by E E Everly
“She doesn’t know.”
I stiffened. So I was a big secret.
Cystenian touched my leg through the blankets. “I wasn’t sure if I needed to tell her. I didn’t know if I’d see you again. Since the fae had spelled us, our union didn’t affect the purity of my light. She didn’t need to know.”
“The purity of your light?” What the heck was he talking about? “Like your virtue or something? That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Anerah, you don’t understand. There’s a lot you don’t know. You can’t make assumptions.”
I was sick of people telling me I didn’t understand. “Why does it matter if I took your virtue? Would that have prevented your betrothal?”
“You and I bonded, but it was because of a spell. According to magical law, it’s as if it didn’t happen because we had no control over our agency. It didn’t damage my light.”
Heat burned across my face. “Magical law? Damage your light? Now you are speaking foreign words. Where I come from, you can’t undo sex! Whether it was consensual or not, it’s still sex! And how can you think that you’d be damaged after what happened between us?” Tears threatened. My throat tightened. I gulped hard. My night with Cystenian had been the most beautiful and most magical night of my life, and Cystenian was destroying the memory of it.
“Anerah…” He touched my hand.
“Look at her.” I pulled my hand away and dropped the blanket, willing Cystenian to get an eyeful. We had made Trysten. No act that made her could have been ugly. “How could our sex have possibly damaged your light? How could it be a bad thing if we made this beautiful, innocent child?”
“You’re right, Anerah. Yes, of course you’re right.”
“Now you’re just placating me.”
“I don’t want you to be upset,” he said.
“You don’t have to coddle me. I’d be more worried about your dearest betrothed. What’s she going to say when she finds out you have a daughter?”
Cystenian breathed too calmly, taking this too much in stride.
I got the gist. He wasn’t planning on telling her. “Who all knows about us and about the baby?” I asked.
Bronwen interjected, speaking softly from the bench. “Father, Mother, and us. That’s it.”
“What do your parents say? Are they calling me a whore behind my back?”
“No one’s calling you a whore,” Bronwen said. “We understand how fae work. No one’s held accountable.”
“This sickens me.” That was an accurate assessment. My stomach turned, and I felt ill and violated by secrets. I was a source of shame for Cystenian.
He scooted closer. “I didn’t want to hurt you like this.”
“You’re worried about who knows and your virtue. What about me and our bastard child?”
He winced. “You’ll be taken care of.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re going to hide us away so the world doesn’t know about us?”
“No one has to hide, Anerah,” Bronwen said.
“But you’re not going to announce your new blessing, are you?”
“No,” Cystenian said. “My betrothal stands. I’ll marry Aria.”
“Why? Break the betrothal. You just had a daughter.”
“What are you asking, Anerah?”
“I’m saying get to know me first. Doesn’t the mother of your child deserve a chance?”
Cystenian blew out his breath and stood. “I knew this would happen. It’s too late, Anerah. Aria and I have gone through with the betrothal.”
He seemed angrier with himself than with me.
“Is it binding?” I asked.
“You could say that!”
Bronwen jumped up and grabbed Cystenian’s arm. She seemed to be telling him something without words, but Cystenian was rigid, and his jaw was set.
And not understanding a thing, but knowing of ancient betrothals that were said to be as good as a marriage and knowing that they could be broken, I said weakly, “I’m sure you can get out of it.” Why was I pushing this?
“It’s not that simple,” Bronwen whispered.
“I wish”—Cystenian squeezed his eyes shut—“that you had tried harder to fight the fae with me.”
What? Did he wish that Trysten had never been born? “I thought you said that no one can ‘fight the fae.’ Why are you blaming this on me?”
How had this happened? How had such a thing as the joy over my new daughter and the miracle of being reunited with Cystenian turned into this ugly fight? I felt helpless and stupid stuck in the bed, nursing Trysten and not being able to stand and meet Cystenian on his level.
“I won’t break my betrothal over something that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”
I sucked in a breath.
The room was spinning. The blues and greens on the bed cover melted together. I looked at Trysten and begged for grounding.
