by C. E. Murphy
Looking at Rhiannon was possible now, the connection she had with Annwn less visible, less loud, though the woman herself was no less stunning. She was much taller than Lara had imagined, towering over the gathered elves. Aerin was closest to her in height, but still dwarfed by a palm’s length as Rhiannon, looking youthfully delighted, drew the Seelie woman to her feet.
“Granddaughter,” she said with obvious pleasure. “Many-times granddaughter, but I see my look in your bones and feel Annwn’s pulse in your blood. This land has not been so badly served, if those such as you still walk it. Who is your master?”
A shiver rose up from Aerin’s core, her green eyes wide. “Emyr ap Caerwyn was, lady. He was king over all of us who called ourselves Seelie, but he has proven himself unworthy. The people don’t yet know, but I do. Let me be the first to lay my sword at your feet, and the first to bow my head to our goddess returned. Welcome back, my lady. Welcome home.”
Rhiannon smiled, so brilliant it could be a blessing in itself, but then her expression fell into such solemnity it suggested a child’s transition between joy and abject disappointment. “But you’re not carrying a sword.”
Aerin knotted fists at her hips, disappointment flashing across her own face. “Then let me be the first when we’ve returned to the citadel and I’m garbed as a warrior should be.”
“Ap Caerwyn. The citadel of white stone,” Rhiannon murmured, as if she’d needed more pieces for even Emyr’s name to fall into place. Then recognition turned her voice hard: “I remember now.”
She turned toward the mountains, lashing a hand out. Space foreshortened, bringing the citadel impossibly near in vision if not in fact. Lara winced, expecting her headache to return, but her vision remained clear as Rhiannon’s voice filled the air, musical thunder: “Empty these walls. The city falls.”
Towers that had remained standing through the land’s upheaval crumbled as she spoke. Within seconds, people fled from the shaking city, rushing out by dozens and hundreds, then trickling away to a handful, and then to none. Rhiannon clenched her fist and pearlescent walls shattered, collapsing in on themselves and turning to dust. It continued for a long time, and when she finally released her fist, all that remained of Emyr’s city was a sheen in the air, settling across oak forests already growing up anew.
She turned her palm up, capricious, demanding, and not one among them doubted what she asked for. Lara dropped the shell shards into her hand, and for the second time Rhiannon made a fist, delicate calcium falling between her fingers. “Flame, anathema to my birthplace, come.”
Fire burst upward in her hand, searing the disintegrating shells before heat erupted in a contained explosion, utterly destroying the fragile pieces. It spewed from within the ruined citadel as well, a brief flare that sent land flying upward and falling back down in a rain of dirt and roots. Lara gasped, a hand clapped over her mouth, and even the elves surrounding her flinched. Rhiannon, satisfied, flicked the image of the citadel’s ruins away and turned a wholly guileless smile on the little group who had unbound her.
“You …” Lara swallowed, then tried again. “Was that Emyr and Hafgan?”
“Born of my blood, destroyed as my blood. Never again can it be used against me,” Rhiannon said blithely, then tipped her head, once more childlike with curiosity as she examined Ioan and Dafydd. “Born of my body. Must you be destroyed as well?”
“No!” Lara jolted in front of Dafydd, hearing as much panic as truth in her own voice. “None of us knew where we’d end up when this started, but they’re mostly responsible for you being free at all. Don’t you dare take revenge out on them.”
Rhiannon’s eyes widened with laughably pure astonishment. “You tell me what I may and may not dare?”
“Remember, Rhiannon, that mortals are impetuous. It was what you liked about them. They reminded you of yourself, once upon a time.” Oisín stepped forward, gentle humor deepening the lines of his face.
Rhiannon, uncertain, said, “Oh,” and then “Oh,” and put a hand to Oisín’s cheek. “My poet. I remember you. You’ve changed.”
Oisín put his hand over hers, smiling. “Time, kind as it may be in Annwn, takes its toll on all mortals. I’m satisfied to stand in your presence once again.”
