Since her marriage to Ronen, Celene had spent four months of the year at Sandrine. This was required for Ronen to fulfil his duties as Bân. During the sojourn, Celene had become a trusted friend to the terribly homesick Arianne, who missed Eden Taryn and was still finding her way among humans after being sheltered behind the Veil for so long.
As two friends, they could not have been more different. While Arianne was elven grace personified, Celene’s hair was like the gold of a sandy shore and her disposition just as breezy. She had hazel eyes and preferred breeches to dresses. However, they both shared a liking for the absurd, and as Dare and Ronen had often remarked beyond their hearing, they shared the same stubborn streak capable of bending iron.
‘Nicely put Celene.’ Arianne retorted with a smile, accustomed to Celene’s teasing. Celene had a mischievous wit and Arianne knew that much of the reason why she enjoyed her company was because the daughter of Angarad could make her laugh.
‘I agree,’ Keira said giving Celene a look of amusement. ‘You sound like Tully when he’s describing one of the sheep after quickening!’
‘Fine, fine,’ Celene rolled her eyes, ‘Your highness, is your heart all aquiver and your soul warm with the joy of delivering to your lord and master his first heir?’ she smirked.
‘I think I preferred the first way,’ Arianne returned, making her face at Celene's amendment. ‘However to answer your question, I feel well. I am told that this will change as the child grows, but I suppose it is the same for all women, mortal or elf.’
‘Tully is looking at me strangely,’ Keira frowned. ‘I think your situation has made him wonder why we aren’t like everyone in the village, saddled with a dozen children. Not we have failed for the lack of trying.’
Although she was smiling as she spoke, it did not reach her eyes. Both Arianne and Celene understood that this would bother Keira because the people of the Green tended to have large families and the lack of children at Furnsby Farm would not have gone unnoticed by their neighbours. Worse yet, she had to be concern that there was the possibility that the Disciples’ torture might have made her incapable of bearing them at all.
‘I think a child will only form when it is ready, but there is nothing wrong with enjoying each other before a third party arrives. It felt like Dare and I waited to be with each other for so long that we wish to wait for nothing. We have only one life time to share together and so we must fill every moment of it as soon as possible. It feels right for us that a child should come sooner rather than later.’
Arianne smiled to herself, remembering the searing night of passion that followed after she had told him about the baby. ‘Do not worry about children just yet,’ she said to Keira trying to put the woman’s mind at ease. ‘Let it happen as it will. If I were you, I’d enjoy the time when it is just the two of you, because once the children come, the whole world changes. I know it has already for Dare and I.’
‘That's true,’ Celene agreed, giving Keira a look of sympathy realising what Arianne was about. ‘Still I think all men feel that they have failed in some fashion if they do not produce a strapping son to follow them. I came from a house of five brothers. When the time comes for me, I want a girl.’
‘You would say that,’ Arianne retorted, ‘you just want someone to teach the sword.’
‘I know I could teach a boy too but it won’t be nearly as interesting.’ Celene winked at her two friends.
‘Honestly Celene,’ Keira declared. ‘I don’t know if I would have had the courage to do what you did. Fighting at Astaroth and then leading your father’s army into battle.’
‘Nonsense,’ Celene dismissed such talk immediately. ‘You saved Dare from the Disciples. We all know what you went through to do that and I cannot say if I would have prevailed in the face of the Blinding Curse. I can fight against things I can raise a sword to. What you endured, that was different.’
‘Strength does not require a person to be a great swordsman,’ Arianne said squeezing Keira’s shoulder. ‘Sometimes its just having the will to endure.’
‘Thank you,’ Keira said gratefully. ‘Poor Tully seems to think I’m so fragile and I want to show him I’m not.’
‘He’s a man,’ Celene snorted. ‘They never know anything until you hit them on the head with it. I never had to prove myself, it was only when I left Angarad that I was treated differently. Men always seem to think you need special consideration.’