When none came, I growled. “Get out.”
Cystenian’s eyes rounded, pleaded.
With abject hatred, I repeated myself. “Get out.”
“You’d better do as she says,” Bronwen said. “She looks as if she’s going to erupt.”
Cystenian backed away. “I hope you can forgive me, Anerah. We’ll talk about this more later.”
I closed my eyes, not willing to acknowledge him, and waited for him to leave.
I counted time with my daughter’s lazy sucks until a door clicked shut.
FIFTEEN
“He’s gone,” Bronwen said.
I rubbed my forehead. “It shouldn’t have happened like this. I imagined a stupid fairy-tale reunion. If he marries someone else, Trysten won’t have the attentions of her father as she should.”
Trysten was sleeping peacefully, so I broke her mouth’s suction and handed her to Bronwen while I covered myself up.
“A lot of things are beyond our control. Aria’s really not bad.”
“I’m sure she’s great, but she hasn’t had Cystenian’s child.” I threw the covers back and climbed out of bed for the first time since I arrived. My legs felt great. My privates weren’t sore. “I think I am going to love being an emrys.”
“You’ve always been an emrys.”
“Now I know some of the benefits. You’re going to teach me the rest, right?”
“All in time.” Bronwen rocked Trysten in her cradle. “You have someone else who will occupy your attention.”
“My mother is most likely freaking out. I really should contact her.”
“Freaking out?” Bronwen laughed. “You’re going to confuse me with your strange words. I have no idea what that means.”
“She’s worried. Excessively.” I stretched my back.
“Ah.” Bronwen moved to a wardrobe. “We’re going to get you dressed and out into the world.”
“I can’t wait to see this place. Will I see a dragon?”
“Not right away. They don’t live in this vale, but I will make every effort to plan a trip to another vale. You might see a delivery dragon at some point.”
“Yeah?” I pulled the covers up on my bed before turning to the window. A massive formal garden with topiaries spread out before my eyes. “This is like a professionally done national garden.”
“We work at it.” She flung the wardrobe open and pulled out my bra. “I don’t know what this contraption is, but I took it off your breasts.
I snatched it from Bronwen. “It’s a bra. It keeps these knockers from jiggling around.”
Bronwen frowned. I took it she didn’t like my term for breasts. “Would you like something that will make breastfeeding easier?”
“Show me what you have.”
Bronwen pulled out strange half shirts with the same stretchy neckline as my gown. No corsets? Awesome. I totally thought this was a medieval affair. She gestured to a curtained off area in the corner for me to change. I guessed I was allowed privacy when donning clothes but not when breastfeeding. Weird.
After takin
g my gown off, I slipped the half shirt over my head. It cinched under my boobs, like my bra, and was stretchy and form-fitting. What kind of fabric was this? Some sort of elastic? I concluded that since this was another world, that my adventures were part science fiction and fantasy, so they must have advancements and things that earth didn’t have while maintaining the pleasant medieval touches that my eyes saw everywhere.
I wiggled my upper body, satisfied. The shirt held everything in place.
Bronwen passed some long-looking shorts through the curtain’s part. This must be a medieval touch.
“So, uh, why am I so hot?” I pulled the shorts or, uh, bloomers on. At least I would call them bloomers. The satiny but stretchy fabric came to my knees and skimmed over my body like a second skin. I didn’t mind; I’d pretend they were shorts. “Ever since I discovered this flaming ability, I’ve been roasting. I was afraid I’d cook Trysten.”
Bronwen parted the curtain and touched my arm. “You are hot. Your body must not be accustomed to regulating your light. I guess you had a surge from your first flight, and it’s been building since then. Don’t worry; your body will normalize. I can see the extra heat your body’s shaving off.”
Shaving off? I tried to see this heat she was referring to. I assumed it had to do with some sort of internal eye, something similar to what my father had used to coach me through my labor. I squinted at my arm and saw nothing. Then I closed my eyes. I imagined what my light might look like sloughing off my arm. Maybe it didn’t come off my arms, maybe it came off the top of my head. I couldn’t see anything exactly. I thought I saw a wave of color with my eyes closed, but that could have been the usual swirls I saw when my eyes were closed.
