She didn’t answer, her eyes as listless as what he had previously seen when she was in a trance. He reached for her sword, but the raven on her shoulder arched its wings and shrieked. Avoiding the bird’s jabs, he took the weapon away. The creature then hooked its claws into her cloak. She never flinched when he fumbled to unclasp the fabric. Frustrated, scared, he ripped the cloak away and threw it on the ground, along with the raven entangled in the fabric.
The creature went limp.
When Marcellus looked at Catrin, the overhead cloud cast a shadow that seemed to switch her blue eyes to the color of brilliant amber gems. Unnerved by the phenomenon, he touched her pallid face.
A burning spark jolted into his hand.
Shocked, he recoiled and gaped at the two black pinpoints that looked like a snake bite in his hand. Shaking his head in disbelief, he muttered, “What in Hades?”
Though he did not detect any movement in Catrin’s lips, he heard her voice saying, Help me! Help me to escape!
Seeing the terror in her eyes, he asked, “Escape from what?”
Catrin touched his arm and emitted another painful shock.
Startled, he jumped back and stumbled over what felt like a stone. He looked down. The raven’s head was turned upside down and its black eyes turned blue-green.
Fearing the raven was casting a spell, he lunged at the creature to smack it away. His fist barely missed the bird as it flew away.
Then to Marcellus’s horror, Catrin collapsed on the ground, her hands curved like talons. A shrill erupted from her throat and milky foam bubbled from her mouth. Her arms flailed, legs jerked. He helplessly watched her convulse from what he guessed to be the falling sickness—an affliction great men like Julius Caesar had suffered. Although he heard tales about the ailment, he had never witnessed the violent, gut-wrenching muscle contractions. He turned Catrin on her side to ease her breathing. Her mouth continued frothing like a rabid dog’s, her teeth clicking.
After several agonizing moments, her convulsions finally eased and she went limp. He examined her eyes and was relieved they were blue again. When he touched her clammy forehead, she groaned and looked at him in bewilderment. He gently stroked her face. “Relax. You have awakened from a nightmare.”
She tried to speak, but he couldn’t understand the garbled words.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked.
She nodded weakly.
Marcellus knew that he had to get her back to the village. How could he explain what happened to any native who could not speak Latin? He must find the queen or Belinus.
Hearing twigs snap, Marcellus spun on his heels to find three bare-chested warriors, one he recognized as Cynwrig with the battle-ax. He didn’t know the others. One was holding the reins of the black stallion and the bay. The third man, brandishing a spear, had a broad nose and upturned eyes. Disheveled coppery hair and heavy beard crowned his face like a lion’s mane. The warrior’s feral eyes scoured over Marcellus’s chest down to his groin.
Marsellus shuddered, realizing in his haste to protect Catrin, he had not put a stitch of clothing on. A frigid breeze swept over him as he looked at the storm clouds rumbling over the treetops.
How do I explain this?
He stretched out his hands toward the disgruntled men as if he was calming skittish colts. “Let us not get too excited. It is not what you think.”
The men shifted their eyes from Catrin to Marcellus and back to her. It was obvious they were not jubilant to see him in natural armor. He forced a thin smile, wondering if they would view him more favorably if he had been a Celtic Gaesatae at the Battle of Telamon. Undoubtedly, he would suffer the same fate as the Gaesatae—who fought naked and were slaughtered by the Romans—if the painted warriors suspected him of any disrespectable behavior toward their beloved princess.
Fighting to keep his wits, he pointed to Catrin. “She is hurt. I need your help. Do you understand? Hurt.”
The barbarians looked blankly at each other.
Cynwrig knelt beside Catrin and pressed two fingers on her neck.
As Marcellus focused on Catrin, he was ambushed with a hammer fist into his gut, knocking him to the ground. Gasping for air, he curled his legs to his chest in agony. The sadistic, lion-face warrior added humiliation by rubbing trousers in his face.
