'What are you doing, Mother, strolling around Rolenton without the honour guard?' Byren chided. 'You're setting a bad example for Piro. No wonder she's half-wild!'
The townspeople, who watched them at a respectful distance, smiled as the queen laughed like a carefree girl. It wasn't as if they needed a guard in their own home town.
'Lence took the guard to get an ale while we did our shopping,' the queen explained.
'Oh, I'm so glad to see you, Byren,' Piro announced. 'You can take me down to the wharfs to watch the sled ships.'
'You're just glad to see me because you hate shopping,' he teased, then grew serious. 'Mother, have you heard from Winterfall or the Royal Ingeniator?'
'No. Is something wrong?'
'We found a new seep, but don't worry. They're sending for sorbt stones and the Affinity warders will control it.'
'Queen Myrella,' Orrade began. 'There's something you should know. I've — '
'Queen Myrella!' An old woman threw off her hood, shuffling out of the crowd to confront them. Even though her voice was little more than a rasp, it carried on the cold, still air. 'Queen Myrella, true heir to Merofynia, heed my words!'
Byren swore under his breath. Piro glanced to him. Why was he worried? An old woman couldn't hurt them, could she?
'Be off with you!' He went to drive her away.
'Byren,' the queen protested. Piro knew their mother always listened to the poorest of their kingdom. That's why the people of Rolencia loved her, even though she was the daughter of a Merofynian king.
But when the queen took a good look at the old woman, her face went slack with shock. Was this someone from her mother's past, Piro wondered, a Merofynian palace servant, who had come down in the world?
Byren gestured. 'Be off with you, old — '
The woman silenced him with a single piercing look.
The laughter died on Piro's lips as the woman dropped her staff and stiffened, her eyes rolling back in her head.
Since Piro became a woman at autumn cusp unwanted Affinity had been growing in her, so she had no trouble recognising it at work now. Tension made the very air taste strange and Piro's vision blurred. She blinked repeatedly until she realised she was seeing the shift caused by Unseen power acting on the Seen world.
Piro went very still, like a deer startled by a predator. A seer with renegade Affinity — her secret would be revealed and she would be sent away like Fyn!
'You live a lie, Queen Myrella, queen of lies!' The old woman shrieked.
Discovering she was not the object of the old seer's prediction, Piro relaxed fractionally. Her mother took a step back, colliding with Byren who steadied her.
'Your lies will be the downfall of Rolencia and the death of those you love. You think you're safe but one rotten apple turns the rest!' Blind-to-the-seen-world eyes turned to Piro. She felt sure this seer would recognise her growing Affinity and denounce her.
'Like mother, like daughter!' the old woman wheezed. 'Do not make the same mistake — '
'Filthy untamed Affinity!' Lence swore, thrusting through the crowd. A dozen young honour guards wearing the symbol of the royal house of Rolencia followed him. Rich red foenixes, their scales picked out in gold thread, gleamed against the black background of the surcoats.
'Be silent, Utland Power-worker!' Lence ordered.
The old woman's trance left her and she cast him one swift glance before fixing Piro with urgent jet-black eyes, stumbling towards her. 'Piro Myrella Queensdaughter, don't deny your — '
Piro smelt death on the old woman. It turned her stomach and she pulled back instinctively.
'Here, leave m'sister alone!' With one shove Lence sent the Power-worker flying across the swept cobbles.
She hit the wall of the Three Swans Inn and collapsed in a snowdrift, her head at an odd angle.
Piro stared, stunned. The old seer was dead.
Now she could never reveal Piro's secret. A surge of relief filled her, followed swiftly by guilt as she turned on Lence. 'You killed her!'
He lifted his large hands, looking down at them as if surprised by what he had done. Like Byren he was a head taller than most men, but he had a deep barrel chest and the arms of a blacksmith.
Lence grimaced and wiped his hand on his thigh. Revulsion twisted his handsome lips. 'She shouldn't have brought her filthy untamed Affinity into Rolencia!'
Dismay swamped Piro. Would Lence dismiss her as quickly if he knew about her Affinity? 'But she was just an old woman. She wasn't even a very good seer!'
It was true. Piro was nothing like her mother.
'Hush, Piro,' the queen whispered. She looked ill. 'Lence did the right thing. We cannot have — '
'But she should have been arrested and given the choice of banishment or death,' Piro insisted. 'That's the law. You're always making me memorise the law.'
'Enough, Piro. It's for the best,' Byren urged. His attention was on their mother, who was visibly wavering as if her legs might give way. He slid an arm around her shoulder. 'Come sit down, mother.'
Orrade took her other arm.
'Uh, Orrie, Garza. Didn't see you there,' Lence muttered, then looked about eagerly. 'Where's Elina?'
'She's sick,' Garzik whispered, still staring at the seer.
Like him, Queen Myrella stared at the old woman's body, which lay abandoned like an empty husk.
Piro shuddered. She had never seen violent death. Surely the seer knew the laws of Rolencia? What had been so important that she risked death to warn them? Piro tried to remember what had been said to her mother, something about living a lie because she was the true heir to Merofynia and this would cause Rolencia to fall and her loved ones to die.
Impossible. Rolencia was strong, so strong that when her mother's younger brother, King Sefon, died seven summers ago, her parents had decided not to get involved in Merofynia's civil war, not because they couldn't have ridden into Merofynia and taken the throne, but because they didn't want to waste the blood of young Rolencians on foreign soil.
Piro licked dry lips. How could avoiding war cause death?
She shuddered, glad the old seer hadn't had a chance to betray her Affinity. Perversely, though, Piro wished she could have heard the rest of the old woman's prophecy, if only to discover how mistaken she was. Rotten fruit, what next?
Lence turned to one of the honour guard. 'Fetch the Affinity warders and get rid of the body.'
They would burn the old woman then scatter her ashes over water, saying the words to dispel her power. It was the only way to be sure that no taint of her untamed Affinity lingered.
'You.' Byren beckoned another of the honour guard. He still supported their mother, who looked lost and distracted. 'I need you to borrow a carriage to take my mother and sister back to the castle.'
A clattering of hooves made them turn. Astride his sturdy roan, King Rolen bore down on them, the crowd parting hurriedly.
'Father!' Now Piro knew everything would be all right.
Taking in the situation, King Rolen swung his leg over the horse and dropped to the ground with a grunt, the landing jarring all his old wounds. Piro winced for him. Her father had been growing stiffer recently. But he still radiated the energy that had saved their kingdom from invasion thirty years ago.
'Myrella, are you all right?' he demanded, enfolding the queen's small frame in his arms. Byren stepped back while their mother assured the king that she was fine. Their father looked to Lence. 'What happened?'
'Mother and Piro were assaulted by a renegade Power-worker,' Lence spoke up. 'I dealt with her.' He gestured to the body, which the honour guard had yet to remove.
King Rolen's heavy brow gathered in a frown. Piro knew that look. Now there would be trouble. Ever since his own father and elder brother had been killed by renegade Power-workers on the battlefield, her father had set out to eradicate everyone with untamed Affinity from Rolencia.