style="font-size:15px;"> Thor lowered his head and hurried to the king’s side, kneeling before him. The king held out a limp wrist; Thor took his hand and kissed it.
Thor looked up and saw MacGil smiling down weakly. Thor was surprised to feel hot tears flooding his own cheeks.
“My liege,” Thor began, all in a rush, unable to keep it in, “please believe me. I did not poison you. I knew of the plot only from my dream. From some power which I know not of. I only wanted to warn you. Please, believe me – ”
MacGil held up a palm, and Thor fell silent.
“I was wrong about you,” MacGil said. “It took being stabbed by another man’s hand to realize it wasn’t you. You were just trying to save me. Forgive me. You were loyal. Perhaps the only loyal member of my court.”
“How I wish I had been wrong,” Thor said. “How I wish that you were safe. That my dreams were just illusions; that you were never assassinated. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you’ll survive.”
MacGil shook his head.
“My time has come,” he said to Thor.
Thor swallowed, hoping it wasn’t true but sensing that it was.
“Do you know who did this terrible act, my lord?” Thor asked the question that had been burning through his mind since he’d had the dream. He could not imagine who would want to kill the king, or why.
MacGil looked up at the ceiling, blinking with effort.
“I saw his face. It is a face I know well. But for some reason, I cannot place it.”
He turned and looked at Thor.
“It doesn’t matter now. My time has come. Whether it was by his hand, or by some other, the end is still the same. What matters now,” he said, and reached out and grabbed Thor’s wrist with a strength that surprised him, “is what happens after I’m gone. Ours will be a kingdom without a king.”
MacGil looked at Thor with an intensity Thor did not understand. Thor did not know precisely what he was saying – what, if anything, he was demanding. Thor wanted to ask, but he could see how hard it was for MacGil to catch his breath, and did not want to risk interrupting him.
“Argon was right about you,” he said, slowly releasing his grip. “Your destiny is far greater than mine.”
Thor felt an electric shock through his body at the king’s words. His destiny? Greater than the King’s? The very idea that the King would even bother to discuss Thor with Argon was more than Thor could comprehend. And the fact that he would say that Thor’s destiny was greater than the King’s – what could he possibly mean? Was King MacGil just being delusional in his final moments?
“I chose you…I brought you into my family for a reason. Do you know what that reason is?”
Thor shook his head, wanting desperately to know.
“Don’t you know why I wanted you here, only you, in my final moments?”
“I’m sorry, my liege,” he said, shaking his head. “I do not know.”
MacGil smiled faintly, as his eyes began to close.
“There is a great land, far from here. Beyond the Wilds. Beyond even the land of the Dragons. It is the land of the Druids. Where your mother is from. You must go there to seek the answers.”
MacGil’s eyes opened wide and he stared at Thor with an intensity that Thor could not comprehend.
“Our kingdom depends on it,” he added. “You are not like the others. You are special. Until you understand who you are, our kingdom will never rest at ease.”
MacGil’s eyes closed and his breathing grew shallow, each breath coming out with a gasp. His grip slowly weakened on Thor’s wrist, and Thor felt his own tears welling up. His mind was spinning with everything the king had said, as he tried to make sense of it all. He could barely concentrate. Had he heard it all correctly?
MacGil began to whisper something, but it was so quiet, Thor could barely make it out. Thor leaned in close, bringing his ear to MacGil’s lips.
The king lifted his head one last time, and with one final effort said:
“Avenge me.”
Then, suddenly, MacGil stiffened. He lay there for a few moments, then his head rolled to the side as his eyes opened wide, frozen.
Dead.
“NO!” Thor wailed.
His wail must have been loud enough to alert the guards, because an instant later, he heard a door burst open behind him, heard the commotion of dozens of people rushing into the room. In the corner of his consciousness he understood there was motion all around him. He dimly heard the castle bells tolling out, again and again. The bells pounded, matching the pounding of the blood in his temples. But it all became a blur, as moments later the room was spinning.
Thor was fainting, heading for the stone floor in one great collapse.
Chapter Six
A gust of wind struck Gareth in the face and he looked up, blinking back tears, into the pale light of the first rising sun. The day was just breaking, and yet at this remote spot, here on the edge of the Kolvian Cliffs, there were already gathered hundreds of the king’s family, friends, and close royal subjects, hovering close, hoping to participate in the funeral. Just beyond them, held back by an army of soldiers, Gareth could see the masses pouring in, thousands of people watching the services from a distance. The grief on their faces was genuine. His father was loved, that was certain.
Gareth stood with the rest of the immediate family, in a semi-circle around his father’s body, which sat suspended on planks over a pit in the earth, ropes around it, waiting to be lowered. Argon stood before the crowd, wearing the deep-scarlet robes he reserved only for funerals, his expression inscrutable as he looked down at the King’s body, the hood obscuring his face. Gareth tried desperately to analyze that face, to decipher how much Argon knew. Did Argon know he murdered his father? And if so, would he tell the others – or let destiny play out?
To Gareth’s bad luck, that annoying boy, Thor, had been cleared of guilt; obviously, he could not have stabbed the king while he was in the dungeon. Not to mention that his father himself had told all the others that Thor was innocent. Which only made things worse for Gareth. A council had already been formed to look into the matter, to scrutinize every detail of his murder. Gareth’s heart pounded as he stood there with the others, staring at the body about to be lowered into the earth; he wanted to go down with it.
It was only a matter of time until the trail led to Firth – and when it did, Gareth would be brought down with him. He would have to act quickly to divert the attention, to pin the blame on someone else. Gareth wondered if those around him suspected him. He was likely just being paranoid, and as he surveyed the faces, he saw none looking at him. There stood his brothers, Reece, Godfrey, and Kendrick; his sister Gwendolyn; and his mother, her face wrought with grief, looking catatonic; indeed, since his father’s death, she had been a different person, barely able to speak. He’d heard that when she’d received the news something had happened within her, some sort of paralysis. Half her face was frozen; when she opened her mouth, the words came out too slow.
Gareth examined the faces