Finally catching his breath, Marcellus staggered to his feet, hurriedly dressed, and warily watched the coppery-haired warrior lift Catrin into the arms of Cynwrig, astride the black stallion. Cynwrig cradled her in his arms and kneed the steed onto the river pathway.
With a sword pressed against his back, Marcellus followed Cynwrig on foot. Glancing back at the Ancient Oak, a sense of doom quaked through him when he saw the lion-faced warrior crouching and inspecting the wolf pelt.
30
Scorched Raven
“Every decision you make from now on can change how the life-threads will weave into the tapestry. Be forewarned …”
Catrin hovered between consciousness and disturbing visions on her ride with Cynwrig to the village. At times, she could feel the sway of the horse beneath her and Cynwrig holding her tight. Though she had initially resisted the raven from entering her mind, the bird ultimately forced itself in.
She no longer knew if she was human or raven.
With the unbearable pain of sharing the raven’s essence in her skull, her human soul escaped in the form of a raven to the sanctuary of the Ancient Oak. As she floated around its welcoming branches, she wondered if she was yet alive. Perhaps, her soul had wandered to the Otherworld and was unable to find its way back to the mortal world.
The Ancient Oak’s gigantic boughs sheltered other creatures in the forest—chattering birds, humming bees, and nipping foxes. At first glance, every living entity seemed disjointed, but she knew they were all bound to each other. Streams and rivers flowed into the sea, connecting water and land; birds flew into the sky, connecting heaven and earth. What happened to one happened to all.
Suddenly, a bright light broke through the forest canopy. Looking up, she saw the sun slowly descending upon her, its molten tongues bursting out from the red globe. The sun morphed into a horse-driven chariot driven by Marcellus, his body naked and hair as golden as a sunrise. He landed the chariot on an upper branch of the Ancient Oak and summoned her. “Take a journey with me into your soul.”
Catrin then recalled her father’s words: Dreams are glimpses into your soul. Time stands still and destiny flies over life’s currents. She hesitated to join Marcellus. Her dream might transform into a nightmare that could threaten her soul.
Finally finding the courage to accept Marcellus’s invitation, she swooped through the quivering leaves and landed on his extended arm. When he raised his forearm, she saw the reflection of the enigmatic white raven on his crystalline blue eyes. The words “pure, loyal, brave” resonated in her ears.
Marcellus clasped her pristine-feathered body and set it on a wooden pyre. He spread out his fingers and emitted sparks onto the kindling, igniting it. A powerful force burned through Catrin like a firestorm. New strength surged into her muscles as the flames devoured her tissue and the blood boiled beneath her skin. Smoke released soot that she breathed into her lungs. Her skull felt as if it were ready to explode with hot gases. Smoke blasted into her nostrils as the inferno burned hotter and hotter. A bone-crackling shriek escaped her throat as her eyes shot from the sockets. Raw pain screamed all over her charred skin as she beseeched the raven, “Help me! Help me escape Apollo’s fire!”
A charge bolted up her spine and clamped her jaw shut. Cackles echoed in her ears as she was then transported through a crevice and into a tunnel of light. She had experienced this before in the raven’s mind, but had always leapt out before entering the dark portal inside the rainbow arch. This time, the force was so strong, she could not escape.
Bracing herself to burst throug
h the dark gateway, she was surprised finding herself bouncing off its flexible surface and somersaulting several times. After stabilizing herself, she floated up the multicolored arch and studied the flashing life-threads on the fluid surface. Each thread connected, then disconnected with others.
The raven explained in a man’s baritone voice, “This is the transitional barrier between the mortal world and Otherworld. It is called the Wall of Lives. It is here where nature’s forces coalesce and time stands still—past, present, and future merging into one.”
As Catrin drew closer to the wall, she could see moments of everyone’s life project on each respective life-thread. She asked the raven, “What is this?”
“In the spiritual realm, you can harvest universal truths from past, present, and future,” the raven explained. “You are like an Ancient Oak that anchors its roots into the earth’s womb to nourish the leaves that capture truth’s light. Each living thing is a life-thread that weaves in and out a fluid tapestry from birth to death. As you can see, every person has a unique colored thread that joins others to conjoin everyone’s fates.”
