“P-p-please,” Bayr stuttered, unable to keep the desperation from the word, and in his desperation, he was not a chieftain but an abused child.
“P-p-please,” Banruud mimicked, exaggerating the sounds so he spat with every syllable. “You dare question me? You love my daughter, and you think I don’t know? She is your sister, you fool. You cannot wed your sister.”
Bayr grunted as though he’d been lanced.
The king laughed and threw his feet up on the table, feigning indifference.
“Surely you knew. Surely your beloved Uncle Dagmar told you who you are? I thought you slow but not entirely ignorant.”
Bayr stood in horrified disbelief.
“You are my son, Bayr. You are Alba’s brother.” Banruud said the words like they were of no consequence at all.
Heaviness spread through Hod, numbing his lips and his neck, his shoulders and his chest, hollowing out his veins and hardening his blood. He would kill Banruud himself. He would kill him, and he would free the mount from his tyranny. He would free his brother from his lies.
“I am n-not,” Bayr denied, aghast.
“Oh, but you are. You are of the Clan of the Bear. Named for me, your father. Desdemona was a passionate wench . . . and so dramatic. Even in death, I’m sure.”
Dred howled in fury, and Dakin grunted in protest, wrapping his arms around the incensed warrior to save him from taking vengeance upon the man who could have him put to death. The king’s guard leaped forward, protecting the king and dragging Dakin and a thrashing Dred from the chamber. Hod listened, bereft, wanting to gnash his teeth and bellow the injustice alongside them.
“You will leave the mount, Temple Boy,” Banruud ordered. “And take the old man. If you want to live—if you want him to live—you won’t return.”
Hod could not feel his legs. He could not feel his hands or his heartbeat. He felt nothing at all. No sensation. No sadness. No breath. No being.
He could hear the king’s guard circling around Bayr, their swords drawn, but no one dared to engage him. They’d all heard the tales. They’d all seen proof of his power. Yet he stood, hardly breathing, like he’d been carved from stone.
Then someone gasped and something fell, and Bayr turned and strode from the room, his heartbeat fading as his distance from Hod grew.
“He cut off his braid,” someone whispered, and Hod hung his head in shame.
For a moment, the king sat in silence, his breathing harsh, his heart oddly echoing that of the man who’d just exited the room, severing all ties.
“Balfor, make sure my daughter is in her chambers for the rest of the night. Put a guard at her door,” Banruud ordered.
“Yes, Majesty.”
“The rest of you . . . leave me.”
Hod moved to go with the others, but Banruud called him back.
“Hod,” Banruud said. Hod tensed and turned, but the king did not continue until they were the only two left in the room.
“Follow him.”
“Who, Sire?”
“The Temple Boy.”
Hod waited, knowing there was more.
“Follow him. Make sure he leaves the mount. And when he does . . . end him.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“And Hod?”
“Sire?”
“It would be better if he were not found.”
When the warriors of Dolphys came to the temple not long after sundown in search of their chieftain, Ghisla’s alarm continued to build. Dagmar had slipped away to pray, but everyone else was present to hear the warriors relay their account of the king’s council.
“He knows, Master Ivo,” Dred of Dolphys confessed. “I should have told him long ago. But Bayr knows the truth now, and I fear it has broken him.” Dred’s face was streaked with worry and wear, and the warriors around him shifted in distress. Their faces held traces of their own shock and disbelief, as if they too had been seared by the mistreatment of their chieftain. The Highest Keeper did not have to ask of what truth Dred spoke.
“The king has banished him,” Dakin said, grim. “But he is the Dolphys, and our allegiance is to him first. We will not let this stand.”
“What should we do, Highest Keeper?” Dred asked.
“Wait for him near the Temple Wood,” Ivo answered. “He will not go far. His heart is here. His . . . fate . . . is here too.”
When the men from Dolphys left the sanctum, Ghisla followed them. It was a testament to their dazed devastation that they didn’t notice her hovering behind them until they neared the east gate. Those who saw her would simply assume