by Jan Delima
Neira walked a circle around the pair, blond and fair like many of their kind. A tiny woman in knee-high boots, leather pants and a red vest, swinging a thronged whip—she was a demented bully, a performer dressed in circus garb. Not only finding joy in causing pain, but also making it a show. Worse, if the man was Cadan, then she’d been punishing her own grown son.
He felt an instant affinity for Cadan in that moment.
And, yes, Luc had seen Neira once, from afar, standing beside his own mother, wearing clothing far more primeval than this. There had been a time when he had wanted Merin’s acceptance, before Dylan had forced him to board a ship to a new world. The Guardians had loved their festivals, had flaunted them far and wide, with games, music, bards and roasting meats, while non-shifters served them or starved.
Slaves had been more valued than Luc; as a Bleidd, he should have been killed at birth. If not for Dylan, he would have been. Even so, even knowing they despised his existence, he’d watched from the woods, hiding under the cover of trees, longing to be human, to be a man—to be a wanted son.
He’d dared to be seen that day, to step away from the forest edge, if only for a moment, to let his mother know he wasn’t dead. The two women had laughed at him, like friends. The wind had carried their voices, enough to know he’d been the source of their amusement. He’d slunk back to the shadows. The Beast of Merin who lived in the forbidden forests of Cymru, the black wolf who could not shift had not deserved to play in the light among their gilded throngs.
Drowning with unwanted memories, Luc waved a signal to proceed. Reflexively he gripped his sword. He’d found the weapon in Rhuddin two months after his first shift, before more outcasts followed and requested sanctuary from Dylan. Like Cormack was now, he’d barely been able to walk. But he’d understood the world like any other man. He’d wanted like one, and bled like one, even if the wounds had not been of the flesh.
Neither Dylan nor Elen could confirm who’d placed it there, but they’d had their suspicions. Both had seen their father carry it, and then their mother after his death.
Swords, for their kind, were the most precious heirlooms to bequeath. Because their generations were so few, most kept them for life. He understood why Rosa cherished hers. His had been given to him by less pure hands. As his own retribution, he used it when facing Guardians, the people who had wanted him dead. Even his own mother had been willing to kill him to protect her other children from their scorn. Later, her only acknowledgment of his existence had been to laugh about him with her friends. Giving birth to a Bleidd weakened her in their eyes, and only the powerful survived under Guardian rule.
But then, why leave him a gift such as this? If indeed it was Merin who had. And if she despised him so, why not give it to Dylan, or Elen? Luc shook his head to clear his thoughts. He had stopped seeking Merin’s acceptance a long time ago. Still, even though it galled him to admit it, there were times when her rejection festered like an unhealed wound.
Koko’s Journal
—
August 12, 1928
I cannot sleep. It is one of those hot nights when the air is thick with moisture and the sheets cling to my skin like spiderwebs in the rain. I prefer autumn, with cool nights and warm blankets.
As I sit here with pen in hand, I wonder if it is not the heat that keeps me awake, but rather the images that haunt my thoughts. They race around my head like pesky ghosts, as if calling me to put them to paper and bring them back from death.
Strange, how the image that haunts me most is of Luc’s sword, the one he keeps behind our bed and believes I know not of it. Sometimes he forgets, I think, that Gypsy blood flows in my veins. Secrets are like shadows and my people know shadows well.
I believe the image is a warning; it flows fast like a river, only to be felt and seen, but not held. Luc’s sword is entangled in the knots of a Celtic Moon. It waits for him in a violet grove surrounded by broken trees.
I fear it is a vision of his past and future, and has naught to do with his present, or with me. I will paint it now to expel my ghosts.
I only wish I could expel his.
~Koko
Eleven
Alas, false forfeit gains no vantage. From deadened earth, fevers rise, of lust and lament.
Aunt Neira stood in the middle of the great hall, wearing an outrageous costume spattered in blood, and a well-fed smile distorting an ageless face. Blond hair, blue eyes, tepid features and a taste for pain—her victim’s as well as her own—she resembled an angel of death in the biblical sense, only without the mercy bit.
