SONS of DON

by Brenda L. Harper

  Gwen shrugged.

  “It must be connected to him or her.”

  “Connected, how?”

  “Maybe nature’s showing you something they did in the past to warn you about something they might do in the future. Or maybe it’s to show you something that happened in the past that’s important to the ritual you’re supposed to perform.”

  “You think it might have something to do with the ritual?”

  Rhein glanced at her. “It could.”

  Gwen thought about that for a moment. Could there be something about the ritual in her dream? Could the murdered man have something to do with it? Or maybe the woman who appears to have helped Cei commit the murder. Could she be important to the ritual in some way? She couldn’t imagine how. But it was easier to focus on the woman, than it was to imagine that nature was trying to warn her about Cei. She knew Cei had some darkness in his past—who didn’t? But he wasn’t the aggressor in that dream. It was clear the woman—with her lack of compassion toward the dead man—was more of a danger in the dream than Cei. It had to be about the woman.

  But Gwen had never seen the woman before. Her coloring, her green eyes, reminded her of the image she had once seen of her mother, but it wasn’t Blodeuwedd.

  Why would nature warn her about someone she’d never met?

  “Could the dream be a prediction? Like it’s warning me about someone I am about to meet?”

  Rhein tilted his head back and forth, as though weighing the thought. “Possible. Not as likely, but possible.”

  Gwen stood up and walked toward the rose bush. The flowers seemed to reach out to her as she approached, turning toward her like she was the sun and they were searching for her nourishing light.

  “You’ve really advanced in the last few weeks,” Rhein said.

  She ran her finger along the petals of one flower, her thoughts so far away, she barely comprehended what he said.

  “How did you come to be immortal?”

  She felt him move, almost like his movements disrupted the air patterns around her. She glanced back at him, watched as he unfolded his long limbs and approached her.

  “I was studying to become a Druid priest.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s a very long process that is usually begun very early in life. I was ten years into my studies when Amaethon approached me.”

  “Amaethon. That name sounds familiar.”

  “He is the one who stole the dogs that led to the Battle of the Trees.”

  Gwen nodded, even as she continued to slide her fingers over the silky petals of the rose. It was like a warm bath or a glass of wine. It mellowed her mood to be close to nature in this way.

  “He needed a servant to replace his former one. They had been together for years, but the servant had decided that he was ready to leave this world and join his loved ones in Annwn.”

  “You can do that?”

  “We can.” Rhein slid his hand under Gwen’s, ran his own fingers over the rose petals with only the pressure of her hand guiding his movements. “It is an honor to be asked to serve a god. My family and I were excited by the process.”

  “We’re you married?”

  “It was not allowed.”

  “I thought…” Gwen began to say, but something made her stop. Cei was married. But maybe his circumstances had been different.

  “And your family?”

  “My father was a farmer. He was humbled to have a son chosen to be a Druid priest. The added glory of having a son become an immortal servant to the gods was enough to ensure his position in the village for the rest of his life. His and my eldest brother’s and his eldest son’s. They all enjoyed a special place in the community.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “It was a relief for me,” he said, pressing the top of his hand up against her palm before he pulled away. “I didn’t have to worry about what happened to them in my absence.”

  “Did you know Cei all that time ago?”

  Rhein stepped back, his face guarded as he studied the ground. “I met Cei the first time almost a hundred years after my ceremony.”

  “Really?”

  He glanced at her. “Amaethon and Gwydion did not spend a great deal of time in one another’s company in those days. They each had their own interests, their own agendas, I guess you could say. It took them to different parts of the world.”

  “You don’t like Cei much.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  Gwen turned from the roses, a soft smile blooming on her lips as she closed the few feet between them and laid a hand on his chest. “The two of you were constantly fighting before. And now…you only seem to tolerate each other’s presence.”

  “We’ve gotten in each other’s way a few times in the past. Cei isn’t impressed with the way I handle my wards, and I’m not impressed with his methods.”

  “Wards? Is that what Morgan and I are?”

  “For lack of a better word.”

  Gwen pressed her hand a little tighter to his chest for just a second, and then she pulled away. “Morgan thinks he and I are the last of the demigods.”

  “Does he?”

  “He thinks that means we should get together. Make more demigods.”

  The look on Rhein’s face was priceless. Gwen began to laugh even as she tried to decide if it was more shock or jealousy—though she couldn’t imagine why his first emotion would be jealousy.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, turning away as she spoke, “I don’t see Morgan that way.”

  “Why not? He’s a good-looking kid.”

  “Yes. And he knows he is.”

  Rhein laughed, but the sound seemed forced somehow. “He does, that. He’s like his father that way.”

  “His real one, or his human one?”

  “The human one.”

  “Has anyone figured out who is biological father is yet?”

  “No.” Rhein began to follow her as she made her way slowly around the side of the house. “There are only a handful of options, but I can’t seem to get answers from anyone.”

