by Lisa Rector
Her light reached far into Cephias’s eyes and into his mind. Ahnalyn stood there for a long time, feeling and pushing. Nothing is there for me to heal, how can this be? Meinwen, why can’t I see an injury?
The damage is permanent. Caedryn used an evil power here. His vision cannot be restored in this life. It’s as though sight was never there.
But you’re the High Emrys. Can’t something be done?
You’re the High Emrys. Remember? And I’m afraid not. I’m not the creator. I can heal many wounds, but the power to create the connection, neither I possess, nor you possess through me.
At last Ahnalyn released her hands, prepared to share the bad news. “Cephias, I’m so sorry. I cannot feel an injury to heal. It’s like the connection between your eyes and mind never existed.”
Catrin was chewing on her lip. “Caedryn must have destroyed it. Emrys cannot heal what does not exist.”
The noble red dragon, to whom Ahnalyn owed her life for rescuing her, groaned—the most dejected and pitiful wail Ahnalyn had ever heard.
Seren nudged Cephias’s chin. “Don’t worry. I’m here with you. We’ll go home soon. We’ll find your stone, and you can have your connection to Aneirin restored. All will be well.”
Yes, all will be well, Ahnalyn thought. So much to be done. So many people to help. So much death. What have we sacrificed? Was this worth the cost?
It’s always worth fighting for what’s right and what’s true. The lives lost will not be in vain. What we achieved was great enough that I was willing to die, Meinwen said. You will see. Wonderful changes are beginning.
Ahnalyn looked around the battlefield. She couldn’t believe the battle was over and they had won. Not a single enemy remained. Even the victors looked astonished.
As men and emrys came to their senses, they staggered about helping the wounded. Ahnalyn was glad to see the emrys working with the mortals: healing them, moving them to tents, and setting up campfires to boil water and prepare food. Dragons groaned as only great burly dragons do. Men hobbled about, some acting tough and others whimpering from their wounds. The air smelled of blood, sweat, and smoke—the smell of victory.
Ahnalyn was so full of light that she had to help where she could. For the rest of the day, she wandered among riders and dragons and men, healing them.
She watched as emrys used the power of light to dig holes, lifting and parting the soil. Graves for the fallen were each marked with a gray stone. The dragons, emrys, and men alike, in rows side by side.
They had come together at last. Two worlds. One unchanged and now altered forever. One in flux and now stilled, scarred by this battle. Ahnalyn hoped Aneirin didn’t regret his choice to come here and to rally the Dragon Riders. She hoped his people wouldn’t cast the mortals aside once all was said and done. Meinwen was right. What they achieved today was just the beginning, and only the future would unfold the rest.
Your people. Both are your people. You’re a part of these two worlds. You have bridged the gap. You made this possible, Ahnalyn, Meinwen said. Your people in Terrin will be free.
In a tent, Ahnalyn found King Sieffre surrounded by several of his men. She vaguely recalled him from the blur of her wedding, though his twinkling sapphire eyes were unforgettable. He lay on a cot, propped up with pillows, an arrow piercing his thigh.
“Your Majesty.” Ahnalyn bowed. “Had I known you were injured I would have come sooner.”
“Oh, dear Ahnalyn. All is well. It gladdens my heart to see you at last after such a long time.”
Ahnalyn removed the arrow and healed his wound.
Sieffre wouldn’t let her go right away. He grabbed her hand. “Thank you, Lady Ahnalyn. Brenin would have been proud of the woman you’ve become.”
Tears slipped out of Ahnalyn’s eyes. “Your Majesty,” she whispered humbly, bowing her head.
“Come now, dear child. You have done right by Brenin. Do not mourn for him anymore. Hold his memory near. Now, I hear I have a grandnephew. You must bring him to me before I’m too old to stand an infant. This battle is the last for me. Old bones and all.”
Ahnalyn smiled. Einion still had family. Now that Caedryn was gone, her son could visit the mortal realms as he saw fit, and she with him—with her father, Owein.
