Chosen by Fire

by Harriet Locksley

  Though weary, she got to her feet. “You’re leaving?”

  “Aye. You can stay with Hetty as long as you need. She’ll appreciate the company. But, when it’s safe to do so, you should go back to your aunt Gwyn. She’ll know what’s best for you.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back home to my house in Braddon.”

  Kaetha pictured the tapestry which had hung on the back wall at Feodail Hall, depicting a map of the island with the kingdoms of Dalrath and Tyrros and the Edonian and Angualish territories. She remembered Braddon being far to the north, on the coast. Beside it, there had been an embroidered fish with glittering scales which appeared to leap from the sea into the mouth of a river. “Braddon? You’re going north?”

  “I’ve not been there in years. But I’ve lost everything, you see. Everything but the house there and what little wealth I carry.” He clutched at a leather pouch which hung around his neck. “I’m a sea merchant – I was, that is. I’m not sure what you call a sea merchant with no ship and no goods to sell. Only weeks ago, my ship was raided. I would have drowned had a friend not rescued me. We docked here at Orach Bay yesterday. I plan to return home until I can afford to get back at the tiller again. My only chance of avoiding the guards is to leave this city under cover of darkness. My horse will not be as rested as I should like but it’ll be sunrise in an hour or two and I hope to be well onto the North Road in that time.”

  An image came to her then – her last sight of Morwena as she rode off to Ciadrath. The sky’s dark clouds in that memory seemed to swirl menacingly. After all she and Aedan had been through in the last few hours, the fact of his leaving felt like shock of ice water.

  “So that’s it?” she said. “I won’t see you again, I suppose.”

  The glow from the rush light caught in his eyes as he looked at her. There was something apologetic in his expression. “You may. Some day.”

  Creaks and taps signalled Hetty joining them downstairs. “You’re off then?” said the woman.

  “Aye.”

  “Well, you can just wait a few moments.” Hetty started rummaging through the contents of a chest.

  “I have to go now, Hetty,” he said.

  The old woman tutted. “Never were a patient one. The lass is going with you?” she asked as she packed items into a canvas bag.

  “She’ll be going to her aunt.”

  “Safer there for her?” she asked, handing the bag to Aedan.

  “Aye, she’ll be safer there. Thanks for this.”

  “No need to thank me. You saved my brother. If it’s your turn to be saved, I’ll be doing all I can.”

  Before reaching the front door, he stopped and put a hand on Kaetha’s shoulder. “I wish you well, Kaetha.” Again, he looked as though he would say something else.

  Moments later, the door tapped shut, cold air lingering in his wake. He was gone.

  “You’re shivering,” said Hetty, lifting the light to Kaetha’s face. “Don’t always bother with a fire at night in summer but I’ll light one for you.” She fetched a tinderbox and a basket of kindling.

  “I can do it,” said Kaetha.

  Stone snapped – spitting sparks. She felt her anger breath as she struck the flint against the firesteel. Who killed Morwena, if she was actually dead? Why had all this happened? Why hadn’t she been brought up as Morwena’s daughter? Was there something wrong with her? Why was she sad that Aedan left when he was all but a stranger? With each question she asked herself, she struck the firesteel harder, ignoring the flames that had already begun to grow.

  “I think that’s enough,” said Hetty. She fed sticks to the flames. “I think you’d better try to sleep now, lass.”

  “I can’t.”

  They sat together, staring into the fire.

  “You look a little like him, you know,” said Hetty. “Your father.”

  Kaetha stared at her. “What?”

  “Brown eyes, freckles, red hair, though yours is a shade darker. The way you both frown when you’re troubled – it’s uncanny. You even have a mole at the side of your face, in the same place as his. You’re such a wee thing though, I expect you get your build from your mother, am I right?”

  “Hmm.” Kaetha tried to contain her feelings, though she felt as though they might burst from her. Her mind churned with incomprehension as she stared at the fire, unconsciously twisting the cuff of her sleeve. “I think I will rest a while.” She hoped that Hetty would take the hint and go back upstairs but she just sat there.

