by Lisa Rector
My mouth parted, ready to retort.
“I apologize,” he said. “I suppose I’m used to being alone in my perception of humans. I’ve made my own game of it.”
“Do you toy with them?”
“Not as much as I’d like to. But I’ll tell you a secret.” Caedryn leaned toward me. “Humans can’t guess your emotions if you don’t show them. You don’t have to let them in. No one needs to read your innermost feelings. You can keep them private.”
“Is that what you believe? You believe someone couldn’t possibly fathom what goes on in your head if they can’t see the expression on your face?” Kelyn’s words scraped over my conscience. When you’re heated or impassioned or worried, every sign is revealed in your posture, your step, your intonation. You hide behind sharp words. Caedryn was in error.
“You tell me. What do you see now, without discerning?”
I huffed. I shook my head. Flustered—I was flustered. An idiot could know how I was feeling. I’m so dumb. I stiffened. Too many times I reacted with unrestrained emotions. The way I flared at Aneirin. The way I mooned about after my heartbreak. Owein guessed at my feelings. Kelyn saw me. Kenrik bubbled my emotions to the surface. I was behaving human—had been behaving human.
“Niawen?”
I was no different. By rebelling against my father, by fighting with him and the ways of our people, I was acting human. No wonder he exiled me.
And Caedryn wanted me to look at just him, not inside him. Could I be as observant as Kelyn? Could I observe like a mortal and lay aside my gifts and read the inflection in Caedryn’s voice, note the nuances in his posture and in his movements?
It’s what he wants me to do.
Because he has secrets. He’s been around mortals for “far too long,” and they’re full of secrets—full of corruption.
I smiled. Caedryn was saying, Don’t read me because I’m hiding something. And by doing so, he was starting a game.
A human game of deception.
His eyebrows quirked. He squeezed the handle of his butter knife. Being expressionless wasn’t possible, not with all his flickers of muscle activity. He’d fail at his own game. What did his subtle movements show me? Anxiety? Irritation? No. Impatience, definitely. His eyes were bright.
Triumph, because I was looking at him and only him. Not in him.
“I can’t read a thing on your face,” I said.
One of his cheeks rounded into a lopsided smile. “Nothing?”
“Nothing. You’re more emryn than you thought.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There are two sides to the emryn coin. We sense everything, but we reveal nothing in our expressions. My father was good at that. He wore his cold, hard mask well.”
“Ah, but his cold, hard mask did show who he was, didn’t it?”
Curses. I didn’t know who to be more frustrated at. My father for always displaying his stern unrelenting exterior or Caedryn for antagonizing me with his words. “I’ll concede if you’ll agree it’s impossible to hide emotion. Something is always evident.”
“So you did see something in my face.”
“Perhaps.”
“So which is it, Niawen? Are we looking at each other or in each other?”
“Why don’t you want me to discern you?” What are you hiding?
“We don’t have to know everything about each other all at once.”
I blew a hair out of my eye. “You’re making this request on purpose, to frustrate me.”
He laughed. “Frustrate you? I couldn’t tell.”
“Why are we even discussing how we should perceive each other? We’d never have this topic of conversation where I’m from.” I balled up my napkin, ready to rise.
“You’re not in Gorlassar anymore. The same rules don’t apply.”
I had enough of playing around. I threw the napkin beside my plate. “So that brings the question, where are the other emrys, or should I say, half-emrys? Where are you from? I assume you’re not Siana’s sole descendent.”
He sighed. “I’m not. They’re a desert away in my homeland, Morvith.”
That explained why I sensed no other light as brilliant as his in this region. The distance explained why I thought Siana was alone. I didn’t bother searching any farther. “I don’t understand? Why are you here by yourself?”
Caedryn peered over a pair of invisible spectacles. “I’m exiled.”
“What? Why?” Exiled like me. I leaned against the velvet back of my chair, waiting for the story.
