Prince Crevan clapped his hands together twice. All eyes locked on him. He said calmly, “Now, to the mountain, the stone circle, and your adulthood.” He waved his arm toward the hulking mountain, and yellow lights sprang into being. They lit a clear path to follow from the willows to the meadow and up the mountain. There was a moment’s pause, and then a few of the more adventurous boys and girls started forward.
Gwen quickly sidled toward Aidan as the two groups merged together. He spotted her and relief spread across his face.
“I’m glad to see you,” she said.
“Let’s not split up again if we can help it, okay? I can’t take the stress.” Aidan smiled weakly at her. His face had been painted with blood also, broad straight strokes glistening across his cheeks.
“Hi Gwen.” Bran grinned at her. “Ready for the grand finale?”
“I guess I’d better be,” she said wryly.
They followed the path with the group, picking their way tentatively along the dirt track with their bare feet. The mountain loomed up in front of them, ominous and dark. The pale yellow lights zigzagged up the face and disappeared over the top.
Gwen trudged along in silence. The ceremony in the tree, the eerie lights, the darkness, and her worries left her uncommunicative. From the silence beside her, she guessed Aidan felt the same. Even Bran seemed subdued by the circumstances. He hadn’t said a word since they began their climb.
The way grew steeper very quickly. Gwen started panting as she hiked upward, sweat beading on her forehead. Occasionally she used her hands to clamber over boulders in the way. The unearthly glow from the Breenan lights brightened the path, but not enough to prevent Gwen from stubbing her toes and stepping on sharp stones inconveniently lodged in the dirt. She paused a moment to catch her breath, standing on one leg to massage a particularly sore point on her sole.
Aidan stopped beside her, apparently unwilling to be separated again. She was glad of it. He said in a casual tone, “So, I was thinking, maybe when we get home you’d join me in a ramble. We’ve got loads of excellent walks around Amberlaine.”
Gwen stared at him in bemusement until he grinned. She swatted his arm.
“I’m never leaving the city again after this. You can keep your rambling, thank you very much.”
They joined the path again and continued to climb. Gwen was annoyed and very hot in the warm evening air by the time the first of their group crested the ridge. The line sped up slightly, everyone eager to complete the climb and arrive at their destination. Suddenly the unknown horrors of the ceremony were a little too close, and Gwen realized her teeth were clenched together tightly. She focused on Bran’s feet in front of her and tried not to think about the ceremony ahead. She still had no idea what was going to happen.
In her distraction her foot slipped off a rock she had been climbing. She fell, bashing her knee and stumbling backward. She panicked—the way down was too steep for mishaps—but then arms surrounded her waist, stabilizing her. She gulped in air.
“It’s okay,” Aidan said softly in her ear. “I’ve got you.”
They stood together for a moment, Gwen calming her breathing and enjoying the sensation of being held and feeling safe. It was a welcome distraction from her fear of their destination. She shivered slightly, hairs on her arms rising as the heat of his bare chest warmed the skin of her exposed back.
“Come on, hermits,” Bran’s voice called softly back to them. He stood on the ridge above them, backlit by a greenish-yellow glow. He beckoned to them. “We’re here.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Aidan said. “What’ll it take to get Bran to bugger off? He’s worse than an ant at a picnic.”
“Well, one way or other it will all be over soon,” Gwen said with a shiver. She patted Aidan’s arm around her waist and he slowly let go. She carefully climbed the last few steps to reach Bran and looked down from the ridge toward the glow.
The top of the mountain was bare, with only an occasional tuft of grass and windswept rocky outcrop. In the very center stood a circle of stones. Gwen counted twenty-one rectangular megaliths, chest-height, sticking up out of the ground as if growing there organically. She couldn’t help thinking of them as teeth in an open mouth. The same lights that had lit their path were scattered around the periphery of the circle, but inside shadows of the stones fell across each other in darker and darker layers.
