Fallen Emrys

by Lisa Rector

  A fire blazed in the pit of my stomach. I caught my breath, and I laughed. My child was light! Like cold metal pinging as it expanded from flame, the light from my child tingled and pricked until it threaded my heart-center.

  Everything became clear. My purpose, my life. As an immortal being, I floundered to understand my existence, asking what was the point of living forever? But I had my child—she would be my enabling power. Everyone else who had been a part of my life flashed into my mind. I had helped them, and they had helped me. Aneirin, Catrin, Seren, Owein, Arnall and the caravan, the bricklayer, Sorfrona, Kelyn, and Kenrik. The residents in the city. The people in the charred village. All their faces filled me. They were a part of me.

  And yet, they were not me.

  I had sought for happiness that was tangible. Happiness someone could give me, but I needed to give my happiness away to others. Lose myself to find myself. The only person to make me feel alive, to awaken my soul, and to understand who I was, was me.

  I clung to these truths as Deian showed them to me.

  “Niawen!” A strong voice filled the cell.

  I can be happy with just me. With or without my light. Turmoil has been swirling around me for so long, but peace can be found in the midst of it. Peace because I am a good person. Peace because I know who I am. Peace because, no matter what, I’ll die conquering!

  Somewhere in the darkness I found hope as my child’s light crept through me. I latched on to the feeling as my spirit had the distinct feeling of moving up.

  I’m a blank slate. This is a new beginning.

  The voice boomed. “NIAWEN!”

  Hope.

  Peace.

  I can be pure.

  I am pure.

  I jolted.

  A release of pressure. Lightness. I drifted skyward, free.

  I thought my salvation was too late. Floating upward didn’t feel like life, it felt like moving on.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Niawen, Niawen, you must wake,” Kenrik said. “Please tell me I haven’t lost you.”

  I snapped up as shifting and bouncing jarred my body. I spasmed and reached around the firmest thing available—Kenrik’s shoulders. He had lifted me into his arms.

  “You’re walking!” I glanced behind as he strode from the chamber that had been his prison.

  Caedryn was crumpled on the floor in his place. Legs at odd angles.

  “What did you do?”

  “I couldn’t resist paybacks for the weeks of torture, the black heart.”

  As we came to the corridor’s end, we heard voices. The guards in the front chamber to the dungeon.

  Kenrik set me down. “I’ll dispatch them.”

  “How?” I grabbed his hand.

  Kenrik studied my face. “It seems your light has done more than heal my body. I took Caedryn down with ease. Three guards will be no match.”

  “But you’re not an emrys.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Perhaps not, but I feel remnants of you.” He scowled. “And him. Wait here.”

  Remnants of me. Kenrik wasn’t connected to me. He was feeling what had been me. What was no longer me.

  As the guards scuffled with Kenrik around the corner, I braced myself against the wall, considering. Kenrik carried my light, which was a mix of Caedryn’s as well. He would be a beacon for evil unless Caedryn was killed.

  Kenrik rushed back. “I fear we’ll meet more resistance on the way out. Caedryn has many men loyal to him.”

  “I’m well aware of that.”

  He was about to lift me into his arms.

  “Wait. We must kill Caedryn, or he’ll hunt you down.” I couldn’t believe I was uttering those words. He was still my husband.

  I think he’s still my husband. At this point, I didn’t know what giving my light away meant. I was free of that spiritual bond, but the physical union we shared couldn’t be undone. Half a marriage broken. I couldn’t even sense our mental bond. All bonds but one relied on the light of which I was devoid.

  I had destroyed who I was. And though I was made anew, my breathing suddenly became erratic with the awareness of fresh dangers. “I don’t… I don’t… I—”

  “Shh, it’s all right, Niawen.” Kenrik crushed me to himself. “I’d like to see Caedryn track us down. We’ll travel far away. I’ll protect you.”

  “You don’t understand. You’re connected. He’ll always know where you are. As long as he’s a half-emrys carrying light, he’ll feel the bond forged between you. This is my fault. I’m sorry. I didn’t think things through when I gave you my light.”