‘Tully loves you Keira,’ Arianna said kindly, ‘I think that he has been so worried about you healing that he has forgotten to do it himself.’
‘I suppose,’ the lady of the Green sighed before deciding that a return to a happier subject was in order. ‘So I suppose this means that if we have daughters, they too will be headstrong, determined and thoroughly capable of getting into trouble?’
‘I prefer the word self-sufficient as opposed to headstrong,’ Celene quipped.
‘Self-sufficient, I do believe I like the sound of that,’ Arianne nodded with agreement before the three women exchanged glances and burst out into another round of laughter.
Suddenly, a beam of moonlight slipped past the clouds and struck the pond in the centre of the garden. The reflection of the moon shimmered across the surface and its light caught Arianne in the eye. For a moment she felt her mind empty and the voices of Keira and Celene seemed like distant echoes. Without warning she heard her mother’s soft voice speak inside her mind.
Come Arianne, it is time to begin.
*****
The summons by Lylea had left Arianne with such a feeling of anxiety that both Celene and Keira insisting on following her to her audience with her mother. None of them spoke as they approached Lylea because they could feel the weight of something terrible awaiting revelation in Arianne’s eyes. There was a sense of ominous foreboding as they found themselves standing next to Lylea at another part of the palace grounds. This space was more isolated with a tall hedge that allowed no one to see them as they stood in its boundaries waiting for Lylea to speak.
Oddly enough, Lylea did not object to either Keira or her being present, Celene noticed and wondered why. The elves were not known for their ability to take other races into their confidence and while Arianne was different from most, Celene did not expect her mother the Queen to be similarly disposed.
‘Thank you for accompanying my daughter,’ Lylea said to Celene and Keira upon receiving them. ‘She will need your strength.’
Celene suddenly felt terribly afraid for Arianne.
‘My daughter,’ Lylea turned to Arianne and spoke softly, reaching forward to brush her hand over her daughter’s hair like she had done for most of Arianne’s life. ‘There is something you must see, something I must show you.’
‘What is it mother?’ Arianne asked more than a little afraid. All her life she had seen Lylea’s prescience at work and although she did not have her mother’s talent, she believed in its power. Her mother was standing in front of a smaller pond, holding an urn she knew her mother used when there was a vision she wanted to share with someone who did not have the Sight.
‘I think you know,’ Lylea replied and poured the contents of the urn into the pool. The water trickled forth lightly, creating gurgles against the broken surface that sent ripples outward
‘I don't know,’ Celene blurted out, feeling the same fear and reacting in the only manner in which she knew against such anxiety. ‘Tell me.’
‘All in good time,’ Lylea said smoothly, accustomed to such impatience from the race of men.
Arianne swallowed thickly, looking to Celene and Keira before turning to Lylea once more, her innards twisting with growing anxiety. Her mother’s Sight showed many things—the past, the present and the future. It was a window into infinite possibilities, and yet as Lylea asked her to look she felt uncommonly afraid, more than was usual for her. She was not a woman who cowered in fear at the first sign of danger. She had faced evil before and prevailed. But this thing that Lylea would have her do frigh
tened her in a way she could not explain and yet could not refuse either.
Arianne decided finally the fear would only have more power over her mind if she continued to delay and so she neared the edge and cast her gaze into the pool, seeing what it was Lylea needed her to witness. As Celene and Keira took a step closer she wondered whether they would see the same things she did.
At first, she saw nothing except water becoming stilled after its earlier turbulence. The ripples disappeared into a smooth reflective surface once more. Arianne could see the stars twinkling from the sky above in the reflection and drew comfort from that. However, it was short lived.
The twinkles of lights coalesced on the surface of the dark water into a raging inferno that turned the pool amber with flame. Arianne's breath caught and she wanted to recoil, but the images forming before her were mesmerizing. They ensnared her mind in their trap so she was unable to look away.
And showed Arianne her son.
