The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(141)

A rumbling beneath their feet made the dreamshaper look around.

“I’m afraid you’re too late,” Erishen said, glancing towards the heavy wooden chest in which he had concealed the young prince. “In a few moments this entire castle will explode, and there’s rather a lot of steel armour and weaponry on the floor below. Your chances of survival are minimal.”

He reached out to Kiiren and opened a tunnel into the dreamlands.

“Farewell.”

As he stepped through, he felt something catch at his heels. Damn it, they were following him! He rolled over on the dry grass, kicking at the claw-like hands grasping his ankles. Winged things shot overhead as the dreamshapers made their desperate escape. Erishen looked around to see Kiiren at the far end of the tunnel, arms out, beckoning. No!

With the last fragments of magic at his command he slammed the exit shut before his opponents could get to it. It was a gamble, but he suspected that without Tanijeel or Ilianwe to aid them they were trapped in here. Trapped in the endless night of the dreamlands, for he would not open a door for them no matter what they did to him. Of course, first they had to catch him. Falling onto all fours he transformed into a silver hound and coursed away across the grass, his enemies in hot pursuit.





EPILOGUE



Winter came early, up in the hills. By November they woke every morning to a world rimed in frost; by December it snowed as often as not, turning the roads to filthy freezing slush over a layer of compacted ice. The stream of visitors and letters, never frequent so far from London, trickled to a halt, and the estate closed in on itself to await the return of spring.

Children do not heed the turn of the seasons, however, and Coby found herself spending most of her daylight hours making new clothes for Kit, or altering the ones he already had when she ran out of sufficient fabric to make them anew. Not that he was growing especially fast, but they had brought little with them from London and he could hardly wear his courtly finery to ride his pony or play in the walled orchard.

“My lady?”

Their ancient steward hobbled into the parlour.

“You should not have come all the way upstairs, Lynwood. I told you to send one of the lads with messages.”

“I know, my lady. But even my old sinews need stretching from time to time.”

She put down her sewing. “What is it?”

“I was thinking, my lady…” He wrung his hands together. “Next Friday being the coronation as well as New Year’s Day, I reckon it might raise the household’s spirits to broach a cask of claret, to toast the new king’s health.”

“The new king?”

“Arthur, my lady.”

“Oh. Of course.”

Robert’s brother had been declared King after Henry was killed in the explosion at the Tower. The work of traitors, according to Lord Grey; the same men who had assassinated King Robert and laid the blame at the skraylings’ door. Grey had produced an extensive list of their names, compiled by his loyal servant Sir Maliverny Catlyn shortly before his tragic death at the hands of the same villains.

“We could make do with beer, my lady–”

“No, open the claret. It will not keep forever.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

“Only the one, mind. More than that will lead to rowdiness, in my experience.”

“Yes, my lady.” He turned to go. “I… I had thought you and the young master might have gone down to London.”

“Perhaps in the spring, when the theatres reopen.” Wild horses would not drag her to a coronation, not after last time. “Master Parrish has been nagging me to go, and I cannot put him off forever.”

The steward bowed and took his leave. Coby sat down, picked up her sewing and abandoned it again. A visit to London would do them both good, in truth. She could stay with Lady Frances for a while; Kit needed the company of other children, and the duchess’s little boy was of an age to play with him now.

The pale winter sunlight moved across the parlour floor and she watched it dully, wrapped around the ache in her chest that she had thought was beginning to heal. If they did not go to London she would have to send for a tutor for Kit, but after all he had gone through he needed time to be a normal boy for a while. Normal? No, he would never be that, even though he had become more Kit and less Kiiren in the months since Sandy’s death and Mal’s… She swallowed. Kiiren had said that Erishen, in Mal’s body, had gone into the dreamlands, but Erishen himself had once told her that no one knew what happened to someone who got trapped there.

Rapid footsteps sounded in the gallery outside, and the door burst open.

“Mamma, mamma, look who’s here!”

Kit burst into the room, eyes bright and cheeks flushed as if he’d been outside playing in the snow, but his clothes and hair were dry.

“What are you talking about, lambkin?”

“Look,” he said, turning back to the doorway.

Coby followed his gaze, and her breath caught in her throat. A familiar figure stood there; gaunt and wearing naught but rags and dried blood, but unmistakable.

“Mal?”

Throwing her work aside she leapt to her feet and ran to catch him as he fell.



He opened his eyes, blinking against the light that burned like the midday sun. It was a candle, set in a pewter candlestick. He watched the wax drip down one side, but no matter how hard he stared it took its own path, heedless of his will. Then it was true. He was back in the waking world.