SONS of DON

by Brenda L. Harper

  “I’m taking her to Wales tonight,” Cei announced.

  No one said anything. But when Gwen twisted her head and looked over at Paul, she could see the doubt in his eyes.

  Doesn’t like the idea of some punk kid going halfway around the world with his daughter, she thought.

  It felt possessive, that thought. She liked it.

  But it didn’t stop her from going upstairs and packing a bag. Tony booked them on a flight out of Dallas first thing in the morning.

  As they prepared to go, Paul slipped a cellphone into Gwen’s hand.

  “It’s a satellite phone, so it will work anywhere,” he said. “Keep it to yourself and use it if something goes wrong.”

  “It’ll be okay,” she said. “Tony’s going to join us with Morgan in a couple of days.”

  “I know. But just in case.”

  She nodded.

  He touched her arm almost hesitantly. “There are so many things I want to say—”

  Gwen reached up and kissed his cheek lightly. “You’ve already said it all, Dad.”

  Tears filled Paul’s eyes as he looked down at her. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.”

  “Probably as long as I’ve waited to say it.”

  Gwen smiled. Cei, who had come up beside them, touched her hip lightly. “We should go. It’s a long drive.”

  Gwen kissed Paul’s check a second time before she climbed into the car. As they drove away, she stared out the window at Theresa and Tony, clinging to each other, and Paul, standing alone, oblivious to the small bird on a tree branch just behind him.

  Her family. As odd and unconventional as they were, she had finally found her family.

  She waved, hoping beyond hope that she would see them all again.

  And fearing that she wouldn’t.

  Redemption

  Chapter 1

  I’m home.

  That thought had been running through Gwen’s mind, over and again, since the moment she stepped out of the John Lennon Airport in Liverpool. But now, now that they were in Gwynedd, there was no doubt in her mind.

  This was where she was meant to be.

  It helped that the landscape was beyond beautiful. She stared out the window of the narrow train car and watched Snowdon Mountain unfold around them. So green. She had never seen anything quite this green.

  “You act like you’ve never seen hills before,” Cei said, moving up close behind her so that he could see the mountain, too. “Or grass.”

  “I grew up in the Texas panhandle.”

  “Hmm, point taken,” he said, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I just wish nature made me feel as invigorated as it does you.”

  Nature did invigorate her. They had been traveling for more than three days straight; she should have been exhausted. Cei was—immortality did not negate the effects that lack of sleep had on the body, apparently. But she felt as refreshed as she might have had she slept on the five planes it took for them to travel from Dallas to Liverpool, the taxi they paid too much for to take them from Liverpool to Conwy, the bus to Snowdonia National Park, and now the train.

  However, she hadn’t slept. The last bit of significant sleep she’d gotten was on the ride from Lubbock to Dallas. Three and a half days ago.

  Yet, there was something about being here that made all of that inconsequential.

  Cei slid his hand slowly down the length of her arm. “As soon as we get to the summit, we’ll hike down the far side and see if we can find an out of the way place to set up camp and finally get a little sleep.”

  She turned into him and kissed him lightly. She was glad he was here with her. She felt guilty for having thought that he might have been the traitor. How could she really have believed that? But now she knew the truth, and she’d seen it with her own eyes.

  It still caused this funny little pain in her chest when she thought of it. Rhein. One of the few people Gwen had thought she could trust, the one she told so many things to—things that probably went from her lips straight to Bran’s ears—and he was the one to betray her. Gwen had always had trouble trusting people—growing up in the foster care system will do that—but there had been something about Rhein that made her feel safe in telling him things she hadn’t even told Cei.

  And he betrayed her.

  The whole thing was insane, really.

  Almost a month ago, Gwen was just another foster kid moving into another foster home. She knew nothing about her parents, only that they had abandoned her when she was three years old in a restaurant parking lot. And then…her life imploded.

  Gwen overheard Cei, her new foster brother, and her foster parents, Theresa and Tony Langley, discussing something they knew about her that they felt they should tell her. Since she had just spent the night lying in Cei’s arms, she felt a little betrayed and left the house. She ran into a man she’d met once or twice at the university where Tony was a history professor, and he told her this bizarre story of how he had cursed the sons of Don—Welsh gods who were practitioners of light magic in Annwn, the Welsh underground world. This man—Bran, son of Llyr and master of Annwn—was a practitioner of dark magic who had been in a feud with the sons of Don for hundreds of years before the curse. Now, with the absence of these important figures in light magic, the balance of power had shifted in the world and made Bran and his kind—especially his sister, Branwen—more powerful.

  Gwen’s mother, it turned out, was a Welsh goddess who was cursed by Gwydion—the eldest of the sons of Don—for conspiring with her lover to kill her husband—who happened to be Gwydion’s nephew and surrogate son. Blodeuwedd thought her lover, Gronw, wanted to marry her. It turned out it was Bran in disguise trying to make her single so that he could marry her off to his son, Caradog. The theory there was that if Blodeuwedd declared her love for Caradog, light and dark magic would be united and Bran would be the leader of it all…the most powerful god in the world. But things didn’t go quite the way they were supposed to, so Bran cursed the sons of Don in retaliation and has—albeit slowly—gotten his original wish.

