When she and Owain disappeared from sight in the woods, Owain paused and drew her down onto a stump beside him.
“I regret very much what we must go through in these next few days,” he began. “This is not what I would ever want for my bride to have to endure, but if you understand why we must do this, it will, perhaps, make it easier.”
“I understand,” she replied.
“You do not know the entire story,” he said.
“Then tell it to me?”
“There is a blessing upon me. I don’t understand all of what it entails, though I have seen hints of it. This blessing was placed upon my lineage by the ancient ones. As long as this blessing is never broken, it will be passed on to my heir and my lineage will remain.”
“How is the blessing broken?”
“It is broken if the sun sets and I am no longer in the land of my people,” he replied. “That is why we could not cross the Celtic Sea.”
“I understand,” she said. “But where are we bound?”
“We are bound for Mynyddoedd Preseli,” he told her. “It is a sacred land. It is held sacred by the ancients and the home of my mother.”
“Wherever you go, I will go, my love,” she responded.
He kissed her softly. “I will make it as easy to bear as I am able. It is three days toward the north and we’ll sleep under the stars three night before we reach it.”
“I am ready,” she replied bravely.
The journey was long and Arthes was weary by the time they made their camp on the third night beside the Dragon’s Spire at the head of one of the valleys of Mynyddoedd Preseli. As dawn’s light kissed her tenderly, as it always did, they began the last leg of their journey, arriving in front of a cave under the midday sun. Before they entered, Owain paused to speak to her once more.
“I have told you that neither my father nor my mother are ordinary,” he began. He swallowed hard before he continued. “I am not certain what to expect when we enter this cave, but I trust on a mother’s love that we have nothing to fear.”
“With you guiding my way,” she smiled. “I fear nothing.”
A few moments later after they entered the cave, she wrapped her arms around him and trembled as a dragon came to meet them.
“Mother?” Owain said in a low tone.
“Owain, my son,” she replied. “You should not have come here.”
Chapter Twenty
Owain had known, when Eriu had sent him away, that his mother’s time had been short, but a part of him had never believed the tale that he’d been told. When he saw the dragon rise up before him, all doubt disappeared.
Trembling inside and feeling Arthes press her trembling body against him, he had swallowed the lump of fear that had clogged his throat and called out to her. The response he received caused mixed emotions inside of him and he waited to see if she would take them in or send them away.
“I did not want you to see me this way,” she said, turning her face away from him and hiding it from him. “You were forbidden to return. Why have you not obeyed my request? Besides, you have brought another to look upon my ugliness.”
“Mother,” he responded. “You could never be ugly to me, no matter what form you might take.”
“And yet you tremble in fear at the sight of me,” she answered. “As does the lovely woman by your side. Why would you frighten her so?”
“Because we are in danger, Mother,” he responded. “We had to flee from our people.”
“In danger?” she asked, turning to look at them for a moment and then, once again hiding her head in shame. “The people would never turn against you as long as you have the blessing. Is not Eriu there to help?”
“He is,” Owain replied. “The danger does not come from the people, Mother. It comes from a faceless form from the Arcadians.”
“The Arcadians?” she gasped, turned to face Owain and Arthes once more. “Impossible.”
“Not impossible,” Arthes responded in a soft voice. “I have seen the creature myself.”
“You have seen the creature?” Owain’s mother looked directly into Arthes’ face and measured her for a long moment.
Owain flet Arthes move behind him and use him to shield herself from his mother’s inspection, but peered out from behind him in a brave attempt to hold her ground.
“And what might you be called, seer?” she asked.
“I am Arthes,” she replied as boldly as she was able to muster. The sound of her voice was little more than a squeak.
“And why have you come with my son?”
“Arthes is my wife,” Owain responded boldly.
“Your wife?” his mother asked. “She is such a delicate flower, though with her gift, I suppose she is a worthy mate.”
“My gift?”Arthes responded, emboldened enough to move out from behind Owain and face her.
“If you were able to see the Arcadian, then you have a gift. No doubt you see clear visions as well.”
Before that moment, Arthes hadn’t considered the fact that she had clearly seen Owain in her dreams for a very long time before he came to her. “I had dreams of Owain before we met, but…”
“Then you have just begun,” Owain’s mother responded. She turned to go deeper into the cave. When Owain and Arthes hesitated to follow her, she turned back to them. “Are you coming or not?”
“With your permission, ma’am?” Owain asked.
“I wouldn’t have said come, if you didn’t have my permission,” she responded. She looked directly at Arthes. “I am Tristina. Come and meet my whelps.”
“You have whelps, Mother?” Owain asked. “But I don’t understand.”
“There are many things that you don’t understand about dragons, son.”
As they went beyond where the light from outside would reach into the cave, Tristina breathed fire onto a broken branch from a piece of driftwood that was from a time when the cavern rand full of water. “I suppose you’ll need this. My eyes see clearly in the darkness, but yours do not.”