  What did all this mean? She’d had a mother and father all these years. Why had Aedan never been mentioned? Why had she been denied a normal life that ought to have been hers? Her chest tightened as her sense of self floated away like driftwood on a wave. She lay down, turning away from Hetty, holding tight to Morwena’s heron clasp, knowing she wouldn’t sleep. She remembered how Aedan had looked at her, recalled the moment he held back from telling her something important. He knows, she realised. He knows I’m his daughter, yet he left.

  As the minutes lengthened, she realised the path before her split in two. She could go back to Gwyn or she could follow her father, though she knew the longer she took to make up her mind, the harder the second option would be.

  She got up. “I’m going with him,” she declared.

  “What about your aunt?” said Hetty.

  “Could you get a message to her, please?”

  “Who is she?”

  “Lady Gwyn Trylenn,” said Kaetha. “She lives at F—”

  “Feodail Hall.” Hetty was staring at her, her expression hard to decipher. “Aye, I know.”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Kaetha snapped.

  Hetty blinked. “I meant no offence, lass. Some of the best people I know are bastards. It’s only, whilst it’s less surprising on Aedan’s part, I wouldn’t have expected a lady . . .”

  Kaetha’s jaw was clenched as she stared at the fire. “Can you tell Gwyn that I’m alright,” she said. There was a sharp edge to her words as she tried to hold back her anger. “Say there’s too much danger for me here and I have a chance for a new life with my father. Though I will be back someday. There are questions I need answers to.”

  Hetty nodded humbly, chastened at Kaetha’s tone. “I’ll make sure she hears that.” Hetty rummaged around gathering a bag of things for Kaetha too and walked her to the front door. “I’m sorry if I—”

  “Forget about it,” said Kaetha.

  “You’ll be alright lass.”

  Kaetha smiled. “If I can get to the North Road without getting caught.”

  In the stable, she jumped as something brushed against her ankle. “Oh, it’s you.” The small cat looked up at her and she rooted around in her bag until she found a scrap of meat from a pie Hetty had packed. “That’s to say thank you. Poor thing. You don’t understand that they don’t want you. That they’d drown you without a thought.”

  Slipping through the hidden door out of the city, she headed to the North Road, patting and whispering to Lossie to calm her. She wondered if Lossie’s agitation was triggered by her own emotions. This is madness, she thought. Perhaps I should have done as he’d said. But if she had, she knew she would never have seen him again. And she couldn’t bring herself to face Gwyn. Not yet. Her anger swelled at the mere thought of her, despite the sympathy she also felt. She gripped the reins in her fists, as if they were the lies Gwyn had told her all her life, as if she could crush them.

  To the right of the road, the darkness was turning to grey. White rabbit tails flashed as they hopped by. The world was waking up and the mist that slunk in the hollows would soon be eaten by the sun.

  Her heart fluttered when hooves thudded behind her. However, whether it was a guard or an ordinary traveller, she didn’t know as they were hidden by the bend in the road. She steered Lossie left off the road, the horse picking her way past prickly gorse before negotiating a way through the rough, hilly ground.

  A rosy stain stretching
across the eastern sky cast a ruddy light on a herd of red deer as they turned their heads in the direction of Ciadrath, ears pricked to the sound on the air. Kaetha had heard it too – a snatch of melody – a piper’s mournful tune. It made her shiver.

  “Kaetha, what are you doing?”

  She turned to see her father ahead. “Hello.” She felt more nervous than she’d imagined.

  “I told you to wait with Hetty, then go back to your aunt.”

  “I know. But I don’t want to go back. Gwyn lied to me my whole life. What kind of life would I be going back to? How could I live under her roof now that I know the truth she kept from me? Besides, people are bound to talk about what happened, with the fire I mean.”

  “They won’t know it was you, surely?”

  “There were already rumours. About Morwena mostly but I know that some were suspicious of me too.”

  “Gwyn will be expecting you. She’ll worry,” he said.

  “Hetty’s going to get a message to her so she knows I’m going with you.”

  “She’ll still worry.”

