Page 38 of Skysong

‘Keep your eyes above and below. She may still be the lark.’

She knew that voice. It wasn’t a soldier or a guard – it was Terault.

He sounded different, his tone smooth and deadly as steel. Oriane could see him now: a glimpse of his head at the base of her tree. What was he doing here? He was the king’s seneschal, not a guardsman—

‘Check inside,’ he murmured, and the guards obeyed.

Inside.

Oriane watched in horror as a swarm of silent soldiers surrounded the cottage.

Father.

They burst through the door, not bothering to be quiet anymore. The ambush was forceful, violent. The chickens in the garden134fluttered at the sudden noise. Snowpea whimpered. There weresomanyof them.

Oriane’s mind had turned white with panic. She had to warn her father. She needed to move.

The moment she took wing, Terault saw her. She heard him shouting, his words indistinct. His eyes burned her back like a brand as she shot towards her father’s bedroom window. It was open – he had left it open—

She shot inside, her call sharp and incessant now, so different to her dawnsong. Arthur was awake. He had half risen from bed, still in his nightclothes, and he looked confused at the sight of her zooming into the room.

‘Oriane?’

The bedroom door burst open. ‘She’shere!’ shouted a triumphant soldier, two of his comrades piling in after him. ‘She’s up here!’

Oriane flew towards them, not knowing what else to do besides put herself between them and her father. She did not know what they’d do if he tried to stop them taking her. She would hold her form, lead them away – but first she aimed for the shouting soldier’s head, claws forward and wings beating furiously. He threw his arms up to protect his face. The other two began swiping at her, trying to catch her with their bare hands. She avoided them, but only just—

There was a strangled cry. Her father had launched himself at the guards. All four men fell in a heap. Oriane pulled back as the soldiers gained their feet again, faster than Arthur. He was still on the ground when the first soldier pulled him up by his collar, shoving him roughly against the doorframe. Oriane aimed again for the soldier, clawing at his hair, his eyes. He raised his arms again, but this time to swipe at her rather than shield himself.135

All three of the guards were looking up at her now, backing her into a corner. Oriane fluttered up near the ceiling, out of their reach. She could not think. Her father was standing up straighter, looking dazed but determined. No – she wouldnotlet them hurt him again while he tried to protect her. The window was blocked, but perhaps she could get past them to fly through the doorway—

But before Oriane could do anything, she realised what her father was going to do.

One of the guards’ swords was half out of its scabbard. Arthur, unnoticed as they stared up at Oriane, snatched the blade, tearing it free with ashing. As the guard who owned it turned at the sound, Arthur moved, faster than Oriane had ever seen him move. He raised the sword and drew it across the guard’s torso.

It was not a killing blow; his nature was too gentle to permit that. Oriane doubted that he had ever hurt another person in his life. But it was enough to tear a gash in the guard’s jerkin, and draw a bright line of blood on the skin beneath.

The three soldiers were looking at Arthur now. Oriane hovered near the ceiling, temporarily forgotten. Now was her chance; she should fly, lure them away.

But before she could, before her eyes could even register what was happening, the lead guard had drawn his blade, and driven it through her father’s chest.

It seemed to take an age for Arthur to fall. He staggered as the guard withdrew the blade and a torrent of blood darkened his white nightshirt. His eyes drifted up to Oriane as he stumbled back, overturning the table and the candle still burning by his bedside.

Oriane tried to call out to him, but she was still a bird, so a screech came out instead – a sound she had not known the lark was capable of making, a sound that severed the morning air like steel136through silk. Time moved strangely; her wings seemed to beat at half-speed as she stared down at her father and he stared up at her, a small, reassuring, incongruous smile spreading slowly on his face, a look of love.

‘Go, my girl,’ he murmured, so quietly she could not really have heard it, but the word echoed in her mind all the same.

Go.

She did not stay to see his eyes close. Before the guards realised what she was doing, she shot past them and out the open window. It was as if her father’s words had been a spell, an irresistible command. Away. She had to get away.

A chorus of shouts followed her. The garden and the woods around her house were still swarming with soldiers, and the three in the house were bellowing down to them, telling them which way she had gone. Oriane dipped a little and then caught herself. She needed to go higher. She could think of nothing else butforward, faster. There was no time for pain. She had to get away. He had given her the chance to do that.

She reached the edge of the woods; she was going to make it. They could not reach her this high, the air was on her side—

And then there was a weight across her back, her wings, her head. It was heavy.

She was falling.

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