapter 34

‘Gone?'

Terault was standing very still, staring at the decoy bird in his follower's hand. Behind him, still held back by two of his guards, King Tomas looked thunderstruck.

‘Bring it to me,' Terault said. ‘Now.'

The unlucky blue-robed man descended the dais stairs. He looked more nervous than ever. The crowd hastily cleared a path for him, Terault's followers hauling their captives out of the way. When the man reached Terault, he raised his hand, and even from where she was, Andala could see it was shaking. Delicately, Terault picked up the false skylark and held it in front of his face.

Andala squinted. She could not make it out in great detail, but from this distance it certainly looked convincing – so much so that part of her tensed to see it in Terault's cruel hands.

An age seemed to pass as the seneschal examined the decoy. No one dared breathe. Finally, with a careless movement, Terault dropped the little bird to the ground. Then, with alarming viciousness, he raised a boot and crushed it beneath his heel. The resulting noise – a sharp crack, and the grinding of metal on stone – made half the room's occupants jump. 252

Andala fought the urge to glance at Kitt, to confirm he had done this. Of course he had. She could not give him away.

‘How,' said Terault, his voice low, smooth, dangerous, ‘has this been allowed to happen?'

No one responded.

‘ How ,' he said again, ‘can the most well-guarded creature in the kingdom have disappeared beneath all of your noses ?'

‘We've been here the whole time, sir,' piped up one of King Tomas's turncoat guards, an older man somewhere behind Terault. ‘We've been—'

He cut off with a grunt. A guard next to him appeared to have elbowed him in the ribs. But it was too late; Terault had heard.

The seneschal turned, a terrible slowness to his movements. ‘Who said that?'

Once more, nobody answered. But Terault already knew.

He pushed past King Tomas and moved towards the guard who had spoken, stopping before him. The man was slightly taller than Terault, but he looked small next to the towering heights of his leader's fury.

‘I only, meant, sir,' the older man began, ‘that—'

Terault struck him across the face. The man went down, hard. The court scholar he had held went with him; she scrambled to her feet but did not seem willing to dare trying to run.

The seneschal turned in a circle, casting his eye about the room. ‘Does anyone else wish to offer excuses? Does anyone else wish to explain their incompetence to me? No?'

With no response forthcoming, he strode back towards King Tomas. The king raised his chin defiantly as Terault approached. The gesture did not serve him well. This time, when Terault raised his thin blade and held it to the king's throat, its tip pressed into flesh. 253

‘Where is she?' he demanded.

‘I don't know.'

The blade sank a little deeper. Ahead of Andala, Kitt made a sudden movement, and was stilled by the guard restraining him.

‘I will do it.' It could not have been clearer that Terault's threat was far from empty. ‘I will cut your throat, here in this hall, in front of your subjects.'

‘You wouldn't dare.'

Again, Andala saw Kitt flinch at the words. Tomas was being reckless. And it did not do to defy a man like Terault, not with so many odds presently stacked in the seneschal's favour.

But Terault's blade did not move, did not sink any deeper into his ruler's neck. Perhaps he knew how unwise it would be, to murder the king of Cielore in front of so many witnesses. Or perhaps he knew that if Tomas had hidden the skylark, he might have been clever enough to keep the knowledge of where to himself. In that case, Terault would need him alive.

Either way, he withdrew his blade, quickly enough to leave a visible nick on the white of the king's throat. Tomas sank back a little. He seemed shocked, for a second, that Terault hadn't done it. But Terault wasn't finished yet.

‘Round them up,' he barked, waving his dagger at his followers. ‘All of them, the king included. Take them to the dungeons. Then give the order for the rest of the palace to be held under guard. The king has exactly one hour to disclose the skylark's location to me. If he does not, then I am afraid I will have to start using this blade on his people, one by one, until he sees fit to change his mind.' A pause, to let his words sink in. Then a final instruction: ‘Go.'

The effect was instantaneous. The room erupted into mayhem once again. Shouts rang out, peppered by screams. Terault's followers 254 seemed more violent now, more willing to use extreme force to carry out their orders. People were shoved to the ground, struck, caught with arms around their throats.

Andala's captor, however, had released her in the confusion of the false lark's discovery. Before he could seize her again, she ducked into a half-crouch, trying to make her way through the press of people unseen. She would get out of here. She had to. She needed to find Oriane. There was no time to be captured with the rest of them, not now—

‘Andala!'

Kitt. Andala's stomach lurched at the sound of his voice: panicked, desperate.

‘Andala?'

‘This who you're looking for?' called a voice behind her. Very close. Too close.

Andala straightened, spun – but it was too late. The tall, thin guard had found her. His face twisted in a smile as he thrust out a hand to grab her.

Frantically, Andala wrenched her arm away, just managing to evade his grip. She turned, ducking low again, getting ready to run—

At the same time, somebody's fist swung wild, and struck her, hard, on the side of her head.

Pain exploded through her temple, a bright shock of agony that stole the breath from her lungs. A white sheen blossomed before her eyes. She dropped like a stone, landing heavily on the hard floor, feet treading on her outstretched hands, her arms.

Her vision returned, but she soon wished it hadn't. The trampling of her limbs was nothing compared to the pain in her head. Dazed, dizzy, she lay there, one side of her face pressed to the cold stone. She needed to get up. She could not get up. 255

It was not long before total, blessed blackness swept in. The last thing Andala saw was the remnant of the false skylark, lying there on the floor with her: nothing but a crushed mass of metal, unrecognisable as the bird it had once been.