Skyre had been told of the Spréen since he was a boy. At night, he would hide beneath his blankets, convinced that if he peeked out, he’d see a horde of stinking yellow eyes leering back at him.
“It is just a story,”Medhin would say—a weak attempt to soothe him.
“How do you ken? Have you ever seen the Spréen?”
She smiled.“But of course not. We are true believers.”
Skyre knew better now. After all, if the wights were real, the one beside him would be long dead.
“Bathe!” cried Othrik, and a bowl was brought round, filled with ash from the flame of Kaern’Og. Every man and woman it stopped before dipped their hands within and spread the grey dust upon their skin.
“You see,” said Skyre as the bowl drew near. “If you listened, you’d learn something.”
“Of your cautionary tales of obedience and the justification of slaughter?” the druid replied.
Skyre’s teeth ground. The druid’s defiance scratched at him like sand.
He wished he’d look at him.
The bowl stopped before them, grasped by a ruddy-faced altar boy. The Vaich dipped his hands within and spread the ash over his forearms, then nodded the boy towards the druid.
“Bathe.”
“I will not,” said the druid.
“Bathe.”
The druid did not move. “I have given my answer.”
“How bold can one thing be?” spat Skyre. “And without an ounce of meat to make your point. For something so fragile, one should be more demure.”
For the briefest of moments, the druid seemed interested in what he had to say.
“AmIthe fragile one?”
Skyre spun to face him. His fist tightened, but he stilled at the sensation of being watched. Heads turned, throats cleared. The nave filled with awkward shuffling.
Othrik eyed them as he spoke his verses, and the Vaich wrung his fury dry. Once more, he leaned into the druid. “Must I remind you, you are still my subject? You willnae deny my command.”
“No man nor god commands my tongue. Certainly not you.”
“You—”
“An honest king would admit his faults,” said the druid, finally looking up at him. “An honest man would admit his fear.”
The king burned beneath his dusted flesh. All the mirth he’d felt earlier, all the ache in his heart, had been written over by wrath.
He was wrong. The druid didn’t need muscle to be ferocious. And that made him a greater threat.
Skyre brought his lips to the druid’s ear and whispered, “I will bury you before this is done.”
The druid tilted his head and said, “My laird, you do not have a spade.”
Chapter twelve
Ainfír
Adruid belongs on the road.