While Bronwen combed through the wardrobe, I roamed around the room in my undergarments, looking at the carved bureau and the woven rug. Everything was in creams and mints. Perfect for a beach house.
I stopped at my daughter in the lace-covered cradle. She was beautiful, but what mother wouldn’t say that about her child? A tear beaded in the corner of my eye. I wouldn’t cry. I’d made it through the delivery. This betrothal was just a snafu.
I don’t care. Cystenian can marry whomever he wants.
But I did care. Deeply, so completely.
I wasn’t going to let him go without a fight.
My upset over his betrothal was so silly. I didn’t even know him.
This must be hormones.
Bronwen held out a pale pink garment.
I narrowed my eyes. “A dress, huh?”
“You don’t have to wear a dress, but I thought that you should for the first time meeting my parents.”
I nodded. “Brilliant suggestion.” I would go with it. The less I had to think about, the less I had to worry about. For now, I would rely on Bronwen to steer me right in this new world.
I slipped the soft, empire-waist dress over my head. No buttons, just two tails that Bronwen tied at my back. The material swished around my ankles. Like something out of a Jane Austen novel, only more casual. It felt like a daytime sundress. “What’s this light that you and Cystenian talk about?”
“Your light is how you flew. It’s in us, Anerah. You’re only part emrys, a half-emrys, but you carry light nonetheless.” Her index finger touched the middle of my chest, above the swell between my breasts. “Right there, in your heart-center.” She saw my confusion. “The heart’s center. Uh, somewhat similar to your spirit. Your heart doesn’t have its own spirit, but it has this core. A spiritual core of light. Close your eyes and look. It will make more sense.”
Hmmm. I’d already tried closing my eyes and looking, with no success. I gazed at Bronwen over an invisible pair of glasses. The expression my grandmother gave me when she was scrutinizing my face.
“Try it. Close your eyes and tell yourself you want to look into your heart-center. It’s like a small sun,” Bronwen said.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I could picture my beating heart easily enough. I’d seen pictures and videos of the heart. So I imagined every thump thump as I tuned in to the beat, with my hand over my chest.
Then a strange thing happened. What was an image—the picture in my mind from an anatomy textbook—turned on itself, plumped up, and came to life, complete with the muscle contractions and blood whooshing through the vessels.
I gasped. Intuition told me I was looking into my chest—like a 4-D scan.
“What do you see?” Bronwen asked.
“My heart!” I looked closer. The muscle fibers beat with a strength I didn’t think possible. The movement should have jarred my chest as powerful as the beats were, but my heart stayed in one place. Squeeze and release. Squeeze and release.
“Go deeper. On a spiritual level. Tell your light to show you the core.”
All right! I had faith enough from the glimpse of my heart to believe that I could see more. I sought for a wispy substance, not quite like a ghost, but more like a spirit, the image of my heart but not the heart itself.
I felt Bronwen’s hand on my shoulder.
“It’s more concrete. I know it will be hard to believe, but our light is tangible to us. Look for the small sun that I suggested.”
“Got it.” I nodded. “A sun. I want to see a sun in my chest. A flaming orb of—” I froze when my sight zoomed out to take on my heart as a whole. Holy cow! Then I looked beyond my physical heart, not exactly looking within my heart but rather looking all around it.
My actual heart and the “sun” were separate. Not quite a sun but a sphere of swirling blue energy overlaid on the heart. Sometimes the light jumped across flecks of blackness that reminded me of sunspots. The black flecks swirled within the blue light, sometimes disappearing, as if the light consumed them, but most of the time, the light skipped over the black areas as the light continually turned around on itself.
Wow.
I swear I was staring at the beginning of creation. I had to have been. An atom blown up to encompass my entire heart.
I truly was atomic.
“You see it, then,” Bronwen said. “That’s the origin of your light. A gift from the Creator for his dragon guardians.”