A brilliant light flashed before Catrin’s eyes. Full of wonderment, she asked. “What was that?”
The raven cawed with delight. “At each birth, a bright light flashes on the wall whenever a soul reincarnates into its next form—fish, bird, animal, human. It is here Ancient Druids could see the future. Only a few humans are chosen by the gods and goddesses to have this gift. You are one of them. Born with the raven spirit, you can hover between the white spiritual realm and black earthly existence.”
Awestruck, Catrin asked, “Have I always had this ability?”
“Yes,” the raven answered. “But you were too afraid to acknowledge it. Forces such as these often manifest when you are besieged with hate, rage, and fear.”
Catrin now realized her dreams and foreboding visions were flashes of moments that she had seen on the Wall of Lives. Many of these images were surreal and she did not know how to interpret them. She asked, “What good is it to prophesy if I cannot change the future?”
The raven lifted its beak and cawed, “Study the past and tell me what you see.”
Catrin studied the life-threads of a coppery haired woman and a dark haired girl, their lustrous life-threads weaving and joining each other. She concentrated on the life-thread of the woman whose features were similar to Marrock’s. At one point, a white-robed man was tying the wrist of King Amren as a young man to the woman, a radiant adolescent, at a wedding ceremony. At the next twist in the life-thread, the woman was giving birth to a baby boy.
But the last image on the life-thread struck horror into Catrin.
Before a towering bonfire, the stately woman fell on her knees and raised her arms to the blood moon—the image Catrin had seen before the Romans landed. The woman never flinched when the king chopped off her head with a longsword.
Repulsed, Catrin looked away, a taste of bile in her mouth.
The raven shrieked, “You cannot escape the past! Look again and tell me what you see.”
Turning her eyes to the Wall of Lives again, Catrin observed something odd. The woman’s life-thread did not end at the portal leading into the Otherworld, but whipped back and entangled with the gray thread of the diminutive, dark haired girl. Their images then blurred on the adjoining thread that slithered back and forth like a striped serpent over a black sea. It was heading toward Catrin’s life-thread at the point where she saw herself on the fiery pyre where Marcellus had placed her. She struggled to understand why she flew out of the flames as a scorched, black raven. A foreboding chill feathered down her back.
She asked the raven, “What does this mean?”
The bird’s silence screamed to her soul. The white raven that Marcellus had placed on the pyre had scorched black in the fire. She quavered. “What have I become?”
The raven crooned, “Look backward and you will understand as you fly forward.”
Puzzled, Catrin again examined the thread-lines of the woman and girl. The truth finally dawned on her like a rising sun.
Rhan never died. She and Agrona are one and the same. The eidolon hiding behind Agrona’s eyes is Rhan. If Rhan can possess Agrona, she can also take control of me!
Catrin shuddered. “What does Agrona want from me?”
“She wants to reset Rhan’s curse by having you burn in Apollo’s flames,” the raven said with grated voice.
Catrin gasped. “Do you mean Marcellus is Apollo?”
“Yes,” the raven resoundingly replied. “Every decision you make from now on can change how the life-threads will weave into the tapestry. Be forewarned, the time a person dies can only be determined by the gods.”
“Rhan defied death when she possessed Agrona,” Catrin retorted.
The raven replied in a thundering voice. “At what cost?”
Everything then silenced and the Wall of Lives tumbled into a waterfall that transformed into flames.
Waking from her vision, Catrin found herself astride a horse near a farm field, her head leaned against Cynwrig.
He touched her forehead and gasped, “She is on fire.”
31
Rhan’s Secret
For almost twenty years, she had patiently waited for this moment, finally spinning her web of deception for Amren’s downfall.
