The King looked stunned, Fulcruchen looked pleased, and Elymas looked as though he might explode. Naturally, he was the first to speak.

            “What outrage is this? No earth child has been born! I am the Earth Skyll and I would know!”

            Affirmations from the Red Robes sounded throughout the room, the loudest being from two hulking men, Strout and Root. The crowd, bored before, now buzzed with whispers, some discreet, other not. The apprentices, boys who’d come in hopes of further training in castle work, sat huddled in their section but for a red-headed youth who sat apart, watching the Earth Skyll intently. The boy’s name was Jessum and, like Fulcruchen, it gave him deep joy to see Elymas unsettled. 

            Ranald lifted his scepter and the crowd stilled.

            “May I see the letter?” He straightened his spine against the against the throne. It cost him a searing pain in his right lung, but the Warrior King willed his expression into place. For the moment, the feather lay forgotten in his lap.

Elymas rose to stand directly behind the King’s left shoulder and together they read the message. Elymas jabbed his finger at several places in the scroll, until the King held out his hand to desist. Even so, he jabbed again, unwilling to consider another in his place.