by E E Everly
There’s still the other option.
Absolutely not, Seren said. I’m not giving my stone to another rider. Besides, how will you have word of home? How will you call me when you need me? Our bond will hold. I’ll return in six weeks.
Good. I don’t want to keep you from your life.
Seren sighed. A dragon’s life is with her rider.
We didn’t anticipate a rider who’d leave her home, I said.
Or a stubborn rider.
Or a placating dragon. I traced my fingertips over Seren’s scales.
It was inevitable—our separation.
I know. For now, we’ll just enjoy the snow.
FORTY
His presence swept up behind me. I felt his light, even if he didn’t want me to. I couldn’t help it. A warrior didn’t let people sneak up on her.
“So she’s gone?” Caedryn asked.
“Yes. Seren left at daybreak.” The gray cotton-balled sky hadn’t changed since morning, since I watched Seren fly into it.
“Are you going to stand in the middle of the courtyard all day?”
I hadn’t moved. Snow carpeted my body. I frowned into the distance, with my chin lifted to where I last saw Seren. I had become a rigid statue they’d have to cart away and stow in an out-of-the-way closet before birds landed on me. Before I froze over.
“I know how difficult this is for you,” he said.
My eyelashes blinked back snowflakes. Tears weren’t going to fall, but I couldn’t move. Seren was well into the highlands. The snow had not begun in the south. The barren, harvested patchwork of fields just enhanced my somber mood.
The world was ugly.
I missed Gorlassar.
“I don’t know anymore why I came here.” Because I wanted adventure. Because I wanted to see what no one else had. Because I wanted to know the secrets of the mortals. “Do you think this world is evil?” I was afraid to ask a man who had lived here his whole life. He didn’t have Gorlassar for comparison. “I was told Bryn was evil.”
“Evil is in the eye of the beholder. As is beauty. Bryn has both.”
“Do you feel it? When you close your eyes? I tried to ignore it. I tried to see the beauty this world has.”
“Niawen, come inside,” Caedryn said.
“Just a few more minutes.”
“Then I shall stand here with you.”
I didn’t turn my head. I didn’t close my sight to Seren’s cross-country flight, but Caedryn slipped beside me, staring off into the distance. I was glad he didn’t look at me. Glad he didn’t goad me.
Just two statues in the courtyard.
His presence was an odd comfort.
FORTY-ONE
I abandoned my vigil. My nose and cheeks had frosted over. For some reason Kenrik flashed into my mind as I stood there. He cursed the cold and rubbed his red nose. I would have laughed had I not been mourning Seren’s departure. At least the vision of Kenrik convinced me to wipe the snow from my face.
Caedryn didn’t say a word as I turned and headed toward the keep. He didn’t brush the snow from his body as he followed me.
After a sweet-onion beef stew and richly buttered bread, I was too overstimulated to sleep. Caedryn excused himself with an eye full of concern, but he didn’t pry.
I wandered back into the storm, to the outer wall where I had gazed over the city the other day—the day Caedryn stalked away from me after our discussion about his age.
The wall fortified the citadel while allowing a place for archers to shoot through gaps in the stone. As I walked along, making trails in the snow, I glanced through each opening until I stopped in front of one on the north side. The world was a blanket of white. Individual snowflakes crisped together, meeting their brothers on the wall around me.
I leaned through the gap and peered down. I might have been forty feet up. An alley below was bereft of footprints because the city was in slumber. I brushed the snow from the ledge and climbed onto it. Bracing myself against the higher wall on each side, I draped forward, extending my arms behind myself.
My actions were all too familiar, dredging up the feelings I had as I looked over the ledge outside Gorlassar. I couldn’t see an end to that drop. That drop meant certain death. The drop to the alley below? I wondered how it felt to hit the earth. How much cushion did the snow give? How many bones would I break? I wouldn’t die from such a fall, but how much pain would I endure?
