Page 19 of The Sun King's Noon

“I shall keep him collared, of course. Give him a blanket if he behaves.” Richard clicked his tongue. “Though I worry about his ruts. Quite the appetite in him, your lover, and I am sure, given the chance, he might well bed half our maids and footmen. Perhaps I should have him gelded to curb such zeal?—”

“No!” Lyell’s forehead dropped against Richard’s knees, chains pooling on the floor. “Anything- anything you want. I’ll tell you everything—every scrap of it. Just don’t—don’t hurt them. They’re all I have. They’reeverythingI have. Please.Please.”

Richard sat back on the stool, dimly aware of Kaelen lurching back a step. “Who were the witches?”

For a moment, Lyell could do nothing but sob into Richard’s boots. Then, he drew in a deep breath and forced himself upright.

“The witches,” he said shakily. “They’re part of a western coven. The Sanguis Order. Numbering at least fifty, from what I overheard.”

“I have not heard the name.”

“You—you wouldn’t,” Lyell stammered. “They don’t register themselves. They hide in the forests and abandoned buildings, moving camp after camp. A month ago, they found me.” He grimaced. “No—tracked me. Scried me out.”

“For what purpose?”

“My sorcery. Shield-work. Barriers. To be able to shape invisible walls is a rare form of mastery, and one they thought useful. When I refused, they cursed Edith with the Hollowing.” Lyell squeezed his eyes shut. “It strips a person’s memories. Day by day, piece by piece, until the mind is an empty room. The week before I left, Edith couldn’t remember our dogs. Forgotten the names of the very pups she’d raised for years. Flint forbade me from joining the witches—said not to worry, that he’d sort it out, but the next day, Edith forgot who we were.Us. It came back to her after some hours, but I could bear it no longer. The witches have the only cure.”

“They told you it was me they meant to kill?”

“Yes. They told me it was your blood they wanted.” He swallowed hard. “I swear it. I don’t hurt children. None of us do.”

“That hardly makes it better,” Dain snapped from Richard’s side. “You sought to kill the king!”

“I sought to heal my own!” Lyell tried to yank his hand towards his heart, but the chain stretched too short. “I was desperate!”

Richard remembered the shield conjured between Briony and the dagger-wielding witch. “What did they want with the blood?”

“To open a portal.”

“A portal where?”

“Into a land none can enter or leave. That was all they said.”

Richard’s breath hitched. Gloamvarn.

“Why my sister’s blood?”

Lyell shook his head. “I don’t know. I swear it. I only held the barrier and cloaked them in invisibility. I was told nothing more than I needed to know, and those witches were not even the main circle of the Order—they seemed so ready to die, as though they’d been chosen for some ridiculous suicide assignment, and they seemedhappyabout it. I even told them the chances of us escaping after—” He clamped a trembling hand on Richard’s knee. “Please.Please, I have told you all I can. I do not know where their base lies. I met none other, I heard no other names?—”

Richard stood. The movement startled Lyell into a panic.

“My lovers!” He grabbed Richard’s boots and pressed his forehead to them. “Flint and Edith—please, Your Majesty. Set them free. Take my life if you will, but please, release them.”

Richard sighed. “Your lovers are at home, Lyell. Where they have been all along. I never had them.”

Lyell’s unswollen eye bulged, and beneath the bruising, his face went white. “You—you lied?”

“Yes.” Richard bent to seize Lyell’s chin. “Now, you shall carry a message to the leader of the Raven’s Guild.”

Lyell’s brows creased. “A message?”

“Tell Flint this,” Richard said. “I return his lover as a mercy, but I will, one day, collect the debt.”

Dain swore. “What in the hells? You cannot mean to release him.”

Morland rasped from the door, “Your Majesty, this man abetted treason on crown grounds.”

“He will not do so again,” Richard said. “Lest he wish all of the Raven’s Guild be razed to the ground. Have a healer go with him. See whether anything may be done for Edith’s curse.”