by E E Everly
My chest was barren.
I smashed the light into Kenrik. His body tensed, and he screamed.
I failed to think about the repercussions for Kenrik.
“What did you do, Niawen?” Caedryn clawed forward, seized my shirt, and thrust me onto the floor. “How could you give him your light?”
Kenrik’s wails ripped my soul open.
I’ve killed him!
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Caedryn hissed, “but you leave me no choice.” He climbed onto me and straddled my midsection.
“Get off me!” I thrashed beneath him, powerless without my light. Soon a crushing pressure pinned me. His cold hands clamped over my wrists.
I couldn’t fight. I had no fight left. I gave it away with my light. Master of Light, please save Kenrik.
I couldn’t sense him. His feelings were unreadable as his cries filled the chamber, but I didn’t have to read them. Kenrik was suffering. The whole of my light inside a mortal—I could only imagine his burning.
“Niawen!” Kenrik rasped.
No, no, no. I squeezed my eyes shut.
A glow filled the room. I couldn’t open my eyes if I wanted to. A sensation of pressure intensified all over my body. I had the sickening sense Caedryn was forcing his darkness inside me. I was void of my light, so what did it matter? I slackened, sinking back, and embraced the cold as it inched its way over me.
He spat his words into my ear. “You are mine. If light can’t bind us, darkness will!”
I had been frozen by every fear in my life, but the fear of being bound to Caedryn through the darkness was the worst of all. The ugly sludge would bring an unrest I couldn’t be free of. I’d never have forgiveness for accepting the darkness. I’d never be washed from the guilt of my indiscretions while at Caedryn’s side. I’d be dirty forever.
I didn’t want any of that. Caedryn’s darkness might fill me up, but this power wasn’t for me.
“Daughter of Darkness. Fallen Emrys,” Caedryn purred.
“I. Am. A. Daughter. Of. Light!”
“What did you think would happen as you gave yourself to me?” Caedryn roared. “You would have turned to the darkness eventually. Embrace it.”
“It’s not possible. I am light!”
“You were light.”
My light was gone. I felt nothing. I was unable to discern anything. I had truly given all my light to Kenrik.
That meant I was scrubbed free of Caedryn.
But his darkness was winning, pushing its way into my body.
Caedryn whispered in my ear while stroking my head. “It will be over quickly, my love, and we’ll be united forever.”
He was insane. Completely. I couldn’t hope to save him. Not anymore.
“I’ve used the darkness for hundreds of years.” Caedryn spoke in a reverent hush. “It’s magnificent. Darkness is greater than light. You will come to know of its glory—its power to create in a way the Master of Light can’t.”
“Please don’t do this,” I mumbled.
“I must, dearest. I must.” He continued to purr to me, to run his fingers over my hair.
A sadistic glee filled his brown eyes as my world grew dark. I don’t want this. I don’t want this. Deian, fight for me. I have no hope. I am lost. What’s left for me? Give me a reason to restore my light!
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 the point of living forever was. 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.
My salvation was too late. Floating upward didn’t feel like life, it felt like moving on.
SIXTY-SIX
“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 asked.
“I couldn’t resist paybacks for the weeks of torture, the black heart,” Kenrik said.
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.”
Kenrik 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 ba
ck. 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.
SIXTY-SEVEN
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 pub. 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’d 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?” he asked. “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 go 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,” he said.
“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,” I said. “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,” he said. “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,” Ken
rik 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. Before 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 in a desperately hungry kiss.
I tasted heartbreak.
I returned Kenrik’s kiss with every wish that Deian would keep him safe.
SIXTY-EIGHT
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 couldn’t be.
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.
