by E E Everly
“You believe he loves me?”
“I’ve caught his feelings a time or two when he lets his guard down. I’ve seen how he looks at you. He worried for you too. I watched him go to the portal every day.”
“Every day?” I sat up on my elbows. “He never said that.”
Aelwen nodded as she pushed herself up. “He did.”
“I must be hopeless.”
Aelwen patted my hand. “You’re not. I don’t know why his family is making such a big fuss anyway. This whole purity of the species thing is extreme.”
“I understand it, even if I don’t agree with their views.”
“There’s more to it than you know.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Half-emrys can become pure. They can purge themselves of darkness. It’s not common, and it’s not easy, but it has been done.”
“Really? So if I purged myself of my darkness, I could become a pure emrys who could marry Cystenian.” My mind reeled with the possibilities. “You have to tell me more about this.”
“Of course—”
“Anerah! There you are,” a woman exclaimed.
I startled and grabbed my chest as I bolted upright. Aria was sweeping toward us, coming down the path between the lavenders. She’d changed into a golden gown that swirled around her ankles. Cystenian was right behind her.
I felt awkward lounging on the blanket as she approached. I was about to push to my feet, but in a puff of crinkling fabric, Aria knelt beside me. Cystenian settled near my feet.
I was trapped. This couldn’t have been more uncomfortable.
“I hope you don’t mind the intrusion,” Cystenian began. “I told Aria about Trysten, and she didn’t want to wait another moment to meet her.”
I blinked, stunned by Aria’s presence so close. Now that she was within a breadth of me, I was overwhelmed by her glory. She had quite a brilliant light. I dared say she outshone Cystenian. My breath caught as I registered what Cystenian had said. “Oh,” I choked out. “Of course.”
I felt like a bumbling idiot.
Aria smoothed her hand over my bare forearm. I received a dose of compassion and sympathy from her. “My heart breaks for you. I heard about your brother and sister-in-law, and how your poor niece was the only survivor.” Then she dropped her voice. “Those Dark Emrys are frightful. My heart beats fast thinking about how dangerous and bloodthirsty they are. I can’t believe they destroyed the village. You must be traumatized.”
I nodded. Here came the mouthful of lies. I felt dirty just opening my lips. “I barely escaped with Trysten. Halwn, my brother, and Soji, his wife—Deian keep them—were killed while giving me time to flee.”
I added the “Deian keep them” because Deian was their god, and Bronwen had said that’s what people said about others who had died, and I had to sound emrys, not human.
Aria gasped, and her face creased with sadness. “You are so brave. You knew just where to find help too.”
I inwardly grimaced. I’m not as helpless as you might think. “I went straight to Bronwen.”
“I told Aria we’d adopt Trysten,” Cystenian said. “Aria was delighted with the idea, weren’t you, darling?”
“Oh yes.” Aria clasped her hands together and then lowered her voice as she peered over my legs. “Is that her?”
I rubbed my little bundle. “Yes.” I slid my hands under Trysten. She stirred, scrunching her mouth and nose. Might as well let Aria hold her. I settled Trysten into Aria’s arms. Trysten had the daring, and I might add cuteness, to open her eyes and blink her dark green orbs at Aria.
“Oh, she is precious!” Aria turned to Cystenian. “Such a rare gem.” Aria looked at me as she toyed with Trysten’s curls. “Her hair possesses the heat of fire, like yours.”
“There’s a lot of red hair in my family,” I said, lying once again. “My brother, my mother…”
Aria grabbed Cystenian’s hand. “So noble of you to adopt a half-emrys.” Then she squeezed my hand. She was so touchy-feely. “Anerah, I swear your niece will never want for anything. Cystenian told me how you want her raised as an emrys. We will make sure she has the best education. Her training in the light will assure she is virtuous. More virtuous than some emrys.”
