Curse of the Celts

by Clara O'Connor

  “I’ll always find you,” Devyn growled and, sweeping me up, he captured my lips in an open-mouthed kiss as his tongue thrust in possessively, reassuringly. I pushed away the draining, corrupted energy; it felt wrong, twisted, as it seeped out of me.

  He was back. I poured my relief, my stress, my joy into that kiss. Tears leaked out from beneath my lids. We were alive. Against all odds, we were alive.

  Devyn finally straightened and gave Marcus a cursory glance. “What happened to you?”

  “He tried to cure a forest full of dead people of the illness,” I explained, when Marcus failed to answer.

  Devyn raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

  “And you? I left, you were… you’re still you?”

  I paused. He was right to ask.

  “Yes, I’m still me.” I thought about it a bit, further examining the effect of the handfast compulsion while Devyn had been gone. “I didn’t want to comply with the Code and head off for the city. It never occurred to me. Perhaps out of the city itself, the handfast is reduced to its core purpose of binding a couple together?

  “Good, good.” He nodded.

  “What happened to you?” I asked. How had he finally figured out that I hadn’t gone on ahead as Marcus had assured him, but that he had actually deserted us.

  “I felt your terror,” he grimaced. “Even at a distance it broke through the enchantment. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, reaching up to run my hands through his hair, a gesture that was as much for my comfort as for his. “You’re here now.”

  His lips thinned in rejection of my reassurance. While I might be okay that he made it back in time, he was less happy that he had been lured away in the first place.

  “It wasn’t your fault.” I attempted to dismiss the spell that had drawn him away. “You warned us.”

  “Not to believe your eyes, and yet that is exactly what I did. Like a fool.”

  Chapter Seven

  We made our way down the hill towards the town in the distance. As the sky began to lighten, my chest expanded and I finally pulled in deep breaths again. My feet were burning, my body was sore and stiff as the adrenaline left my system, but we were alive.

  “We’ll sleep here,” Devyn announced, pulling abruptly to a halt.

  “What?” I asked, stumbling with fatigue as I ordered my weary feet to stop. “But we’re so close.”

  “If we go in now, we will announce our presence to the entire city. In a couple of hours, when the gates are open, we can slip in with a lot less fuss.”

  “Given the choice of waiting outside with all our friends –” I glanced behind us to the forest we had barely left in our wake, the unnatural sounds that haunted us all night still audible even in the growing dawn “– I’m happy to introduce myself to every person in Oxford as long as we are behind the walls.”

  “We wait,” Devyn repeated. “The border alarms may have been triggered by the gunfire. We don’t need the attention that identifying ourselves as the owners of said imperial tech would bring.”

  That, it seemed, was that. Marcus offered no argument, wordlessly sliding to the ground. If Devyn wasn’t practically carrying him, Marcus was going no further in his current state anyway. His eyes were closing before the discussion was even concluded. Great.

  “All right then. Morning,” I conceded, earning a half smile from Devyn at my begrudging tone at being outflanked.

  “Sleep, Cass. It’s been a long night. I’ll keep watch.”

  “That’s hardly fair; I’ll take a turn.” But my eyelids were heavy; the brief use of magic had emptied me of my last ounce of strength. My head barely hit my pack before I was asleep.

  When Devyn shook us awake, the sun had lifted above the horizon. I felt worse for having rested; my body felt robbed of the proper rest that was far overdue. I scowled at Devyn as he put an arm around Marcus to help him.

  “You were supposed to wake me.”

  “You’d have been happier if I woke you earlier, princess?”

  I scowled harder.

  “Am I?” I asked as I shook off the last traces of sleep.

  “What?”

  “A princess.” The danger having passed, and realising I was on the edge of my new life, I felt curiosity about who I really was starting to bubble up within me.

  He huffed a laugh. “No.”

  “Then stop calling me that.” I braced myself. “Who am I then?”

