Lord of Shadows (Daughters of Avalon Book 5)

by Tanya Anne Crosby

  By now, Rhiannon had had enough of Marcella’s icy demeanor. Ever since leaving Blackwood, she’d been moody and argumentative. She didn’t know what was wrong with the woman, but why in the name of the Mother Goddess would she deign to help Rhiannon if she loathed Rhiannon so much?

  “I look like her because she is my mother,” Rhiannon said icily. “And because she is my mother, don’t you suppose I should know best if my mother is aligned to aether?”

  Marcella lifted her brow a little higher, as she slid Rhiannon a triumphant glare. “Oh, how ignorant you are!”

  Rhiannon pursed her lips and longed to fill her palm with water again, only to cast it into Marcella’s face. “I beg pard—”

  “Oh, please!” said Marcella. “Spare me, Lady Blackwood! I know your kind!”

  Rhiannon was momentarily disarmed by the vicious presentation of her title—Lady Blackwood. For the past few hours, she’d somehow been able to keep Cael off her mind—thanks mostly to Jack. Clearly, Marcella could not.

  “All your life you’ve been blessed in your affinities, and perhaps you believe yourself better than those with less. Regardless, merely because I’ve chosen alchemy as my profession, and simply because I’ve no elemental affinity, does not mean my dewine blood is less than yours!”

  Rhiannon opened her mouth to speak, but the paladin wasn’t through…

  “What I lack in my affinities, I make up for in expertise elsewhere. Unlike you, Lady Blackwood, I’ve made it my life’s devotion to know my kin.”

  Rhiannon countered, “And yet, you would hunt and slay your own kind?”

  Marcella’s eyes narrowed till they were slits. “You know nothing, Rhiannon Pendragon,” she declared, with the emphasis on her ancestral name, and the rebuke left Rhiannon dumb. Once again, she opened her mouth to argue that she, too, had dedicated her life to her Craft—practicing even when her sisters dared not. But she closed her mouth again, wondering…

  Could it be true?

  Did she believe herself better than others?

  Was this why Marcella had been casting her the evil eye all day long? She had only assumed it was her affection for Cael, but perhaps it was not…

  She peered over at Jack, but the young man looked like a frightened rabbit facing a wolf, and his shoulders lifted and froze.

  Snapping her reins indignantly, Marcella harrumphed, hitching her chin. And once again, as she had this morn, she spurred her mount ahead, taking the lead. Only this time, as she went, she said, “When you are ready to humble yourself, Lady Blackwood, and perhaps learn something more than you think you know, please let me know!”

  16

  Humble?

  Sweet fates! For five years, Rhiannon had been humbled by no choice of her own.

  Even before her confinement at Blackwood, she and her sisters had spent nearly every day of their lives taking whatever scraps were offered.

  At Llanthony, they’d occupied a single-room cottage with a crude, dirt floor and one bed—five girls, sleeping all together in whatever corner could be found.

  In this day and age, she and her ilk were ill-favored—condemned by the Church as heretics or demons. And nevertheless, they were far from that lot; dewinefolk were flesh and blood like anyone else.

  Moreover, it didn’t matter that she and her sisters were blood to a King, they’d suffered no less humility than leper-infected beggars.

  Each of them had gold aplenty they’d never even once benefited from—not even her wedded sisters, because they’d married men of whom the Crown did not approve.

  It was only after becoming Cael’s “ward” that Rhiannon had ever even owned a new dress she didn’t sew herself. “Humble!” she said crossly.

  How dare that woman imply she was anything but.

  Jack rode silently beside her, saying nothing at all—at least not for the longest while, and then he suggested, very gently, “Some folks believe you must be poor and suffering to comprehend humility. But my father used to claim that betimes, even the poor, sometimes perceiving humility to be honorable, will borrow the cloak.”

  There was little rebuke in his tone, and something about his expression led Rhiannon to resist the temptation to lash out at him. She bit her tongue, considering the parable.

  Indeed, she was prideful—had always been. She knew her faults as well as any.