  So…over the years, several of the light gods and goddesses who were not locked up in Annwn had produced demigods—children of gods and humans—in order to try to create the female demigod who was destined to break the curse. None have been successful. Blodeuwedd threw her own hat into the ring—that hat being Gwen—in hopes that Gwen could break the curse and Gwydion would be so grateful that he would free Blodeuwedd from her curse. A nice plan. The only problem was, no one knew where the gate to Annwn was or what ritual had to be performed in order to break the curse. And they only have ten days left to do it—something to do with Druid holidays—or else they would have to wait a minimum of four months or a maximum of a year.

  And Bran had promised that Gwen wouldn’t live that long.

  That was why Gwen and Cei were in Wales. They were hoping to find the gate, even they have no idea where to start. Tony thought it might be located in the city of Llandudno, but Bran—while holding Gwen captive—told her that he was wrong. It was Cei’s idea that they start in Snowdonia National Park. It is a huge area full of mountains and canyons and caves, perfect places to hide a gate to the Underground. It made sense since the Druid religion was based on nature, and the gods drew their power from nature. But, again, Wales was a much different place two thousand years ago.

  The gate could be just about anywhere. The only thing they knew for sure was that it was most likely in northern Wales…all 3,835 miles of it. It was like the proverbial needle in a haystack.

  Blodeuwedd assured Gwen that she would know it when she saw it…just like she promised she would know the words to say when it was time to perform the ritual. But Gwen wasn’t quite that confident.

  She had thought she could trust Rhein, too.

  Cei tightened his hold on Gwen’s shoulders when the train approached the small station at the summit of Snowdon Mountain. They stood and joined the crush of other passengers—mostly tourists—and
made their way off the train. Most people loitered in the station to review the maps and to speak to the tour guides. Cei bypassed them all, leading Gwen by the hand through the crowd and out to the head of the trail.

  Gwen had to pause—the view was just amazing. Breathtaking didn’t even begin to express it. She had never seen anything quite like it. Even pictures taken near this exact spot didn’t do it justice.

  “I can’t believe you grew up here,” she sighed.

  Cei pointed to his left without really looking. “My village was over that way.”

  “Do you think about it much?”

  “Sometimes.” He moved up behind her and tugged at the straps of her heavy pack. “But I learned a long time ago that it’s better to leave the past in the past.”

  “Until it comes back to haunt you.”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he lifted her pack and adjusted it on her shoulders before giving her a gentle push toward the trail.

  They followed the trail for a while, making their way along the well-traveled path among the dozen or so other tourists who were taking a leisurely hike before returning to their hotel rooms for the night. It was quite crowded for a nature trail. Gwen was a little surprised by the amount of foot traffic. It made Cei nervous, too; she could see it in the way he kept looking back the way they had come. It wasn’t until later that she realized he had been counting the people who passed them, waiting until everyone who had ridden the train—which happened to be the last ride to the summit that day—with them had passed.

  “Now,” he whispered to Gwen as one last set of hikers passed them by.

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her off the trail. They disappeared in the trees and high vegetation in a manner of seconds. They had to be careful not to make too much noise as they crashed through the underbrush, but after a half hour, they were far enough from the trail that Cei stopped hissing at her each time a dry branch crackled under her feet.

  They hiked until dusk, eventually coming to a small clearing about a mile from the summit.

  “No one will see us here,” Cei said as he dropped his pack to the ground and stretched his arms high above his body.

  Gwen did the same, sinking to the ground after her quick stretch. Exhaustion was finally beginning to let itself be known in the ache of her bones and the grittiness in her eyes. Cei grabbed her hand and pulled her back to her feet.

  “You’ll fall asleep if you sit for too long.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  He pulled open the zipper on his pack and started to remove things—a water purifier, a couple of packs of freeze dried stew, a small mallet, and a couple of long, metal spikes. From the bottom of the pack he released the tiny, two person tent he’d bought at a sporting goods store in Conwy.

  “Why don’t you go look for water while I set up the tent?”

  “Okay.”

  Gwen grabbed a small pot off the bottom edge of her own pack and headed off, instinct leading her through the thicket of trees on the far side of the clearing. She found a small, bubbling brook just a few yards away.

  As she knelt beside the brook, she cupped her hands and washed her face before she drank her fill. She should have been more careful—Cei had lectured her about the dangers of drinking unpurified water a dozen times on one of their multiple flights—but the water was so clear and she was so tired. Then, she dipped the pot in the water and let her mind wander as it filled.

  “There is danger here,” a voice said from behind Gwen.

  She jerked, nearly losing the pot in the flow of the brook, as she craned her neck to see who—or what—was behind her.

  A small bird was perched low in a tree behind her.

  Blodeuwedd.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, unable to hide the annoyance in her voice.

  “Watching over you.”

  Gwen took the full pot from the water and stood as the bird slowly transformed into a beautiful, red-haired woman.

  “No one asked you to.”

