by Annie Bellet
“The necklace did not fall over my head; in my desperation, thinking it might miss me entirely, I bit it, breaking the band and it dissolved away. I fear that, come sunrise, I will be Cy again.” He hung his head.
“Idrys, quit that now.” Áine rose and threaded her arm through his. “It was my poor throw that missed you both, my terrible timing that put me back here years later. If any blame is to fall, let me take it. You have borne enough burdens for your lifetime.”
“Curse broken or half-broken, what does all this matter?” Gwideon stood and slammed a fist onto one of the tables, making the congealing dishes of food jump. “Which of these men is then Chief here? We have a contract. what means all this for that? There are lies within lies told here; how can I abide?”
“Emyr is Chief,” Hafwyn said and Idrys echoed her.
Emyr looked between them and then nodded. “Aye, I am chief. Though only by daylight for the last ten years, Idrys ruling as myself when it was dark and I was a hound. As for the contract, I understand if you wish to withdraw it. There are things here that you were unaware of and though it pains me, I recognize the damage this might do for our relationship with you and Rhufon.”
“Spoken just like a just and worthy chief.” Eirian’s clear voice rang through the hall and she made her way around the crowd to stand before Emyr. “But what of the man? I think perhaps we should talk in private.”
“Eirian, this is none of yours,” her father started to say but Eirian cut him off with an uncharacteristically sharp gesture.
“It is all of mine, father. The lawgiver has observed the contract of marriage and trade between our cantrefi. Until it is otherwise decided, that contract has been bound and witnessed. Thus, I am no longer your subject, but belong now to my husband. And this matter is a family one, I believe. It should be discussed and decided among his family.” She looked pointedly at Emyr and added, “I am his wife unless and until he decides to set me aside.”
“Use my chambers,” Hafwyn said and motioned toward the private areas off the great hall.
Apparently shocked into silence by his daughter’s firm and considered remarks, Gwideon made no more sound of protest as the little group left the hall. Behind them Llew took up a set of pipes and started a merry tune, trying to lighten the mood as the crowd broke into smaller groups and a hum of discussion swirled through the hall.
Áine and Idrys seated themselves by the hearth, while Emyr and Eirian took the narrow bed. Hafwyn settled in her sewing chair. The room was silent for a long moment as each gathered thoughts and searched for the perfect words to dispel the tension around them.
Eirian took the moment to study her husband’s twin. She realized that he had been the man she’d known in the evenings, the man who’d played half-hearted games of Tallfwrd with her some nights.
Looking at him in contrast to Emyr, she wondered that she’d ever thought them the same person. Idrys had thin lines of care and worry worn into his face, and skin paler than his brother from his lack of exposure to sunlight. There was also a deep grief in his eyes, though it was lighter now as he looked upon the strangely scarred woman with the short, blood-red hair. The woman her new husband clearly loved.
“Eirian,” Emyr said finally, “I understand if you wish to be set aside and freed to make a less complicated match.” His warm brown eyes watched her with concern and his face showed his conflicted heart.
“Do you wish to stay married to me?” she asked baldly.
“I made a contract,” he said. He turned to Áine and pain tightened his features. “I also broke faith. Áine told me she would return, but I gave up in my heart too soon.”
“No, Emyr, please.” Áine shook her head. “It hurts that you have married another, but years have passed. You are the chief here; you had to do what is best for your people.” Her stomach clenched, hating her for being reasonable.
Áine wanted to rage, to demand that he set Eirian aside at once. If she’d been the same girl who’d arrived in the midst of grief and loss, the same girl who’d ridden her first horse with Emyr’s smiles encouraging her along, she might have demanded such. But Áine was not the same; guilt and secrets pulled at her heart and she understood far better now the workings of the world. Emyr was chief, and Áine no longer had even the status of a wisewoman to offer him.
“I agree with Áine,” Hafwyn said slowly “The reasons for your marriage to Eirian still stand, regardless of these events.”