  Kenrik lifted me as my wobbly legs crumbled. “I’m not taking you back. You’re too weak. If he catches up, I’ll end him.”

  We raced down the corridors. I felt drained. My child’s light was tiny. He or she gave me only enough to fight the darkness. The baby needed the energy to grow. I couldn’t harm him by siphoning any more.

  I hoped I wasn’t dying.

  My chest was hollow. My heart-center was void of light and darkness. Empty. Waiting to be filled.

  Would my light return with time?

  It could. New light. Light unconnected to Caedryn’s. My heart-center will always create light. I had that hope.

  A little light was all I needed to stay under Caedryn’s radar. If my light grew to the level of a mere mortal’s, Caedryn would never distinguish my light from a human’s light. I’d be concealed. Safe.

  I just wouldn’t be able to harness such a trivial amount.

  I was giving so much up for freedom.

  ***

  Kenrik fought us free of the citadel. He did have the strength of twenty men. We hid in the city, down a trash-strewn alley. Kenrik leaned me against a wall behind a barrel, and he went into the rear door of a bar. He came back with a cup filled with ale. “Drink.”

  I gulped greedily.

  “Tell me how to give your light back,” he said.

  I wiped my chin. “I don’t want it.”

  “Niawen…” He crouched in front of me. “I only just found you. I can’t look at you, knowing you healed me by giving away your grace.” He tapped his chest. His brown eyes shimmered. “Take it back. Your soul needs it.”

  My cup fell to the earth as I touched his shoulder. “My soul is free. Don’t ask me to bind myself to Caedryn again.”

  Kenrik slid onto his bottom. “By the Creator, you’re right.”

  Horror filled his face. I knew what he realized. Even if he wanted to—and I knew he did—even if I fell in love with him, he could never bind himself to me. Not ever. A three-way bond would plague our souls.

  “How can I rid myself of it?” Kenrik asked. “The light feels as if it’s fused to me. As if it’s in my blood, my bones. I am breathing your light, smelling your light. I see your light! Your light! This is your grace, not mine! How do I become free?”

  “You should be able to pull the orb from yourself.” I put my hand over his chest. I didn’t have the ability to coax his light out, not without my own to guide me. Besides, Kenrik was the only one who had power over his light—his new light. “It’s your light. I can’t take it from you. You have to remove it yourself.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Find the orb in your heart-center.”

  “What orb? I don’t detect an orb. The light is everywhere in me!”

  “You close your eyes and see it.”

  “I’m telling you it’s not there.”

  I heard his words, but my head refused to absorb them. “It’s intuitive. Look harder. Tell the light what to do.”

  “I wasn’t born an emrys. I don’t possess that intuition!”

  I was too weak to be frustrated with Kenrik, but his fear worried me. What did it mean if he couldn’t identify a clear source of light? I believed his assessment though. With that much light inside him, the light would guide him. If he didn’t sense an orb in his heart-center, it wasn’t there.

  We simmered in silence as our words processed. Every deep
inhalation and exhalation of Kenrik’s drove the truth into me. It’s in my blood, my bones. It’s fused to me. My light had become a part of Kenrik—a part he wouldn’t be able to remove. Can this be true?

  “It changed you, didn’t it?” I whispered.

  Kenrik squeezed my hand. “Yes.”

  Mulling the situation over wasn’t going to change anything. Kenrik’s transformation was my fault. A mortal couldn’t carry light the way an immortal could. I should have known better.

  I was fooling myself. There was no way to know the effects.

  Kenrik’s mouth burst open with exasperation, jarring my thoughts. “Niawen! I can’t be near you with Caedryn inside me. Even if I carry your light forever to keep you safe, I’ll never be rid of him!”

  I closed my eyes. Oh, Deian, Kenrik is right. “I told you we should have killed him.”

  “Are you mortal?” Kenrik asked. “Am I immortal? What have we done? You should have let me die.”

  “Shh, shh, shh.” I held his face. “We couldn’t have switched roles.”