  Devyn’s lips tightened before he lowered his voice for my ears only. “Not yet. I know you want to know more but it’s not safe yet. What you don’t know, you can’t inadvertently let slip. You’ve got to be careful, Cass. You cannot mention to anyone that you were adopted, or in any way not city-born. Bad enough that we’re travelling with him.” He indicated the broken figure that Marcus cut. “Promise me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the kingdoms are not all… It’s complicated. News that you are alive will spread quickly and attract attention that we could do without. I will tell you. As soon as it’s safe to do so. ”

  “That who is alive?” I pushed. “Who am I really? Do I have family? Are you taking me to them?”

  Devyn cast me a quelling glance as Marcus began to stir. As always, he had no intention of telling me anything more than he had to.

  “Please trust me in this.”

  “You leave me little choice,” I noted sourly.

  Marcus sat up and blearily looked around for us.

  “Fine,” I grudgingly acceded. Devyn gave me a quick smile in thanks.

  Matthias’s bags had to be abandoned, their contents too identifiably imperial, before we made our way to join the people traveling along the road that led to the city gates.

  At Devyn’s urging, we pulled up the hoods of our cloaks as we approached the walls. The brightening sky illuminated the spires of the city that peeked above the defensive walls. So different to the soaring towers of Londinium, these were delicate and shaped in a variety of needles and domes, either crenellated or slender.

  As we neared the walls, Devyn gave instructions on how we should behave once inside. Marcus trailed behind, barely conscious, let alone paying attention.

  When Devyn stepped forwards to speak with the guards at the city gate, I kept my head down and my face averted. Once we had been ushered through the gates, we followed Devyn silently through the quiet streets. I’d never been in a Briton town before. I wasn’t sure what I had expected.

  The buildings were low, many of them no more than two floors high, and constructed in a beautiful golden-coloured stone that was warm in the dawn light. Glowing lights that floated by the walls winked out as the new day began.

  The streets were cobbled and there were already people out and about beginning their day. Some wore long hooded cloaks pulled up against the cold of the autumnal morning; others were bundled in wide woollen or tweed throws wound around their shoulders over tunics and tight-fitting trousers, with robust, practical boots. Some women wore long dresses with wide belts pulling them in at the waist, all in natural-looking materials. I felt a little conscious that the lightness of our temperature-regulating clothes was not helping us blend in on the rather brisk first morning of November.

  Devyn stopped a couple of times to ask for directions, ignoring my questions as to where we were headed.

  At last, we turned in through the high walls surrounding one of the buildings that Devyn told me was a college, and Devyn asked for a final set of directions from the elderly porter for how to reach a professor.

  By this stage, Marcus was barely able to stay upright, despite Devyn’s support, and managing the curving stairs was a struggle.

  Our knock on the door was eventually answered by a large man with a tattoo curling from his temple down into his beard. He was not the effete old professor I had expected. On opening the door at this early hour, he was grumbling deeply, but pulled up short as he took in the three exhausted strangers at his door.

  His gaze snagged w
hen he reached Devyn. His scowl deepened.

  “Well, pup, what hour do you call this?”

  Devyn’s shoulders were hunched as we stood in the hallway. It seemed like he was unsure of his welcome. I took in the unsmiling face holding the door open as the bearded man contemplated us in turn. I held my breath; my legs felt like they were about to give way. I couldn’t walk another step. If this man didn’t take us in, I was going to sleep right here on his doorstep. I almost sobbed as he held the door open wider and took a step back, indicating we could come in.

  “You had to land on my door,” he said under his breath

  Devyn helped Marcus onto a seat before turning back to the large professor.

  “You expected us?”

  “Expected is a bit strong. We knew you had left Londinium. The whole Empire probably knows you three have left the city, though rumour has it you be dead. But I heard tell you be dead before; seems it don’t tend to stick. Figured there was a chance you might stop by. How many other friends do you have on the road north?” He spoke to Devyn, but he was still surveying Marcus and me, taking in our nondescript clothing, which was simple and neither recognisably Briton nor imperial in style.