Owain took up the torch and followed his mother deeper into the cave until they came to a large room where two small dragon whelps were stretched out upon a bed of straw. “My whelps,” Tristina whispered. “When they’ve awakened, I’ll introduce them to you. I don’t want to disturb them at the moment. My only peace comes when they are asleep.”
“By all means, let them sleep,” Arthes replied, already fascinated by the tiny, innocent forms curled up together on the straw like a pair of kittens.
“I assume that Owain told you nothing about me,” Tristina said in a tone that would not wake the whelps. “Judging by her reaction when we met.”
“I wasn’t sure what to expect either, Mother,” Owain replied.
“Let’s go away from the whelps so I can tell her my story. There should be no secrets between a mother and his son’s bride.”
They went away from the whelps and entered another chamber. “There are many chambers like this one. If you are going to stay, then you can choose the one you like and make it comfortable for yourselves. God only knows how Arthes will find comfort in a musty cave.”
“I find comfort in my love for Owain,” she responded.
“I hope that never dims, my dear, but a dank cave just might be able to quench that flame.”
“It won’t be forever, Mother,” Owain protested.
“I don’t have much in the way of comforts for humans I’m afraid,” Tristina announced. “But you can rest upon those two stones for the time being while I fill Arthes in on why her husband’s mother is a dragon.”
“I could benefit from the telling as well,” Owain responded.
Tristina glanced at Owain and then directed her attention toward Arthes. “I don’t know that I was ever a beautiful woman, but I was certainly not a dragon, though I was lovely enough when I first met Eriu and we fell in love. Because Eriu is a priest among the ancients, we were forbidden to marry or even to mate, but my heart would not allow me to depart from h
im. My deepest wish had been to lie in the arms of the man I loved and I had made my plea to the master of the ancients to grant it. He would not grant my request at first, knowing, of course, that to grant it, there would be a price to pay. I asked about the price and he told me that it would cost Eriu all of his powers.
“I could not bear that price, so I begged for another way. After a long time, I was finally given my answer and the price I would have to pay. I was allowed 50 years of lying in my lover’s arms before I took on this form. In secret, I made the agreement and the spell was cast.
“I did not tell Eriu the truth about what I had done until much later. In fact, it wasn’t until after he brought you to our home, Owain and I began to feel the changes start. I was controlling the dragon that was growing inside of me when I taught you how to control your own temper.”
“It has served me well, Mother,” Owain responded.
Tristina continued. “I could feel my bitterness growing and I knew that my time was coming to an end when I sent you away, my son. I could not bear for you to see me this way and yet, my heart was broken to let you go. You had brought joy into our childless lives and I wanted that memory to be taken with you and not this one.”
“Father did not tell me all,” Owain responded, “but it was enough to make me fearful of returning.”
“And yet you did,” she replied, looked away and then continued her tale. “My bitterness was fierce in the beginning, but when I hatched the whelps, that all changed. It was a tiny bit of grace granted to me.”
They heard a racket coming from the other chamber.
“My bit of grace has awakened. Come, I’ll introduce you to Gavyn and Draere.”
Chapter Twenty-one
“She cannot give birth here,” Tristina told Owain.
“Where then shall I take her, Mother?” Owain asked. “Every time we leave this cave, we risk giving ourselves away and we do that only in disguise and only when it is necessary.”
“What will happen if there is trouble during the birth?” Tristina responded. “I have no hands to help you and you know nothing about the birth of children.”
“But if we are seen in the village, especially while birthing child, we will be betrayed for sure. These are not our people. I cannot trust them all.”
“I did not tell you to go to the village, Son,” Tristina responded.
“Then where do we go?”
“Go to the temple of the ancients and ask for the priestess Dryade.”
“How do I know I can trust her?” he asked.
“Because she present with the priest who blessed your lineage,” Tristina returned.
Owain, still frustrated and working at controlling himself, returned the chamber that he and Arthes shared within the cave. It was dank and musty and he hated it, but it was what was necessary to keep them safe a while longer, especially with a child on the way.
“The time is near for our son to be born, Owain,” Arthes told him when she saw him come in.
“How do you know the child will be a son?” Owain asked.
“Because I have dreamt it already.”
“Have you dreamt what I’m supposed to do?”
“It doesn’t take a dream to know that you ought to follow the advice of your mother,” Arthes chuckled.
“But it is a risk.”
“And you have never taken a risk before.” Her eyes twinkled as she teased him.
“Are you mocking me, my love?” he grinned.
“Of course not, my love,” she returned.
“We will go to the priestess Dryade on the morrow.”
“I think we’d better do it tonight, my love,” she grimaced.
As dawn spread its golden rays across the bed where Arthes was straining to push the child from her loins, the priestess Dryade awaited patiently, encouraging her to give it all that she had. With the warmth of the sun giving her strength, Arthes groaned loudly, clenched her teeth together and gave a final push, feeling her son slip from inside her. A moment later, she heard his first cries.
