Myrren's Gift by Fiona McIntosh

rather die than have you touch me again, you pig!” And the chilling, prophetic reply. “Perhaps that can be arranged,” his father had said, just as coldly.
    Celimus had not been the only one in earshot of the harsh exchange and so when the hunting accident occurred not long after, it was a small leap for many who had heard the gossip. Anyone who knew Magnus would refute the claim fiercely. Anyone who knew him well enough would know the man was more than capable of such a thing. Whether he had killed his wife or whether it was an accident remained a tantalizing mystery to Celimus. It was a matter never discussed and over the years it had become a buried issue, as cold as the tomb that enclosed its victim.
    Celimus never forgot it. however. It festered in his heart to become a dark ball of hate he vowed to one day hurl at the pig who sired him. He had heard his father openly threaten Adana and from the day of her death he had privately sworn to make his father pay. As a child there was little more he could do than remove all contact and pretense at affection, even in public, from the King as best he could. Drawing on memories of his mother, he became utterly cold and detached from Magnus, who. by the same token and at the urgings of Fergys, had begun an all-out effort to bring his son closer. But it was too late.
    Too late for the father to give love. Too late for the child to want it let alone welcome it. In a youngster’s warped way Celimus had linked the always present Fergys Thirsk with wanting Adana dead and maturing had not eased the young Prince’s attitude toward his father’s closest friend. When the news of Thirsk’s passing had begun to filter through Stoneheart. Celimus had rejoiced at the old General’s death.
    He had hoped it would drive a stake of pain so hard into his father’s heart that he might die of the agony and loneliness. But now he was having to deal with the hated seed of Thirsk’s loins.
    And the son appeared to have the same qualities that the father had showed before him.
    Now was a chance to stick another stake into his father’s side. Oh, he knew how his father loved Wyl.
    Did Magnus think him a fool? Did he not think it was writ all over his peasant face everytime he encountered the flame-haired troll? It mattered not to Celimus that he did not chase his father’s affection but he would be damned if he’d allow the old man to love anyone. You don ‘t deserve it, he had often raged silently at his father whenever he saw the pair of them together. I will not permit you that pleasure, that sense of warmth in your last years. You denied it to me and then you destroyed the only person who ever loved me. I shall do the same to you by destroying Wyl Thirsk whom you fawn over, he promised himself, smiling slyly toward the aging monarch.
    Celimus had deliberately never given the Thirsk lad a chance. From the moment of Wyl’s arrival at Stoneheart, Celimus had set about a campaign of destruction, his intention to break Wyl’s spirit and send him running home to Argorn. But so far the lad’s keen desire to follow in his father’s footsteps was giving him sufficient grit to withstand Celimus’s cruel schemings. He did not care for the defiance that burned in Wyl’s gaze either, that remained even when he was seemingly paying homage.
    “I’d like to poke your eyes out Wyl, and wipe that disloyal gaze from your ugly halfwit’s face,” he said to himself. “One day I might just do that. Destroy your eyes, destroy you, destroy the pretty, spoiled Ylena…” he trailed off as he heard the bells again.
    He smiled savagely at what the sound prompted in his mind. The Prince had heard the change in the bells a day or so ago. Discreet inquiries had told him this afternoon was the right time to strike. He had only his mother’s reports to go on of how brutal the torture of a witch could be. He reveled in the thought that he would finally witness the brutality she had hinted toward when he