He busied himself by cutting a piece of ham. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”
“Why not?”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “You’ll think I’m a rogue.”
I looked at him with disbelief. No one was more rogue than I was.
He cracked a grin. “She likes a rogue. Well then, I shall tell you.”
I almost cringed over his assuming observation, but he wasn’t wrong. “You’re impossible.”
“Do you want to hear it or not?”
“Please, shock me.”
“As you wish. Siana has many descendants. One of those descendants rose to power. She was an awful wench. Cruel and callous. She murdered many people. So I tried to stop her.”
Caedryn spoke matter-of-factly, but my mouth dried as he mentioned murder. The lifeless and charred bodies of those men I struck swam in my mind. “Is she the one who exiled you?”
“Yes.” Caedryn’s voice broke, and his eyes darkened. “And she killed my dragon.”
I shot upright in my chair. “Your dragon!” I gulped. “She killed your dragon?” The room grew hazy.
Caedryn rose to his feet, pushing his chair back hastily. He dropped to one knee and gripped the arm of my chair. With one fingertip, he turned my face to his. The faintest red rimmed his eyes.
Sorrow behind them. The same sorrow I saw earlier.
“Easy. Breathe,” he said. “That was long ago. I know you can’t imagine the death of a dragon. Coming to grips with a blow like that took many centuries. I still have nightmares. I felt every one of Neifion’s agonizing pains and every rasp of his tortured breaths.”
“She severed your bond. And left you—”
“In misery. Only then did she exile me. I wouldn’t have survived the desert without the men loyal to me. The darkness that descended over me was unbearable. To have an eternal bond such as the one with my dragon taken… that was my real punishment. Not the exile. I couldn’t see straight. My men made sure I ate and drank, or I would have died. I would have crawled into the desert and let the carrion birds rip apart my still beating heart.”
“So you’ve made Islwyn your home. Away from everything!”
“After my predecessor died, yes. Lord Rheinallt admired my skills, and he had no heir. His people welcomed me with open arms.”
“So other half-emrys live beyond the desert?”
“Thousands. A whole country full.”
“And Siana?”
“She’s there, trying to control her unruly children.”
“And the woman who exiled you?”
“She rules. Still.”
“She makes no demands on you? She hasn’t challenged your leadership?” I was astounded.
“Listen to you with your questions. We’re worlds apart. What Rhianu does in her realm is no longer my concern. Saying this saddens me, but I don’t have the military strength to fight a country full of dragon riders.”
“So Nimue has posterity too?”
“She does.”
I shook my head. “This is so much to take in. I can’t even fathom.” A country full of dragons—in the mortal world. My father would be outraged.
Caedryn stood. “Come. Stop your mind from wandering. Allow me show you around my home.”
***
“So what do you think? Do you think you can make Islwyn your home?” Caedryn asked.
We had concluded the tour of the citadel and its grounds. Caedryn insinuated
, with every turn, what a splendid place he had—that he had plenty of stores for the winter, that he had many men who served him. Rolant was a welcome place, for outcasts. His home might seem meager, but the realm thrived in trade. The river supplied many fresh foods, even in the bitter winter.
The rooms were abrasive and cold, with the minimum amount of tapestries to insulate the stone walls, but the negative ambience also might have been from the dreary, overcast skies lending their harshness. No sun shone into the rooms, and candelabras did little to dissipate the gloom.
“You and Seren arrived just in time for a long winter,” Caedryn had said.
As if a winter storm could keep a dragon shut in, but Caedryn was eager. Every step he took during our tour was exact. He stood proudly, but his eyes always stayed on my face, calculating.
More than once I glanced at him as I surveyed each room. More than once his gaze caught mine, and I looked away.
It bothered me that Caedryn was keen for me to call this place home—that word splintered me. Where was home? Home was Gorlassar. Home was filled with family and friends. I almost felt that way with Sieffre and his people. I liked them. I trusted them—until I realized they would all die on me.
