Fire Song

by Crosby, Tanya Anne

  Witchfire.

  “I-I didn’t know I could,” she said, a bit stunned.

  Witchwind. Witchwater. Witchfire.

  There was no doubt in her mind now that she was aligned to aether, but even so, these were not affinities that were common to dewines, not lest they be Goddess blessed and ordained, which she most certainly was not. Rhiannon was the one who should receive the gifts of a priestess, and nevertheless, she had never once seen even Rhiannon perform this sort of magik.

  How was this possible?

  Confused by the mystery, Seren shoved the remaining carrot into her mouth and then sat staring into the raging flame.

  Truth be told, none of these abilities had ever manifested themselves before Arwyn’s death. Could they somehow be connected to her sister’s passing? Did Arwyn, somehow, convey her abilities to Seren? But nay… Arwyn had no magik. Barely at all. Much to her sister’s dismay, she was never a proper student of the Craft.

  So why here, why now?

  Twilight passed, and night fell. Night sounds pervaded the air. Once their meal was done, Seren nibbled here and there at her victuals, studying the flames as they slowly cooled from blue to red and gold, casting a burnished light over their immediate surroundings.

  For the love of night, so far as she knew, she was not a dewine priestess or she would have been groomed for this from birth. To be a Regnant, there were outward signs—the crossed amber-lit eyes, like Rhiannon’s.

  But even Rhiannon was not a priestess as yet. Simply because one had the potential did not mean one could ascend. One must study the Craft over a lifetime and eventually entreat the Mother Goddess. Only with the Mother’s blessings could a priestess be ordained. And, even a fully ordained priestess might not necessarily have the power to manipulate the divine.

  Witchwind, witchfire and witchwater, these were all divine elements, and so far as Seren knew, not even their grandmamau had had the power to conjure the extramundane. It was a skill that appeared only once in a thousand years. So why had these new powers manifested themselves to her so suddenly?

  “Seren?” Blinking, Seren peered up at Wilhelm to find him watching her intently. His brows lifted. “You must be overtired,” he said. “We should sleep and rise early.”

  Seren nodded, but what she really wished for at the instant was to speak to Rhiannon. Unfortunately, she could not mindspeak outside proximity, and, to make matters worse, though she could feel her sisters—Rosalynde and Elspeth—the aether was completely devoid of Rhiannon’s presence.

  Wilhelm finished supping and rose, going straight for the blankets, but despite the deepening night, sleep was the furthest thing from Seren’s mind.

  26

  “Here be your victuals.”

  The new warden lunged into Rhiannon’s cell, seizing the morning’s plate, still half full, and grousing as he shoved another plate onto her table to replace it.

  “Tarry not,” he demanded. “Hands bound or nay, I cannot be leaving plates all night long else ye’ll be sleeping with rats.” Muttering crossly beneath his breath, he turned his back to Rhiannon and rushed back out, though not before casting her a disgruntled glance.

  He was new to the job, she knew—here only a week—but already he’d begun to show some pity, and that was the failure of her previous warden.

  “She’s vicious,” she’d heard the steward say. “Show no mercy. And if you turn your back on that lady she’ll skewer you with a fork. But if she doesn’t kill you for showing weakness, I will.”

  Clearly, Cael d’Lucy was bored with her. He was gone to London now, leaving his cruel-hearted steward to oversee Blackwood’s prison—a tower-full of Welsh insurgents, so far as Rhiannon could determine. If she could, she would free them all, but with the shackles she was wearing—a lovely gift from her mother—she was well and truly helpless. She couldn’t kindle the fire in her brazier, couldn’t summon a spoon. She couldn’t spy on her sisters.

  The shackles she wore effectively blocked all magik—how she didn’t know, but she surmised it must be imbued with some sort of binding spell. Perhaps even the metal itself was inspired. Mercifully, her hands weren’t fettered behind her back, but by now, her wrists were chaffed enough from trying to free them that even the simple act of lifting a fork to her mouth pained her immensely.