Standing near the fortress gate, Agrona looked down the hilltop and watched the group begin their climb. Catrin appeared ill leaning against Cynwrig, both of them astride the black steed. Marcellus was afoot with a guard holding a sword to his back. Ferrex was farther back, riding Catrin’s bay horse. Belinus was not with them. Agrona suspected he was with Mor, confirming local rumors of their affair. That could only mean that Catrin and Marcellus had consummated their love, despite the queen’s command that they be escorted by Belinus.
Agrona smirked.
For almost twenty years, she had patiently waited for this moment, finally spinning her web of deception for Amren’s downfall. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. The afternoon sun was unusually hot, reminding her of the heat from the bonfire during Rhan’s execution. Agrona clutched her throat, reliving the excruciating pain of tendons snapping away from her spine as Amren sliced the sword blade through her neck. When her head flew off, she stubbornly clung to life with only an infinitesimal time to possess another being. If her soul was entrapped in the severed skull, she could not finish the journey to the Otherworld and complete the circle of death into life.
Miraculously, her head slipped through the dainty fingers of the feeble-minded girl before falling on the hard ground. That was when Rhan entered Agrona’s mind.
At first, Marrock refused to believe Agrona was Rhan and that his mother’s soul no longer lived in the skull that he had enshrined. Later, when he was a young man, he reluctantly accepted Agrona as Rhan’s embodiment. Like any mother fighting for her son’s birthright, Agrona unveiled an exquisite plan for Marrock to embrace his legacy that she had foretold in her curse.
Agrona chuckled at her own cleverness.
For years, she had deceived Amren into believing she was a powerful Druidess selected by the gods to be his spiritual advisor. After gaining the king’s confidence, she amazed him with her ability to describe intimate details that only Rhan could have known. Everything went perfectly to plan, almost too perfectly. Catrin changed all of that.
Agrona was at first overjoyed that Catrin had been born with a raven spirit. She knew when Catrin joined forces with Marrock, they would be an unstoppable force, overthrowing Amren and conquering all tribal regions on the isle—a mighty nation to rival the Roman Empire.
But she had not predicted the raven’s fervor to protect Catrin.
The tightly woven scheme unraveled after Marrock abandoned Catrin in the woods. A week later, Amren banished Marrock without a public hearing. Although Agrona had been
the king’s closest confidante, he refused to reveal the reason for his judgment. He instead showed her the dagger on which he had transcribed Rhan’s curse. To Agrona’s dismay, the inscription had transformed from the original curse. That was also the day her mystical powers began to fade.
Infuriated that Marrock had somehow altered the curse, she questioned him about what he had done to Catrin, hoping to discover what altered the curse. He refused to cooperate, instead mocking her, “Perhaps you are not the most powerful Druidess of all times as you claim. If you were, the curse would be steadfast.”
Agrona lashed out, “You ungrateful numbskull!” She pushed against his chest. “I laid the groundwork for you to bring down your father. Without me, you are nothing.”
Marrock shot a seething glare that burned into Agrona’s inner core. “You forget yourself, Mother. Do not test my patience.”
Nonetheless, she stood her ground. “You idiot! How did you goad the ravens to peck out chunks of tissue from your skull? You are now nothing but a monster with a moon-cratered face!”
Before Agrona could run away, seeing the fire in Marrock’s eyes, he yanked her up with a hand and shook her like a rabbit within inches of his ghostly, pitted face. “Don’t forget, Mother, I have the powers you once had! I can shape-shift into a wolf. And soon, I will be the mightiest Druid of all time.”
What could Agrona do but meekly acquiesce? If her son ever found out the true extent of her diminishing powers, he would spit her out like rotten meat. With every gain in his supernatural abilities, his hubris swelled. How could she trust such a self-serving son to carry out her curse?
She couldn’t—not now, not ever! She had to outmaneuver him, a well-known secret for bringing down pompous rulers. First, she had to find a way to reset the curse and to regenerate her mystical capabilities. The only option was to use Catrin as an agent to mine the forces from the Otherworld. Though the princess appeared a clumsy toddler trying to control her raven’s magic, Agrona knew that she needed to proceed cautiously until she could fully determine Catrin’s strengths.
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