“He is a hearty one, indeed,” Dryade laughed as she cleaned him off. “There might even be a dragon in there somewhere.”
“Then he shall be called Draig,” Owain said, entering the room at the sound of his son’s cry, though he’d been told not to.
“You were told to remain outside,” Dryade scolded.
“He never obeys anyone’s command,” Arthes answered as the priestess laid her son into her waiting arms. Owain came up beside her, kissed her on the forehead and gazed upon the miniature version of himself.
“Look at that black curly hair and those green eyes,” Owain commented.
“He just could be a Silurian,” Dryade commented as she continued to attend to her patient.
“He’s perfect,” Arthes responded. “A vision of the man I love.”
“Not a great deal unlike what Owain looked like when I brought him to Tristina,” Eriu said, stepping into the room to join them.
“Father?” Owain whispered.
“You didn’t expect me to miss this even did you?”
“My father, Eriu,” Owain said, introducing Arthes to the man who had raised him.
“I saw him at our wedding,” she grinned.
“You were at our wedding?” Owain frowned at Arthes as he asked the question. “And you never told me?”
“I have to keep some secrets,” she smiled. She raised the baby toward Eriu. “May I present our son, and I suppose, your grandson, Draig.”
With misty eyes remembering years gone by, he took the child into his arms, looked down upon him, pronounced a blessing in the ancient tongue and then handed him to Owain.
“Let us hope that he is more obedient than his father,” Eriu growled. “You were forbidden to return to your mother.”
“You raised me to rebel,” Owain returned.
“So I did,” Eriu answered.
The happy couple passed several weeks within the dwelling of the priestess, allowing their little Draig to be strong enough to make the journey to their home. Owain hated taking his newborn son to a cave to begin its life, but his alternatives were limited and he had sworn upon the star of promise that he would allow no harm to come to either his son or Arthes for as long as he had breath within him.
“Here we are, my love,” he announced as they arrived at the mouth of the cave. “And my son. I wish I could give the both of you a better home. A cave is not…”
“Home is wherever my beloved lays his head,” Arthes interrupted him. Though she had told him the same thing a thousand times, she never stopped repeating it.
“You always say that, but…”
“I always say it, because I speak the truth and that is the truth,” she interrupted again. The familiar twinkle was in her eyes.
As Owain turned to reach for the torch along the inside of the cave’s mouth and lit it, he heard Arthes gasp loudly. Turning to see what had caused her to gasp, he saw that she was looking out toward a pair of boulders beyond the entrance of the cave.
“What is it my love?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she replied. “I just had another one of those sharp pains.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Following the directions that Takud had provided to Lucius, Marcus had ridden into the Mynyddoedd Preseli, which was far to the west of Silures and in the land of the ancient tribe of Demetae. Though he’d been given strict orders not to pursue Owain of Silures himself, he had defied the wishes of Lucius Civillis and taken his two assistants with him, leaving the garrison at Cardiff in the charge of his second. There were certain things that a man needed to tend to himself. And this was one task that his honor demanded that he carry out personally.
Since the day that their eyes had met across the open water of the channel, Marcus had dreamt of meeting the man on equal ground. The challenge had been a bold one. It was a challenge that did not come from an ordinary man. It was the sort of challenge that had been written about in the epic poetry o
f Greece and Rome. Though he’d told no one, he had seen something in that glare that came to him across the water. There was something in the man’s eyes; like flames of fire. It had remained only an instant and then it was followed by a smirk that continued to mock him.
He was present when the creepy, hooded figure had come into Lucius’ chamber with the news. Nearly a year’s time from the day that Arthes had been stolen out of his grasp and he had ridden to Caerleon in shame, Owain of Silures had finally been found.
“I am pleased that you have found it within your honor to keep the terms-sss of our agreement,” Takud had hissed as he addressed Lucius.
“I am a man of my word,” Lucius had countered.
“As am I,” Takud had responded. “Though I had lost him in Silures-ss and was even led astray across-sss the Celtic Sea, I was not deterred from keeping up my end.”
“It may be of little purpose to us now,” Lucius had answered. “The Silurians seem to have come to their senses and given up on their pitiful rebellion.”
Takud had make that strange, otherworldly sound that was meant to be a chuckle and then spoken in a grave tone. “As-sss long as-sss Owain is-sss alive, the rebellion will come. You’ve just had something of a reprieve for the moment.”
“Very well,” Lucius had consented. He’d glanced at Marcus as he spoke. “We will dispatch troops that will see to his capture.”
“There will be more than one to be disposed of,” Takud had continued.
“No doubt his lover has been in hiding with him,” Marcus had broken in. He’d wanted to get his grasp on her nearly as much as he had wanted to destroy Owain. What greater conquest was there than eliminating his rival and taking his mate to his own mistress?
“There is-sss more than just his-sss wife,” Takud had hissed, turning his faceless hood toward him. “There is-sss now a son as-sss well.”
“I had no news of a wedding!” Marcus had objected. “That’s not something that can be covered up so easily.”
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