Legend of the Lakes

by Clara O'Connor

  I approached the tall, broad-shouldered warrior slowly. He showed no sign of attacking me, his gaze not moving from those he perceived as threats. I laid a gentle hand on his chest, expecting to find his heart racing with adrenaline, but I was unnerved to find it felt steady – if anything, it was slower than normal.

  His clothes from last night were torn and covered in blood, one sleeve shredded as if it had been sliced by a sword.

  I ran my hand up along his arm, tracing his tattoos as I had many times before. His muscles were taut and poised, a fresh scar across his upper shoulder. Had he been wounded? How had it healed so fast? It looked weeks old, yet it had not been there before last night.

  “You get him under control or we will. Are you clear, Donna Shelton?” Alvar stated, his threat less convincing with the cringing of the guards posted at a safe distance. One had a black eye, and another seemed to be favouring one leg.

  “Leave us. You’re setting him off.”

  They had Féile though. What was driving Gideon into attack mode was also what compelled me to call him off. We had to do what they wanted.

  “She’s well, we’ve seen her – that’s a good thing.” Whatever had manifested last night was in charge right now and I needed to put Gideon back in control. “Shhh, she’s okay. We just need to do what they ask.”

  As I spoke soft, calm words, I continued to run my fingers up along his arms and felt his muscles relax slightly under my fingertips. I pushed his long hair back from his temple and I could have sworn he curled slightly into my palm. He was responding.

  Reasonably confident he didn’t seem to perceive me as a threat, I ran my hands down his face until he was receptive enough that I could pull his head down to mine. He allowed it, more interested now in me than in the guards at the perimeter of the courtyard.

  I pressed my lips lightly to his, a simple touch to the corner of his mouth, then full against his mouth, a nip to his lower lip, and then with a groan he was with me… responding, kissing me back.

  The world faded away to just the touch of our lips. Fierce and then gentler. He pulled up, confused, questioning eyes looking down at me.

  “Usually works for me.” I smiled up at him, my words low and only for him. Whatever magic had overtaken him, touch and sensation seemed to return him to his own body, to his own senses.

  With the amped-up predator alertness dropping away, Gideon looked tired and a little dazed.

  “You back?” I murmured against his lips.

  He rested his forehead against mine, a slight pressure that I took for assent.

  “We have time. Let’s sit.”

  Gideon nodded, his knees seeming to fold of their own accord.

  I lay back against the ancient tree. Gideon’s head was heavy, his dark hair streaming across my lap. Once, long ago, Devyn had held me like this, exhausted as I had been from the vision I had seen of the attack on my mother – one of my first frightening experiences during which I lost myself to magic. I’d had no understanding then of what it was or how that magic would impact my world beyond my expulsion from the city I called home once I was discovered.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, moving my hand to cup the side of his drawn face.

  His lips tugged up at one side. I glared back at him. Yes, it was a stupid question.

  “You mean because I turn into some kind of monster or because I’m in chains and likely to be killed?”

  “I dunno,” I said in return, shrugging flippantly. “Pick one.”

  His eyes glinted in dark humour back at me.

  “Well, turning into an actual griffin was a bit of a surprise,” he said.

  “Not as much of a surprise as it was for those sentinels,” I tossed back.

  He swallowed an unexpected burst of laughter. “That’s true.”

  “Did you know you could do that?” I asked a tad more seriously.

  He gave me one of those exasperated looks in which he specialised.

  “No.” He drew the word out as he said it. “At the lake, I transformed into one form of the griffin or the other. I thought after that first night it had stopped. Then, when I was training with Rhodri in York, we discovered I could trigger it at will.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He shook his head. We were barely speaking in York, much less exchanging confidences.

  “I don’t know. We were told there was more to the Griffin, that my gift would be in answer to your need. Maybe this is it, the secret revealed.”

  “Too late,” I said mournfully. Though in truth, had we known earlier, what help would it have been? He had some traits of the Griffin, but what good did that do us now?

  “Unless you think you could fly us all out of here?” I asked, hopefully. His new form was substantially larger than the more lifelike version in which he had escaped his lakeside confinement.

  I surprised another laugh out of him.

  “Is this how you feel after the ley lines?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Using that much energy can leave you a bit drained,” I said.

  “A bit drained?” He huffed.

  He pulled himself up and surveyed the courtyard as we sat shoulder to shoulder.

  “I spoke to your mother,” I told him. “I don’t think she intended things to turn out this way.”

  No response.

  “I think she set out to do the right thing for the right reasons, but Calchas manipulated her. She tried to—”

  “Enough,” he cut across me. “I have little time left. Don’t fill it talking about her.”

  I took his hand in mine, interlacing our fingers. “We’ll get out of this.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, but this is not how it ends.”

  He had used those words to me once before when all hope had been gone. I believed them. Somehow I would figure this out. I would find a way to be one step ahead of Calchas for once. Just one time.

  He laid his head back down in my lap, his breathing grew steady, and the events of the night drifted away. I looked up into the leaves of the tree above me, a mighty oak here in the centre of the jewel of the imperial outpost, the beating heart of their power here in the city. The dappled light was waving through the colours, turning in the growing dark.

