23
Hadden’s Bane
The ceremony was scheduled to begin at the halfway point between dawn and noon. They’d expected King Eoghan to arrive in the night. When midnight passed, they all retired to their individual chambers, accepting that he’d been delayed. While they all lay in their beds, pretending to sleep, men the king sent ahead worked diligently outside to prepare for the morning’s festivities. They built a simple scaffold, adorning it with flowers native only to the Hinterlands; striking arrangements of violet and evergreen, colors most wouldn’t see again until springtide and, she guessed, may have been plucked from deep within the forests beyond Termonglen. The moon’s illumination gave them an ethereal glow, Gretchen thought as she watched from her window.
Holden slept soundly, snori