The others walked with measured paces into the circle as if compelled. Bran’s eyes as he passed Gwen were intensely focused straight ahead with none of his usual cheerful mischief. She looked at Aidan, half-afraid she’d see the same expression on him, but he just raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
Gwen saw their opportunity. “Aidan,” she hissed under her breath. “Let’s make our escape now. They all look pretty preoccupied.”
Aidan looked to the circle, where the last of the stragglers were arranging themselves, all facing the rising moon. He nodded.
“Good call. Let’s go.”
They both took a step away from the circle. At least, Gwen meant to step away. Instead, she found her foot facing the stones. She tried again with the other foot, and again was one pace closer to the circle. She looked at Aidan in alarm.
“What the hell? Why aren’t my feet working?”
Aidan’s face was perplexed. He gave another experimental step, then a jump. Both brought him closer to the stones.
“Bloody hell,” he said, frowning at his feet. “There’s some kind of enchantment on us, maybe. We have to go to the circle with the others.”
“Seriously?” Of all the trials and indignities they had suffered over the past few days, Gwen thought this might take the cake. They were stuck in this stupid world, following stupid rituals because of a stupid identity mistake, and now she couldn’t move where she wanted to because of a stupid spell. She thought she might scream in frustration.
A strong wind blew her hair around her face and whipped their clothing into a frenzy.
“Whoa, where did that come from?” Aidan clutched at his rope belt, then looked at Gwen. “Was that you?” The frustration must have been apparent on her face because he quickly added, “Don’t worry, Gwen. Let’s just go into the circle and get this charade over with.”
Gwen looked into Aidan’s eyes as he gave her an encouraging smile. She exhaled and tried to let go of her anger, as much as she could. Aidan reached out a hand. She took it, and together they walked into the stone circle.
Chapter 12
Gwen and Aidan took their places at the back of the group. The rest stood motionless, heads raised, all eyes gazing unblinking at the full moon. Gwen and Aidan glanced at each other, then Gwen shook her hair out of her face, took a deep breath, and looked at the moon.
After a little while, she started to understand the fascination. It was very beautiful, perfectly round, and brighter than she’d ever remembered seeing it before. The stars nearby were faint in comparison, although the Milky Way was emblazoned across the zenith above their heads. The familiar stars comforted her—despite all the strangeness of her surroundings, some things were constant and forever. The moon’s craters were clearly etched on its surface. She remembered vaguely that the craters were named as bodies of water, like the Sea of Tranquility and other poetic labels. Her frustration suddenly seemed a fuzzy memory. She imagined herself floating on a tiny sailboat in a sea of tranquility on the moon. She filled in the crater with an imagined ocean, calm and dark, glimmering with the moon’s radiant glow.
She came back to herself as the standing stones began to glow with a pure white light, as if the moon had broken into pieces around them. As the light of the stones grew brighter, a strange tingling developed on her left shoulder. She reached up and touched the area, wondering, and looked at Aidan to see him doing the same thing. She craned her neck, but the light of the stones exposed only smooth unblemished skin.
Suddenly a surge of energy pulsed through her. She threw her head and hands back involuntarily and her mouth opened in
a silent scream. The sensation was similar to the one she’d shared with the girls in the willow tree, but many times stronger. Energy poured through her, and she was paralyzed by it. She stared at the stars overhead, unable to breathe, unable to think. She only existed, merely a fragile vessel surrounding a piece of the universe pulsing inside her. Eons passed—the stars flickered and blazed and exploded before her eyes in life cycles too massive to comprehend. Gwen mindlessly witnessed the glory of the universe unfolding and accepted her unfathomably small role in the infinite.
She had almost lost herself, was almost not Gwen anymore, was only atoms of the universe, when there was a change in the energy filling her. It brought her back to her body with a sudden awareness. Then the energy turned from pressure to white hot agony, gradually focusing onto her shoulder.