My grip tightened on the parapet, and I leaned my head against the stone. Caedryn and I stood on the outer wall around his citadel. Houses covered the ground below us, crammed together like fish in a barrel, spreading out in the distance.
Caedryn leaned casually against the wall, studying my reaction with confidence. “I know my home needs a woman’s touch. I’ve turned down the head housekeeper’s efforts to make the place more cheery. I suppose, before, I didn’t see the need.”
My brows knit together with confusion. The need would arise if a woman demanded added comforts. No bachelor would care. Caedryn implied that I should have been that woman.
I thought of Owein and his joke that he should marry me.
Caedryn laughed. “I’m a bit stodgy. I’ve lived here for more than a few years.”
“Exactly how long?”
“Oh, here we go. You’re really asking my age. If Siana left Gorlassar over three thousand years ago, then how old could I be?”
I glared at him as I shifted my lower jaw side-to-side.
“You know that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “It’s not easy to judge an emrys’s age unless you’re staring them in the eye, is it? How many ages has my soul seen? How much wisdom is behind these eyes?”
I inhaled sharply. The age of an emrys didn’t matter. The topic irked me to no end. Some of us were more spiritually or mentally mature than others. On an eternal timeline, we all evened out to some degree or another.
I shrugged. “Once we mature in our lights’ ability and our physical self stops aging, I don’t see why the difference in years should matter.”
Caedryn’s eyebrows arched slightly. “Deep down this bothers you, or you wouldn’t want to know.”
Who said I wanted to know? He brought the topic up.
Caedryn was gauging me carefully, not diving with his light, but noticing every flinch of my body.
I was boiling under the surface.
“I don’t want to discuss it.” I didn’t want to bring Aneirin up. I didn’t want to comment on the difference in our age and how he wasn’t ready. I was ready. Had been ready. Moving on was much harder when I was constantly reminded of him.
I turned around and backed against the wall. I could practically touch the heavy gray clouds above me.
Caedryn moved a hand’s breadth away from me, propped his elbow on a higher part of the wall, and supported his head. He had the appearance of someone who was deeply interested in whatever the other person might say, as if I might divulge my heart’s desire, but he was hiding behind a casual air. Almost mocking. “I don’t want you to think I’m an old man, but take a guess.”
“I told you it doesn’t matter!” I was curious.
His eyes narrowed. “Well then. Now that that’s settled. I’ll leave you to ponder my peculiarities.” He turned and stalked away.
***
I shoved past the guard into a study on the second floor. Caedryn’s dark head was bent over parchment as he scrawled with a quill. An attendant took the sheet and placed another one in front of Caedryn.
When Caedryn didn’t take the time to look up, I blurted, “Did I insult you?” I had fumed for hours after the tour and Caedryn’s abrupt departure. If he wanted me to make Islwyn my home, he sure wasn’t winning me over with his evasive nature.
“To insult me you’d have to do something disrespectful.” He waved his attendant away.
I rolled my eyes as the man left. “Why do you want me here?”
Caedryn’s sneaky conniving smile curled his lips, as if he was three steps ahead of my thoughts.
“You just seem keen to have me consider this my home,” I said.
Caedryn tickled his face thoughtfully with the end of his feathered quill.
I brushed up to the table and braced my arms on the surface. “You were practically begging me to stay.”
“I’m not begging you to stay, but think about it. I offer you a life of freedom. A life without boundaries. Limitless. No rules. No fear of ever being exiled. Living beside the humans, but with the blessing of having an immortal stand by you. Someone who knows the ways and customs of your people. Someone who carries light and understands its glory.”
I straightened. “You offer me this. A fresh start?”
“Yes!” Caedryn stood and leaned across his desk as I had. “That’s what you want, Niawen. No darkness in your heart. A blank slate.”
“You can’t erase my past.”