  “Are we friends?” Devyn challenged quietly.

  “Can’t say that we are, my lad.” At this he grinned before sticking a hand out to me. “I expect we’ll stand here all day waiting for himself to introduce us. I’m Callum Reed.”

  “Hi.” My hand was engulfed by his shovel-sized paw. “I’m Cassandra, and this is Marcus.”

  “Yes, yes, indeed.” He stopped studying me in detail, his gaze passing back to Marcus before he continued, “Isn’t that something? The last of the Plantagenets at my door with his little city girl. Who would have believed it?”

  He grinned again, his faded blue eyes creasing before finally releasing my hand. “Hungry, are we?”

  I nodded. I could eat any one of the many books that lined the walls of his sitting room right now as long as it was served up hot. The cold of the night had seeped through to my bones. I felt like I’d never be warm again. Callum served us toasted sandwiches oozing with cheese and onions that I’m sure would have been incredibly tasty if we hadn’t wolfed them down, barely taking the time to chew. Full and heated through, my eyes started to close as I listened to Callum attempt to get the tale of our escape from Devyn, who had reverted to his incommunicative default setting.

  “I’ll tell you after,” I mumbled. “Never get anything out of him when he’s in this mood.”

  “That’s true.” Callum smiled broadly at me. “I’ll let you all have a little rest then, and we’ll have a proper chat at dinner. You can be guests that actually talk back when your host asks you how you do.”

  This last came with a glare at Devyn.

  “Follow me.” Leaving the little sitting room, I followed him down the hall. “Only my own room here, I’m afraid. But you’ll do all right here, and the boys, I’m sure, are happy where they are as long as they have a blanket. Your friend Marcus wouldn’t even need that, I dare say.”

  I took in the large wooden bed with its many throws, and even more books littering the floor in higgledy-piggledy stacks. I felt a little vulnerable separated from the boys. It was crazy because they were only in the next room, and I could sense both of them. If anything were to happen to me, even if I couldn’t cry out, Devyn would feel it. As I sank onto the bed, I wasn’t sure I cared about any potential threat as much as I should. All I knew was the comfort of being fed and warm with a soft pillow under my cheek.

  I woke to find the room in darkness, apart from a fire that had been lit in the neat fireplace on the other side of the room. It danced and crackled merrily as I slowly rose out of the deepest, most appreciated sleep of my life. Throwing off the covers and the last vestiges of sleep, I crept down the hall towards the light emanating from the sitting room. A creaking floorboard announced my entrance, and Devyn looked up from the window seat where he lounged, watching the courtyard below. He nodded to me briefly before resuming his activity. Marcus was still passed out on the chair which he had taken on arrival that morning.

  “Where’s Callum?” I asked quietly.

  “Out.”

  I sighed. Now that our immediate futures were not in doubt, Devyn had reverted to his usual taciturn self. I walked over to him, hovering while I figured out my approach.

  “He’s going to help us?” I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the giant professor; his welcome had been somewhat tepid.

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? What does that mean? He’s already helping us, isn’t he? He’s taken us in, anyway. How do you know him?”

  “He was my tutor when I was young.”

  “He doesn’t seem awfully surprised or pleased to see you alive,” I observed, recalling the mixed emotions our arrival on his doorstep seemed to have evoked.

  “I don’t imagine he was. The news that I didn’t die a decade ago will have filtered out by now. Not everyone will rejoice at the news; some may even seek to correct the situation.”

  When Devyn left for the city in search of me, many assumed he had died in the attempt. He was only sixteen when he ran off and he hadn’t been heard from in years. The Briton delegates I met at the Treaty Renewal had certainly been mixed in their reaction to his reappearance.

  “People out here want to kill you? Why?” What happened to my real mother wasn’t his fault. What had he done that was so bad?

  “I told you before, when I left I abandoned the fealty I owed to my lord. I broke my oath.”