She knew he could be no one else because he had the look of his father except perhaps his hair was darker and his chin more set.
He wore the armour of the king about to ride into battle and though she did not know him, she loved him immediately for he was beautiful as she always imagined a child of her and Dare’s would be. She saw him riding into the night, with Carleon’s banner held high and his armies behind him. But there was something strange about the soldiers—they did not appear as they should. For a brief instant, Arianne tried hard to discern what about them was so strange when the glow of the flames illuminated one of their faces and she understood why.
They were Berserkers!
Her son was the leader of an army of Berserkers! How was this possible? There was little time to question this as the image changed again, and this time, it was not of a handsome king leading his troops into battle. It was the image of a madman waging war and presiding over the slaughter of innocents in a ruined city. She knew without doubt was Gislaine. Its tall spires were ablaze like candles burning in the night, she could not hear the screams but she could feel them in faces of the people fleeing and by the Orean River that ran through Gislaine filled with bloated bodies.
And in the centre of all this carnage was her son!
She knew without seeing the scope of it all that he was bringing war to the cities of Carleon as if he was claiming his lordship over them by violence. Her child—the one slumbering even now in her womb as she watched this nightmare unfold—was going to be monster! Her and Dare’s child would be an evil more terrifying than even Balfure! The horror of it was beyond her comprehension. She could not believe that the Gods would allow an act of love between two parents to culminate in the birth of such a creature!
‘WHAT IS THIS OBSCENITY?’ Arianne demanded screaming, stepping back from the pool too horrified to think.
‘Arianne!’ Keira immediately came to her friend's side as Arianne sank to her knees shaking in disgust and horror at what she had witnessed.
‘What has she seen?’ The Lady of Gislaine demanded vehemently of Lylea. She and Keira had not seen what Arianne had but the horror on her face told Celene it was terrible indeed.
‘She has seen what could be,’ Lylea revealed, her face showing the pain of forcing her child to see the dark future that lay before her and all of Avalyne. However, she stood here not as the mother of Arianne but as the queen of elvendom.
‘What could be?’ Arianne cried out, looking up at her mother with tears running down her face. ‘You turn this happy day into a nightmare and speak in riddles? My son cannot be this creature that I have seen! I will not believe it!’
Lylea finally went to her daughter and lowered herself unto the grass next to Arianne, taking the hand that Keira had been holding and spoke gently, ‘You must believe it, little one,’ Lylea was using that childhood nickname, ‘you must believe it because it will come to pass unless you stop it.’
‘Me?’ Arianne stammered, her mind reeling still from the images. ‘I do not understand!’
‘There is an evil afoot—an ancient one that we have not seen hiding because we were preoccupied with the threat of Balfure and his war,’ Lylea explained. ‘For many years this Enemy has been watching and waiting for one thing—the conception of your child.’
‘What is this Enemy?’ Celene demanded, furious that there was still evil that could bring darkness to Avalyne after their hard won battles against Balfure. Have there not been enough brave men dying to prevent such a thing? How many more needed die? How much more was needed before they could be truly free? ‘What is this new evil?’
‘It is not new,’ Lylea continued and turned her attention back to Arianne. ‘My sweet Arianne, trust me when I say to you that all is not lost. What you have seen is indeed your son in the flesh, but his soul was vanquished before he was born and replaced by another.’
‘Replaced?’ Keira exclaimed in shock.
Arianne was growing confused and stared at her mother. ‘Who then has possession of his life?’
‘Mael.’ Lylea’s voice was barely a whisper.
Neither Celene or Keira recognised the name immediately but Arianne certainly did.
‘That’s impossible!’ she declared. ‘He was destroyed! The Gods threw him into the Aether! He was vanquished!’
