Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(47)

But from where Felix stood, it was as though a beam of brilliant sunlight fell solely upon the head of the disinherited prince, making him impossible to miss.

Felix glanced from side to side, but no one around him seemed to have spotted the suspected murderer in their midst. Should he speak up? Should he shout some warning?

But the horns were blaring now, and the chant of the holy orders had risen to a tempestuous crescendo. The man who would be king—the Baron of Middlecrescent, whom Felix had not yet met—appeared at the end of the hall. All eyes fixed on him, all eyes, that is, except for Felix’s. He stared at Lionheart shuffling into hiding behind the baron’s wife. Hymlumé and all the starry host, did the woman actually turn and wink at her supposed page boy? Did she not know who he was? Or . . . or maybe . . .

Below the noise, skimming beneath the sounds of two hundred singing voices and great shattering horns, came a sound like silver and water flowing over smooth stone. A voice of birdsong that struck Felix’s ear and caused him to turn his head. For a moment—a moment so brief, he must have imagined it—he saw the Prince of Farthestshore standing before him. Only he was standing in midair, which was impossible. That smile on his face, his hand pointing down toward the floor below the gallery—it was all a vision brought on by the heat and fancy clothes and odd foreign foods.

The moment passed. The vision was gone.

Felix, gulping, took a step forward and looked down over the gallery railing. He saw a man-at-arms directly below, dressed in red and armed with a tapered southerner’s sword. Beyond the guard was a door, cracked open so that Felix could just see a curving stairway spiraling up.

The Baron of Middlecrescent was midway down the aisle now, moving in a stately stride, his head high, his cold, fish-like eyes staring before him as though daring anyone in that company to question his right to kingdom and crown. His wife smiled and clasped her hands at the sight of him, and behind her the disgraced prince crouched and watched and waited.

Felix looked at the armed man below, at the door, and back at Lionheart. He did not know what it meant, but he thought he heard the birdsong again. His muscles tensed, and he grabbed the gallery rail. Sir Palinurus placed a warning hand upon his arm, but Felix ignored him.

The baron drew near the front now and paused to receive a blessing from one of the holy men, to drink from a certain cup, and to offer the wreath of paper flowers on his own head in exchange for the crown to come. Then he strode up the steps of the dais, where the queen-to-be stood to one side. And the holy man in golden robes, flanked by others of his order, approached with the crown of Southlands glittering in his hands.

It was so near. The baron’s eyes shone with the desire of it, and one could almost believe he would reach out and snatch it from the holy man’s hands. But instead he flung back his gorgeous robes, prepared to kneel and make his vows to people and country.

Before he knelt, however, the page boy sprang out from behind the baron’s wife, grabbed the baron by the top of his head, and pulled back sharply, holding a knife at his throat.

The assembly erupted. All music and sound of trumpets vanished in the cries of the people and clash of weapons being drawn. “Stay back! Stay back!” Lionheart shouted as he dragged the baron away from the clerics, moving swiftly across the dais. His voice could scarcely be heard in the din. The baron, his arms flailing, tried and failed to get a hold on his captor. With the blade at his neck, he could scarcely breathe, and his huge eyes rolled.

The queen, her mouth a little O of surprise, sprang forward just as the baron’s guardsmen mounted the dais steps. She flung herself at them, perhaps for protection, and dropped in an elaborate faint so that many fell over her in their efforts to reach her husband.

And Felix, watching from above, saw that Lionheart was making for the little door and the spiral stair.

Can you hear me? sang the songbird in his head.

The armed man by the door brandished his weapon and started toward Lionheart from behind.

“He’s not a murderer,” Felix whispered.

The next moment, Felix leapt over the gallery railing and came down on the guardsman’s back, flattening him. He landed harder than he’d expected and rolled to one side, struggling to reclaim his breath. He saw another guardsman coming and, moving on reflex rather than thought, stuck out a leg and tripped him. He righted himself then, just in time to see Lionheart reach the doorway, dragging his prisoner behind.

Lionheart looked at him. Felix saw a flash of desperate thanks in his eyes. Then the door slammed behind him and the baron. Guardsmen hurled themselves at it, their weapons thunking into the heavy wood.

It was bolted from the inside.





16


THERE, IN THE WOOD BETWEEN, a shadowed circle.

Deeper shadows drew near to the rims of the circle, silent as ripples of darkness on the face of a moon-empty lake. Eyes downcast, they stood, arms upraised, reaching out toward one another but never touching. Fingertips stretched, but always the emptiness between.

They were united.

They were alone.

The Bronze gleamed about each of their necks, breaking the shadows into points of light.

One figure, taller than the rest, nine feet at the least and crowned in great, curling horns, opened her eyes. They flashed gold in the light of the Bronze.

She spoke: “Our Advocates are dead.”

Her voice sibilated in the hollows of trees, through the close-gathered branches, into the minds of her brethren.