Gwen screamed aloud. She couldn’t help it. The pain was all-consuming, both a deep throbbing and a sharp stab all at once. She was forced to her knees, the weight of the pain pressing down on her like a giant hand. Her own screams mingled in a dissonant chorus of other screams and cries, but she quickly dismissed all external noises as secondary to the overwhelming torment.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the pain left. Gwen found herself bent over on her knees, gasping for air as if she’d been running for her life. She stayed perfectly still, afraid to move for fear it might trigger the pain again. After a minute, when nothing happened, she cracked open her tightly shut eyelids.
The standing stones were dark and lifeless, brooding once more. The moonlight cast shadows of the stones again, and the stars twinkled innocently. The others began to stir, obviously as stricken as Gwen. They slowly raised their heads and shakily got to their feet.
Gwen straightened carefully. She looked over at Aidan who was on his hands and knees, head hanging. She crawled over to him and put a hand on his right shoulder.
“Aidan?” she whispered hoarsely. “Are you okay?”
He turned to look at her, still panting. His eyes were half-closed and a little dazed, but he nodded.
“You?”
“Yeah.” She looked around. “Can you walk? We should get out of here.”
Aidan’s eyes opened wider and flashed to her left shoulder. She craned her neck to follow his gaze. A dark pattern stained the skin of her shoulder by the dim light of the full moon. It was extensive, larger than the length of her hand, wrapping from her collarbone over her shoulder to her back.
“What the hell?” Her mouth gaped open in astonishment. She looked at Aidan’s shoulder, where a similar darkness spread. “Do you think they look like the others we’ve seen?”
“I don’t know—it’s too dark. How do we have them at all, anyway?” Aidan looked around. “Just wait here until the others leave, then we can at least be in the back.”
Gwen sat back on her feet and watched as the others trickled out of the circle, arms around each other’s shoulders, some moving as if still in pain or afraid of its return.
When the last of the Breenan stumbled out of the circle, Gwen got unsteadily to her feet. She felt drained and weak, as if she were recovering from a long illness. Her shoulder was tender to the touch, but surprisingly little of the acute pain remained.
Aidan lurched to his feet, swaying a little as he straightened. He put a hand on his forehead and rubbed tiredly.
“I feel like I got hit by a bus,” he said, rolling his shoulders in a stretch.
“I hear you,” Gwen replied. They hobbled after the last of the group, a young man with his arm around a staggering girl. As they passed between two of the black stones, something jumped out at them from the shadows.
“Hi, hermits,” Bran said. He grinned at them, but Gwen detected a tiredness that hadn’t been in his face before. Maybe even Bran had been affected by the ceremony. She smiled weakly back, but inwardly groaned. How long would they have to stay with these people just because they couldn’t shake Bran?
“So, it finally happened,” Bran said, spreading out his left arm and twisting it to look at his mark. He held out his right palm. Instantly a bluish flame appeared in his hand. Gwen threw a sharp look at Aidan. It was identical to the flames Aidan made back in their world. Aidan stared at Bran’s hand, his eyes dazed.
Gwen started to piece things together, in waves of comprehension that washed over her. Aidan’s magic, her ‘strangeness,’ their acceptance into Breenan society based on appearance, their unknown parentage, the marks on their shoulders that looked suspiciously like Bran’s…
“Excellent,” Bran said, nodding in satisfaction as he examined his mark. “Let’s see yours, then.” Bran twisted around and held onto Aidan’s shoulders with both hands, leaving the flame to hover in mid-air nearby. Aidan looked too shocked by what had happened to put up much resistance. Bran hummed a little to himself.
“Ah! You’re one of King Landon’s tribe, from the neighboring realm to mine.” He looked into Aidan’s dazed face. “But you didn’t even know that, did you, hermit?” Aidan’s confusion must have answered him, because Bran shook his head in disbelief and continued reading the mark on Aidan’s shoulder. Gwen looked too, but there was only an incomprehensible pattern of vines and leaves. Bran’s normally carefree face frowned suddenly, and Gwen’s stomach clenched.
