‘Children,’ Sorrel whispered. ‘Oh, no. Who would do that to children?’

He thought of Garwinn and Collen’s two children, and though they were only half-Lyr Blaed, they both wore the silver bracelets as a precaution. He almost wept to think of them suffering such a cruel maiming just to remove them.

I’ll get those bracelets off them if I ever see them again.

He was suddenly aware that Arianlach had crept to his side. He looked up. ‘Why now?’

‘They know my father is dying,’ Arianlach said. ‘They know I’m weak. They know that I’ll be tied up with my uncle and his Lyr Deru traitors and I won’t be able to fight a war on two fronts. They’re striking now because they know I can do nothing about it.’

‘They’re your people,’ Sorrel told him quietly. ‘They will be loyal to you, but you need to get to them. Stop the witchbane going out. Send out people who can remove those bracelets discretely and for the love of all that is good, do it fast! If you want a force of…’

‘Lyr Celain!’ Arianlach’s voice was a savage whisper. He grabbed Sorrel’s collar and yanked him close. ‘Have you lost your fucking mind? You think I want an army of blood-drinking monsters to put me on my throne?’

Sorrel held Arianlach’s gaze and said nothing. He knew he’d have to tread carefully. From little acorns the great oaks of the North grow, said his father’s voice in his mind.

He took Arianlach’s hands from his collar and stepped back.

‘There’s more,’ said Enhian, into the silence. His voice was husky. ‘We came through the hills. We wrestled those sacks off the Ulthvár.’

‘The Ulthvár?’ Arianlach sat and put his head in his hands. ‘Oh gods, that’s all I need!’

Sorrel put his hand on Arianlach’s shoulder.

Enhian continued, ‘And there’s not just Ulthvár in those hills anymore. There are shades. Wights, too. We found several desecrated graves near the two stone circles we know about – it’s time to see if there are more, and ward them! They’ve been left too long – we’ve been complacent…’

‘But why are the Ulthvár involved? Are they the ones who took the hands?’

‘It’s possible.’

Arianlach’s fist struck the table. ‘And what am I supposed to do?’

Sorrel flinched. He’d never seen the Earl lose his temper, had only ever seen the weary, sunny, incorrigible young man. Arianlach’s eyes looked tight. His mouth was pinched, his face paler than usual. There was a hardness in every line, from the iron set of his jaw to the steel in his eyes, that Sorrel had never seen in him before.

If he could harness that steel, perhaps he could keep his throne after all. When he got it.

Sorrel didn’t think it would be long. Not long enough, in fact.

Arianlach stood up. ‘You must scribe a letter for me, Enhian, and send a rider with it to the Shield. I want the wards renewed on Cebol Gorge and the Hestertún Pass as soon as it can be managed. Sorrel, can you write to your people? I want those twenty thousand warriors you say you come with.’

Sorrel coughed. ‘They’re mine upon my marriage, and not before, Arianlach. But I can write nonetheless. What do you want?’

‘I want twenty-thousand Tethiri warriors,’ Arianlach snapped. ‘I want the hills burned - I want them choked in smoke, I want the Ulthvár driven down to the lake and drowned…’

Leiryn gripped his shoulders. ‘Arianlach, my dear son…’

‘Leave me alone! If I say they die, then they fucking die!’

‘You’re looking for whoever is removing hands from Lyr Blaed children and letting their curse take them,’ Sorrel reminded him, placatingly. ‘I would suggest stealth could be more effective in identifying your target, even if it is the Ulthvár. You can’t strike until you know who to aim for. I as well as anyone knows how dangerous the Ulthvár are but they know the hills better than anyone. We’d die at the bottom of a ravine before we knew they were there, and….’

Arianlach jerked his hand up in a sharp, chopping motion, cutting Sorrel short. He inhaled, a sharp, furious breath, then several more. He looked as though he was chewing on several responses, and all of them calling for violence.

Sorrel scratched at his brow. ‘I can take the letter to my father myself, if you are worried about it getting through. I can…’

‘Travel,’ Arianlach finished for him. ‘Not with the waystone in the caverns, surely?’

‘There must be another somewhere.’ Sorrel glanced at the high window panes. Darkness had fallen; it was too late to look for an old waystone now. It would have to wait until first light. In the meantime, that would give him time to see if there was anything in the old castle records about it.

‘There probably is.’ Arianlach paced up one length of the table, grimaced at the sacks and their dreadful contents, and hurried back again. ‘Where would you begin looking? Silverheim isn’t the first castle here, there was another before it, and some say a temple lies underneath even that, where the baths are now. Your waystone could be anywhere. There could be more than one.’

Enhian approached, interested. ‘Port Fall has a stone circle. It was half-buried until about fifty years ago when my father unearthed it building the latest ramparts. Could there be something similar here?’

Sorrel put his hand on Arianlach’s shoulder. ‘Where are the castle records kept?’

‘In the King’s private office.’

Leiryn stood up and smoothed her skirts, brisk and businesslike. ‘We’ll go there now, then. Come with me.’