Page 164 of The Sun King's Noon

The trees blurredpast in green smears. Richard bent low over Ashfall’s neck and urged her faster. Beside him, Kaelen rode hard, his cloak streaming, and behind them, Joffrey bellowed at the trailing soldiers to keep up. Elara’s markers came thick along the path—a soldier’s shield pointing left, a crimson scarf knotted around a branch, an arrow sign singed into the moss at every fork.

West. West and west again. The sun climbed, and Richard’s thighs burned, and his mother’s voice kept returning to him?—

“Here she is. My little star. My miracle child. Keep her safe, son. Do not let the dark take her.”

Richard swallowed down bile.

Why would Briony have stolen those ledgers? Had it been something she’d seen? The Wyrd Hinge? How had the harpy been able to come so close to the castle?—

Richard drove his heels into Ashfall. As the trees opened into a field, he smelled smoke on the wind. He crested a low rise and saw a meadow ringed by Ardenian soldiers. In the meadow’s centre was a stone building—three stories tall and every aperture vomiting flame.

An abandoned healing hall, Richard realised. It now blazed like a forge, heat shimmering the air above it. Soldiers had drawn back to the meadow’s edge with their shields raised against their faces.

Ashfall slowed to a halt at the line, and Richard jumped off, ignoring the soldiers who saluted. He recognised Elara and Corwin’s riderless mounts at the front.

“Your Majesty—” A soldier stumbled forward, soot streaking his cheeks.

“Report,” Richard said as Kaelen landed beside him.

“Sire, we—we cannot get in. When we reached, we could hear the princess Briony screaming from within, and Princess Elara—well, she opened her hands and burned the whole building in a single breath. Spent almost every drop of her wellspring on it, sire—saw her sway. Then she and Prince Corwin ran inside, and we could not follow—the air burns our lungs at twenty paces. Even our fire mages cannot bat away the flames.”

Kaelen grabbed Richard’s arm. “Do not?—”

Richard wrenched himself free and ran.

“No! My king!”

The grass crisped under Richard’s boots as he neared the door. Drawing his sword, he shouldered through the hall’s singed doors. Inside, the world was afire. Tapestries hung in burning rags. Fire curled along the ceiling. Smoke hung thick in the air. A charred body sprawled in the doorway of a side chamber, the flesh having melted off.

“Elara!” Richard bellowed. “Corwin! Briony!”

Another body at the corridor’s bend, this one with its bones showing white through cracked flesh. The wallpaper here was black.

“ELARA!”

The corridor opened into the teaching auditorium, with its tiered circle of long benches descending towards a central dais beneath a domed ceiling. Half the benches were on fire, and at least fifty smoking corpses lay strewn between them.

And on the dais were his kin.

Briony knelt in the centre of the platform, her dress smeared with blood, her face buried in Corwin’s chest. He was kneeling too, his arms wrapped around her, rocking her from side to side. Elara stood at the edge of the dais, her face pasty and caked with sweat, her palms crackling with flames. They guttered as she turned her head?—

“Oh, by every god.” The flames died altogether. “Brother.”

Richard raced down the steps between the benches. He gasped at the blood that covered the dais. “Briony?—”

“Most of it is not hers.” Elara swayed on her feet, and Richard caught her around the waist. “They only needed a few drops—took it from a puncture in her palm, and she will not stop crying over it. But I have her now.” She straightened, pushing Richard away. “So, you see, Brother, your presence was not required. There was a situation, and I handled it.”

Corwin raised his head from Briony’s hair and said indignantly, “Wehandled it, Sister. I cleaved through at least five who did not burn fast enough.”

“Yes, yes.” Elara snorted. “You are a hero, Corwin, and all the ballads shall sing of you.” She grinned viciously. “But it was I who saw a predicament and set it afire.”

For the first time, Richard noted the circle. It was drawn in blood, with Briony in the middle, accompanied by strange runes spaced about its rim.

A section of the dome’s plasterwork crashed into the upper benches, throwing up a fountain of orange sparks.

“We must go.” Richard sheathed his sword. “Quickly. The roof shall soon come down upon us?—”

“I’m sorry!” Briony lifted her face from Corwin’s chest, and the terror carved into her features sent a chill up Richard’s spine. “I’m so sorry!” She keened, staring at Corwin. “You have to go. But I won’t let you go alone. I won’t, I’ll come with you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry?—”