  Alas, no matter how tiny she tried to make her fists, they were well and duly bound. Even so, the shackles were fascinating. For all that it appeared they should be loose enough to slip off, they resisted. It was as though they could anticipate her intentions. So long as she needed freedom to perform perfunctory tasks—comb her hair or shovel food into her mouth—her hands remained loosely bound. On the other hand, the instant she tried to slip free of them, the metal appeared to expand, leaving no room at all, pinching her flesh till it threatened to cut her off her blood supply. And nevertheless, she must persist, because she was lost without magik. There was little worse they could have done to her, except murder her sisters. They could have plucked out her eyes and Rhiannon wouldn’t feel so inadequate. Only now she understood what it felt like to be ordinary—no sight, no magik, no ability at all. Frustrated, she examined the manacles again, holding them up to the light, hoping against hope to figure out how they worked.

  As far as she could tell… they must be forged with some type of alloy, though even as shiny as the metal appeared to be, they were far too unyielding to be pure. Most of the fused silver developed a patina, and she knew this because she and her sisters had been tasked with cleaning all the silver in the chapel at Llanthony. The purest pieces dented too easily, and therefore the majority of the candle holders at Llanthony were fused with another metal entirely. However, because Ersinius liked to have people to believe his chapel was pristine, he’d made them clean the silver with a sour paste made of vin aigre. Whatever this was, it wasn’t that. For even despite that these were ancient—she could tell by the etching—the silver was completely untarnished. And, if you looked closely, there was a small inscription on both wrist pieces, beside the keyholes. The rough edges of the engraving caught the light like small gems. She could scarcely make it out…

  Hic est Draco,

  Ex undis,

  Tenetur in argenteas

  A capite ad calcem, tace, et sile

  Roughly translated, it meant, “Here be the dragon”—a true dragon? A Pendragon?

  The witch Cerridwen was no dragon. Her sigil was the sigil of the house of Avalon, twin golden serpents entwined about the stem of a winged chalice. She was not directly aligned to Uther, only through the marriage of her granddaughter Yissachar. So, then, perhaps this was not a reference to a Pendragon by name, but rather a reference to the sea serpent, in which case, it could be Cerridwen. Many years after she was cast into exile, there were numerous accounts of her resurfacing as a sea dragon.

  “Hic est Draco, ex undis,” she whispered.

  Here be the dragon from beneath the waves.

  Indeed, these shackles must have been fashioned to keep her. But, if so, who could possibly have known she would return from her exile, and who had forged these manacles to bind her?

  Bound in silver, from head to toe, silent and still, read the remainder of the inscription. Surely, this must be some sort of a binding spell. Written by whom?

  Her grandmamau? Her father? Could Emrys have learned who Morwen was before she’d chanced to poison him? Was that why she killed him?

  Or mayhap the engraving was inscribed by yet another hand? Someone who represented Holy Church? Inexplicably—because these symbols were not used in the Craft—the inscription was bracketed by crosses.

  Rhiannon pondered this mystery a while—a possible collaboration between the Goddess and the Church?

  Was that even possible?

  According to their grandmamau all gods were as one god, born of the same Great Mother. Their priestesses were not unlike Christian priests, who in their hearts and minds were merely closer to God. The tenets of Holy Church were not so different from the
teachings of the Mother Goddess, none so profound as this: Do good, harm none.

  Dewines were not typically against the Holy Church, even though huntsmen had slaughtered their people for ages. When Taliesin became the Merlin of Britain—Myrddin in her own Welsh tongue—the Holy Church had reviled him. Loathing his influence over the Emperor, and longing to besmirch his name—or worse, they began hunting his people in secret, using his own bard’s tales to find and behead them or burn them at the stake.

  These were the faekind and dewinefolk of legend—those who made their homes in the Summer Isles, even after the drowning of Avalon.

  Deep in thought, considering possibilities, Rhiannon was scarcely aware that her gaoler had returned. Hers was typically the first and last cell he visited, and then he wouldn’t come again till morning. To arrive here, it was a long climb from the courtyard.

  Shivering, she scooted into the waning sunlight, lifting her face to the sun’s last rays, as though, by sheer will alone, she could absorb its warmth. When the guard thrust his key into her lock, she opened her eyes, willing him without words to rekindle the fire in her brazier.