“Maybe not. Your past has shaped you, but it’s up to you to decide which parts you allow to haunt you and which parts you allow to grow you.”
“Why should you care so much?”
“I don’t care.”
“You do! You act as though my decision, should it be in your favor, would give you the utmost satisfaction.”
He angled away from me, but kept his eye on me. “It’s not in me to be satisfied.”
I pressed my lips together. “You’re arrogant!”
“Arrogance is not my worst fault.”
“I don’t know how this started.” I turned on my heel and stalked to the door.
“What’s your answer, Niawen?”
I snapped around. “You know my answer. How could I pass on such a generous offer? You set no rules or boundaries. A great enticement. But freedom doesn’t break a wild horse. You might regret your kindness when you realize I cannot be tamed.”
As I reached the door and my hand brushed the frame, I heard Caedryn murmur. “I cannot be tamed either.”
Chapter Twenty-four
I don’t understand Caedryn. He’s not being completely honest. I feel it. Even though he shared the story of his exile, there’s more to him than that. I was tucked into Seren’s arms in her stable, watching the first snowfall through the open doors. The flakes drifted, mimicking how I felt—lazy and pacified. My emotional journey left me subdued, for now.
Can you trust him? Seren asked.
I don’t know. The uncertainty dug under my skin.
But you’re staying.
I’ll be fine.
Remember how you felt when you met Owein? You knew he was trustworthy.
I smiled over one of my favorite memories. Owein had nothing to hide. He must be the most innocent person I’ve ever met.
Caedryn is nothing like Owein.
I don’t like making comparisons. Besides. He’s an emrys. He knows what I’m going through.
Half-emrys, Seren said.
Part emrys. Part human.
What does his human side bring? He’s still immortal?
Yes. But Seren posed a valid question. Caedryn’s human side was a mystery.
Darkness?
I don’t sense any darkness in him.
But what’s he hiding? Seren asked.
That is a mys
tery. You know me; I’ll figure his secrets out. I like a challenge.
That’s how you get into trouble.
You trust I’ll be fine, right?
You’re capable of anything, Niawen. Once you’ve set your mind on a goal, no one can stop you.
I tucked deeper into Seren’s arms. It’s time for you to go home. I’m here to stay. Cephias needs you, and you miss Gorlassar.
I can’t deny I want to return. I’m torn about leaving.
Can’t we compromise? I’ve been on this mortal plane for six weeks. You can fly home and, in another six weeks, come for a visit.
Are you sure? Seren nuzzled my head and wrapped her claws tighter around me, as if I were one of her dragonlings.
There’s still the other option.
Absolutely not, Seren said. I’m not giving my stone to another rider. Besides, how will you have word of home? How will you call me when you need me? Our bond will hold. I’ll return in six weeks.
Good. I don’t want to keep you from your life.
Seren sighed. A dragon’s life is with her rider.
We didn’t anticipate a rider who’d leave her home, I said.
Or a stubborn rider.
Or a placating dragon. I traced my fingertips over Seren’s scales.
It was inevitable—our separation.
I know. For now, we’ll just enjoy the snow.
***
His presence swept up behind me. I felt his light, even if he didn’t want me to. I couldn’t help it. A warrior didn’t let people sneak up on her.
“So she’s gone?” Caedryn asked.
“Yes. Seren left at daybreak.” The gray cotton-balled sky hadn’t changed since morning. Since I watched Seren fly into it.
“Are you going to stand in the middle of the courtyard all day?”
I hadn’t moved position. Snow carpeted my body. I frowned into the distance, with my chin lifted to where I last saw Seren. I had become a rigid statue they’d have to cart away and stow in an out-of-the-way closet before birds landed on me. Before I froze over.
“I know how difficult this is for you.”
My eyelashes blinked back snowflakes. Tears weren’t going to fall, but I couldn’t move. Seren was well into the highlands. The snow had not begun in the south. The barren, harvested patchwork of fields just enhanced my somber mood.
