Sin Eater's Daughter 2 - The Sleeping Prince Read Free

air I breathe these days is second-hand, or stolen. I can hardly breathe as it is.
    When it seems everyone who’s coming has arrived, sitting dotted around the room like the last of the raisins in a sad plum pudding, Chanse Unwin – surely the realm’s most ironic Justice – strides into the room, chest puffed out, scanning every face. When his eyes land on me he half smiles a greeting, and my skin crawls as his smile rearranges itself into a concerned frown, or a parody of one. He looks so sweaty that I’m surprised the frown doesn’t slide clean off his face.
    He’s flanked by the two grim-faced, green-coated soldiers who were manning the door outside, and they’re joined, unusually, by their captain, a red sash across his barrel chest. When six more soldiers follow them and position themselves around the edges of the space, the atmosphere in the room ripples and tightens.
    Instantly I sit upright, alert as a hare, and around me every single one of my neighbours does the same; even the woman who grunted at me when I sat down unfurls from her crone-like hunch to glower over at Unwin. As my hand glides to my belt to check for my knife, I see other hands moving to boot tops and waists, all of us wanting the reassurance that we’re armed.
    Whatever this meeting is about, Unwin clearly expects the news to be taken badly, and my heart sinks because there’s only one thing he could possibly say at this point that would make us mutinous. The already scant air feels as though it’s congealing in my throat.
    Chanse Unwin looks around the room once more, taking us all in, before pressing his palms together. “I have news from the Council in Tressalyn,” he says, his voice unctuous and self-satisfied. “And it is not good. Three nights ago the Sleeping Prince’s golems attacked the Lormerian town of Haga. They destroyed the two temples there, and once again left no survivors. They slaughtered anyone who refused to bend the knee to him, some four hundred souls. This attack follows the sacking of the temples in Monkham and Lortune, and brings his army within fifty miles of the border between us and Lormere. Based on this pattern, the Council believes he’ll march on Chargate next.”
    At this everyone turns to their neighbour with raised eyebrows, petty local arguments and generations-old feuds forgotten as they begin to murmur to one another. I don’t look at anyone. Instead I squeeze my fingers around the hilt of my knife and take a deep breath. Chargate is on the other side of the trees; it’s Almwyk’s Lormerian counterpart. It would put the golems merely hours away from us, the other side of the wood.
    Unwin clears his throat, and the whispering dies away. “The Council concludes that its attempts to negotiate with the Sleeping Prince have failed. He has outright refused to sign a treaty of peace with Tregellan and will not deny that he plans to invade.” His gaze flickers briefly to the captain, who smirks and glances at one of the other soldiers, making me wonder how much Unwin truly knows of what he’s reporting, and what he’s merely been told to relate. “Because of this,” Unwin continues, “the Council has sat in emergency session, and unanimously decided that we have no choice but to declare a state of war in Tregellan.”
    He pauses dramatically, as if expecting us to make some protest. But we say and do nothing, remaining stony-faced and silent, saving our reactions until he gets to the crux of the matter, the part that affects us, and warrants fifteen of the newly mustered Tregellian army’s finest in a room where we barely outnumber them.
    Realizing this, he continues. “Last night the Tregellian army sealed the border from the River Aurmere to the Cliffs of Tressamere. Including the East Woods.” He pauses and the whole world narrows to this room, to these words. Don’t say it. I concentrate as hard as I can. Don’t say it.
    “All trade and traffic between here and Lormere is prohibited