Rosa swallowed her fury, even though it burned like embers stoked by a drunkard’s breaths, threatening to ignite on fumes alone. Mae and Cadan were bound to chairs, and to each other, back-to-back and facing opposite directions. Neira circled with one of her many toys, like a circus handler breaking in misbehaved animals.
Mae’s eyes had swelled shut from Neira’s beating. Her face, already bearing too many scars, would have more after this. Rosa wanted to go to her, to pull her from that chair, but to show any sign of favoritism would only make her a target for future torture. Knowing Neira would suffer for this deed helped Rosa hold her ground. Oh, yes . . . Mae couldn’t shift but she possessed other skills, knowledge of alchemy that had felled more than one wolf.
Cadan faced the entryway and noticed their entrance first. His hair hung loose around bare shoulders, soft red like a fox’s pelt against pale skin. His curse was beauty where hers was fertility. She gladly accepted her affliction over his, because hers could be secretly controlled.
Green eyes lifted to meet hers; torment bled to relief, absent of his usual candor. Cadan would rather feel pain than have another take it in his stead, a weakness his mother had known and used well.
Luc found her free hand and squeezed briefly before letting it go. The gesture was alien to her, a form of comfort, offering strength with support.
“Let me go in first,” she whispered. “It’s me they want.”
Together, Luc mouthed in return.
Rosa felt the gentle pressure of his hand on her back as she stepped forward. “Aunt Neira, what’s going on here?” Her announcement echoed through the cathedral-like room. “I have some happy news I want to share.”
Her aunt jumped, issuing a small squeak as she turned. “Rosa Beatrice Alban, you naughty child, where have you been?” Neira had a singsong voice, rising and falling on the cadence of her breaths, like a twitter bird in flight. Recovered from her surprise, she barely glanced at Luc, or the rebel warriors filing in to form a half circle around Rosa. “Why have you brought these people here?”
“We must have a feast,” Rosa proclaimed in forced joviality. “I’m married once again.”
Neira sniffed, clucking her tongue. “If what you say is true, then your selfishness has reached new heights.”
William cleared his throat, rising from a chair located under the balcony to declare his presence. The second Guardian wore a dark suit, dressed for a journey among humans, with his fair hair cropped short; he presented an image of a formidable businessman. He was one, after all, for the Council.
“Your disregard for the Council’s plans has now become an issue, Rosa.” The Guardian gave a bored sigh as if annoyed by this slight delay. His pale gaze scanned the rebels, shrewder than Neira’s. “You will cease whatever juvenile plans you had by bringing these”—his nostrils flared with disgust—“Drwgddyddwg in my presence.”
Evil Bringers. The term was the equivalent of Hen Was, only much less kind, created by the Guardians when the first non-shifters were born, fearing their loss of power.
Cormack gave a warning growl by her side. He’d weaved his way to the front of the crowd. She rested her hand on his side, a show of support in front of the Guardians, one that did not go unnoticed.
“And a Bleidd,” William added with a sneer. “We could charge admitt
ance for this freak show.”
“Aunt Neira is dressed for the part,” Rosa mocked. Never had she dared such disrespect.
Her aunt’s lips peeled back when the insult registered.
Confirming her intent, Rosa curled her fingers in Cormack’s fur. He allowed the intimate gesture; perhaps for the purpose it was given.
“We also have the Beast among us,” Neira returned with petty insults and perverted words. “Merin’s runt. You are the image of your father, did you know?” Greedy eyes scanned Luc in a long perusal that left little doubt of her thoughts. “My, oh, my,” she hummed, “does your human skin ever fit you well. I will have fun removing it.”
For Neira, pain was her pleasure.
Luc laughed at her, a deep chuckle of belittling amusement.