My eyes popped open. Dragons. I really wanted to see one. “Are you a dragon guardian? Where’s your dragon?”
“I don’t have a dragon. Not in this valley. I wasn’t blessed to be chosen as a dragon guardian.” She winked. “But that’s all right. You have your secret hawk wings, and I’m hoping you’ll teach me.”
“Of course.” I liked Bronwen already. It would be nice to have a sister.
A daughter, a sister, and baby daddy all in one day. How could I have been so lucky?
SIXTEEN
After my conversations with Bronwen and Cystenian, I was dreading meeting anyone who’d judge me, especially the parents.
“Don’t worry,” Bronwen said as we walked down the hall to dinner. “They aren’t scary. They’re nice people, who just have a lot of expectations, but they aren’t unreasonable.”
Yeah, right. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.” I glanced at Trysten in my arms. The parents hadn’t even come up to my room to see her. Bronwen said I could leave Trysten in my room with the nanny, but I refused to let my daughter out of sight.
Nanny Aelwen, a lovely young woman who showed up shortly after I was dressed, trailed behind us, in case she was needed. Probably to hold my wee bundle while we ate, if I could let her go for that long.
Trysten’s little lips were pushed out, and every now and then her cheeks moved as if she were nursing.
I sighed. She was a dream.
Bronwen opened the double doors leading out to a veranda where the late afternoon meal was being served. The view over the west railing was of the front lawn and drive. A fountain with a statue spouted water. Trees, resembling oaks, lined the road. I shook my head. I would have to show Bronwen a few period flicks. Had they stolen ideas from our nineteenth-century world?
A thirty-something woman turned from the railing. She could hav
e been Bronwen’s twin. “There you are, Anerah.”
Bronwen gestured to the blonde-haired woman. “Anerah, this is my mother, Eiluned.”
She was young to have a grown daughter.
“Let me see my granddaughter.” As Eiluned held her arms out, loose, flowing sleeves draped from her slender wrists.
Crap. She was an angel. Forget about Cystenian as my angel. This woman was grace herself. I looked at the cherub in my arms, catching a glance of my auburn waves settled over my shoulders. I must look like a demon to them. “Nice to meet you. Should I call you Eiluned?”
“That’s fine. No formalities.”
No formalities? Was she a lady or something? I crossed the stone floor, around the iron-latticed table, and as I passed her Trysten, the fruity smell of roses filled my nose. Eiluned must have bathed in them.
“She’s beautiful.” Eiluned touched Trysten’s nose before looking up at me. “She has your coloring.”
Panic edged me. Trysten and I were not blonde like every single emrys I had met, from his family to the servants in the hall and even Nanny Aelwen. When we’d met, Cystenian had made it clear that he was an emrys and I was a part emrys, so his parents would be pure emrys. Bronwen was a pure emrys. If the blonde hair and various shades of green eyes told me anything, it was that a theme was going on among these pure emrys.
Mom was a human, and Dad had dark hair, so he must not have been pure emrys either, which confirmed I wasn’t pure emrys. The way Cystenian’s mother had said “your coloring” left little room for me to doubt that it was a judgment on her part.
I didn’t measure up.
Or was I jumping to conclusions?
A man’s voice carried from across the veranda. “Now, Eiluned, you’re making the girl nervous.” A new person had entered. His hair was the color of straw, but not any less glorious in luster, and his eyes were friendly and green.
Eiluned swept over to the man. “Tomos, darling, she was nervous when she arrived.”
Was it that obvious?
Bronwen took my elbow. “It’s all right,” she whispered.
Tomos approached me. A dark blue tunic emphasized the deep green of his eyes and draped to his knees over fitted pants that went straight to his ankles. Soft slip-on shoes covered his feet. I would describe him as sleek and sophisticated, his clothes Indian in style, yet this must have been casual dinner attire. If he had pointy ears, he would have made a good elf. “I know circumstances are odd, but we’ll love you as if you were our own. Please make this place your home. I imagine you and Trysten will need a place to stay in Brynmor so you can be close to Cystenian.”
