Page 147 of The Sun King's Noon

A flare of irritation shot through Richard, and he found his hands quite capable of shoving. Kaelen yelped as he tipped sideways into the leaves. He scrambled up, tunic in shambles and soaked with blood, at the same time Richard surged to his feet.

“No,” Richard snarled, “You most certainly are not.” He jabbed a finger into Kaelen’s chest. “And you will refrain from repeating this.”

Kaelen blinked and rubbed over his exposed stomach. “Well, I had not planned the first?—”

His mouth snapped shut at Richard’s glare.

“Fool.” Turning on his heel, Richard crossed to where his sword lay in the dirt. After retrieving it, he wiped the blade against a clump of moss. It was then that he saw her.

The siren’s children had not waited. They had swarmed her body in their thousands, a moving carpet of legs and dark bodies that climbed her flanks. Most of her was gone already. The white abdomen had collapsed inward, her skeletal hide hanging in tatters over the cavity.

Looking too long made Richard feel sick, but he forced himself to shift closer. For in the centre of the cavity, half-shrouded by the seething press of her young, something glowed.

It was the size of a small fist. An emerald green shard, beautiful, pulsing with light. The spiders, for all their gluttony, did not touch it.

Their mother’s heart.

“Bring me a cloth, Kaelen.” Richard smiled grimly. “We have what we came for.”

PART SIX

A KING ON FIRE

“Peace, sworn brother of mine. Do not waste your youth on my dour sibling. He would only make you stand straight and admonish you for speaking with your mouth full.”

“Maybe I’d not mind, if it were for him.”

CHAPTER 54

Richard leaned over the ship’s railings, watching the sky soften into pink and orange as dawn broke. Gulls circled the mast, causing a ruckus, and the sails above snapped in the wind.

It’d been a relief to find the rowing boat and ship untouched yesterday, and more of a relief when the merfolk did not disturb them as they sailed out—though Richard took the precaution of tying Kaelen and Flint’s ankles to the mast. He untied them once they were in open water, and the night had been spent sleeping in the captain’s cabin, his bones thanking the softness of a comfortable bed.

Richard sipped from the tin cup of tea. Flint had brewed it for them all over the galley’s stove. The taste made Richard’s tongue prickle, but it warmed him from the throat downward. Somewhere behind him came Flint’s yells, once again demanding Kaelen leave him the hell alone.

Richard chuckled. Kaelen had stuck to Flint’s side since discovering the man had saved his life. What Flint found initially amusing—especially when he ordered Kaelen about—soon turned vexing as Kaelen lavished the full force of his earnestness—making an oath of brotherhood, attempting to cook Flint ameal, and then promising his future child in return for Flint’s sacrifice.

“You shall have my firstborn, Master Flint. Though I must warn you, it shall be a dog, for I’ve no plans for children. Once I have trained the hound to be the ultimate weapon, I shall surrender them to you, Master Flint. I shall visit often, of course?—”

“Get him,” Flint had snarled, yanking on Richard’s collar, “the fuck away from me before I call upon the Devil to turn him into dust.”

Richard had only laughed.

Now, Kaelen was entreating Flint to kill a spider for him, the encounter with the siren having instilled a fear of all eight-legged creatures, and Flint was bellowing at Kaelen to do it himself.

It was, Richard mused, taking another sip of tea, a beautiful morn. He breathed in the salty air and sighed.

Set them down, he’d told Kaelen in the Vexmaran inn just a few nights ago.Lay it on the shelf and take it down only when it is useful.

The advice he had been so generous with when the burden was not his.

For now, the prophecies clanged in his head like High Ardenia’s warning bells.

Briony alone in a foreign land. Their youngest, who could not even wield a sword. Why would Richard ever send her away?

And Corwin, who braided mischief into all he did. Whose chaos made all in the castle smile. Even Aralynn, when she lived, could be coaxed out of her gloom by his antics.

In what terrible world would Corwin stop laughing?