  “You don’t want me to go with you.” It was half statement, half question. Her throat tightened and tears prickled her eyes. “I know the truth, Aedan. I know you’re my father. But I’m not asking you to be responsible for me. It’s safest for us to travel together but, when we get to Braddon, I can look after myself. We don’t even have to tell anyone we’re family, if you’re ashamed of having me for a daughter.”

  “Of course I’m not ashamed of you. I’m afraid for you. And not only because the guards could still be after me. Kaetha,” he studied the reins in his hands. “I don’t know how to be a father.”

  “Well, I don’t really know how to be a daughter,” she muttered. “I only found out last night that Morwena was my mother.”

  He was stunned into silence.

  She sniffed and started Lossie walking again, overtaking Aedan. “It’s not safe for us to turn back now,” she said. “We go north.” The buckle was undone on one of her saddlebags, making it gape open. She noticed Aedan looking at it and saw how its contents wriggled.

  “You brought that cat, didn’t you?” he asked.

  “Aye,” she said, smiling as she caught his eye. “I did.”

  SIX

  Dreams and Revelations

  The sun was high when they stopped to rest beside a stream.

  “What’s for us won’t go by us,” he said as they drank from the clear water. “As toasts go, it’s the one that sounds the luckiest, I reckon. And luck is something we could certainly do with.” He led the horses down the hill where he’d spied some good grazing for them and Kaetha leant against a rock, yawned and closed her eyes, the cat curled up beside her.

  Sleep called to her, offering the chance to escape from her thoughts for a while. Yet anxiety clutched at her through fragmented dreams – rock cracked and crumbled beneath her, air pounded with thunder and whipped at her skin, a blaze of scorching fire snaked around her. Then she shivered, chilled and damp, trying to look around her, though she saw nothing but darkness. She tried to reach out but her hand pressed against cold earth. With a surge of panic, she realised she had been buried alive. She woke with a jolt.

  A tingling ran from her neck down the lengths of her arms. It made her think of the Fuathan and the Annisith but she told herself it was from sleeping awkwardly against the hard rock. The cat mewed, stretching out of its coiled position against her feet and sat up, staring at her, opening and closing its mouth.

  “More meat later,” she said. “Wait there.”

  She walked, hoping she could shake away the uncanny feeling her dreams had impressed upon her. She’d never had a dream like that before. It was as vivid as it was strange. What if it wasn’t an ordinary dream. Perhaps as it was about being buried alive, it was alerting her to the fact that Morwena wasn’t really dead. She had a sudden urge to return to Feodail, home pulling at her just as danger and pride pushed her back.

  She’d never been this far north before. It was as if a veil had been drawn over her old life and, as she viewed the new and unknown world around her, she pulled Morwena’s cloak tight around her. I cannot go home, she thought, picturing the embroidered map, the glittering fish. “I am going to Braddon with my father.” Saying it aloud made it feel more real.

  A stag trotted nearby, seeming to be in a hurry but, upon turning its regal, antlered head to face her, it stopped in its tracks and looked her in the eyes. Then it turned and ran again, as if being chased, disappearing behind a huge rock. If there were hunters nearby, it was about time she and Aedan left. When the stag came into view again, she noticed it was heading north-west – in the direction of Braddon, she realised. Perhaps it was best to ignore the confused uncertainties of her dream. Perhaps this was the sign she should pay attention to, a good omen about her chosen path.

  They’d wound through deer trails and forded streams, eventually considering it safe to rejoin the road where their progress was swifter.

  “I thought we’d have reached Glenstead by now,” said Kaetha, blinking away rain.

  They just managed to find a barn to sleep in before the last of the sunlight faded. Curled up in the hay, Kaetha found a nudge of warmth, though it feebly countered the punch of cold that blew through the gaps in the walls. Despite this, as well as her constant whirling of anxious thoughts, she found it surprisingly easy to sink into the sleep her exhausted body needed.