My fingers let go for the briefest moment, but I caught myself as I pitched. I laughed at my inappropriate thoughts. Was I so desperate to feel something, other than my misery, that I’d consider stepping out another foot, that I’d peel my fingers away from the wall that held me?
These were wicked notions. Only someone who was corrupted thought such things, surely. But I did think similar things before I flew away from Gorlassar the first time.
Corruption comes from within. Even an emrys had impure thoughts. No one was exempt. My father was proof of that. They were wrong. Everyone back home was wrong. We were as flawed as humans. Our light meant nothing if we didn’t honor it and allow it to purify us.
Could I purify myself with my own light? Could I scald the dark shroud off my heart? How?
Deian, I don’t know what I’m doing! Take my torment from me.
I wished, with all my soul, that I had Kenrik to walk me through the confusion. He promised to help me understand forgiveness. Curses! Curse those wicked men I killed. If the world didn’t have so much darkness, the raid wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have slaughtered them and needed to repent. I wouldn’t be alone, without my dragon.
I was conflicted. Why did I need forgiveness for the lives I took? They were evil!
Seren couldn’t even fly me through the storm—my physical one or my emotional one. Her absence was dredging up all my heartache. I didn’t have Aneirin to goad me into adventure to forget some stupid mistake I made or some disagreement I had with my parents. All I had left were the emotions of a former life. The memories brought only sorrow.
As I studied the street below, I realized I wanted the fall to smack the emotions out of me. When my body broke, my humiliation, shame, and anguish would go with blessed relief. Would Father have pity on me if I shattered my spine? What if I cracked my skull? No, that was impossible. Father wouldn’t change.
A breath of frozen air filled my lungs, reaching to my toes. Flakes covered my hair, turning me into a white ghost—a ghost of myself. I tilted my face to the sky and felt each perfect crystal speckle me.
Make me as white as you are. Wash me clean. I arched my back as my fingers slipped one by one. I closed my eyes.
The fall would be over in two seconds.
“Niawen!”
I gasped and stumbled. Caedryn’s hand closed around my wrist. He pulled me off the wall, but as soon as I was on solid ground, he relinquished my hand.
My body was shaking violently—I was so scared out of my mind. “What are you doing up here?”
“What am I doing up here? What are you doing up here? I came to prevent you from doing something rash.”
I was mortified. I wasn’t actually going to jump, was I? “Were you prying into my private emotions? I thought you said you didn’t do that?” My hand curled into a fist. I pinned it to my side so I wouldn’t punch him.
“You weren’t exactly being subtle.”
“You have no idea what I was doing.”
Caedryn sneered. “You wouldn’t hurt yourself. Naturally you weren’t really going to jump.”
“This is what I prefer to do in my free time. I like to ponder life’s meaning while gazing over a deadly drop.”
He tossed his hands up. “Fine. By all means, please, climb back onto the ledge.”
I shook my head. “You can’t tell me you don’t know how I feel. I’ve lost everything. You’ve been there.”
“You’re right. I have.” Caedryn breathed in my face. “But my men saved me. That’s why I’m here now, whether you’ll accept my help or not.”
&
nbsp; “You just don’t want to be alone anymore. You want me here so you’ll have someone to live out your eternity with.”
Caedryn closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. The muscles in his face tightened. His voice dropped. “You’re mistaken, but you go on thinking that. I’m going to sleep. The night is young. You should go to bed too. Maybe you’ll find your forgiveness in the morning.”
My mouth fell open as Caedryn strode away.
The rat.
FORTY-TWO
I woke with a start in the middle of the night. My room was drafty and cold. I cast a lighted orb above my head.
Seren had reentered Gorlassar two days earlier. She was welcomed with open arms. No one had asked about me, at first, until she found Aneirin and Catrin.
Catrin broke down in tears when she heard I was well. Aneirin frowned and turned away as Catrin wrapped her arms around him. Seren told me later he had cried. He turned away so I couldn’t watch with my dragon sight.
His thoughtfulness during his distress saddened me immensely. As did his grief over my exile.
