Darkwitch Rising by Sara Douglass

Lonquefort.”
    Charles started to shrug in disinterest, but then paused. “De Silva?” Of the forest ?
    “Aye.”
    “Tell me of him—his appearance, his aspect, his humour.”
    “He is of your age, and as dark, although not so well-built nor with your height. He speaks well, in quiet and pleasing tones. He has the eyes of a poet…and the impatience of one, too.”
    Charles very slowly smiled, and for a moment Hyde thought he’d never seen his young king look happier.
    “Then send him in, my friend. Send him in!”
    Hyde had only to step to the door and murmur a few words to admit the man: Hyde must have been certain of Charles’ reaction.
    As soon as Louis de Silva had entered, Hyde exited, closing the door behind himself.
    De Silva stared at the young king sitting on the chest by the window, then he bowed, deep and formal, sweeping off the hat from his head so that it swept the floor.
    “Charles,” he said. “Majesty.”
    Charles rose slowly, looking intently at the newcomer. The man had dark hair, as dark asCharles’ own, but straight, and worn much shorter, slicked back from his face; his build was less muscular than Charles’, but nonetheless gave the impression of wiry strength and grace, as if he would be as useful on the dance floor as on the battlefield. His hands, where they emerged from the lace cuffs of his doublet, were long and slender, yet with the same implied strength as his build and bearing.
    De Silva was a stunning man, not simply in his dark fine-boned handsomeness or in his graceful carriage, but in the depth of his dark eyes, and the wildness that lurked there.
    De Silva…of the forest.
    Louis de Silva watched Charles stare at him, and then he slowly smiled. “Greetings, Brutus,” he said.
    Charles took a halting step forward, then another, and then one more before he embraced de Silva fiercely. “Oh, gods, I am glad you are here!” He pulled back, and took de Silva’s face between his hands. “Poet Coel? Is that you I see in there?”
    “Who else?” said de Silva.
    For a moment both men stared at each other, then they burst into laughter, and embraced once more, even more fiercely than previously.
    “I had not believed that Asterion could be bested until now, this moment, when I laid eyes on you,” Louis de Silva said, finally pulling back.
    “Careful,” Charles said, and laid a hand on Louis’ mouth. “Words are powerful, and they can also be enemies.”
    “But not you and I, not any more.”
    “We were not enemies in our last life, Louis. Not then, and most certainly not now.”
    Again they stared at each other, hands resting on each other’s shoulders, wordless, their eyes brimming with tears.
    “Who else?” said Louis eventually, and Charles knew instantly what he meant.
    “Mother Ecub is here with me,” he said, and then grinned at the expression on Louis’ face. “A younger Mother Ecub, called Marguerite Carteret now, and the delectable daughter of the governor of this island.”
    “Delectable? You have tasted her? Mother Ecub ?”
    “Why is it you always think me old and arthritic?” said a woman’s voice from the doorway, and Charles and Louis turned to see the woman who stood there.
    Marguerite entered, closed the door, and curtsied prettily first to Charles and then to Louis. “Demure and sensible, and always at service,” she murmured. Louis chuckled, stepped forward, and kissed her hand.
    “The first among Eaving’s Sisters,” he said, all humour now gone from his voice, and Marguerite shuddered at the blackness and depth in his eyes. “Where is she, Marguerite?”
    “We don’t know precisely,” Marguerite said. “She is in England, but further than that…” She shrugged.
    “Is she with Asterion?” said Louis.
    Charles shook his head. “We would have felt it,” he said. “All of us.”
    Louis sighed. “Any others?” he said.
    Charles and Marguerite exchanged glances.
    “Well?” Louis snapped. “Who?”
    “Loth is back,” said