  In fact, her pride had more than once led her to argue with Elspeth, because, as the eldest, Ellie had so often carried herself as though she knew everything. Rhiannon couldn’t bear to be told what to do, or how to think…

  And yet, knowing what she knew now, if she could take back one moment of prideful disagreement with any of her sisters, she would do it in a heartbeat. Never in her life had she appreciated them more than she did right now… and clearly, she’d underestimated them as well.

  Seren would be Regnant?

  And Arwyn… were the situation reversed, would Rhiannon have sacrificed herself the way Arwyn had?

  Alas, no one could say for certes how they might respond in any such moment, but Rhiannon liked to believe she would. And yet, she had always believed herself to be the indispensable one… so, then, perhaps she would not?

  And now, as it turned out, though her hud was quite strong, she didn’t have half the ability Seren had proven to possess. Still, no humbler person than Seren had ever lived. She needn’t have seen her these past five years to know it was still true.

  “I know your sisters quite well,” said Jack, as though he’d read her mind. “I spent a good deal of time with all three before returning to Calais. It has been my pleasure to know them, and yet I have never encountered so much kindness.”

  “Indeed… my sisters are wondrous,” said Rhiannon, still mulling over his parable. “It is for love of them I’m so much a fiend.”

  “Aye,” said Jack, with a wink. “So I’m told.”

  Rhiannon smiled ruefully, embarrassed, and then she cast yet another glance at Marcella’s rigid back.

  “I can only imagine,” she said, wondering over the things Jack might have heard. Clearly, Marcella hadn’t any respect for her, she and Elspeth had argued all too oft, and while the rest of her sisters had tried in vain to keep the peace, admittedly, Rhiannon was possessed of a temper.

  “Only to hear them speak of you, I admired you well,” said Jack. “So I am told, you are the best, the wisest, the most talented dewine of our age. Naturally, I could not wait to meet you…” He shrugged. “And here I am.”

  Surprised by the compliments, Rhiannon shifted her gaze to meet his. “Have I disappointed you?”

  The young man’s golden brows lifted. “Not at all, m’lady. I can see why Lord Blackwood is so smitten.” He inclined his head toward Marcella. “In fact, were my heart not already taken, I might be obliged to offer it to you.”

  He winked at her again, but Rhiannon’s smile faded, thinking about Cael. “Not so smitten he would abandon my mother,” she groused.

  Jack sighed then, sounding weary.

  How old was he? she wondered yet again. If he had been thirteen when he first knew her sisters, he must be no more than seventeen or eighteen—younger than the nineteen she’d first presumed. Comparatively, Marcella was easily ten years his senior, with a decade’s worth of life and knowledge that would naturally leave the poor lad wanting.

  What a jumble this was: Rhiannon loved Cael but couldn’t have him. He claimed to love her, as well, but not enough to abandon her mother. Marcella loved Cael, Rhiannon suspected, and yet here she was left in the cold. And so, too, was Jack, because he coveted a woman who was well out of his league and whose heart belonged to another.

  “Your mother is… quite… the force,” he said. “In truth, she frightens me out of my wits. I see you do resemble her, Rhiannon… so, then… I must presume that while there may be something of her in you… there may also be something of you in her.”

  “Aye,” agreed Rhiannon. “’Tis precisely this I fear.”

  “Perhaps… so does she,
” he suggested, hitching his chin once more at Marcella’s back. “And yet, she must know as I know, that Lord Blackwood would never have summoned aid for you, if there was so little in you to be loved. Therefore, at least for now, you must content yourself to know that your husband is not precisely the man you believe him to be, and that is a good thing.”

  Rhiannon nodded.

  “Neither is she,” he added, though if Rhiannon hoped he would say more, Marcella turned to cast him a withering glance, and he shut his gob and spoke no more.

  There was a lot to be considered, and yet, after a while, one grew weary of self-rumination. Hours later, Rhiannon was still pettish and growing peckish besides.

  Now that the initial danger appeared to be over, her stomach grumbled in complaint, and, even after having appeased it with a small stick of smoked beef, she longed for more. Not having been privy to Cael’s plans, she hadn’t touched her supper last night.