Seren was happy to be reunited with Cephias. Her bond with her mate caused me even more torment. I shut my mind to her. She didn’t need to feel my sorrow. I was missing a whole world. My former life. I wanted the freedom of coasting on Seren. The thrill of being champion in a tournament. I missed dancing with Catrin, surrounded by a ring of admirers during the midsummer gala.
I shook my head. Clean slate. New life.
How did I get rid of the stain on my heart-center though? The black shroud was like sticky resin. I once left Seren’s saddle under a cypress tree. Sap had dripped over the seat. No matter how much I scrubbed, a tacky stain remained, and my abrasive efforts damaged the leather.
I sighed, wondering why I was awake and stressing over things beyond my control. My own wretched sob must have woken me. I’d been crying in my sleep—again. As I mopped the tears from my face, light shifted in my mind. A stirring in the citadel. I listened for a disturbance.
Nothing. Quiet.
I slid from my bed and stuck my head into the empty hall. In my mind’s eye, light moved to the first floor. One was Caedryn’s greenish-yellow light, moving with two others.
What was he doing? I had grown suspicious of Caedryn over the past few days. He left the citadel and ventured into the city every afternoon when he thought I was reading in the library and he could safely leave me without fretting for my well-being. Every evening, after supper, he paced in front of the hearth as I pretended to embroider.
Embroider. I scoffed. Lowri asked me if I wanted a hoop, needle, and some thread to occupy myself in the evenings. She said the winters were tediously boring. My mother embroidered, but I didn’t care for it. Lowri looked so dismayed when I said no that I changed my mind. So I picked at the fabric, with my needle, drawing the thread through and making odd lines and X’s I decided might pass for flowers.
But I mostly watched Caedryn. His hands were clasped behind his back. He paced three steps forward, and turned, pacing three steps back. Often he glared in my direction. I deduced that some of his tension stemmed from having me present. Did he really feel so much concern over me? I knew that wasn’t all.
Something else unnerved him.
Lowri pointed out an obvious mistake in my stitches. I wiggled my nose and considered passing my hoop to her so she could fix the stitch.
“It’s dull work, is it not?” Caedryn paused in front of the fire.
“Uh, yes. It is,” I said, surprised he was asking me about my needlework.
“I haven’t the patience.”
“You’re ill at ease,” I said. “Sit down, or you’ll have the countryside in an uproar.”
“Are you offering comfort?”
“What comfort I could offer snarled in the storm you’re brewing.”
“You wouldn’t want me to sit and stew,” he said. “Storms that turn on themselves are the most catastrophic.”
I dropped the fabric into my lap. I couldn’t abide his agitation along with my own. As I spoke, I hoped the fire’s flames danced in my eyes and gave them greater intensity. “Storms that collide clash with raucous thunder.”
“And deadly lightning,” Caedryn said.
I gripped the hoop with both my hands and stared down at it. Did he not realize the constant cloud cover I had under the surface? A single rumpling breeze might set me off. His storm had better not collide with mine, or he’d feel a shock.
Caedryn resumed his pacing.
“It does no good to fret,” I hissed. “Fix whatever you’re fuming about.”
He halted, and his head snapped in my direction. “Since you cannot abide my company tonight, then perhaps you should retire.”
I stood and tossed my work onto the sofa. “Enjoy your solitude.” I blew out of the room, with Lowri following.
When I’d asked Lowri where Caedryn disappeared each afternoon, and if she knew why he was in such an uproar, she said, “Personal business.”
Personal? Did the same personal business draw him out during the night of a snowstorm?
I pulled my boots on and rummaged through my generously stocked wardrobe for a cloak before skipping down the stairs and into the night.
The snow made the night glow with a magical softness. I pulled the hood over my head to hide my silvery locks. My nightdress flapped against my legs as I stepped into Caedryn’s footprints, so I pulled my cloak tighter.
Within a few minutes, I approached a tiny house at the end of an alley. Inside, moaning gradually rose in volume, becoming an all-out wail.
