Curse of the Celts

by Clara O'Connor

  I tried not to think too hard about how determined those eerie beasts were once they were in pursuit. I had caused this. Callum warned me that the hounds were unlikely to forget me and that I shouldn’t do anything to attract their attention. Well, pouring everything I had into Devyn to try and heal him had caught their attention.

  I sat down on the bank, watching the swirl of the great waters. A terrifying thought occurred to me.

  “What if they went after Bronwyn and Devyn instead of us?”

  “We should be so lucky,” Gideon said grimly.

  “It’s not possible or it’s not likely?” How could he wish that on them? They couldn’t travel quickly with Devyn so ill, and they would stand no chance against the hounds.

  “Both.”

  We waited for him to explain, but in typical fashion he had turned away to tend to the horses rather than expand on his reply. Gideon didn’t do much of that, I had noticed. It was still unclear to me why he’d thrown that knife at Devyn in the first place, when he’d already realised that he bore no threat to Bronwyn, much less why the blade had been tainted with whatever was making Devyn sick.

  I had had enough. Anger burned through me as I picked myself up off the cold, damp ground and strode over to Gideon. My arms were already outstretched to push the hulking warrior but he turned at my not so stealthy approach, and I ended up with my hands pushing against his chest. However, as a trained soldier, he was braced for impact, and I just crumpled against him.

  I looked up to find him smirking down at me. Fury blazed through me, but he held his ground. He had to be able to feel my anger.

  “Easy,” he gentled me, his amusement fading.

  Energy pulsed through me, looking for an outlet. Gideon’s eyes widened as he seemed to sense the power snapping and crackling beneath the surface.

  “Dammit,” he cursed, and picked me up before striding into the river up to his knees.

  The energy in me paused, unsure of its target, his actions having bewildered me.

  “Put your hands into the river and let the water take it,” he ordered me.

  Who was he to tell me what to do? He hurt Devyn, forcing me to leave him behind while he carried Marcus and me off to gods knew where.

  “Listen to me,” he barked, pulling my attention outward once more. “Your power attracts the hounds. You need to release it as gently as possible, do you hear me?”

  I nodded.

  “Lean down and put your hands in the water. The Severn goddess will take it; you just need to release it,” he counselled me.

  I put my hands down into the icy water and felt the heat burn through me and out through my hands into the water. The water seemed to sigh as it took the power I released, sending out a feeling of gratitude and love at receiving the gift I gave it. The anger that had ignited the power had transformed into a blessed energy. Usually Devyn distracted me, grounding me somehow while the power dissipated.

  This time, as the energy was released, my body seemed to go limp, until I was unable to tell where the power I was giving ended and my own personal energy began. I couldn’t stop myself feeding the energy into the river. It flowed into the water that journeyed the course of this land and out to the sea where waves embraced it, the land-born water joining with the salty pull of the tides that washed it away.

  “Stop her.” I heard Marcus’s urgent voice come from the bank.

  Gideon scooped me higher, my skin losing contact with the rushing, swirling waters. I moaned softly. I wanted to go back. I felt abruptly cut off from the loving force that had taken the power I poured into it. I didn’t want to leave. I struggled in the arms that confined me as they swept me up to the bank where Gideon laid me down on the ground far from the water’s edge because the lapping swirl still called to me.

  “Cassandra,” Marcus cried. I lifted sleepy eyes as he ran his hands over me, pressing against my pulse points. My head swung back, too heavy to hold up as he attempted to lift me.

  “What in Hades have you done?” he snarled at Gideon. But it seemed Gideon still wasn’t in the mood to explain himself and his footsteps faded then returned with the accompanying sound of the whickering horses.

  “Lift her to me.”

  “No.” Marcus spoke sharply. “I don’t know what you just did to her, but she stays with me.”

  “You thrice-damned fool.” The warrior’s voice was a low growl in the gloom of approaching night. “We’re trying to sneak away from the beasts that hunt us, and she throws out a gods-damned beacon that any hound within a hundred miles will have felt. We need to be elsewhere, fast. Now, stand up, hand her to me, get on your horse, and we ride for the town. Keep up or don’t, I couldn’t care less, but when those hounds get here, I will be long gone. Do you understand?”

  I tried to help as Marcus lifted me into the waiting arms. Gideon’s hands gripped my upper arms as he hauled my almost entirely limp body up onto the horse in front of him.

  He took the reins and, taking care to ensure my cloak was wrapped tightly around me, his arms settled in a warm band around my waist. Unable to help myself, I slumped against the warmth of the broad chest behind me.

  I still loathed him.

  Without waiting for Marcus to mount, he turned his horse’s head and started to ride.

  We flew through the night, the horse surefooted as its master guided it across the obstacle course of trees and bracken that was barely lit in the fading evening light. Finally, the lights of the town could be seen in the night sky and we joined a road that headed directly towards the closed gates.