Ahnalyn excused herself and stepped outside. Where to now? The night was falling. Fires dotted the field where men gathered in clusters to eat and talk. Low voices carried quiet songs, some joyous for victory, others mournful for the loss of the dead. Men passed her and bowed their heads. “My lady,” they would say. “Bless you. Thank you.” They treated her with great reverence and awe. Ahnalyn couldn’t understand why.
After a time, Catrin ran up to her. “I was sent to retrieve you. Aneirin said you should stop and eat.”
“I’m all right.” She didn’t feel the least bit tired.
“Everyone’s talking. About how you saved us. I don’t know how you did it. How you released light like that,” Catrin said.
Ahnalyn shuddered to think how Catrin would react once she found out. “Is that why I’m receiving strange glances?”
“I wouldn’t call them strange. You’re Brenin’s lady. They’re calling for you to liberate Terrin now that Caedryn and Gethen are dead. They love you and respect you.”
Ahnalyn sighed. Work was yet to be done.
Catrin caught her look. “Come, now. I have my orders. Other emrys can perform the healing.” Catrin pulled on her hands.
She tugged Ahnalyn about a hundred yards or so into a glowing campfire ring. Aneirin, Owein, Cephias, Seren, and Cerys were waiting.
Aneirin rushed over to Ahnalyn and gave her a crushing hug. “We’ve been watching your glow trek around the battlefield all day. You’re the brightest emrys out there. Your light hasn’t dimmed. We don’t even need the light from this campfire with you here.”
Ahnalyn didn’t know what Aneirin was talking about. “I’m glowing… still?” She looked down at herself. She could tell she was light filled, but Ahnalyn couldn’t tell she radiated that much light.
“You must not have realized. Usually we don’t. Here, I have something for you. Your father found it in a pile of Lord Caedryn’s ashes. The leather cord burned off, but we added a new one.”
In his outstretched hand dangled her dragon stone!
Aneirin reached up and tied it around Ahnalyn’s neck. Her connection to Seren was restored. Seren! I can hear you again. What a relief!
“Now this I like.” Aneirin tugged on a piece of Ahnalyn’s streaked hair. His dragon stone was around his neck as it should be.
“Yes, not sure how that happened.” Ahnalyn blushed. Her light around her did a little flicker like a candle flame in the wind.
Aneirin laughed. “Come on, you need a bite to eat.” He pulled her over to sit by the fire.
Ahnalyn and Catrin filled in the gaps of the battle for those who were not present consciously. Ahnalyn didn’t yet tell them about Lady Meinwen. She wasn’t sure how. And no one asked her how she had received so much light. Ahnalyn sensed Aneirin going over thoughts in his head. Soon he’d add two and two. She wondered how much he was collaborating with Cephias.
To be helpful, Aneirin kept his mind open to Cephias while they talked around the campfire. Though his own sight was destroyed, the mental connection still allowed Cephias to see everything through Aneirin’s mind’s eye.
But Aneirin’s gaze was only for Ahnalyn, and eventually Cephias had something to say about that. “Aneirin, can you stare at someone other than Ahnalyn? My brain’s burning up over here.”
Chuckles around the fire.
“Oh, Cephias, Brother. My apologies. I’ll stare at Seren instead,” Aneirin said.
“No, Aneirin, please. I can’t take it. I’m just going to sleep. Leave me in peace.” Poor Cephias tucked his head under his wing.
Ahnalyn wished she wasn’t burning so brightly. She made a conscious effort to pull her light back into her core. The effort was taxing because the light wanted
to rush out again. After a while, and with much coaching from Meinwen, she kept it under control, and it dimmed enough for the others to go to sleep.
The dragons curled up, and everyone else rolled out bedrolls.
Ahnalyn cuddled up to her father. “Tad, I have so many questions.” She laid her head on his shoulder, and Owein draped his arm around her. “You knew Mam was an emrys, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“I never saw her use her light. Why didn’t you tell me? In the end, I saw her glowing, the night she was killed. If I had known who I was, I could have saved her. I wouldn’t have used my dark energy, and she’d still be with us.” Ahnalyn began shaking.
Owein’s arms tightened around her in a familiar embrace that had calmed her so many times in the past.
