The King of the Crags by Stephen Deas

been lining themselves up to come out and she’d bitten them back. Vale stood motionless and thought about Speaker Hyram. Hyram the clever and wise. Hyram, who had presided over a decade of peace and prosperity throughout the realms. Hyram, who for reasons Vale would never know had named Zafir, the least worthy candidate by far, to succeed him. And who’d been pushed off a balcony for his trouble. He should have named the King of the Crags. That would have stirred up these fat soft kings we have nowadays. A proper speaker.
     
    He pursed his lips. That was a thought he should not have had. Zafir wasn’t looking at him though, so presumably she hadn’t noticed. She was looking at Prince Tyrin instead. Tyrin was the fourth or fifth son of King Narghon and Queen Fyon, which made him a cousin of some sort to Jehal. So much had changed in the last month that Vale found himself alarmingly vague about who was who. Princes and princesses seemed to come and go and he was starting to lose track. He supposed he ought to care but somehow he didn’t.
     
    The speaker cocked her head. ‘And do you know anything about this, Tyrin?’ Tyrin was a decade younger than Jehal and clearly wanted to follow him in every possible way. He was looking at Zafir right now; his eyes were stripping her naked and he was wondering how long it would be, with Jehal gone, before she came looking for another lover.
     
    A muscle twitched in Vale’s cheek. Were they always so transparent?
     
    Tyrin licked his lips. ‘I went to the eyrie with him. He offered to let me ride with him back to the south but I declined. My place is here, Your Holiness, to serve you in any way I can.’ He half-smiled, half-leered. If Zafir couldn’t see what was on his mind then she was surely the only one in the room.
     
    ‘Why, Prince Tyrin, did he go?’ Her face changed. An almost imperceptible smile, perhaps. A slight change of posture, a slight widening of the eyes, the raising of an eyebrow. Vale couldn’t say exactly what had changed but the effect was electric. Yes , she seemed to say. You might yet have me. Even Vale felt it, though the look wasn’t meant for him. Tyrin’s jaw hung open. If Tyrin hadn’t been sitting down, Vale was sure he would have fallen over. Instantly, Speaker Zafir had made him her slave.
     
    He felt a grudging admiration. That was what a speaker did. A speaker ruled. This is why we don’t think, he reminded himself. We are the speaker’s swords and spears, her shield and armour. Nothing less and nothing more.
     
    ‘He may, ah, be gone for some time, I think, Your Holiness.’ Which wasn’t the question Zafir had asked at all but Tyrin’s mind was too firmly set on one thing to be working properly any more.
     
    Zafir’s face didn’t change. No twitch of anger or impatience, despite her rage of only a few minutes ago. ‘Why, Prince Tyrin? What do you think will be keeping him in Furymouth.’
     
    ‘He said he’d had a premonition, Your Holiness. Someone was going to die, someone very close to him, he said. He needed to go back, he said. To see if they could be saved.’
     
    ‘And who was this someone , Prince Tyrin? Did he say?’ Vale heard the slightest change in Zafir’s voice. A brittleness beneath the seductive softness. To Vale the danger seemed obvious. Zafir had set a bear trap right right in front of Tyrin’s feet. He wondered if the prince would manage to spot it.
     
    ‘His father, King Tyan, I assume. They say he’s been getting steadily worse ever since he returned home.’ Vale kept his face still. Well done, little boy. But was that deftness or blind luck?
     
    Zafir pursed her lips. She sat back into her throne, lounging there with the same affected boredom as Prince Jehal would have done. And Tyrin too, if he hadn’t been so on edge. ‘Very well. Let us begin then. Away, Night Watchman. Jeiros, dazzle us with news from the Order.’
     
    Acting Grand Master Jeiros, acting head of the Order of the