  “I guess no one wants to claim poor Morgan.”

  “Or they don’t want to give away a secret that isn’t theirs.”

  “Maybe it’s best he doesn’t know.”

  “Why?”

  Gwen paused at the gate that separated the side yard from the front yard. She looked up at Rhein, finding it difficult not to admire his dark blue eyes in this light, her thoughts scattering for a moment. She bit the inside of her lip, reminding herself that Cei would be home from his afternoon training session with Morgan very soon.

  “I, um…” She cleared her throat. “I just…I’ve wanted to know most of my life who my parents were. Now that I know about my mother, I’m not sure I want to know who my father is. Maybe the fantasies I made up as a kid are preferable to the truth.”

  “You think that’s true of Morgan?”

  “I think that maybe the reality of where he came from—even if his father is a benign god who was trying to do the right thing—might make this whole thing a little too concrete for him. It might put him in a position where he will have to confront his mother, maybe even his human father. And that could be disastrous.”

  “True.”

  “Morgan’s having a hard enough time with all of this. Maybe the truth is a little overrated in his case.”

  “But it could be important for the rest of us.”

  “How?”

  Rhein looked at Gwen with an expression that suggested the answer was obvious, but he didn’t want to put it into words. He rolled back on his heels a little, his eyes never really leaving hers. Then he sighed.

  “There are only a small number of gods capable of fathering a child who practice light magic. But there are innumerable other gods…gods of dark magic, gods of different mythologies, gods who would find it incredibly funny to mess with our business.”

  “You mean Morgan’s father might not be a god of light?”

  R
hein shrugged.

  “If that’s true…”

  “It could be a problem.”

  “Like we don’t have enough problems already.”

  Chapter 14

  Gwen was lying in bed with her boot off of her foot. The darn thing itched so much that it drove her nuts. She wasn’t sure she could have handled it if they had put a full, plaster cast on her. She might have really gone insane.

  But being stuck in bed wasn’t much fun, either. Especially since Cei was gone—he had track practice at the high school, as he continued to keep up appearances there—and Theresa had taken the twins to their bi-weekly visits with their mother. She was supposedly off the drugs now and fighting to regain custody, so some judge had agreed to her lawyer’s insistence that she get supervised visitation. Lots of fun.

  Melanie was gone…no one was quite sure what she did after school, and no one really pushed the issue as long as she was home by dinner. And Anna was likely locked up in her room with a book, like always.

  A whole house full of people and Gwen couldn’t find anyone to keep her entertained. Not that she wanted entertainment—she’d always been good at keeping her own company—but being alone, even in a house that Tony had assured her was somehow protected against attack, made her nervous ever since she learned the truth.

  She leaned over the side of the bed and pulled out the battered old suitcase that she had taken with her from foster home to foster home for as long as she could remember. Hidden inside were both the book she’d found on her window sill and the matching one that was forgotten in Tony’s office. She normally kept them on the widow’s walk with her blankets and pillows, but recent rains had inspired her to bring them back downstairs. She was almost grateful now, since the ankle injury made it pretty clear she wouldn’t be vising the widow’s walk for a while.

  She ran her hand over the cover of the first book, a sense of Zen coming over her as she thought of all the information it had stored inside of it. She’d read some of the passages more than once, some as many as a dozen times, in her effort to understand them. This book had helped her figure out things that it would take someone else years to master—like the protective barrier she had erected between herself and Melanie the night of the dance.

  How Morgan had broken through Branwen’s similar barrier was still a curiosity to her. Morgan’s magic—the sparks on his fingers—seemed a little different from the magic described in this book.

  Did that mean that Morgan’s father was a god of different origins? Gwen wasn’t sure it meant anything. But, again, she didn’t know enough about any of this to understand it all.

  She touched the cover of the other book, the one that declared it a diary. She knew without a doubt that it was her mother’s diary. She had glimpsed her name on the inside cover shortly after the writing mysteriously became legible to her. But she hadn’t read it yet.

  A part of her was hesitant to read it.

  She wanted all her life to know about her parents. She always imagined that there was a reasonable explanation for why they had abandoned her. When she was young, she imagined her mother was an heiress who had gotten sick and left her alone at that restaurant quite unintentionally. As she got older, there were other fantasies, but most of them ended with intensely contrite parents and her offering them forgiveness.

  Life was not always that clear cut.

  But she was afraid if she read this diary, if she understood what happened to her mother that led to her curse, she might not like her. She might not be a person she wanted to know, a person she would be proud to be related to.

  Or maybe she would like her. Then she would have to forgive her for abandoning her. And—despite her young, naive fantasies—she wasn’t sure she could do that.

  Gwen simply couldn’t get around the fact that her mother had intentionally conceived her for only one reason—to save the sons of Don so that she, herself, would have a chance at reversing her own curse.