“Ahnalyn, my darling. I look back and think I should have told you. We should have told you, your mother and I, and taught you how to control your abilities. When your mother died, I didn’t see that it mattered anymore… until you met Brenin.”
“And why then? Brenin knew I was an emrys, didn’t he? What did he talk to you about the day he asked you for my hand in marriage?”
Owein smiled, and his eyes creased in the corners. When had he begun to look so old?
“He did. He asked me if I knew what you were and if I thought he was worthy enough to marry you. Brenin agreed to keep your heritage a secret unless it became necessary to tell you.”
“You mean, for instance, when I failed to age.”
“Perhaps.”
“Is that why he wanted to marry me, because I’m an emrys?”
“No. He loved you. This was plain to me. He confessed he’d met Niawen long ago as a child and was fascinated by her. Meeting you was happenstance. He saw the stone around your neck and remembered it around hers. No one could forget the brilliance of your dragon stone.”
“Tad, you and your judge of character. So you knew him to be worthy of me. You knew he’d love me for who I am and not because I’m an emrys.”
“Yes.”
Ahnalyn laughed and squeezed her father.
“And,” he said, “I knew an emrys such as you deserved to marry royalty. I knew this would lead you on a path to discover the truth.”
“You sound like a tegyd. Have you ever met one? Half-man, half-deer.”
Now Owein laughed. “Actually, I have. How do you think I became so smart?—by listening to the ramblings of those soothsayers.” He winked.
“I don’t believe you, Tad.” She tickled him in the ribs.
“Truth, Ahnalyn, truth. I always tell you true.”
***
At last, Ahnalyn fell asleep and dreamed.
From her deepest subconscious Lady Meinwen came and stood before her as glorious and as luminescent as ever.
“Why did you give me your light?” Ahnalyn asked.
“It was the only way,” Meinwen said. “No one else had enough light to destroy Caedryn and his army. I felt when the battle had turned and all would have been lost.”
“Are you dead?” Ahnalyn asked.
“My physical body is. I made a choice, Ahnalyn. Once I released my light into you to destroy Caedryn, my spirit left, unable to stay within my physical frame. Before you left Mared, I opened a connection to you, allowing me to transfer my light and essence into you. My spirit will wait to be reborn.”
Ahnalyn shifted her feet. “I don’t understand how this works.”
“I needed you to be worthy. Had you not made the choice you did and invoked the law of sacrifice, my efforts would have failed, the mortals would be in darkness, and we would have lost.”
“Why did you have so much faith in me? What if I had made the wrong choice?” Ahnalyn asked.
“I could feel your heart. I knew it to be pure. You wanted to make restitution for the death of your mother. You would make the right choice when faced with it.”
“You mean when I had to save Aneirin? You warned me he would give his life for me if he had to.”
Meinwen nodded her head. “Yes, that was certain.”
“I still don’t understand why me. Couldn’t someone else have done it?”
“The emrys from our realm do not carry the darkness you had to fight against. Through your battle, through the trials you faced during your imprisonment, and through your struggles to grow your light, you became a purified and chosen vessel. It would not have worked with any other emrys. I could not have given any other emrys my essence. We’re too indifferent, unchanged by the passing of time, but you have been changed through your journey.”
“But I gave in to the darkness. I gave up my light.” Ahnalyn said.
“No, you gave up everything to save Aneirin. You fought to find a way to help your people. Your end desire was not your own happiness but the happiness of others.”
Ahnalyn fidgeted with her dress. “I don’t know how to be High Emrys.”
Meinwen touched Ahnalyn’s chin, stilling her. “You’ll have me to guide you. Do not fear. Aneirin knew of your great potential. He foresaw this day. I know you can deal with both Seren and me in your mind.” Meinwen’s cheeks lifted into round circles. “You can close us out for privacy, but we’ll be there to guide you if you allow us.”
“Thank you, but how do I explain this to Aneirin and Catrin?”
“They will understand—in time. Lord Ithel already knew of my decision and accepted my choice. He knows what had to be for the mortals to be saved. He will support you.”