  At any rate, how could anyone eat seated next to that despicable creature?

  Reaching back into her saddlebag for whatever morsel could be found, she fished out a small sack of filberts, her favorite nuts. No doubt this was Cael’s doing. In fact, she had the feeling that half the reason he’d ever deigned to serve her all these years was because he’d enjoyed seeing the brightening of her countenance when he brought her special treats.

  And she, of course, incensed by her eternal confinement, had resolved to deprive him even of that.

  No matter, there were times she couldn’t hide her joy, and betimes, when caught off guard, her spirits brightened, and she’d lifted her gaze to find him smiling too.

  She popped a filbert into her mouth, considering the man’s endless patience, his bigger-than-life presence. She missed his devilish smile and his glinting eyes.

  Would she truly never see him again?

  There had been no sign of hounds since leaving Brecknock Forest. Wales was long in their wake, and the only sounds of pursuit came from their coursers as, one after another, they trampled over heavy bracken, snapping twigs and disturbing dew-dampened leaves—that, along with the occasional thwack of an errant bough.

  “God’s blood,” complained Jack, as yet another branch whipped back to slap him on the cheek, courtesy of Marcella. Evidently, she was still nursing her pique and Rhiannon munched on nuts and held her tongue, taking perverse joy in Jack’s indignation. Annoyed, he called out to the paladin in a deceptively amiable tone, “Thanks for la colée, mon patron—the second one you’ve dealt me today.”

  “Be vigilant,” Marcella demanded, unfazed. “Else you will find yourself with a coup de grâce, and it will not be dealt by my own hand.”

  Unappeased by her response, Jack argued, “Aye… well, wouldn’t it be wiser to travel by night, when these stupid birds will be roosting?”

  “Nay,” she snapped, and then explained. “’Tis not the ravens I worry over, Jaques. They cannot follow our scent like the hounds. Coming into these woods will necessitate coming within proximity of our bows, and Morwen will not risk her precious birds. Rather, she’ll use Blackwood’s hounds to follow the scent and the birds to search hill and dale. This is why we washed Rhiannon’s tunic with a masking philter.”

  Taking his blade to another wayward limb, “Jaques” muttered crossly beneath his breath, his mood a bit less affable now than it had been earlier in the day.

  Rhiannon couldn’t help herself; she smirked.

  By now they were all exhausted, after having traveled most of the night and day without rest, and soon—very, very soon—they would be forced to abandon the woods.

  “They can smell,” Jack argued. “I’ve watched them sniff out carrion with my own eyes.”

  “Not very well,” Marcella persisted. “In order to smell your merde, they would have to shove their black beaks up your adorable little arse. And besides, grâce à Dieu, you are not rotting nor are you bloody.”

  “Not yet,” he persisted. “But I may soon be if you keep flinging thorny limbs in my face!”

  “There are no thorns on these branches, Jaques,” she said placidly. “You complain like an old woman, my friend.”

  “I felt a thorn,” he said, though it couldn’t be true. His face would have been pocked and marked if that were the case, and it was still smooth as a baby’s bottom—not even marred by chin hairs.

  To that, Marcella shot back without compunction, “Simply watch where you are going, Jack. I’ve seen you nodding. Now is no time to sleep.”

  Jack grumbled beneath his breath—something about stopping to rest—as Rhiannon popped the last of her filberts into her mouth, then shoved the sack back into her bag.

  Marcella was right, of course. Now, when it seemed they should be out of danger; this was when they were most at peril. They couldn’t afford to let down their guard. Morwen was ruthless and persistent. And nevertheless, Marcella’s imperious nature was infuriating. Young as she must be, the woman behaved as though she knew everything. It grated on Rhiannon’s nerves—and evidently, on Jack’s nerves as well, even despite that he’d confessed affection for her.

  And nevertheless, Marcella was also right about the ravens. Having lost so many birds already, her mother wouldn’t risk even one unnecessarily. Insomuch as birds loved trees, and trees loved birds, they were, indeed, far less useful in the confines of these dense woods. And because they weren’t particularly tiny, the odds were quite high they would spy a raven before it ever spied them. Quick as they were, they weren’t faster than an arrow, and if either of these two were worth their salt, Rhiannon wouldn’t have to wield her magik, and yet… she could. Even now she itched to flick a flame into Marcella’s beautiful black mane.