  “So you broke a promise. You did it for a good reason. People would kill you for this?” I asked, aghast. “You think Callum might want you dead?”

  Why on earth had he brought us here then?

  Devyn smiled grimly. “No, I don’t think Callum wants me dead. We may have had our issues in the past, but that’s all bygones now.”

  I frowned, “Bygones?”

  “In the past, I hope,” said Devyn, explaining his use of a term unfamiliar to me. Since we had left the city, Devyn’s accent had been slowly softening, nowhere near Callum’s thick drawl but certainly much more Celt than it had been. Now it had a melodic quality to it that hadn’t been there before.

  “Because you’ve brought Marcus out to help with the illness?” I asked after a moment.

  His dark head bowed.

  “Having the last Plantagenet in tow may not entirely redeem my reputation, but it won’t hurt. It looks like he thinks you are just Marcus’s betrothed,” he said, using an old-fashioned term I vaguely knew. A betrothal was a promise to marry, like we had before scientific matching… which it turns out was all a lie anyway. “I would rather keep it that way. He is a teacher, though; it might be useful for you to learn something of your power and how to control it.”

  “We can trust him?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. Be careful. Callum has somewhat divided loyalties. While he served the house where I was fostered when I was a child, he is Anglian. He’ll have loyalties of his own.” Devyn’s dark eyes were sombre. “And while I may hopefully be forgiven, I am not loved. He has no reason to suspect you are more than you appear: just Marcus’s betrothed, with some latent talent.”

  “I see.” Although I wasn’t sure that I did. I thought once we made it out of the city, we would be safe – or at least once we had traversed the nightmare that was the borderlands. We had left the Empire behind and we were deep in Briton territory, yet we still weren’t safe. I felt betrayed somehow. Devyn had promised that we would be.

  Actually, I realised, he hadn’t.

  Devyn had never promised anything except that I didn’t belong in the city and that we shouldn’t be together. Two truths that I still struggled to accept, and both of which denied me the home I so desperately sought. Now it seemed he was telling me we were still far from securing refuge.

  Without speaking another word or even looking at Devyn, I left the room.

  Over dinner we told Callum about
our escape from the tower along the river, about the death of Marcus’s father and the terrifying journey through the woods, give or take some details.

  He stopped us when it came to the hounds, his raised eyebrow aimed at Devyn during my stumbling explanation of how we chased off the hounds first with guns and then, less coherently, a second time.

  “They chased off the hounds twice, eh?” He spoke directly to his former pupil. “You think I’ve lost what wits I had in the years since we last met? I know a burnout when I see one. Yon Plantagenet lad doesn’t look like he’d have been much help; from the look of him he still ain’t up to much. You telling me you and this pretty chit fought ’em off with a stick? Comes to mind that despite the boy burnt out like he was, they was still awful interested in a couple of city kids.”

  Devyn remained tight-lipped.

  “What difference would Marcus being burnt out make?” I asked.

  Again, Devyn said nothing.

  The professor slashed him an irritated look before explaining. “They’re hungry, but not in the way you might think. They don’t go after most people, even on Samhain. With him being drained of magic, there was no reason for them to come for you.”

  “Cassandra has magic,” Devyn said, shrugging in answer to the surprised question in my eyes. He had said that perhaps Callum could help me; it looked like he had decided to trust him. “There have been a small number of cases in the city of people displaying magic. The illness outs them. People like my mother, who were already in danger of being discovered before the sickness, displaying symptoms puts an even bigger target on their backs. I’ve helped a few of them out of the city before now. The Mallacht is now taking down latents as well, and there’s a lot more of them.”

  “So I’ve heard. That girl you sent over this summer caused quite the stir.” The large man grunted before surveying me again with a little more interest. “How much you got, girl?”

  “I don’t know. I was blocked for years. I don’t really know what I’m doing.” I shrugged. “Sometimes when I’m distracted my consciousness can float away. Other times when I’m angry or afraid the elements respond.”