“And I agree with both,” Eirian stated clearly. “You and I have forged a contract through our marriage that will benefit both our peoples. Not even knowing that I married a man cursed will put aside that truth.”
“And what of you, Idrys? You are very quiet.” Emyr looked at his brother, torn between duty and his heart and hoping that his twin would find a way to forge the two back together.
“Whatever you decide, Emyr, it is your decision and I will support it. As for me, I stay with Áine if she’ll have me. Hound or man, I shall never let her from my sight again.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pressed his nose into her soft red hair.
Emyr rose and paced the small chamber. The others watched him, each with their own heart and want for his decision, each wise enough to stay silent and let him make his own choices. Finally he went to Áine and his brother and knelt before them, digging into his belt pouch.
He produced the little pearls of Áine’s tears. “These are yours, Áine. I have held them too long with too little faith attached. And though I hold you in my heart and am more grateful to you than I will ever find the words to tell, I think I must stand by my word and the contract witnessed and given this day. But you and my brother will have a home here, no matter the curse that remains or the feelings of small-minded men like Madoc Moel.” Emyr gripped Áine’s hand in one of his own and then took his brother’s in the other, reveling in the simple fact that he could touch his brother, look him in the eye, and know that Idrys would be able to respond in kind.
His joyous recollections of their boyhood teasing and friendship faded as Eirian rose and spoke.
“No,” she said. Her words chilled Emyr and he turned, releasing the hands of the two people closest to his heart in all the world.
“No? You do not wish to keep the contract?” Emyr stared at her, confused and wondering how he’d mistaken her clear words from only a moment before.
“No, they may not stay. I will heed the contract as I said before. I think it best for our people. I know that it is painful for you, and for Hafwyn as a mother, but Idrys is cursed and he cannot remain. And Áine, well, she may not be one of the Fair Folk, but she has a strange look and strange history. She, too, will cause much trouble by her presence.” She raised a hand to stall Emyr’s angry protest. “Please, Emyr, think about this. It is one thing to have a tale of curses and adventure in your family’s past, but quite another to live with a magical reminder of it each and every day. While those here might grow accustomed, what about the wintering folk? Or visitors from other cantrefi? Is not half the purpose of this marriage to bring fresh trade to both our peoples? If this shadow lives with us, each dawn reminding us of how it happened not long ago at all, how can we expect to have fair treatment?”
Áine’s heart punched her chest as she stood and stared at the woman Emyr had wed. Eirian was lovely and by her words she was also intelligent and strong. Idrys rose beside Áine and looked down at her with a slight nod. Áine took a deep breath.
“Emyr,” she said, touching his shoulder. He was tense and shaking with unspoken emotions. “She is right. At dawn each day, Idrys will shift. Between my strange heritage and his living proof that the Other is among us, it will be too much for many folk. If you are to prosper, we must hide ourselves away.”
“Where will you go? How will you live?” Emyr turned to her, his eyes full of loss and fear.
“I do not know,” Idrys said, “But I will go with Áine. She lived her whole life on the road; we can do so again. With me by her side to protect
her and hunt for her, she will never want or suffer.” He said this half to his twin, half to the woman clutching his hand.
Áine remembered Blodeuedd’s words to her on the road and smiled at the memory of the warmth and lush bounty of the Ilswyn.
“We need not live on the road,” she said. “I made a friend while I was away, and she has offered to share her valley with me. There we will be hidden and safe, but it is only a long day’s journey to find if you ever have need of us.”
“So it is decided then.” Emyr raised his eyes toward the ceiling and blinked back tears. “On the very day I gain my brother, I am to lose him again.”
“Emyr, my heart.” Hafwyn threw her arms around him and Idrys followed.
“Be easy my twin, I think your wife is not so cruel that she will not allow us to meet in the wood on occasion. We will share many evenings together, more than we’ve had until now, I think.” Idrys gripped Emyr in a hard embrace.