  “You don’t even know how this works. Something has happened to me. I took on your grace. My body is stronger. I feel inhuman.”

  Another truth spread through me. “Caedryn won’t leave the citadel. He won’t go where you can get at him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If he knows what I’ve done to you, he knows the results. He’ll come to the same conclusions we are. You feel him, can’t you? What’s he doing?”

  “He’s angry. He’s in pain. Some dolt is setting his legs. He’s furious he doesn’t have sufficient skill with the light to heal himself as you could.”

  I bit my lip. He’d be laid up for weeks. Healing faster than a mortal, but not without suffering.

  “I’ll return to him. I’m going to end this.” Kenrik stood.

  “No!” I climbed to my feet and tugged his arm.

  He clapped his hand over my mouth. “Shh!”

  At the end of the street, people turned to look down the alley. Kenrik yanked me in the opposite direction, into the dark, toward the city’s wall. We were still a few streets away from the city’s main gate.

  “First I’m taking you out of the city,” he said. “Then I’m coming back.”

  I pushed him against a wall as tears filled my eyes. “You can’t. As soon as you got near him, he’d know. You’d never escape.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I care. Promise me you won’t go back.”

  “Niawen, don’t make me promise.”

  “Kenrik, please.”

  He searched my face. I knew what was going on in his brain. I knew how it felt being bound to someone you didn’t want to be bound to. Kenrik hated it. I didn’t need light to tell me.

  Drat. I was as good as mortal. I couldn’t feel emotions at all.

  “I can’t lose you,” I said. “I love you.”

  “Like a brother,” he growled.

  “Yes, like a brother. Like my own flesh and blood. Like my dragon.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “It is. This love is all we have left. If you gave me time—”

  “I’m not waiting on a dream. That’s my dream, Niawen. It’s over. It’s done. When night falls, we’ll sneak out, and we’ll separate. I’ll draw Caedryn away. He’ll think you’re with me. But you keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep your child safe.”

  “He’ll read your mind. He’ll know I’m not with you.”

  Kenrik swore. “How do I keep him from doing that?”

  “You have to block him.”

  “How?”

  “You tell the light what to do.” I dragged my hands down my face. “This is deranged. You have my light. Why’d I do this to you?”

  “Don’t worry about it. What’s done is done.”

  “You’ll hate me forever.”

  “I could never hate you. Is there anything else about the light I should know? I thought humans couldn’t harness it.”

  “I know. I know. They aren’t supposed to be able to. It’s not the same as when I healed your mother. I gave you the light from my core. It’s different.”

  “All right. All right.” Kenrik paced the small space. His biceps looked as if they were going to split open as he flexed and unflexed them. They seemed to throb with power. With my energy.

  What did I do to him?

  I touched his arm, and he stilled. “Tell the light what to do. With your mind. That’s all I have time to say.”

  Footsteps carried to us. Caedryn’s men were hunting us.

  “We have to go,” Kenrik said. “You keep moving until you’re far away. Do you understand?”

  “I can’t. I can’t.”

  “Swear it.”

  I whimpered. I might have saved Kenrik’s life, but he was doing more than I could ever repay. “I swear.”

  I fumbled with the stone on my neck. “You should take my dragon stone. Seren can fly you home. She might answer you. She hasn’t answered my cries. I fear I’ve destroyed our friendship. I’ve betrayed my bond as a guardian.”

  “I’m not taking your stone. You call Seren. She’ll come to you. She can fly you far away.”

  I shook my head. “Go to Gorlassar. Demand to speak with the High Emrys. She will know how to help you.” I lifted the stone from my neck and draped it around his. As my hand pulled away from the stone, I said, I’m sorry, Seren.

  “I thought you said mortals aren’t allowed in Gorlassar.”

  “It’s your only hope! You must try. Fight your way in. Seren will help you. Besides, you carry all my light. You are so far from corrupted that you’re a shining star. You have proven your worth. You are nobler than any person, human or emrys, I’ve ever met.”