Neira hissed as if slapped, accustomed to having her victims cower in fear. Lowering her chin, she gripped her whip, poised to lift her arm when a shrill sound came from her waist, echoed by another from William’s lapel, intrusively modern in the medieval gauntlet. Her expression went from savagery to glee in the time it took her instrument for flagellation to fall, forgotten in a black serpentine heap.
If not for Mae, who had yet to move, Rosa would have laughed at the absurdity. “I believe you both have a call.” She had seen a human using the portable device, enough to recognize the sound, and had read about them in the magazines she snuck to her secret cabin across the river.
“Sin sent us these cell phones as a gift,” Neira boasted. “He is coming home to us.”
Only a select few called Taliesin by that name. Rosa wondered whether the man would welcome its use by her aunt, but then tried not to waste much of her mental energy when it came to him.
“It is a message,” Neira preened. “Oh, look at this,” she breathed in her twitter-bird voice. “Sin sent me a photograph.” Her hands fumbled with the phone. “Why can I not see it?”
“Just touch the screen, Neira,” William snapped, impatient with her antics, and her ineptitude. “Like this.”
Neira mimicked his motion, viewing whatever message she received. Her smile froze. William merely turned to Luc for a more calculating assessment.
“Explain this to me!” Neira marched over and shoved the phone at Rosa, holding it up in front of her face.
Rosa blinked at the small rectangular box with an image of her standing nude next to Luc, recalling the flash of light and Taliesin’s grin after taking it. “That’s a photograph of our wedding.”
William’s gaze narrowed. “Taliesin was there?”
“Actually, if you must know, it was his idea.” Whatever Taliesin was about, Rosa might owe him a kind word for this, if only a small one.
Neira appeared stunned by this news, wide-eyed and pale, like Rosa’s own expression in the photograph. Another chorus of modern music echoed from both phones. Neira fiddled with hers for a bit. Her breath caught over what she saw. A muscle clenched on the side of William’s jaw before he shoved the phone in his pocket.
What an amazing device. Rosa wanted one, if it could produce such responses. She couldn’t help but lean over for a peek. It was a picture of Taliesin. Well, to be truthful, it was mostly of his middle finger.
“Math’s funeral is scheduled for tomorrow evening,” William announced to Rosa. “You will come with us for the service.”
She gave him her sweetest smile. “I would rather die.”
He sent her a look suggesting that he could easily arrange her wish. “Neira,” he announced, “we are leaving, for the moment.”
“I do not take orders from you, William. We cannot let them—”
“You can stay,” he interrupted with an elegant wave toward Luc and Rosa, arching his arm to include the warriors that now surrounded the Guardians in a circle of unsheathed swords and feral grins. “But I don’t share your taste for pain.” He pivoted for the stairs. “Taliesin’s messages must be discussed with the Council before we continue with any drastic measures,” he warned. “Once I retrieve a personal item, I will be gratefully gone from this cursed place.”
If she didn’t despise them so, Taliesin included, Rosa might feel empathy for the Gwarchodwyr Unfed, the Original Guardians who had lost the respect of their foster son. A mere sighting of Taliesin warranted an assembly of all Council members. Math had been called to attend meetings over unsubstantiated evidence rather than actual contact from the man, much less photographs.
Once-powerful creatures of Celtic lore were now Guardians of a dying race, created to protect the son of a goddess—and the very purpose of their existence spurned them at every opportunity. Desperation may well become their eventual undoing.
Cadan cleared his throat and spoke for the first time since the rebels stopped his mother’s interrogation. “Check his rooms before he leaves.” His voice was hoarse from abuse. His gaze searched for Rosa and held. “Trust me. Just check his rooms.”
And then, true to her experience, a reminder would come of why the Guardians didn’t deserve compassion. Rosa searched the crowd for Gareth.
“I’m on it,” he said without being asked. Gareth headed for the balcony, lunging up the stairs while Luc gave a nod for Teyrnon to follow.
Neira frowned as if confused. “Cadan, you are coming with us. There is no need for you to stay here now that Math is dead.”