  The man stared back at her, looking for an instant bemused, and she knew her exercise had proven futile.

  “’Tis cold,” she complained.

  He ignored her, peering over at her untouched plate and shaking his head in disgust. He jerked the key back out of her lock, jiggling the bars to be sure they remained firm.

  “My mum had blue eyes, too,” he said conversationally. “But you won’t live to see her age if you refuse to eat. And if’n ye cost me my job, as you did Berwyn’s, I’ll see you regret it, witch!”

  Rhiannon simply wasn’t hungry. She felt hopeless and lost. But suddenly it occurred to her what he’d said, and she cocked her head in surprise.

  Blue?

  But nay, she was born with amber eyes, and later, when she’d come to an age, one eye turned lazy. She’d suffered taunts for it most of her life. It wasn’t until she’d learned precisely what her eyes meant that she’d found peace with the imperfection. From that day forward she’d devoted herself to studying the Craft, day and night, even defying her eldest sister when Elspeth forbade her. The guard turned to leave, still shaking his head. “Wait!” Rhiannon said, bounding up from the bed, though not to retrieve her plate. “Wait!” she demanded, and again, when it seemed he would leave. “Wait! Wait!”

  “Quit yer prattling,” the man said, but he refused to turn around.

  “Please! Look at me,” Rhiannon demanded. She shook the bars. “What color are my eyes?” Mayhap he simply hadn’t looked closely enough the first time. He must be mistaken.

  The guard turned with a frown. “Blue, I said!” And to confuse matters even more, he didn’t bother to cross himself at the sight of her, as most people were wont to do—even Berwyn.

  “Wait,” she said when he made to leave again. “May I have that?” She pointed to the empty, metal plate in his hand. If she could polish it, she could glimpse her reflection.

  “Nay,” he said, his patience clearly at an end. “Ye got your own. Finish your supping then do what ye will with the plate.” And then he left, abandoning Rhiannon to a quiet so pervasive that she could hear the scurrying of rats in the hall.

  But it couldn’t be.

  It couldn’t be.

  She bounded over to the plate he’d left on her table, picking it up, wincing over the pain that stung her wrists, and flinging off the food, even knowing the consequences. She would go without supping tonight, and despite that, she was undeterred, rubbing the grease from her plate onto her dress, wiping it clean in hopes that she might spy something on the rust-covered surface. Once the plate was scrubbed enough, she rushed over to the waning rays of sunlight, peering into the makeshift mirror.

  Blue, she saw. Blue eyes peering back at her. Not amber. Not Crossed. Blue.

  Sweet, sweet Goddess, it was true; she had blue eyes!

  With a bewildered shake of her head, Rhiannon dropped her hands, realizing that this was only possible if someone had put a glamour on her as a child—a glamour so powerful she couldn’t even see through it herself. But why?

  Crossed, amber eyes were the Mark of the Mother. It was a dominant trait for a Regnant priestess, but it alone didn’t assure ascension; it must be a judgment by the Goddess. And yet, no Regnant so far as Rhiannon knew ever presided over a coven without the birthmark.

  Moreover, only one priestess could preside at once, and only one gifted dewine was born to every generation. The Gift could not be passed along until the living Regnant died, or else she was renounced by the Goddess herself. Her father, Emrys, not her mother, had been the Promised One before her, but her father’s gifts were never conferred, because he’d died many years before their grandmother. Therefore, Morgan Pendragon was the last Regnant to preside over a coven, and the Gift skipped a generation, as it sometimes did, because it was Goddess-granted. But though Rhiannon’s ascension wasn’t pre-ordained, she had prepared herself for the Mother’s Gift for most of her life. She had been led to believe it was her destiny—only naturally, since Emry’s was her father. But, if she was not born to be the Regnant… who was?

  27

  During the day, with the sun shining so brightly, and Wilhelm by her side, it was easier to forget her travails.

  Now, in the wee hours of the morn, with Wilhelm fast asleep, Seren couldn’t seem to slow the errant beating of her heart. Eyes open or closed, her traitorous thoughts flitted from one worry to the next. Her ears tuned into every sound in the forest: deer traipsing about, squirrels scrambling up trees, the uncanny bark of a fox in the middle of the night—all these things, though they’d seemed only natural before, now held a timbre of menace.