  He pulled me into his arms. “Stars, Niawen, I love you. I will love you forever. Oh, damn it all!” His mouth fell on mine.

  I tasted heartbreak.

  I returned Kenrik’s kiss with every wish that Deian would keep him safe.

  Chapter Forty

  Dark, high walls of bark entombed me. I was blind as I ran. I possessed no light to pierce the gloom.

  I can’t see!

  I had no one. No light to cast an orb. No bond. No dragon.

  I was in the woods. A dreary forest. Enormous trees—gigantic trees—impossibly large walls of trees I couldn’t see an end to.

  I was cold. I shivered violently.

  I had no light! No light to warm myself.

  How did mortals survive wrapped in cumbersome cloth? How did they fumble around with lanterns?

  I’m not mortal. I’m not mortal.

  I stumbled. I fell. I ran out of breath.

  My stomach turned. I vomited. I shoved snow into my mouth and washed the bile taste away.

  I was scratched. My fingertips bled from scraping along the bark.

  I had never bled for so long. I could smell the odor. Smell was the only sense that accosted me, that told me I was still alive.

  My skin was numb. I couldn’t hear anything through the thick of the trees. They reached hundreds of feet into the air and obscured the sky and the moon. No stars to tell me my bright star—Kenrik—was safe.

  Why’d I give you my light?

  I was sure he was cursing my existence.

  I had no idea how long I ran. The snow was my only sustenance. I didn’t even know how it reached the forest floor in this hell without melting.

  After my heels became so blistered I was forced to crawl, I stopped. I curled against a mammoth tree root. Cold. Never had I known such bodily pain. I longed to detach my spirit from my flesh. I have only one reason to live. Deian, if it’s your will, save my child.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Well, there you are,” a man said.

  He dropped a coat over me. I squinted against the blinding lantern glow.

  “Sure enough. They said you’d be here. Those nutters were right.”

  I tried to push myself up but found my arms had no strength.

>   “Here. Let me help you. Hadyn’s my name.”

  He set the lantern down while he stooped to loop his arm under mine. “This will be a trick. You’re much bigger than I am.”

  Hadyn pulled me to my knees at least. His face was at my eye level.

  “You’re a little man,” I said.

  He looked around. “Well, I’ll be. You’re right. How peculiar.”

  I chuckled. “My name’s Niawen.”

  “Here, push off my shoulders as I hoist you from around the waist.”

  It took some effort to climb to my feet with his arms tugging and tugging. The ordeal was comical, and I laughed, despite my sorrow.

  “Come, now. I’ll take you somewhere warm. Oh, I nearly forgot.” He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a bite-sized, cloth-wrapped square. “I should have given this to you before. It will give you energy. We have to hike a ways.”

  I unwrapped the cube. The substance was tacky and squishy. I popped it in my mouth. Nougaty maple taste. A fire burned in my stomach. My senses pricked up, making me keenly alert.

  “That’s from the tegyd. The knuckleheads. Drive me batty. But they’re always right and always handy.”

  Hadyn held my hand through the woods. His lantern was a pleasant comfort. Though Hadyn was a middle-aged man, he had few wrinkles, and he was strong.

  “These trees have been here for centuries,” he muttered. “Nothing could cut them down. Bizarre how they’ve grown. People become lost all the time.”

  We squeezed between two trunks. After we rounded a tree for several minutes, we stopped at a cart. Or rather, a basket of hammered-together wood roughly four feet square, but only three feet tall.

  “You’ll have to sit in the bottom,” he said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  He tipped his chin toward the canopy. “We need to get up there.” He shook a chain on the basket’s corner.

  That’s when I realized the chains extended skyward from the basket’s four corners.

  “It’s a lift,” Hadyn said. “It’s secure. The line’s checked every day. In ten minutes we’ll reach the top.”

  My fragile, near-mortal state reminded me how I’d die if the chains snapped. I backed away. “I don’t think I can.”

  “How do you think I got down here? I promise you’ll be fine.” He rummaged in his pocket. “Would you like a sedative to ease the journey?”