“For a little while.” Rhiannon looked crestfallen. “Only for a little while, my poet. I can see the end of your song as I can see the end of our son’s.”
“What?” Dafydd’s voice broke, startled human sound in the one word, and Rhiannon turned to him with compassion tempered by a remoteness not present when she looked at Oisín.
“My blood runs true in you, Dafydd ap Annwn, but Oisín’s leaves its mark as well. You cannot be king over this land. That is the price of your blood. But its gift,” she said more softly, “is that unlike any other born to Annwn, you may choose a mortal existence, if you so desire. And I think that unlike any other, it may be a choice you are glad of.”
She dismissed him that easily, bringing her attention to Ioan. Lara fumbled for Dafydd’s hand and found it cool with shock. She drew breath to speak and he shook his head, then glanced toward Rhiannon and Ioan.
Ioan knelt as Lara looked their way, Rhiannon’s fingertips light against his forehead. “You might be king in Annwn,” she said to him. “Blood of my blood, blood of the land. Do you wish a crown?”
“I’ve worn one half my life, whether I wished it or not. Annwn doesn’t need a king, Mother. It needs its goddess, the life and light of the land. That’s what gives us our strength.”
Darkness came into Rhiannon’s voice: “And, it seems, your ambition.”
“I have very few ambitions that are not already met. A family, perhaps.” Ioan lifted his eyes to smile briefly at Dafydd and Lara, then returned his attention to Rhiannon. “I would gladly be your steward, if you have no wish to rule Annwn yourself, but I will not wear a crown.”
Rhiannon, with more clarity of mind than Lara expected from such an elemental creature, admitted, “I am not meant to rule. To create, to love, to destroy, perhaps, but had I the desire or talent for holding a crown, none should ever have taken it from me. You will do, my son. You will do well in making Annwn what it should be, and should you ever need my guidance, your white-haired witch there can call me through her bond with the land.”
She bestowed a smile on Aerin, then offered a hand to Oisín. He took it unerringly, but drew Rhiannon to a stop as they passed Dafydd and Lara. “Worlds come changed at end of day, Truthseeker. You’ve done well.”
“For Annwn, maybe. My world didn’t come out of it so well. Rhiannon, your … majesty? Your …”
Amusement rushed across Rhiannon’s face. “My people call me ‘lady,’ mortal child.”
“Lady,” Lara echoed with relief. “My lady, is there anything you can do for my world? For Oisín’s world? The staff was used there—you must know that, you were the—” She broke off, unnerved by Rhiannon’s wide-eyed gaze. The goddess either had no sense of or no emotional connection to the destruction she had wrought from within her ivory prison, and after a few seconds Lara swallowed and offered the explanation Rhiannon seemed to have no awareness of. “The staff was used there and part of a city was destroyed. I know our world is iron-laden and unfriendly to the Seelie, but …”
Surprise, then slight regret sluiced over Rhiannon’s features. “Seelie magic isn’t meant to be worked in the mortal world, Truthseeker. Annwn takes from, but never gives to your world. Not willingly.” She glanced at Oisín predatorily, then considered the newly risen land, breathing deeply of its rich fresh scent. “But Annwn is renewed, and I am in your debt. Truthseeker, wayfinder, worldbreaker, gatekeeper. For a little while, mortal child, you may stand between this world and yours. Through you, perhaps some of Annwn’s health will flow to your broken citadel. It is the best I can do.” More, her voice warned: it was all she would do. “Do not let the gate be passed through too often, lest the payment be stripped from your bones.”
“I won’t. Thank you.” La
ra knuckled her hands against her mouth, swallowing down the feeling of her heart trying to escape a sudden influx of fear and hope, then turned to Oisín. “Come back for a little while, if you can. I have the stories of the Drowned Lands to tell you. I promised them I’d have you write them down.”
Fascination lit the old poet’s face, and he nodded. “We’ll cross paths again, Truthseeker. Stay away from prophets in the meanwhile, if you can.”