  The golds, oranges, and reds of summer were fading.

  * * *

  My mother run down by the sentinels, a younger Rhodri fighting to turn back to reach her, the oncoming red robes riding her down, riding them all down, the wise ones, the priests, druids, and doctors in the lands north and south of the great Mediterranean, the rivers flowing red and dark with their blood: illness, the great curse sweeping across the Empire.

  Grapes withered on the vine, crops rotted in the ground. Lights were extinguished across the lands, and crops were failing year after year, fields growing fallow as the people starved, gripped by famine and the desiccation of the land.

  Darkness, illness, famine, death. Grim, unrelenting, creeping as the light in the spirit lines faded and quenched. The music in the songlines silenced. Growing darkness, until a glowing light appeared, transforming into a boy on a horse riding away, a sword lifting from the water, great bronze wings unfurling and taking to the sky. Soaring on the down draft across the great walls…

  Devyn’s dark eyes looking straight at me, a familiar smile on his face,

  “I found you.”

  I saw the sword broken on the sands… red seeping across gold.

  Dark curls glistening, his head bowed as he fell… Blood splaying across the pale grains, whirling around, droplets becoming a shimmer then a point of light, then a pair of lights, sucking down into a great dark vortex. First a few, then many.

  So many, coming out of the warrens seeking help at the great doors of Bart’s Hospital, more and more of them swirling down into the darkness.

  Twinned swords in the vortex, each a counterpoint to the other, swinging ever faster down into the growing darkness, so many lights now, singing, swirling, a Celtic knot,
looping, bonding, so many lights growing dim, screaming, held fast, dying in the dark…

  * * *

  I jerked awake, the muscle spasm disturbing the sleeping Gideon. I breathed in, steadying my heartbeat. The darkness was waiting. It was coming for us all.

  Was what I had seen true?

  Gideon’s hand held mine, his calloused one warm despite the cold of the breeze that swept through the courtyard. I gathered myself. The sword broken… was that in the past? All those people hunted, the Mallacht spreading across the land as their light was extinguished. This was what Fidelma had spoken of, the growing darkness of a world out of balance. She had spent her life pushing back the tide; she had sacrificed everything to it.

  I had seen it when we went down into the circle below Mary le Strand.

  Gideon startled and was already standing when Alvar and fresh sentinels appeared.

  “All right, love birds, you have an appointment.” Alvar’s voice sounded much surer of his own authority now that the worst of the danger had passed. Not so much that his face didn’t fail to blanch when Gideon slung a narrow-eyed glare his way though. “No funny business, mind. You best behave, or it won’t go well for your friends.”

  He indicated that the sentinels should step forward and I noticed they were carrying fresh clothes and a bowl of water and a cloth.

  Alvar curled his finger to me, not acknowledging the Briton at my side at all.

  “No, we stay together.” I looked up at the open sk. It was difficult to judge but it couldn’t be much more than late afternoon. It was early in the day for a Mete, but perhaps things had changed since I lived here.

  Alvar raised a brow, looking in the direction of the empty window. “Do as you’re told and I will take you to the child.”

  I turned back to Gideon. He was still poised as if every person in the courtyard and beyond was merely potential prey.

  “Does your Wilder understand?” Alvar asked me. I couldn’t blame him for directing his question to me. Who would threaten Gideon in this state?

  Gideon resumed a casual seat on the ground under the tree, slanting Alvar that obnoxious insouciant smile that he reserved for those he really wanted to piss off.

  I matched it with one of my own as I raised a brow at the praetorian in response to his delay in taking me on to my prescribed place in the next scene.

  I sauntered out of the courtyard in Alvar’s wake, turning back for one last glance at my smirking husband. His eyes were closed, his head leaning back against the oak, and his long legs were stretched out in front of him.

  I would see him again.

  This was not how we ended.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Alvar led me back through the ballroom and up through the mosaic-tiled corridors until we came to an empty room hung with portraits of governors of the province and a large dining table where he took his leave with another horrid smirk. Power still ran through me, faint but unmistakeably there. No attempt had been made to cut me off from the magic in my blood, but while they had my family and my friends, I could do nothing. Leaving me armed but helpless was a taunt that highlighted how truly powerless I was.

  I was startled as the door opened and two women entered, one carrying a tray of food, which she set down on the chair by the fire, laying out multiple plates and glasses on the table.

  The smaller of the two tutted at the smudges of dirt and grass on the hem of my still otherwise pristine white dress. She took a cloth and removed all evidence that I had spent much of the day sitting on the ground in the courtyard, while the other washed my hands and sat me down at the table in front of the plates of food I couldn’t imagine touching.

  They finally left, and I sat as they had arranged me before restlessly pushing back my chair and going to the window, watching the traffic move up and down the river below. In addition to my own, three empty places waited. Who were they for? I dared not hope that I would be rewarded as promised for Gideon’s recovery.

  When the door opened again, I didn’t look up, but my stomach tightened.

  “My dear, it’s been far too long since I’ve had the pleasure of your company.”

