Page 69 of Skysong

The crowd grew to a bottleneck before the ballroom entrance. After much negotiation on Kitt’s part, and more than a little shoving on Andala’s, they made it to the doors. Andala waited impatiently while Kitt and a large, burly guard, their final obstacle, conversed in low voices. And then, at last, the guard clapped Kitt on the shoulder, heaved open the doors and let them through.

The ballroom was lit up like the rest of the palace, in stark contrast to the miserable darkness in which it had lain on Andala’s last visit. The first thing she looked for was the cage. It had not moved – and it seemed that Oriane had not moved inside it. She was there, huddled, statue-still, the same as she had been when Andala had last seen her. But as Andala watched, Oriane’s feathered body twitched – her wings lifting slightly and then lowering, before she hunched down and bowed her head again.

Miserable as she looked, a rush of relief sent warmth through Andala’s body at the sight of her.

The rest of the ballroom was a less welcome sight. It put Andala in mind of a battlefield, like the kind she had seen illustrated in books. On one side of the cavernous room stood a group of the king’s guards. Across from them, at a distance, as if toeing some invisible line, stood more of the blue-robed people Andala had seen out in the hall. Whowerethey? Andala had never seen them before. Why were they here now?

Out in front of each group, like leaders of opposing factions addressing one another in a ceasefire, stood King Tomas and his seneschal, Terault.246

They were talking, but Andala couldn’t make out their words. Both sets of guards behind them were talking, too, as was a group Andala recognised as the men who had been with Tomas the last time she’d seen him here. The effect of all the voices was chaotic. In some places it had risen to shouting.

Andala looked at Kitt, who shook his head as if to sayItoldyou, and at Oriane, who seemed unaware or uncaring. Bracing herself, she began to inch closer to the seneschal and the king, trying to blend in with the crowd. Kitt followed.

‘—belongs to us,’ Terault was saying, with his usual coolness.

King Tomas, on the other hand, looked quite deranged. His eyes were popping with rage, and his complexion had reddened, veins standing out at his temples. ‘Toyou?’ he burst out incredulously. ‘She doesn’tbelongto you, Terault! You—’

‘Not to me,’ Terault interrupted, speaking slowly and calmly, as if explaining something to an aggravated child. ‘To us.’ He gestured to the blue-clad group behind him. ‘To the Order of the Sky.’

TheOrderoftheSky?Andala had no clue what those fools from the city were doing here, or why Terault seemed to speak as if he were their leader. What was hedoing? What did they want with Oriane?

‘I will explain it again,’ the seneschal said patiently. His voice had picked up slightly, so that it carried through the hall. ‘The skylark needs worship –realworship – to reinstate her to her position as the goddess the lark once was, and to restore our country’s faith the way it must be restored. But I fear now that such worship is not enough. That it is too late. The girl has fallen too far.’ He cast a disdainful glance in the direction of the cage, and the barely moving bird within. ‘She is no god, not any longer. But Cielore has been without faith, withoutlight, too long. So perhaps it needs a new god.’247

What?Andala’s mind whirled, trying to make sense of what the seneschal was saying, what he meant to do. Heart racing to the point of pain, she looked desperately to the king, hoping he would put a stop to this. But Tomas’s red face had gone suddenly pale, and he was staring at the seneschal as if he had never seen him before.

‘You have lied to me,’ he said, so quietly that Andala barely heard it. ‘You have lied to us all.’

Terault considered the king for a moment. Then he held up a hand, and the blue-robed people behind him fell into formation as one, standing to attention like soldiers. The remaining noise in the hall tapered off. Both the king’s guards and the other group of men were staring at the Order of the Sky in disbelief.

‘When I give the order,’ Terault said to his followers, ‘seize the skylark. It is time for us to go.’

A ringing silence followed his proclamation. King Tomas stood frozen.

‘This is dangerous ground, Terault.’ The king’s voice was still low, his tone cautionary. ‘This is treason. I did not want it to come to violence, but I will have my guards step in, if I see the need.’

A smile, faint and dangerous as poison fumes, appeared on Terault’s face. It scared Andala more than his usual blank countenance. She took a step closer to Kitt.

‘I do not seek violence, either, Tomas,’ the seneschal said. The king’s name, bare without its title, sounded like an insult. ‘But if you move against me, I, too, will have no choice.’

Andala could not quite comprehend what she was hearing. Neither, apparently, could Tomas. Andala was alarmed to see that he looked noticeably shaken now. A few of his guards, too, were passing nervous glances between themselves. The air was so charged it was as if storm clouds had gathered on the ballroom ceiling.248

There was a long moment where nobody moved. Then the king let out an incongruous laugh. Terault’s expression had returned to icy neutrality, but Andala saw his eyes narrow slightly, like a cat’s.

‘What are we doing, Terault?’ King Tomas asked incredulously, running a hand through his unkempt hair. ‘Standing here like battle commanders with our men at our backs? Come to my chambers. We’ll talk this through, you and I, the way we’ve always done.’

For a moment, Andala thought Terault would accept the offer. He looked as if he were considering it, his head tilting as he stared unblinking at the king. Then that near-invisible smile returned. It changed his whole face somehow, turning it into something eldritch, skeletal.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, Tomas, I don’t think that is how we’ll do it at all.’ His eyes drifted to the guards who stood behind their king. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he nodded.

And the room descended into chaos.

A handful of the king’s guards suddenly turned on their own compatriots. Swords were drawn in a chorus of singing blades. Guards were thrown to the ground or rendered immobile by their fellows. The blue-clad Order members swarmed across the invisible barrier and joined the fray, overpowering the king’s true men entirely. And Terault himself drew a dagger from within his cloak, and held the thin, glinting blade a breath away from King Tomas’s throat.

‘Skies above,’ Kitt breathed. ‘Andala, you’ve got to go—’

‘We can’t leave without Oriane,’ Andala protested, gaze swinging wildly between the cage at one end of the hall and the madness unfolding at the other.

‘Youhavetogo,Andala.’ Kitt seized her hand and held it tight, beginning to steer her towards the exit. ‘It isn’t safe here. Oriane will be all right, just trust me—’249

---