Bran said, “Wait a minute. It says here that Lord Declan is your father. But Declan is my mother’s cousin, and I’ve been to his house many times. He has loads of children, but I’ve never seen you.” He glanced at Aidan, who craned his neck to view the mark. Bran scrutinized the mark again. “And it doesn’t say anywhere who your mother is. I’m sure I’m reading it right.” He released Aidan’s shoulders and stepped back. Confusion played across Bran’s face, until understanding blossomed. It was swiftly followed by incredulity. “No. Are you—are you both half-human?”
Gwen and Aidan stared at him, dumbstruck. Gwen couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Terrible visions filled her thoughts of what would become of them once the rest of the Breenan found out who they were. All she could do was stare in dread as Bran looked from her to Aidan and back again.
Suddenly Bran’s face transformed as he let out a great burst of laughter. Gwen took an involuntary step back and Aidan put out a hand as if for protection. Bran bent over in convulsive laughter.
“That is the best—joke—ever,” he said between bouts. “How did you get here? And you’ve been fooling everyone all this time!” His outbursts calmed gradually into chuckles.
Gwen tried to shush him.
“Please, not so loud.” Others were looking curiously back at them as they climbed down the mountain. Bran continued in what Gwen would have generously described as a theatrical whisper.
“Wow.” He gave them both an admiring glance. “I’ve pulled some stunts in my time, but nothing as amazing as this.” He shook his head in wonder, still grinning. “No wonder you didn’t know anything. Hermits indeed. So you’re actually from the human world?” His curiosity was almost palpable.
Gwen let out a long slow breath. Aidan bent his neck back, rubbing his hands over his face. Gwen said, “Are you going to tell anyone?”
“What, and ruin the joke? Not likely.” Gwen’s knees actually weakened in relief. Bran said, “So why are you here, anyway? And how did you get here? Most of the portals have been closed for hundreds of years. Only a few people can go through them, and it’s a closely guarded secret how they do. So how did you manage, when only a few of the most powerful people in the land can do it?”
Gwen briefly put a hand over her eyes, letting the adrenaline pass out of her body.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just touched the stone doorway in a barrow and the portal opened.”
Bran moved toward her.
“Do you mind?” He gestured at her shoulder. She shook her head and he leaned in to inspect her new mark. After a minute he said, “Looks like you’re from Queen Isolde’s realm.”
Gwen stood perfectly still. Had she heard him right?
“What did you say?
” Perhaps Isolde was a common name here, or maybe he had said Isabelle.
“Queen Isolde’s tribe, yeah. That was her castle, where we met. Wait a minute.” He looked closely at her shoulder, and then into her face. Deep curiosity filled his eyes.
“Did you know you’re the queen’s daughter?”
Chapter 13
Gwen stared at Bran, uncomprehending. What had he said? The pieces were all there, but she couldn’t assemble them into a coherent picture. Her mother’s name was Isolde, her father had told her that years ago, and the sketch reminded her every time she looked at it. She’d surmised that her mother was either here in the Otherworld or had some connection to it, given the portrait in Corann’s locket. She had thought that perhaps her mother had been lured here just as Ellie had been, and had maybe died here. She’d met the queen of this realm, presiding over the never-ending dance and punishing Ellie for the ridiculous crime of missing a step, forcing her to dance until her shoes were in tatters. Now Bran was saying that the queen’s name was Isolde, and that she was Gwen’s mother?
“No,” Gwen whispered. “No no no no no.” She shook her head in small frantic jerks, trying to stop her mind from connecting the dots. Her mother was supposed to be a kind and lovely woman, not a cruel inhuman Breenan. She thought suddenly of her father, her kind-hearted generous father, and her mind recoiled at the thought of him ever being attracted to the queen. Queen Isolde.
Aidan put a hand on her unmarked shoulder. “Hey,” he said, his white face peering into hers in concern. “Are you all right?”
“How could that—monster—be my mother?” she gasped, searching Aidan’s face as if trying to find answers there. His concerned eyes offered only questions of his own. She whirled on Bran.
“Are you positive? You’re sure you read my mark right?”
Bran put his hands up defensively.
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