“I am not so cruel,” Eirian murmured. She took a step back and looked at Áine, her body language stiff and uncertain.
“I will not meet with them,” Áine said to Eirian, reading the fear and question in the younger woman’s eyes.
“What is this? Why not?” Emyr looked between the women.
“I need to know that you are true, Emyr. You loved her first and deeply.” Eirian looked down at her hands and twisted them in her embroidered skirts.
“Indeed,” Áine said with a bitter smile as she touched her scarred face. “It would hardly be kind to put such temptation as I in your path, Emyr. Idrys will bring me news of you, and I will be content.”
“And I will try to be content as well.” Emyr sighed. “But you do not leave tonight. This night I will have to talk with my brother. The opinions of others will be damned.”
“It will be so,” Eirian said and she turned toward the door. “Please, catch up with one another. I will go speak to the assembled and calm my father. He will see reason and it will be settled. Gwideon ap Rhys will care to have it said he does not honor contracts witness and bound by a lawgiver.”
* * *
The feast finished far more subdued than it had begun, and Áine, Idrys, and Emyr were conspicuously absent from much of it. The hour grew late and finally Emyr took his bride to his chamber. Hafwyn gave her own bed over to Áine and Idrys, staying instead with Melita, as all the guest spaces were filled with visitors for the wedding.
Áine and Idrys slept in each other’s arms, too exhausted to do or say more. Idrys woke in the predawn as his blood tingled, a familiar harbinger of the change. Áine sighed and shifted next to him on the narrow bed. Her green eyes opened and she smiled up at him.
“I can feel the change coming.” Idrys pulled away from her and sat up.
“I am here for you, Idrys, in whatever form you take. I care not.” She sat up with him and pulled him into her arms.
“What is it that haunts your eyes, Áine? What gave you those scars?” he whispered into her soft, milk-pale skin.
“I will tell you. But not today. Come with me to the Ilswyn and I will find a way to share the tale with you, I promise. It is not a good one, but I think perhaps you might best of all understand what it is I have done.” Her voice caught on the last part and he felt her shiver.
“Áine, my love, my heart,” Idrys said and he pulled slightly away to stare into her shadowed eyes. He recognized the tension in her face, her body. She burned with guilt and longing. “Aye, Áine, I do indeed understand, best of all.”
Epilogue
Emyr rose from the same restless dream he’d had for the last twelve years and, carefully removing Eirian’s soft arm from his chest, slipped from the bed. The fire was banked low and he shivered in the winter air. He pulled on a thick woolen tunic and turned to look at his sleeping wife and children. They were a perfect picture of domestic contentment in the wan light of the little oil lamp that burned on the windowsill.
The two youngest twins slept on the other side of Eirian, curled under the thick covers in such a way that only their dark curls showed. His wife opened her eyes as he started to turn away again.
“Going to see Idrys again, are you?” she whispered.
He hadn’t even known that was what he’d risen to do until she said it, but her words struck him and he knew their truth. He nodded.
“I will return in a day or two,” he said quietly.
“No,” Eirian said, “this time, I think you will not return.”
In his dream, there was always a white owl waiting on a strange forest path marked with iridescent lights. Warmth waited at the end of that path, his dreaming self knew, warmth and completeness of a sort he never felt here in his home.
“I always return.” Emyr crossed his arms.
“Follow your heart, Emyr. I cannot keep you longer, I know this now. Your heart left me twelve years ago. Find it again and be whole.” Her voice and eyes brimmed with sorrow.
“Our children? I cannot leave,” he said, feeling the old rift within of duty and desire.
“You have given Llynwg three strong sons as heirs and a beautiful daughter. You mother and I will see to them, as will Urien and Llew and Caron. They will not want, and when he reaches sixteen, Brychan ap Emyr will rule as you did when you reached his age. They will be strong; they will do well enough without you. I will be well enough without you.”
“Eirian, I have loved you. You are bright and beautiful and full of too much wisdom. You break my heart with this wish. I cannot stay, nor can I go. I am lost.”