‘Mael is one of the Celestial Gods,’ Lylea replied. ‘He was made by the Supreme and is equal to any one of them. He may have been bound to Avalyne when he chose to come here, but like the Gods, he does not die. He is disembodied but his spirit lives. The Enemy has decided that now that Balfure is gone, it is time for the return of his former master, Mael. However, Mael cannot be resurrected without a vessel and so the Enemy has chosen your child for that purpose.’
‘No!’ Arianne's cry was almost on the verge of hysteria. ‘I will not allow this! There must be a way to stop this abomination!’
‘There is,’ Lylea nodded. ‘The Enemy cannot perform the ritual to resurrect Mael until your babe is strong enough to accept such a spirit. It is too young and too fragile inside you to make such an attempt now. You must stop it before two full moons have passed. Arianne, only you can do this because as much as the Enemy hates us all, it cannot allow any harm to come to you. You are the mother of its future master, and while it may kill all others around you, you are beyond it's reach.’
‘Dare cannot know then,’ Arianne declared meeting the eyes of the other women in the garden. ‘If he learns of this danger he will insist on fighting it, and the Enemy will destroy him.’
‘Yes,’ her mother nodded gravely. ‘This is your quest, Arianne. The fate of your child lies is in your hands alone.’
‘No,’ Celene stated, not understanding all of it, but enough to know that her friend was not going on a terrible quest alone. ‘I will go with you Arianne. I will pledge my sword—as the Lady of Gislaine and as a Princess of Angarad—to the service of my friend and my Queen.’
‘And I’ll come too,’ Keira started to say when Arianne cut her off.
‘I cannot ask you both to do that,’ Arianne spoke, her voice very small in her ears. ‘This is my doom.’
‘All the more reason for you to have help,’ Celene retorted, her tone indicating that she would tolerate no argument on the matter.
Arianne closed her eyes, feeling tears of anguish rising up within her. She wanted to scream and shout at the unfairness of this, but she could not waste time with such displays. Inside her body her son needed her to be strong for him, stronger than she had ever been in her whole life. She could not falter now not when his soul was at stake. She would accept their help because she was not foolish enough to think that she could do this without her friends at her side.
‘Tell me then mother,’ Arianne said finally. ‘What must I do?’
Chapter Four:
QUIET PARTINGS
Upon returning to the Great Hall where her friends and invited guests were presently continuing their revelry into the night, Arianne realised that it was no easy thing for a Queen to preside over celebr
ation that gave her no joy. How could she, after having glimpsed the terrible future that awaited their son?
Even as she took her place next to her king, her heart was pounding so hard beneath her breast that she feared he might hear it through the din of chattering voices around them. Try as she might, she could not force away the terrible memory of what her mother showed her. Surrounded by a sea of voices belonging to the people she cared most for in the world. Arianne felt like an island of loneliness, forced to endure her despair in secret.
To their credit, Celene and Keira attempted to support her wherever they could throughout the course of the evening. They interjected when she could not think of a thing to say and offered her pregnant state as an excuse when she lapsed into her own thoughts. If not for them, Arianne did not think she would have been able to maintain the gracious mask she wore for the benefit of those around her.
Lylea had chosen to withdraw for the evening, perhaps realising her continued presence at the banquet was only adding to her daughter's melancholic state. It was she who had brought this doom upon Arianne, and she could well understand if Carleon's queen chose to look at her with resentment for spoiling what should have been a day of celebration and rejoicing. Tamsyn had watched her depart, wanting to speak to her and learn how it had gone, though it seemed obvious enough by Arianne's sedate manner for the rest of the evening that the news had not been received well. As if it ever could be received any other way.
Arianne was glad that Dare was not paying her close attention, because he might have noticed her troubled disposition. Fortunately, the King was occupied with the company of his old friends as he, Aeron, Kyou and Celene spoke of their adventuring days. Under any other circumstance, she knew that if he had asked, Arianne would not able to hide her anguish from him. They could read other too easily for anything of this magnitude to be concealed from each other indefinitely.
Avalyne Series 01: The Queen of Carleon Page 5