“Thank you, Aria. That means a lot. It really does. I’ll keep her until she’s weaned, but I want Cystenian to be a good influence in her life. I didn’t have a father figure growing up, and I know that Cystenian will be a good one.”
“And I will be the best mother to her,” Aria said.
Second mother, I added. “I know you will. Thank you.”
After cooing and gushing over Trysten for ten more minutes, Aria and Cystenian finally left. I exhaled, and my shoulders slumped. I practically cried out from sorrow in my heart.
Aelwen pulled me into a hug while Trysten lay on my lap. “You are the noblest of us all, Anerah.”
I bit my lip and nodded, too choked up to say anything.
THIRTY-ONE
A meek knock at my door. I had just put Trysten to sleep and had slipped into a cream-colored nightgown. I missed my camis and boy shorts at home. The ones Cystenian had seen me in, the ones that held so many memories for me.
Cystenian poked his head in without waiting for an answer. These emrys and their lax in privacy. I deserved it though after how I had entered his room a few nights ago. “Anerah, might I have a word?”
Feeling strangely guarded, I ushered him into the room, afraid someone might see him from the hall.
“You don’t have to be so secretive,” he said. “Everyone knows I’m here. It’s a light thing. I can’t hide my light. I told Aria that you had inquired about the adoption procedures and I needed to relay the information.”
I climbed onto my bed and curled my feet under myself. “Why are you really here?”
“Gwaednerth brought news from the Grand Library.” Cystenian’s face fell. “It’s not good.”
“I can see that. Just tell me everything.”
“Your father was right. The portal can be opened.” He ran his hand through his hair. “It’s absolutely the most possible scenario.”
I rubbed my brow. Of course it is. “Please.”
“You and me—together. A bond between us would open the portal because of our ancestry.”
“A broken bond between us.” We would be safe as long as one of us didn’t die.
As I thought that, I realized how stupid that sounded. Everything eventually died, didn’t it? Even emrys who had unending life could die if they were killed or became sick, right? Nothing lived forever.
Cystenian paced back and forth at the foot of my bed. “So you see. We can’t be together. It would endanger everyone.”
Had he been thinking about us being together, with the wedding hoo-ha and the attentions he’d been bestowing upon Aria and the ignoring of me?
I could dream.
Cystenian looked like a volcano ready to erupt. I couldn’t understand what was going on behind his head.
Oh, please, just tell me.
“I can stop feeling guilty over this,” he said as if I wasn’t here, as if he were talking to the room.
“Guilty?” I stared him down, wishing he would be still and tell me the whole truth and quit concealing things from me. “Over what? Your feelings for me?”
Cystenian stopped and caught my eye. “I don’t have feelings for you.”
“Your kiss,” I hissed, “a few days ago, would say otherwise.”
“Stop making this about you.”
“This is about our daughter, or did you forget about her? Just exactly why are you feeling so guilty? Because you feel as if you should have married me because of our indiscretion?” I jumped off the bed and stood in his face, yelling in a hush so I wouldn’t wake Trysten. “I let you off the hook. We made this arrangement with your family. You have no need to feel any guilt. I don’t want to marry you.”
That was such a lie!
Deep inside something broke
in Cystenian. I saw it in his eyes, and weirdly I felt this deep groove cutting into my chest. Pain. Whatever reason, it was impossible to guess. He was impossible. I couldn’t understand him.
I’d be better off without him.
Or so I thought. My heart wasn’t letting go. I couldn’t make the break.
I had to do what was expected of me, even if it wasn’t right in my eyes.
“Good night, Cystenian.” I shoved him toward the door.
“Anerah—”
“GOOD night.” I closed the door, resisting the urge to slam it, and slid to the floor. The tears came in silence as I leaned my head back against the wood, daring the angels of this world to see my misery.
I could never marry Cystenian anyway because, apparently, the prophecy was true, so no point in lamenting about whether he wanted to marry me or not. It was time to give up foolish little girl wishes of a fairy-tale wedding.