“I’ll try. Take care of yourself, Oisín.”
Insult came into Rhiannon’s voice. “I will take care of him.”
Lara grinned, stepping back. “I meant no disrespect.”
Rhiannon huffed, a soft offended sound that reminded Lara of Aerin. She smiled as the two ancients, one immortal and the other not, walked past her to fade into the landscape without a whisper of glamour to set Lara’s senses awry.
Ioan got to his feet, diffident as he half-looked Dafydd’s way. “We have much to do here. Homes to rebuild, old wounds to heal. You will … join us when you’re ready?”
“I will.” Dafydd put his hand in Lara’s again. Aerin watched them a moment before she nodded and walked with Ioan, leaving Lara and Dafydd behind.
“A mortal lifespan,” Dafydd said when they were well out of earshot. Like Ioan had with him, he didn’t quite look at Lara, nervousness betrayed in the angled glance.
Hope and humor clenched Lara’s heart. “That’s not really the kind of thing you should decide quickly.”
“No. But here, even a mortal life span can be …” Dafydd smiled carefully. “Forever.”
“Nearly forever.” Lara bit her lower lip, then squeezed Dafydd’s hand and faced him, words tumbling in her haste to have them spoken: “I want to go home, Dafydd. She said gatekeeper, and not to abuse it, so I could. We could. For a little while. To see what’s happened to Boston and to make sure Kelly and Dickon are all right and to repay that newspaper vendor and maybe to let my mother get to know you. And I’d like to go back to the tailor shop and finish my apprenticeship even if it won’t mean anything here, but it’s only another year and it’d make me happy and the worldwalking spell could make it so almost no time passes here—”
Dafydd laughed, stopping her rushed speech. “Yes and yes and yes. We have time, Lara. We have so much time. Even in mortal years spent in the mortal world, we have so much time, and if we choose mortal years spent here, we have forever.” His grin broadened. “And you know what that means.”
A certainty of what he would say burst through Lara and turned to a broad smile of her own. “Don’t say it.”
“I have to.”
“You don’t have to. I don’t like fairy tales.”
Dafydd grinned, pulling Lara close. “And yet here you are, participating in one. I believe that means, Truthseeker—”
“Shh. Stop it.” Lara put a finger over his lips, though she couldn’t stop her burgeoning laughter.
“And it should be you saying it, with the power of prophecy in your voice—”
“I’m not going to say it. And if I were even a little bit superstitious, I would say you saying it will jinx it.”
“But you are not,” Dafydd whispered, and lifted a hand to cup her jaw, to trace her mouth with his thumb before kissing her again, this time soft and lingering and slow. “And so I’ll risk it, and you’ll hear the truth in my voice, Truthseeker, when I say you and I will live happily,” a kiss, “ever,” another kiss, and Lara, smiling, whispered the last word with him:
“After.”
For Silkie
BY C. E. MURPHY
THE WORLDWALKER DUOLOGY
Truthseeker
Wayfinder
THE INHERITORS’ CYCLE
The Queen’s Bastard
The Pretender’s Crown
THE WALKER PAPERS
Urban Shaman
Thunderbird Falls
Coyote Dreams
Walking Dead
Demon Hunts
Spirit Dances
THE OLD RACES UNIVERSE:
The Negotiator Trilogy:
Heart of Stone
House of Cards
Hands of Flame
THE STRONGBOX CHRONICLES:
written as Cate Dermody
The Cardinal Rule
The Firebird Deception
The Phoenix Law
WITH MERCEDES LACKEY AND TANITH LEE
Winter Moon
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C. E. (Catie) MURPHY is the author of two urban fantasy series (The Walker Papers and The Negotiator Trilogy); The Inheritors’ Cycle, which includes The Queen’s Bastard and The Pretender’s Crown; and Truthseeker. Her hobbies include photography and travel, though she rarely pursues enough of either. She was born and raised in Alaska, and now lives in her ancestral home of Ireland with her family and cats.
