The King's Traitor (Kingfountain #3)(85)
Owen’s heart wrenched. “Poison,” he said simply, and sighed. He stared at the shroud and then hobbled up to it. Wincing, he knelt down and lifted the cloth from her face. It was like looking at a mask, not the woman he’d grown to care for and admire. A knife of grief stabbed him sharply in the heart. The feeling of loneliness came down on him like the falling snow.
“She was a . . . a capable lass,” Kevan said, standing just over Owen’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t have wished to face her in a fight.”
Owen stared down at the waxy face, the clay that no longer had the spark of life. She had given that spark to him. He gently set the cloth down and tried to stand, though his legs protested. Kevan nodded to the soldiers and gripped Owen’s arm, helping him up.
“She was my friend,” Owen said in a low voice after the soldiers bent down and lifted the poles to carry the canoe to the river. The sound of it filled his ears, mimicking the magic that had forsaken him.
The two men followed the soldiers as they walked to the platform constructed at the river’s edge. Standing vigil, they watched as the four soldiers upended the poles and the canoe pitched forward and landed with a splash in the frigid waters. Owen felt his eyes growing moist, and a lump lodged in his throat as he watched the canoe speed away toward Our Lady and the waterfall beyond. Memories of the night he’d fallen into the river surfaced. The water was so very cold. He couldn’t stand the thought of Etayne being cold. He couldn’t bear the thought of her body washing up on shore to be devoured by wolves.
“If you would, my friend,” Owen said thickly. “Send some men down to retrieve the corpse at the base of the falls. Bury it under a mound of stones.”
Kevan put his hand on Owen’s shoulder and gave a small nod. “Consider it done.”
They started back toward the palace in silence, but the king’s royal butler met them on the path.
“What is it?” Owen asked the grim-faced man.
The butler bit his lip. “They caught a man called Dragan in the castle,” he said. “The king bids you come at once.”
Owen gave Kevan a worried look, and they both followed the butler to the throne room. The castle was much warmer than the exterior, and Owen’s ears began to tingle back to life. How had the Espion managed to capture a man who could disappear at will?
“Do you know aught of this?” Owen asked Kevan.
“Nothing at all,” the man said with concern.
Owen wiped his nose. “Someone wants to earn the king’s favor, no doubt.”
When they reached the throne room, Owen noticed that it was full of soldiers wearing the badge of the white boar. There were easily twenty or thirty men, and they stared at Owen with open hostility. His pulse began to race as he limped into the room. The servants were all gone. Catsby stood by the king, arms folded, and his smug, self-satisfied look confirmed that something was very wrong.
Then Owen saw it. The Wizr chest was sitting at the base of the throne. The Wizr chest.
Severn was seated on the throne itself, holding an unfolded piece of paper with a broken wax seal on the edge. The other letters Sinia had written were spread across the king’s lap. The look he gave Owen was full of daggers and condemnation.
Owen saw Dragan off to the side, sipping from a cup of wine. He nodded it in a mock salute, a cunning smile wrinkling his face.
“I believe this letter,” the king said coldly, “is for you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The King’s Traitor
The sensation of panic and guilt struck Owen in the pit of his stomach like a physical blow. His mouth went dry, his entire body began to tremble, and the blood drained from his cheeks. The Wizr board was open, and he could see the black king’s scowl. It would hardly have surprised him if the stone eyes had turned him into a statue as in the legends of old.
“At a loss for words, my lord duke? For excuses?” the king said in a low voice, but the rage behind it was growing as Owen’s feeling of helplessness intensified. Severn rose from his throne, gripping the dagger hilt so tightly his knuckles turned white. The look on his face was full of condemnation.
Owen hadn’t expected to get caught, not in a hall full of witnesses, but it was almost a relief not to carry the burden of secrecy any longer.
“My guilt?” Owen said in a short, clipped tone. “I have not read that letter, my lord king. How can I respond to your accusation without knowing what it says?”
“By all means,” replied the king. He stood atop the dais and extended his arm, his eyes glittering with wrath. “Read it to your doom. I have seen Lady Llewellyn’s script often enough to recognize her hand. This is no forgery. And she implicates you in the deepest of treasons.”
It felt as if he were falling off a cliff and the world were rushing past him. As he crossed the distance to where the king extended the letter, the sound of his boots echoed in the hall as loud as thunder crackling in the sky. He reached the dais and took the letter from the king. Should he try drawing on what little magic had trickled back into his banks? The king and Dragan would sense it, though, and it would give them a sense of his current weakness. He decided against it and quickly scanned the letter Evie had written to him, which—by any possible interpretation—condemned him of treason. As he read her words, he wondered why Sinia had sent the letter along to him if she’d known what would happen. But as he’d come to learn, the timing of her visions was not always exact. Or perhaps she did know what would happen, and there was some reason it needed to unfold this way.