  How, in the name of the Goddess, could a woman look so stunning without any feminine accouterments. The deep brown stained—almost black—cowl had slipped down to puddle about her shoulders, catching a waterfall of shining tresses into the back of her hood. Even tired, her skin was tawny, and her facial features so dark they appeared to be painted. In fact, in all her life, she’d never seen lashes or brows so thick and black.

  To the contrary, Rhiannon felt smelly, dirty, itchy, and only thanks to the braids she’d worn last eve, she didn’t have a rat’s nest for hair. Her skin was pasty from lack of sun—years of lack, in fact. Next to Marcella, she felt like a faded scrap of cloth—and yet, alas, not so washed out that she would be invisible to Morwen’s ravens. At least, not until she could perform a proper protection spell.

  “Seems to me, she’d be willing to lose a few, if only for the sake of expediency,” Jack grumbled, as he unsheathed his sword again to hack at another tangle of limbs.

  “She will not.”

  “How can you know?”

  “Because,” Marcella replied. “I heard she’s having trouble breeding them. Those ravens are meant to mate for life, and so many of the mates have been slain. Whatever else they are to her, they are integral to her plan. I promise you, she will not risk even one.”

  Rhiannon listened quietly, loathe to take the witch-paladin’s side, despite that she was right. “Command the birds, command the nation,” her mother used to say.

  And, of course, it was true, because whosoever commanded the realm’s mode of communication, commanded the barons as well. Morwen’s affinity with those birds had made her indispensable to Henry, and then to Stephen as well. Ultimately, this was how a penurious young Welsh maiden was able to gain the notice of a King. Consequently, it was also how she’d kept it long after her wiles had failed her. Eventually, both kings had their fill of the witch, and when they did, she moved on to Stephen’s son…

  Eustace.

  Scourge of England.

  Bane of his father.

  Puppet to Morwen.

  “Is it true she can change them?”

  “Aye,” said Marcella and Rhiannon, both at once.

  Marcella peered back at Rhiannon, giving her an annoyed glance, though Rhiannon ignored her. Rhiannon asked Jack, “Did you never meet Bran?”

/>   “Nay.”

  “I wish I had not,” she said, though thankfully, she’d heard naught more from her mother’s manservant since the day she saw him on the Whitshed.

  Alas, she wished she could say the same about Mordecai. Now and again, that abomination had come to perch himself on her windowsill, in the guise of a bird. Only once had he ever ascended the stairs as a man, and Rhiannon had made Cael aware of it and he promised to never allow him to come again.

  As for Bran, Rhiannon prayed to the Goddess that those flames had taken him as well—and surely, they must have, else, like Arwyn, Seren would never have lived to see the end of the day.

  Poor, poor Arwyn.

  Her people held a strong belief that all things were one, living and dead. If, indeed, the tenets of their faith were to be believed, nothing ever truly ceased to be. If she was lucky, mayhap one day she would see Arwyn again, though if she did, what would she say?

  I’m sorry for asking you to sacrifice yourself.

  I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to save you.

  I’m sorry it wasn’t me.

  Anger blazed through her—a righteous anger so intense that it threatened to make her combust right there in her saddle. She had allowed Arwyn to sacrifice herself, just as she’d let Morien…

  Her sister Seren was blessed with infinite patience and goodwill, but Rhiannon feared she was cursed with her mother’s darkness; what was more, she heartily embraced it.

  Five long years of incarceration had made her more wrathful than ever—all the more so at herself for loving a man who’d kept her imprisoned.

  Cael…

  Oblivious to her state of mind, Jack and Marcella prattled on endlessly and Rhiannon couldn’t help herself. Squeezing her fist tight, she opened it suddenly, and her fury materialized in the palm of her hand, a tiny blue flame she longed to cast away to set the forest ablaze, damned be the consequences!