  “Actually, your father did. Not that it was necessary.”

  “I’m touched.” Gwen lifted the pot. “I need to take this back to Cei.”

  “You need to be careful, Gwenydd,” Blodeuwedd said, coming toward her as though she wanted to touch her. But Gwen stepped back, nearly missing dunking her foot in the water by less than an inch. Blodeuwedd stopped, a sadness flashing in her eyes before her expression became neutral again. “There is danger here.”

  “There is danger everywhere,” Gwen said, moving the surprisingly heavy pot from one hand to the other. “Which reminds me…where were you when Branwen ran her sword through my stomach?”

  Blodeuwedd narrowed her eyes, as though irritated at the audacity Gwen had to question her. “I was there,” she said. “But it was daytime…”

  Gwen nodded. Blodeuwedd’s curse was meant to keep her perpetually in the dark.

  “Nice to know you’ve got my back,” Gwen said, brushing past her as she began to walk back to the clearing.

  “Gwenydd,” Blodeuwedd said, “please listen to me.”

  “I heard you,” Gwen said over her shoulder. “There’s danger here.”

  She didn’t bother to stop and see if her mother had anything else to say. She was too tired to deal with her cryptic warnings and false concern. Blodeuwedd’s only concern was Blodeuwedd. All she wanted was her curse broken.

  Tears actually came to Gwen’s eyes when she saw the tent erected and awaiting her when she returned to camp. Cei had opened the freeze dried packages. They were waiting for water in another small pot beside the small cooktop he carried in his pack. But Cei was nowhere to be seen.

  Gwen laid the water carefully beside the stove and crawled into the tent. That’s where she found Cei, sound asleep across both sleeping bags, as though he had collapsed while setting them up. Gwen just zipped up the tent, slid out of her shoes—she couldn’t imagine trying to sleep with them on—and settled down beside him. Sleep came almost instantly.

  Chapter 2

  “You need to eat.”

  Gwen groaned, rolling over slowly as every muscle in her body seemed to scream in protest. Sweat was pouring from her forehead thanks to the well-insulated sleeping bag Cei had bought. She had, at some point, climbed inside of it. She had no idea what time it was, but if the incessant pounding of the sun told her anything, it must be late afternoon.

  She’d slept almost twenty-four hours straight.

  “How long have you been up?” she asked, her voice sounding more like a rusty hinge than the soft whisper she had intended.

  “Just long enough to heat up this stew.” He waved a bowl under her nose. “It’s not bad, really.”

  Gwen’s stomach growled at the smell. She sat up and out of the sleeping bag, pulling her pack up behind her to give herself something to lean back against. The first bite was a little hot, but it tasted so good to her starving taste buds that she took another bite without waiting for the first to leave her mouth.

  “Slow down,” Cei laughed. “You don’t want to choke up here. I don’t know the Heimlich.”

  “You want some?” Gwen held out a spoonful to Cei.

  “I already had my fill.”

  He sat down beside her and watched her eat for a minute.

  “We should probably hunker down here till morning. It’s a little late to move on today.”

  Gwen nodded, as she shoveled in another spoonful of stew. “Where are we going first?”

  Cei reached over to his own pack and pulled out a map. As he unfolded it, Gwen could see that there were multiple locations circled in bright red. He smoothed it out and placed it on the sleeping back at their feet.

  “This is the path we came down,” he said, one of several broken lines on the map. “This is about where we are now.” He pointed to another spot, not far from another set of broken lines. “There are half a dozen little towns down at the base of the mountain. So, I figured we should go this way,” he pointed along the center of the mo
untain toward another peak behind it. “I think we’ll have better luck if we stick to the less populated areas.”

  “Do you really think the gate is somewhere in the mountains?”

  “I think it’s our best chance.” He picked up the map and began to fold it. “Besides, I remember visiting the gate once or twice with Gwydion. And I distinctly remember it being on some sort of rocky ridge.”

  “But the landscape has changed.”

  “It has, quite a bit. It could be under one of these villages or it could be closer to the coast. We always traveled in secrecy, and Gwydion often made me ride with him in his carriage, so my memory might be wrong. But,” he said on a soft sigh, “it’s the best we have right now.”

  Gwen touched Cei’s thigh. “We’ll figure it out. Besides, when Tony comes with Morgan, maybe he’ll have more ideas.”

  Cei didn’t answer, but she could see by the expression on his face that he wasn’t terribly thrilled with the idea. They left Lubbock in a hurry to escape the constant threat of Bran and Branwen that seemed to linger over Gwen’s head—especially after they kidnapped her for several hours in an attempt to access her control over her gifts. Cei had argued over the idea of Morgan following them to Wales, but as another demigod, Gwen had insisted that he must have a role in this game. Tony apparently agreed. When they called upon their arrival in Wales, he informed them that he and Morgan would arrive in Liverpool in three days.

  Gwen set her bowl aside and straightened up, raising her arms to stretch the sore muscles in her back. “I don’t suppose you have a shower hidden in one of those bags.”

  “No, but there’s a lovely brook a few yards away.”