  Calchas.

  He stood in the doorway, a pleasant smile on his face as if he had stumbled upon an old acquaintance.

  I could feel a snarl that the Griffin would be proud of take life within me as I turned to face him. I loathed this man with a depth of feeling that almost had me swaying on my feet.

  “Now, now, Cassandra.” He stepped aside, smiling broadly, the sound of my old name grating coming from his lips. “Best behaviour.”

  The door opened wider, and he was followed by Marcus, another whose mere existence on the earth was enough to—

  Féile.

  My daughter entered the room hand in hand with Marcus.

  I froze. I looked back to Calchas, who lifted his hands as if he stood in the arena addressing the crowd, gracious and giving, his hands spread as he bestowed his gift.

  My head swung back to Féile. She looked so perfect and I drank in the sight of her. I smiled tentatively at her as she looked unblinking at me. Her only reaction was to step closer to Marcus.

  I took a step towards her, and she looped behind Marcus’s leg.

  I dropped down to my knees to be on her level.

  “Féile,” I whispered, holding a hand out to her.

  She averted her eyes. I looked up at Marcus in confusion. Why would she not come to me? I lifted a hand to my face. Was the illusion back? Could she not recognise me?

  “Féile, you know who this is, don’t you?” Marcus squeezed her hand encouragingly.

  No response.

  Calchas let out a delighted chuckle. “Ah, the fickleness of the young,” he remarked. “How quickly they forget all you have done for them.”

  He swept across the room and took a seat at the table, the reason for the abundance of dishes and extra glasses becoming all too clear. My eyes followed Marcus as he also took a seat and Féile scrambled into his lap, burying her head in his chest and refusing to look at me.

  I lifted my head and pulled myself back to my feet. My heart squeezed in my chest as my daughter refused to acknowledge me. I pushed the pain down; she didn’t mean to hurt me, I knew that it was a lot for her to process – she had been gone for so long. How would she have interpreted our failure to come for her? Did she blame us for not coming sooner? Had she turned for comfort elsewhere? I had let her down before; had she decided that I simply wasn’t worth her trust, her love?

  “Come, my dear, join us.” Calchas indicated the seat nearest to him. My skin crawled as I took my place.

  His cold eyes surveyed me. “You have grown into a beautiful young woman,” he said. “Your parents would be so proud.”

  “Which parents? The Sheltons, who you paid to raise me and who threw me to the curb as soon as I was no longer an asset?” I asked. “Or my birth parents – the mother you murdered and the father who died of heartbreak at her loss?”

  “Tut, tut, such insinuations, and within hearing of one of such tender age, too.” Calchas reminded me of Féile’s presence as though my entire being wasn’t aware of every breath she took, every minor emotion that flickered across her face. I didn’t need him to alert me to the flinch that had overtaken her entire body at my bitter words as she curled further into Marcus.

  I exhaled a shuddering breath and mentally shook off the pain and anger that made it almost impossible to think.

  Calchas would be looking to extract every possible ounce of drama and reaction out of me. I needed to stop playing into his hands. He would have a purpose behind this visit and I needed to figure out what it was and how I could thwart it, for the mere satisfaction of doing so. I took another grounding breath.

  I drank in Féile, her dark curls glistening, her cheeks showing less of the baby roundness that had still plumped them when I saw her last. Her eyes held that same shielded wariness that had been there before. I had let her down again, and it made my heart brea
k.

  “What do you want?” I directed at the figure at the head of the table.

  “Why, to catch up. Marcus and I are most interested to hear everything about your life since we saw you last.” He laughed. “Though of course, you and Marcus have already done a little catching up without me.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Marcus. “Traitor.”

  Marcus smiled tightly. “To who? You?”

  “I trusted you,” the words left me as if from a blow. “Again. How do you live with yourself? How can you justify your lies and deceit to yourself? Genuinely, tell me, I want to know.”

  Calchas looked on delightedly. I couldn’t care less what he wanted. Marcus had been my friend once. Someone I admired. Someone I trusted.

  Marcus’s teeth were clenched, his knuckles white, as he stared at me glassy-eyed. He glanced at Calchas before his eyelids lowered.

  “I did not lie to you, Cassandra. You are the one who betrayed this city.” His voice was oddly strangled. “I’ve spent my life trying to help others, bargaining bits of my soul to make others’ lives better. With my father. With you.”

  “You compare me to your father?”

  “Why not?” He shrugged. “You both had the power to help people, but there had to be something in it for you before you would do so.”

  “You stole my daughter.”

  They had never asked for my help. That opportunity had never been offered to me; instead, they had manipulated me into doing what they wanted. Would I have trusted them enough to treat the ley line if they had asked though?

  “Your mutant killed my father,” he countered, practically rising out of his seat, every muscle and sinew taut.

  “Good,” I spat. “And I will end you.”

  “Now, now, there is a child present,” Calchas chided, chuckling at our traded accusations.

  Féile was stiff with anxiety as I promised to kill the one man who was likely to have been kind and caring to her since she arrived.

  “Forgive me,” I said, as outwardly calm as I could manage.