***
The next morning Ahnalyn, Aneirin, Catrin, and several of the captains of the Dragon Riders, including Urien, were seated with King Sieffre in his tent, discussing regaining control of Terrin. It would be a trivial matter. Caedryn’s armies, which remained to defend the borders and the capital, could be taken care of with the Dragon Riders. King Sieffre would see to establishing a regent until Einion became old enough to claim the throne.
The northern gap had been successfully closed, preventing the army that lingered in Rolant from passaging into Terrin. Since Lord Caedryn and General Gethen were dead, they weren’t sure who’d be in control of Rolant or if Caedryn even had a successor. Emphasis was placed on keeping Rolant contained and isolated until further contact could be made. Embassies would eventually be sent to make peace treaties.
Some discussion started about how long the Dragon Riders should continue to aid the mortals. Apparently a few emrys thought, since their work was done, they should return to their undisturbed existence in the dragon realm. An urging from Lady Meinwen pricked at Ahnalyn, but she cowered and remained silent. No one here yet knew what had happened on the snowy ledge outside the entrance to Gorlassar.
Presently, a stirring outside fluttered the tent. King Sieffre sent a man to see what was the commotion.
The man stuck his head back in the tent. “Uh, Your Majesty, your presence is requested.”
King Sieffre and the company within the tent stepped outside. Many gasped as their heads emerged and they beheld the sight.
Before the company stood a majestic, silver dragon, shining bright in the morning sun—so bright that gazing on him was impossible.
Beside the silver dragon stood a lush green dragon—green like a blade of grass that had just pushed its way through the ground—a symbol of new life. She was meek and beautiful with a long, slender neck and elegant curving claws.
The emrys, knowing who they were, knelt while the mortals still gaped.
Glyndwr, Lord of the Dragons and the High Dragoness, First Dragon, Blodeuyn, Meinwen whispered.
Ahnalyn sank to her knees.
Seated upon Glyndwr’s back was a stately man, Lord Ithel. He climbed off his dragon, and his eyes passed over the group until they fell upon Ahnalyn. He stepped forward, took her hand, and helped her stand. “No, my dear, you never bow to us,” he whispered, embracing her and kissing her on each cheek.
Ahnalyn blushed. Aneirin gave Ithel a curious look, and Catrin’s eyebrows lifted. They suspected. Lord Ithel’s greet
ing gave too much away.
King Sieffre spoke. “Lord Ithel and the High Dragons, I presume. Welcome. We thank you most graciously for this victory and the service you have rendered us. We’re in your debt. We acknowledge the many lives given for this victory and honor them.”
Lord Ithel nodded his head. “Thank you. The lives lost are grievous, but we value your freedom. Lady Meinwen and Blodeuyn, High Dragoness, desired it.” He nodded to the green dragon. Lord Ithel turned to Ahnalyn. “Lady Ahnalyn, it’s time to reveal the will Lady Meinwen desired for the mortal realms and the dragon realm alike.”
Aneirin looked at Ahnalyn. She caught his gaze and saw confusion, but turned to face the group. They looked on with curiosity and anticipation, none of them guessing what would befall them today.
Ahnalyn opened her mouth, allowing Meinwen to speak through her. Ahnalyn’s pure and resolute voice held command, demanded reverence, as the power of Meinwen’s words soaked over the people.
“These thousands of years Gorlassar has been in peace, the rule of the dragons and emrys unaffected and constant. We have been ignorant of the darkness that dwells beyond our door. Yesterday we faced a threat that should have never been allowed to grow. We desire peace for all the realms. We desire safety for the men, women, and children who dwell here. The emrys and the dragons will no longer hide in Gorlassar. We will be united with the mortals, and we will fight to maintain your freedom and ours. It’s the will of Lady Meinwen, High Emrys and Blodeuyn, High Dragoness, and it has been voted unanimously in our council. You, King Sieffre, will have our dragons, and we will be your protection and come to your aid. The dragons will patrol the three realms and ensure darkness will never enter here again.”
King Sieffre bowed. “I thank you.”
Ahnalyn was glowing again. She couldn’t help it. The energy for such a declaration showed outwardly through her. Meinwen’s energy. Meinwen’s light.
Aneirin stepped forward. “Father… where is Mother?”