  Somewhere out there, her mother was scheming.

  Somewhere out there, Mordecai was lurking.

  Somewhere out there, the king’s soldiers were gathering for war…

  Where are you, Rhiannon?

  How she longed for her sister’s counsel.

  Rhiannon was the wisest dewine Seren knew. Even when they hadn’t had access to a grimoire of their own, she had created one, filling it with experiments and illustrating it so beautifully. It never once mattered to her that Elspeth refused to convey their grandmamau’s teachings; somehow, Rhiannon was born with the knowing, as though, with her dying breath, Morgan Pendragon had imbued her—and certainly, that must be true, because even before Rhi could talk, she’d understood things the rest of them did not. Betimes she even recalled things that transpired whilst she was in the womb.

  For one, she vividly remembered the death of her twin… Morien. In her native tongue it meant ‘born of the sea’ and Seren often wondered what a sixth sister might have been like. One thing was certain: To this day, Rhiannon loathed Morwen for ingesting that potion to rid herself of her babes. Somehow, Rhiannon survived, much to Morwen’s dismay. And perhaps to their father’s dismay, as well, for no one ever quite knew how to deal with Rhiannon. For so long, no one understood why she’d seemed so possessed, betimes smacking her head fitfully against walls and wailing inconsolably. Only now, Seren understood… she understood, because the only thing keeping her from doing the same was the quiet strength of the man sleeping beside her.

  So much as she envied Wilhelm’s restful slumber, his smooth, easy breathing was a comfort to her, because it gave her reason to believe all would be well.

  Certainly, if he’d sensed any danger, he would be as wide awake as she, and this was the first night since beginning their travels that he’d dared to rest so easily—now that they were in familiar territory.

  Poor Rosalynde, she thought—poor, Rose. Her sister must be suffering as Rhiannon suffered—and perhaps more so, for while Rhiannon never had the chance to truly know her twin, Rosalynde and Arwyn had been inseparable. Arwyn had been her shadow, and though Rosalynde so oft lifted her into the light, Arwyn seemed perfectly content to bask in Rosalynde’s glory. Sighing deeply, squeezing her eyes shut, she tri
ed to remember Arwyn’s face and tears pricked at her eyes because the image was already fading.

  They’d spent nearly every waking day together for the majority of their lives, and with only weeks gone since Arwyn’s death, already the finer details of her beautiful face were beginning to dim. It was this, perhaps, that bothered Seren most as the days marched quietly on, but she was equally troubled by the fact that, although her sisters must surely know Arwyn was gone, the how of it would be left up to her to explain. But there was nothing Seren could say to enlighten anyone, not even herself.

  She’d failed Arwyn, that much was clear.

  She’d left her alone, and somehow, the Whitshed burned. Later today, or mayhap tomorrow, she would face Rosalynde… and what should she say?

  The answer to that continued to bedevil her, and whilst there was a short time in Wilhelm’s company that she’d been able to block the tragedy of the Whitshed from her thoughts, now that she was closer to Warkworth, it was impossible to put aside all her questions. Goddess grant her peace, for she could find none on her own.

  And then there was this: Despite that she longed to embrace Rose, the thought of arriving now left her feeling bereft, even as it filled her with elation. In the short time since she’d come to know Wilhelm, he’d become her strength as much as any of her sisters were. And yet, the instant they arrived, she would no longer be his concern. His job would be complete, and whatever bond they were forming… it would quickly unravel… fly away, like the windswept silk of a spider’s web.

  Shivering again, despondent over the thought, she huffed a weary sigh, pulling the covers higher over her ears and staring at Wilhelm’s sleeping form across the fire.

  His aura was dim at the moment, bordering on umber. Together with the soft glow from the fire, their immediate surroundings were awash with a coppery light. She watched intently as his chest rose and fell with his slumber, and reasoned that the past weeks must have taken a toll. Now, closer to home, he was bound to feel more relaxed. To the contrary, she was anxious, confused, happy, sad, frightened, exhilarated—so many conflicting feelings.