THIRTY-TWO
Today was day one of the festival. Bronwen and Aria were wading through the throngs of people on their way to the arena. Aelwen and I followed behind, with Trysten tied against my chest.
Aria twisted her ring-covered hands. “I am so nervous about all of this.” She was dressed in her finest for her first appearance among Cystenian’s peers, with no limit to her adornments. While many emrys dressed simply, Aria was the exception. Her most fanciful embellishment today was a silver choker dripping with jeweled chains that draped to her cleavage. In the center of her choker was her dragon stone, as if a place had been reserved for it and it had been swapped out from its other necklace.
Jewelry that allowed her to pop in her dragon stone. It seemed she was never without it. Over the past few days, I’d heard her talk out loud to her dragon—in the middle of conversation with other people—though no dragon was in sight. She’d even relay things that her dragon had said, as if the dragon were a part of the conversation.
Aria was speaking for two people half the time!
Bronwen said this was perfectly normal with dragon guardians.
So much telepathy everywhere! How did anyone keep anything straight and not go nuts from the lack of privacy?
As we passed stalls, occasionally stopping to finger merchandize, I wondered why there wasn’t a big to-do for Aria’s arrival to the arena. I half-expected her to be carried in on a litter, with a thousand adoring fans shouting her name, but she walked as if she were one of the townsfolk. Humbly, too, I might add.
Just as well, I was finally getting a glimpse of the town.
Llewella was exactly how I imagined it. A thriving medieval-type town, if I could call towns in Emira medieval. They were at the height of their emrys empire. Not ahead of medieval Earth, per se, but different from Earth. They didn’t need technology, as we did, when everything ran on the power of light.
Planes weren’t needed for flight when emrys had dragons, and now the ability to sprout wings, thanks to me. Cars weren’t needed. Things were transported by levitating them or by dragon. Many emrys had arrived in town, trailing their belongings behind them in a bubble of energy, but some peddlers used carts for large amounts of goods. With mental bonds, phones weren’t needed. Even dragons linked to their riders could carry messages to others from vast distances. Cooking fires and ovens were lit with sparks of light. It seemed the magic of this world provided a way to live comfortably without the advances of the twenty-first century that Earth had.
“You know it’s staged, right?” Bronwen said, turning to Aria.
“Of course. It’s just so”—Aria took a deep breath while she clutched her chest—“exhilarating.”
That it was.
Cystenian was at the arena, preparing. Today’s tournaments were the duels, where the emrys channeled warriors of the past. Centuries ago, every emrys trained for battle and was skilled in combat. Now it was usually just the dragon riders. But single men trained for a year before they were wed, to make a good show, whether they were a dragon rider or not.
“How has Cystenian’s training been?” Aria asked. “He’s refused to tell me, and I am so anxious for him.”
“That’s his big secret,” Bronwen said. “He wouldn’t tell anyone how he was coming along.”
“But you can guess from how ecstatic he’s been when he’s come home every day,” Aelwen said.
I had no idea what to expect with the duels. I was about as nervous as Aria, so I nodded along with the other women and gawked at the wares.
The crowd was funneling into the arena, and we were swept along. Aria, her family, and Cystenian’s family had prime seats on a dais, since this was for the wedding. As we waded toward the dais, a man bumped his shoulder into Bronwen.
She giggled when he turned toward her and said, “Oh, my apologies.”
I groaned. It was Dad.
“No apologies necessary.” Bronwen smiled and batted her lashes, her flirting clearly in overdrive.
“May I steal you for a minute?” Dad asked.
“Only for a minute.”
Dad grabbed her hand and pulled her away. They dashed off into the crowd.
I gaped after them. Off to make romantic eyes at each other?
Aria laughed, and Aelwen shrugged. Both of them kept moving toward their seats. I wrapped my arms around Trysten, trying to keep her from getting jostled in the mayhem. Aria and Aelwen moved ahead. I slipped off to the side and leaned against a support below the dais. I wanted a moment to breathe.