Pain. Tremendous pain. By the Creator! Voices rose with urgency. I imagined all the possible scenarios. Was Caedryn torturing someone? That was preposterous. He had displayed no evidence of a cruel nature.
The wail subsided and panting started. I leaned against the doorframe, wondering if I should barge in. I sensed Caedryn’s apprehension. The room was swirling with nervousness, dread, and anxiety. Not quite the feelings of a group of people torturing someone.
I thought the worst when the moaning began again. The next time, shouts accompanied the growing chaos.
“Easy, Siwan,” Caedryn said. “You’re so close.”
“I can’t do this,” a woman moaned.
“Yes, you can.”
How could I’ve been so stupid? A woman was in labor, and Caedryn was delivering the baby.
But he was too worried. He lacked confidence in himself. Something wasn’t right if he felt this way. I creaked the door open and slipped inside. The room was hot from a stoked fire. Immediately four faces regarded me. So much for sneaking in unnoticed.
The first man, a guard, stepped in front of me. “You need to leave.”
“Wait,” Caedryn said. “It’s Lady Niawen.”
The guard stepped aside. “I beg your pardon.”
I nodded and moved to the bed.
Caedryn stood. His face was sweaty. Siwan panted in the bed. A man, who had been pacing, must have been her husband. He was the man who had come for Caedryn in the night. I recognized him and his glow. He worked in the stables, exercising the horses. The other person was a young woman mopping Siwan’s brow. Possibly her sister; they carried a family resemblance.
“I’ve tried for three days to turn the baby.” Caedryn swiped at his brow. “I was successful yesterday, but the babe flipped back. And now the labor has started.”
“She’s breech?” I asked.
“Footling,” Caedryn said.
“She can be delivered, but we’ll have to be patient.”
“Damnation, Niawen. Why didn’t I tell you—?”
“Instead of sneaking off into the night? I asked. “Because you’re cocky.”
“I’m glad you pointed that out. We can all rest assured.”
I wanted to punch Caedryn, but Siwan groaned, so I rushed to her feet. “Get her to the edge of the bed. Once the body has emerged, the babe must hang to engage the head. I’ll keep the infant warm so she won’t
draw breath. Don’t open the door or create a draft.” I touched Siwan’s leg. “You can do this.”
FORTY-THREE
Caedryn and I followed the guard back to the citadel.
“Are you going to tell me what possessed you to keep Siwan’s labor a secret?” I growled as I lifted my feet through the snow. They felt extra heavy, and my toes were cold. An unusual sensation for an emrys. Then again, I didn’t usually trudge through deep snow. I also felt hurried. Urgency to find shelter filled me even though the keep was yards away. “Is that why you were pacing?” A storm brewing indeed.
“Deiniol came to me three days ago. He said his wife was having pre-labor pains. The midwife tried to turn the baby weeks ago while room remained in the womb, but she had no luck. He begged me to try. I had never used my light in such a way before. I’m no healer.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. Too much pride. “I could have done it.”
“I didn’t realize your skills extended to healing.”
“You can’t be serious. What of the half-emrys in your homeland?” I wanted to grab Caedryn and shake him and yell, “Are you out of your mind?”
“Not many of them are healers. Very few are.”
“What are they, then?”
He stared straight ahead as he trudged. “Barbaric murderers.”
“And you?” I simply couldn’t understand how a realm full of half-emrys weren’t healers. They possessed light. Why not use it? Was life backward outside Gorlassar?
“A scholar.”
That explained three libraries of books.
I told Caedryn about the people I’d healed since I’d left Gorlassar.
“I’m astonished,” he said. “Truly. How did you learn your craft?”
“We’re required to take a basic healing course when we go to the university.”
“University?” Caedryn shook his head, loosening the snowflakes that flecked it. “I’ve been deprived my entire life. I’ve never been to a university. Everything I’ve learned was from books that I managed to get my hands on. And you took only a basic class?”