  Gwyn had gone out early and Morwena dismissed the servants. It was just the two of them. She watched her guardian ladle porridge into a bowl before sitting beside her. The oaty smell comforted her like a warm blanket and she suddenly felt hungrier than she ever had before. Pains gripped her stomach, she knew she needed to eat or she might die but, as she reached for the bowl, Morwena snatched it away again and sat there with an odd look in her eyes. Kaetha tried to get up but sank back against a wall, unable to move. But you’re my mother, she tried to say. She attempted to reason with her, to explain, to beg, but her words made no sound and her strength drained from her. The fire in the hearth flickered and went out. Then she was lying in the clearing of a wood, beside an old, stone chapel, looking up at the branches of the trees.

  Something soft brushed against her face. She smelt hay. The cat’s tabby coat was lit by strips of pale light which shone through chinks in a barn door. The here and now crashed into her consciousness, driving away all memory of the dream, leaving behind only a twist of anger, though she couldn’t be sure what it was about.

  “Kaetha?” said Aedan. “Are you awake?”

  Pushing herself up, she saw that he was getting the horses ready. Outside, she heard the squeak of a wheelbarrow, muffled chatter and a grating laugh. It was time they left.

  “My cloak—” She looked around but couldn’t see it. No – how could I have lost it?

  “Hmm?”

  “And the clasp? Where are they?” She rummaged feverishly in the hay where she had slept but there was nothing but a brown, rough woven blanket. “How could I?” she said, digging her nails into her palms, feeling like she wanted to punch herself. Had the clasp come undone? Did it now lie, soaked in mud, trampled on the road? Had she been too tired last night to notice? What would Morwena think? “Gwyn would be ashamed of me!”

  “Calm yourself,” said Aedan, wrapping the cloak around her.

  She clung onto the fabric, shocked out of her anger. “Where did you—?”

  “I put it over those rakes to dry.” He fastened it for her with the heron clasp. “You were sound asleep when I swapped it for that blanket.” He continued saddling the horses. “No piece of cloth or metal, however precious, is worth getting angry at yourself over. They’re just things.”

  “There all I have that were hers.”

  He didn’t meet her eye. “You were hers,” he said softly.

  Riding across moorland again, Kaetha spied a pile of rocks ahead.

  “That cairn marks the border,” said Aedan. We’ll be out of Roinmor a
nd into Spreidale.”

  It came as a relief to Kaetha to leave the royal clanland behind them, even though she knew they were not safe yet.

  “So, you think Princess Rhona will be alright?” asked Kaetha after she’d managed to coax Lossie into fording the River Deur at Cattleford.

  “I hope so.”

  “Will she come back?”

  “The assassination attempt proved it’s unsafe for her here. With a little luck, she’ll have left these shores and be far away by now.”

  “Who would want for her to be killed?”

  “She’s heir to the throne. People with power, or the prospect of power, are always in danger of someone trying to snatch it away from them. There are more pirates on land than you’ll find at sea.”

  “But who could be behind it?”

  “Someone who might wish to be heir to the throne instead of her. Or someone who wants to control the person they helped to that position. Who knows? The king has a half Tyrrosian nephew and more distant relations amongst his Dalrathan nobles . . . .” They were both quiet for a time, thinking.

  “Whoever tried to have her killed wanted her out of the way before her betrothal ceremony,” said Kaetha, breaking the silence. “Rhona’s suitor, the Shamlakahn prince was due to arrive any day.

  Aedan’s eyebrows rose. “If the ceremony had taken place, she would have had powerful allies in Shamlakah. As it is . . .” his words trailed off and he shrugged.

  “She’s not even safe in the citadel with her father, the king.” Kaetha gazed out across the hills. “I wonder if she’s scared. Going far away from the world she knows.”

  Aedan shot her a sidelong glance. “Seems to me, she’s strong. She’ll face the struggles ahead and come through them, I’m sure of it.”

  They rode into the bustling town of Gort and stabled the horses at an inn called The Hog and Puddock. Kaetha carried the cat in one arm as she walked up to the bar. Chatter, laughter and drunken song filled the room. At the bar, a lass with hair tucked under a white headscarf, was drying tankards. Kaetha went over to her whilst Aedan searched for space at one of the long tables.