What were Dad and Bronwen up to? Did I dare peek? I’d been practicing eavesdropping on my dad’s thoughts. I figured it couldn’t hurt since he’d been listening in on my thoughts my whole life. A lot of times when I dropped into his mind, he had barriers that I hit. I imagined some of them concealed memories from my real childhood and others concealed the identity of my mother. I often heard some of his unguarded thoughts. He did think of my welfare regularly, but more often than not, his thoughts turned to Bronwen.
He most definitely loved her. The more I listened in on his mind, the more I realized that his nine hundred something years was like being in his twenties on Earth. He was young, in emrys years, when he’d fathered me. Very much in his prime still. If I equated Cystenian’s and Bronwen’s years to Earth years, she was just hitting her twenties, and Cystenian was in his late teens.
I was stuck in the middle of young single-adult drama!
I desperately wanted to peek into what they were up to. I lied and told myself it was part of an effort to get to know Dad.
I closed my eyes and looked for the connection. I could visualize it like a thread in my mind, linking me to Dad. He was close, to my right, about a dozen yards away. I couldn’t see where they were, but I imagined they were under the grandstand somewhere, wrapped in each other’s arms.
I followed the thread with my light. It slipped right into his mind and twined around a mental highway that led me to his thoughts. I knew nothing about the brain but wondered if this mental highway that gave me access to things in his head had to do with neurons or something. Bronwen had told me that telepathic communication was a spiritual connection, not a physical one, but I still had no idea how it worked. It just did. Surely spiritual highways utilized physical highways for the ease of it.
Maybe?
All of a sudden I was there. No barriers this morning.
Dad was being reckless.
As I had been.
I guessed that’s what love did sometimes.
“I’ve given a lot of thought to what we talked about, and I don’t think it’s the best idea,” Dad said, “no matter how much I want to.”
I’m assuming he’d said this out loud to Bronwen. I heard only his thoughts, so the conversation would be one sided. Regardless, I was intrigued.
I can’t hurt her. I can’t say yes either, he thought.
I had to be careful not to allow my thoughts across the barrier of his mind. I didn’t want him to know I was listening in. Yes, this was tricky, Bronwen had said when she told me about mental bonds. Eavesdroppi
ng was a reality. Mental bonds were forged on trust. The two involved usually did not undertake a mental bond unless there was absolute confidence in sharing with each other what the other might be thinking.
In my case, Dad made our bond without my consent, so the trust thing was something that was growing.
So I was not going to feel guilty about listening in.
I want to make her happy, he thought. I’ve been without her for so long.
I ache to be with her.
He sighed, mentally.
I blushed, actually.
It would take one little word on my part. Just one word. He was debating with himself. But how can I? To be so careless?
Think of all you’ve put her through.
I cannot break her heart again.
It would destroy me.
“I will meet you tonight, Bronwen,” he said.
A pause. What might Bronwen have been saying to him?
Why does she tease me so? Relieve me of my torment, you temptress.
Wow, Dad’s thoughts suddenly went from debating to begging.
Meet me halfway. Please. I can’t look at your lips much longer without…
I will be patient.
Just one taste.
A lengthy pause. Then a mental groan.
A fire… she ignites… in me. A burning for her, because of her.
A sting that is worth any price.
Because I can’t, I won’t be without her ever again.
I snapped my eyes open and jumped out of his head.
They were kissing.
I just knew it.
THIRTY-THREE
I found my way to the dais and settled next to Aelwen in a row behind Aria and her parents. She had two brothers who had flown in on dragons this morning. They were elven dreamy, with long, dirty blond hair to their mid-backs. Very proper and dignified, although I caught them giving Aria a rib or two as any brother would.
Aelwen was beside herself, and right behind them. And clearly drooling. “Be still my heart,” she whispered.