The King Rolen's Kin: The Uncrowned King - By Rowena Cory Daniells Page 0,5

his own, searing through his gut. With a groan he doubled up.

Elina...

Death was too good for Illien of Cobalt!

Elina would still be alive, if Lence hadn't believed Cobalt's lies, if Byren hadn't written that love poem... It had been so easy for Cobalt to twist the words to prove that Byren was Orrade's lover instead of Elina's. If Orrade hadn't confessed that he was a lover of men like Palos of legend, then Cobalt couldn't have convinced Lence and the king that the Servants of Palos had reformed to put Byren on the throne.

Frustration raged through him, for there was no secret society calling itself the Servants of Palos. Thirty years ago there had been. His father had eradicated the traitors, executing lord and commoner alike. But how could Byren prove that a secret society no longer existed, when suspicion and innuendo were enough to undermine his reputation?

Cobalt was so good at playing on people's fears. Byren cursed the day his cousin had come back to Rolencia.

Shaking with anger and exhaustion, he vowed to kill Cobalt. Elina would approve, for she was a true warrior's daughter. But first he had to expose Cobalt for the traitor he was.

Decision made, Byren welcomed sleep, letting the exhaustion that had been circling like a predator consume him. The great muscles of his weary thighs twitched from over-work and, as he welcomed the oblivion of exhaustion, in his mind's eye he saw the Affinity-slave girl cradling the wounded calandrius. Both trapped, both innocent.

How could he defeat Cobalt when he could not save them?

Chapter Two

Fyn woke with the feeling that something was wrong. Then it came back to him... Rolencia was at war with Merofynia.

He rolled over, his hand going to his chest to stop the royal emblem from tangling in its chain, but he'd left the foenix pendant in Halcyon's Sacred Heart. That was when he'd planned to leave the abbey to protect his sister's secret, and needed to hide his identity.

He hadn't wanted to leave but he couldn't stay, not after Piro had revealed her Affinity to him. The mystics master would have uncovered Fyn's guilty knowledge as soon as he began training. But now that the mystics master had gone off to ambush the Merofynians, the unexpected dawning of Piro's Affinity was the least of his troubles.

He told himself his sister would be safe as long as she stayed in Rolenhold, for the castle's defences had never been breached. It did no good. Fear for his mother and Piro gnawed at his belly. Before this, he had never understood how his brothers could cheerfully lead war parties against upstart warlords, but the thought of thirteen-year-old Piro in the hands of Merofynian warriors ignited his blood.

He suspected the same feelings had kept the other acolytes awake, talking long into the night boasting how they would prove their bravery, if only they had the chance. But Halcyon's warrior monks did not send children to war, even if those acolytes were due to become monks this spring cusp with the responsibilities of men.

War with Merofynia...

Fyn didn't understand how it had come to this. His father's betrothal to King Merofyn's daughter had heralded thirty years of peace. When Myrella's younger brother had died in suspicious circumstances, her cousin had seized the Merofynian throne. This meant Fyn's eldest brother could become betrothed to the new king's daughter, and it should have ensured another thirty years of peace. But, early yesterday, a message had arrived from King Rolen asking the abbot to send the warrior monks. So the weapons master had marched out with every able-bodied monk, leaving only the frail and the lads in Halcyon Abbey.

At nearly seventeen, Fyn and his fellow acolytes thought themselves men and had railed against being left behind.

Unable to lie still Fyn rolled over again and, once again, his hand went to settle on the absent foenix symbol. He felt its phantom presence, its shape, its weight... and the niggling sense of wrongness solidified with an uncomfortable jolt of fear. The seal on the king's message had been a fake. The foenix symbol was too small to belong to his father.

Fyn sat up in bed, nauseous with the realisation that the weapons master and nearly six hundred of Halcyon's finest warriors were skating into a trap.

He sprang out of the bunk, heart racing.

'Bad dream?' Feldspar whispered. 'Don't worry, your sister will be -'

'I'm not worried about Piro.' Fyn crouched between their bunks. For a heartbeat he considered telling Feldspar his fears, but