A bitter laugh fell from Cadan’s mouth, looking down at his tied hands. “To quote my dear cousin, Mother, I would rather die.” His words rang as true as Rosa’s.
Neira pursed her lips. “I am sorry I had to punish you, but all is forgiven now that I know Sin is involved. I am sure he has a reason for all of this. Maybe even another prophecy.”
Cadan ignored his mother. “Is it true, Rosabea? Did you wed our neighbor’s brother?” There was hesitation in his tone. His only interaction with Dylan had not been a pleasant one.
“I did what needed to be done,” she said without remorse.
Cadan’s gaze searched hers. “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to that again.”
She wanted to tell him of Rhuddin Village, how rich it was with life and freedom, but would save that for when they were alone. After a pause, she admitted what she could in front of Neira. “So far”—heat crawled up her neck—“my second marriage hasn’t been entirely unpleasant.”
The first touch of mirth turned the corner of her cousin’s mouth, and she almost breathed a sigh of relief to see even a minimal sign of his normal self. “Then let us accept that blessing at least,” he teased, as he often did to lighten a tense situation.
Luc strode to the center of the room and released Cadan’s ropes with a flick of his sword. “What’s in William’s room?”
Cadan gave him a wary glance. “I don’t know, but he feeds it.” He stretched his arms, then turned to Mae and began working the knots that held her upright in the chair. “And it cries.”
Rosa rushed to catch Mae as she fell forward, unconscious still. She scanned the crowd for anyone who might help. Her eyes fell on Tesni; she wore the same bibbed skirt Rosa had seen her in the day before. Had it been only a day? It felt like a year since she’d first walked off this island.
Tesni stepped forward, followed by two more Hen Was who had stayed with Cadan instead of escaping with the others. “Bethan and Tobias,” Rosa called them out. “Come here if you will and carry Mae to her bed and tend her wounds. Tesni or I will find you when all is secured.”
* * *
Gareth and five other guards removed William at the points of their swords, along with Neira and the rest of their ensemble. The Guardians were escorted across the river and allowed to leave in the vehicles they’d arrived in. Isabeau and her men circled the island and set up camp around the outskirts, prepared to warn and defend if necessary.
Once the castle was secured, Luc made his way to the second floor. He needed only to glance at Teyrnon to know he wasn’t going to
like what he found.
With lips pressed in a tight line, the Norseman gave a wary shake of his head, his legs braced in front of the door, standing sentry in a bedchamber of painted ceilings and carved wooden panels until Luc arrived.
Cadan and Rosa pushed by him only to halt a few paces in. Like gawkers in a sick room, they simply stared. Tesni followed, but not before giving him a thorough scan. She was bold, this Hen Was, and comely—and loyal to Rosa by the dangerous glint in her narrowed glare. Like the others, morbid curiosity eventually drew her gaze toward the open armoire.
A thin woman sat huddled within the ornate closet with her arms wrapped around a female child.
“I heard them in the bathroom earlier,” Cadan informed them. He seemed to have bounced back from his ordeal. No doubt, like his cousin, he had his own guise of filtering cruelty from the mind.
Rosa ran her hands over her face. “I won’t ask how you know that.”
She was fighting fatigue, Luc knew, and her wolf. She needed to run and then rest.
“It is not like that with William,” Tesni said in a defensive tone. “He refuses to touch any of us. He thinks we are all tainted. Cadan served William’s meals to protect the others. That is how he knew someone else was in here.”
Slowly, Luc approached the armoire. “We mean you no harm.”
The woman unfolded from the cabinet and stood, leaving the child huddled within a curtain of coats. “Is William gone?”
“He is,” Luc affirmed. “Is the child yours?”
Affronted, the woman scoffed, “I’m its tutor, no more. The creature is a Wulfling.”
“A Wulfling?” Rosa frowned with disbelief.
Luc swore under his breath. “Where the hell did William find a Wulfling?”