  That seemed like an incredibly selfish reason to have a child.

  But, boredom and curiosity were getting the better of her.

  Gwen opened the diary and ran her hand slowly over the front page. Then she slowly flipped to the first page that had writing.

  I am Blodeuwedd, it began. I was created out of flowers to be the wife of Lleu, nephew of Gwydion, son of Arianrhod. I have no other purpose in this world.

  That simple statement resonated with Gwen. To be created for a specific purpose…it wasn’t unlike the reason Gwen herself was conceived.

  Maybe she had more in common with her mother than she had believed.

  The first third of the book described Blodeuwedd’s daily routine. It wasn’t much different from the role of the modern housewife, really. She supervised the household servants, planned meals with the cook; she designed needlework and constructed it, though she swore to have no talent in this arena. And she spent a few hours a day with her husband.

  He talks of his uncle’s kindness more often than he speaks of anything else. How Gwydion raised him in secret to protect him from his mother, how Gwydion broke the curse his mother placed upon him. The man very clearly admires his uncle. But I am surely growing bored of hearing him sing Gwydion’s praises day in and day out, especially since Gwydion has not always been such a saint.

  As the diary continued, Blodeuwedd’s loneliness seemed to become more and more apparent.

  Lleu has traveled to Gwynedd again today. He shall be gone for three months’ time. It never occurs to him to ask me to travel with him. I suppose he does not think about the loneliness I suffer sitting in this big, stone house alone. If I had sisters or parents who cared about my happiness, perhaps things would be different. But, alas, I do not have any family other than my husband.

  Gwen found herself relating to the woman who wrote this diary more than she thought she would, and that, in itself, frightened her a little. She didn’t want to like Blodeuwedd.

  And then came the moment she met Gronw.

  They call him Gronw, the Radiant. He is Lord of Penllyn and has come to ask a place to rest while on a hunting trip. The moment he came into the great hall for supper, I couldn’t take a breath without staring at his beautiful face. I did not know that men could be so perfect. To imagine a man like that staring back at me…but he was. I know he was. And he was quite gracious, more than most visitors, when he bid me goodnight.

  It was pretty obvious the relationship developed quite quickly. Within three entries she was already professing her love for him:

  We walked in the yard together yesterday. He told me about his home in Penllyn…it sounds absolutely heavenly! I dreamt of it tonight. He is leaving first thing this morning. I can’t imagine staying here in this dark, gloomy place with my dark, gloomy husband after having seen the light Gronw brought into it. If only I wasn’t married to Lleu, if only I had some choice in who I would marry…if only I hadn’t lain eyes on the perfection that is Gronw. Love is both a curse and a blessing. However shall I survive knowing that the only man I could possibly ever desire has walked out of my life?

  Weeks passed in which Blodeuwedd grieved for the man she saw as her perfect match. To Gwen, she was a lot like Melanie, a lovesick schoolgirl who didn’t have the first clue what real love was, but thought she knew. If Gronw had never come back into her life, Gwen suspected Blodeuwedd might have eventually gotten over her crush on him. In fact, she seemed to be softening on Lleu in the months that passed between their meetings. But then Gronw came back.

  Oh, joy! Love has returned to my life!

  Gronw and his party have come to seek Lleu’s help once more. When I came down to dinner and found him there, my heart nearly leapt from my chest! And when he found me in the yard and confessed that he had been thinking of me in the long months that he had been gone, I thought for sure I would collapse right there on the ground. He’s asked me to meet him on the banks of the river tomorrow morning. It is an awful thing, to consider meeting a man who is not your husband. But I don’t thin
k I could live with myself if I didn’t go through with it.

  And go through with it, she did.

  Met Gronw on the banks of the river this morning. At first, it was completely innocent. We spoke of Lleu and his relationship with Gwydion. Gronw told me of the invaders on his lands and how he needed Gwydion’s permission and support to fight them back. If he had neither, he would surely lose control of his own lands, lands that have been a part of his family’s territory for many generations. And then he announced that he hadn’t come to the river to talk of business with me. He had come to confess something he could not speak of where someone in my husband’s loyal employ might overhear.

  He loves me, diary! Can you believe it? He confessed it, confessed that he had been unable to remove me from his thoughts these past months. He says that he has never been so taken with a woman before and he could not possibly go on if he didn’t ask me how I felt about him. I was so uncertain—I have never been in such a situation before. Lleu has never asked me if I love him. He simply assumes I do. It is what I was made for, after all. And then Gronw took me in his arms and it was nothing like the few, random meetings Lleu and I have shared over the long, lonely course of our marriage.

  Gronw is the kind of man the maids gossip about when they do not believe I can hear them. He is the man that makes the heart pound and the body ache with pleasure. Now that I have been touched by him, I cannot imagine ever laying with Lleu again.