Sapphique

‘To survive. Because without me you couldn’t’ Keiro stood lightly, gazing at Fi

‘I’ve remembered.’

‘Remembered!’

‘Who I am Fi

‘No.’ Fi

‘What?’ Fi

‘Sire.’ Ralph was pale and breathless. ‘Sire …’ The soldier stepped out from behind him and he had a drawn sword in one hand and a pistol in the other.

Two more men slipped round the door. One slammed it shut and put his back to it.

Jared stood, slowly.

Keiro didn’t move, his eyes alert.

‘We’ve come for the Earl. One of you open that door and get him. If anyone else moves I fire.’ The pistol was raised and pointed directly at Fi

Ralph gasped, ‘I’m sorry; sire, so sorry! They made me tell them …’

‘It’s all right, Ralph.’ Fi

‘Jared?’ Jared said, ‘I’ll fetch him. Don’t shoot. There’s no need for violence.’ He moved to the door, out of Fi

‘Oh come on, brother.’ Keiro’s voice was light and sharp. ‘It was an odd day in the Prison when such things didn’t happen.’ A door was unlocked behind them. Jared’s voice spoke, low and quiet. Then there was a laugh of pure glee. That must be Caspar.

‘How did you get in here?’ Fi

The soldier’s aim did not waver. But he said, ‘We captured one of the Steel Wolves out there in the woods. He was . . . persuaded to talk. He showed us the tu

‘No, Prisoner. I think we’ll go out through the front door.’ Instantly, one of the other men swivelled his weapon. ‘Keep still!’ Keiro must have moved. Fi

Fi

‘I don’t think so. Have they harmed you, sire?’

‘They wouldn’t have dared.’ Caspar stalked into the room and stared around. ‘Well, this is better, don’t you think, Fi

‘What if I told these men to cut off a few ears and hands?’ Fi

‘Sire,’ Jared said. ‘We brought you here to stop the seige, not to harm you. You know that.’

‘Don’t try to fool me with words, Jared. These two cut-throats would have killed me anyway, and maybe you as well, later on. This is a nest of rebels. And I don’t know where Claudia is hiding but she won’t get any mercy from us either.’ His eye fell on the Glove and he stared at it curiously. What is that?’

‘Please don’t touch that: Jared said, his voice edged with nerves.

Caspar took a step nearer to the table. ‘Why not?’ Keiro’s shadow had edged close. Fi

‘It’s a magical object of great power.’ Jared’s reluctance was just right. ‘It may give access to the Prison.’ Greed lit Caspar’s face. ‘She’ll be thrilled if I take that back for her.’

‘Sire.’ The guard’s eyes wavered. ‘Don’t …’ Caspar ignored him, took one step forward and in that instant Jared grabbed him, locked his arms behind him and held him in a tight grip.

Keiro whooped. Jared said, ‘Lower the gun. Please.’

‘You won’t hurt the Earl, Master,’ the soldier said. ‘And my orders are clear. The Prisoner dies.’ His finger twitched and Fi

And then as the door was flung open, in all the stamping and shouts, he knew the blood was not his but Keiro’s because his brother lay still and crumpled beside him in the uproar.

‘Fi

Fi

‘I’m all right,’ he said. But the words came out thick and groggy and he dragged himself out of Jared’s grip.

‘Our men heard the shot. It’s all over.’ Fi

‘Keiro?’ For a moment there was nothing, no movement, no answer, and he felt all colour drain away from the world, his life shrivel to a terrible fear.

And then Keiro jerked and rolled and they saw that his hand was wounded, a slashed burnmark across the palm. He lay on his back and his body convulsed.

‘You’re laughing?’ Fi

‘Because it hurts, brother.’ Keiro pulled himself upright and there were tears of agony in his eyes. ‘It hurts, and that means it’s real.’ It was his right hand, the metal thumbnail stark in the scorched flesh.

Fi

‘You’re mad.’

‘Indeed he is,’ Jared said.

But Keiro looked up at him. ‘It’s worth knowing, Master.

Flesh and blood. It’s a start, anyway.’ As they helped him up Fi

‘Get that tu

‘Immediately, my lord.’ But as he turned he stopped dead, and in that second something terrible happened to the world.

The bees stopped buzzing.

The table dissolved into worm-eaten dust and collapsed.

Patches fell off the ceiling.

The sun went out. 

31

My Realm will last for ever.

Fi

He saw a darkening sky, clotted with clouds that built up and blotted out the daylight. The wind had risen, and the day was far, far colder than it should have been.

And the world was transformed.

He saw horses in the courtyard collapsing into twitching cybernetworks of limbs, their skin and eyes shrivelling and shredding. He saw walls crumbling into holes, a stinking moat where nothing grew, parched acres of arid grassland.

Flowers withered as he gazed on them; the swans rose and flapped away. All the glorious beauty of the honeysuckle and clematis was dried into spindly crisp bines, the few weak petals blown away by the wind.

Doors were flung open; a guardsman came ru

Pushing in next to Fi

It was like a spell dissolving. All around him Claudia’s paradise of the Wardenry was coming apart, the house a slipshod ruin, its golden-stoned splendour fading even as he watched, colour washing from the mews and the stables, even the maze twisting to a dank thicket of brambles.

Jared murmured, ‘Perhaps the Prison is in us.’ Fi