Chapter 30 — The Long Night
The rider came in at dusk on a horse that died in the yard.
He was one of the fifteen Sierra had sent south — the youngest, a boy called Petrie who had ridden nine days and killed three mounts doing it, and he got as far as the packhouse steps before his legs went. Two guards caught him. He would not let them carry him.
"Majesty," he said. "I'm to say it to you myself. Captain's orders. Nobody else."
Sierra came down the steps.
"Say it."
"The King is dead." Petrie's face was black with road dirt except where it had run. "Eleven days ago. In the night, in his own bed. The healers say the poison finally—" He swallowed. "Majesty, he'd been refusing everything for weeks. Ate nothing he hadn't watched. It didn't matter. It was already in him. It had been in him