“Hush, my husband. You are lost because your heart was broken years ago. Go to it; find your twin and your lost love. Be whole, go with my blessing. I have kept you as long as I could, but I understand now and I will fight this battle no more. This is a war I lost the day we wed and the curse was broken.”
He knelt at the side of the bed and kissed her gently, murmuring to tell his mother and children where he’d gone and that he loved them deeply. Then, with only a few backward glances, he swiftly dressed and left the chamber.
In the hall he paused, wondering if this is how Áine had felt all those years ago, creeping away in the dead of night with nothing but hope and a dream. He looked around at the dim, familiar room and sighed. His sweet wife was right, as she’d often been. This place had ceased to feel like home as soon as his brother left, and the only times he’d felt even close to belonging anywhere had been on the lone hunting trips spent with Idrys by his side.
Movement by the banked fire startled him. Hafwyn rose and walked toward her son, her face shadowed and sad in the darkness.
“Good-bye, my son,” she said, her voice breaking on the final word.
“Mother,” Emyr said. He shivered as she touched his arm and then pulled her into a tight embrace. “I, I cannot stay. And I do not see how I can go.”
“You have lived split apart long enough. Find your joy where you may, Emyr. There have been too many years of longing and sorrow here. Go toward your heart.”
His throat burned with a strange mix of grief and happiness as something inside came loose at her soft words.
“I love you, mother. I will give your love to Idrys.” He paused and pulled away from her, looking down on her white-haired head. “Take,” his voice caught. “Take care of them for me. I don’t know that the little ones will understand.”
“Go, go before the chance passes.” Hafwyn looked up at him. Then, slowly, she turned away.
Emyr took his cloak from its peg by the door and slipped out of the hall, heading into the wintery night, heading toward his heart.
He went to the woods, reaching them as dawn broke across the moor, and was unsurprised when a white owl alighted on a branch before him. The branch lit up with soft white light and slowly more trees ahead glowed as well, illuminating a clear path through the woods just as they had in his dream. Emyr nodded to the owl and walked into the woods, no longer looking back.
He walked through the day, following the white bird as the sun rose and the
soft light on the path faded away. As darkness fell again the glimmering path returned, guiding him on his journey. He paused only once, stopping at a stream to drink before crossing it. Emyr’s hands and face were chapped with cold and he pulled his cloak tight around his body as his boots soaked through slowly from the snow.
Finally, as if he passed across an invisible threshold, the snowy landscape gave way to a lush valley. The air warmed noticeably and beneath his feet the crunchy, dry snow was replaced with thick grass and tiny blue flowers. The stars shone bright above and he had no trouble picking his way down toward a lovely stone cottage nestled among apple trees that were in bloom and fruit all at once.
The owl disappeared and his glowing trail ended at the thick oak door of the large cottage. Emyr took a deep breath and knocked, looking about himself in wonder at this odd place. After a moment, the door opened and a young girl with soft brown hair peered out at him. Her leaf-green eyes went wide and she opened her mouth, but no words came.
“I greet you,” Emyr said, realizing that this must be one of Áine and Idrys’s four daughters. Though he knew their names, he was unsure which stood before him.
“I greet you, but you cannot be my father?” she said and turned to look within the cottage with a comically confused expression.
“I am not he,” Emyr said, controlling his own grin. “But I seek him.”
As if in answer to this, he heard Idrys’s voice within. “Braith, who is at the door?”
Braith stepped back, clearly unable to tell who he might be, and allowed Emyr to step within.
Idrys sat on the edge of a large stone hearth, carving tools in his hands. At a table to one side sat Áine and two smaller girls with dark curling hair, gathered around a beautifully carved tallfwrd board. Next to the hearth was a girl who matched Braith’s looks exactly, except for a single blood-red curl tucked behind one ear. She was slowly feeding wool into a drop spindle from the pile in her lap but stopped to stare at Emyr.