  Our arrival caused a commotion and there was some argument with the guards. Gideon of course overruled them with some no doubt terrifying threat, but I was too tired to follow it. My only real awareness grasped that Marcus was still with us as I heard his soothing voice temper Gideon’s aggressive approach.

  When I opened my eyes again, it was to the soft firelight of a bedroom, the feel of blankets, and the security that came with Marcus’s proximity in the bed with me. A bed. I was unresisting as sleep pulled me back down into its comforting arms.

  I woke again as the grey light of dawn slipped into the room. I surveyed my surroundings – it seemed we were in a house or an inn, perhaps. Nothing too fancy – bare floorboards and barer walls – but it was inside, though a little cold now that the fire seemed to have gone out. I raised my head to see if I could solve that particular situation. There, beside the still glowing embers of a fire, was Gideon, stretched out on a chair, his long legs before him, his head uncomfortably rolled to the side.

  I lifted the arm that Marcus had wrapped around me and crept out of bed and across the dusty floorboards. I gently poked a couple of logs onto the fire and watched as they caught from the embers and flame began to lick up the side of the lower one. Backing away, I flicked a glance at the long-legged warrior, the hard planes of his face stern even in rest. The tangled tattoo winding up his neck was exposed by the awkward fall of his head and his long dark hair was free and trailed loosely over his shoulder. I winced as I caught sight of his trousers. They were still wet on the side that had not been exposed to the heat of the fire.

  I took a blanket from the bed and returned to place it over the large sleeping man; it was the least I could do. What was wrong with me? Had I really tried to…? I paused. How had I pulled all that power into myself? What had I thought I would do with it? Obliterate him? I realised I could have; that possibility had flickered before me in the moment. What had I been thinking? But I hadn’t been thinking, and the power had surged in response to my fear for Devyn and my annoyance at Gideon. Instinctively, it had wanted to strike… In anger or in defence, I wasn’t sure. I could have killed him.

  Draping the blanket gently over him, I realised the hooded lids weren’t entirely closed and my activities were under the flinty gaze of our unwilling guide.

  “I’m sorry.” The words just popped out of my mouth. I didn’t know if I meant to apologise, but I had tried to attack him and I’d pu
t all our lives in danger by pulling in magic, the one thing I had been warned not to do. The words felt heavy in the air as he made no acknowledgement that I had spoken at all.

  “To Hades with you,” I threw at him as I whipped away. It was his own damn fault that I had wanted to kill him; he was the one to blame for this in the first place.

  His hand caught and held me, wrapping around my wrist. I stalled but didn’t turn back to look at him. My body was stiff.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, taking me by surprise.

  I nodded.

  “Your trousers are still wet,” I said, turning back and indicating the leg furthest away from the fire where the leather looked darker as far up as his thighs.

  His lip tugged up at the corner. “Yes.”

  “You should dry them while we have a fire,” I admonished. Why he hadn’t done it overnight was beyond me, but maybe he had tried to stay awake on guard. I guessed it would have put him at a disadvantage had hound or man burst in here to attack us. I smiled as the image of him fighting with his scrawny legs exposed amused me.

  One eyebrow rose and he levered himself out of the chair. Watching me, he proceeded to open his trousers at the waist before peeling them off. His thighs were as wide as tree trunks and were wrapped in more of those twirling Celtic tattoos. A tree encased one muscled calf, its branches reaching up and wrapping themselves around his thigh. I wondered how far its pattern played over his body.

  And my cheeks proceeded to heat as I realised what I was doing – the type of full-body flush that I knew had my face glowing red in the grey light of dawn. I refused to look up to see if he had noticed. Of course he would have. I grabbed the damp trousers and busied myself with straightening them out. They were still warm from his body as I draped them over the arm of the chair on the other side of the fire.

  I hesitated.

  “How did you know what to do?” I asked softly, not wishing to disturb Marcus.

  “I have a friend with some of your talents,” he returned equally quietly, his voice a low rumble in his broad chest.

  My eyes flicked to his. I so badly wanted to know more but I was damned if I would ask him for anything, no matter how desperately I wanted it. I gnawed at my lip as I considered my options. I could return to the relative warmth of the bed while it was still available… but I couldn’t resist. What he had revealed was not nothing. Would he tell me more?

  I perched on the edge of the chair that held his trousers towards the growing heat of the hearth. The damp leather had a particular earthy smell as it heated.

  “He wasn’t trained?” I asked, “I mean, if he was trained why would he…?”

  “Need a way to release power he wasn’t sure how to use?” he finished for me. “We were teenagers together, and he occasionally had moments of temper; he wasn’t always in control. When that happened, he had to figure out a way to release it without having to go to his teachers who would have reprimanded him for such reckless pulling of power.”

  I settled back into the chair, sifting through the information he had just given me.

  “Drawing in power when angry… That happens to other people?”

  Gideon exhaled a huffed breath. His tone was wry as he answered.

  “Other people implies there are lots of people who can do what you do. Outside of the druids, I know of only one or two others in the whole land who have anywhere near the level I felt in you.”

  “Who?” I asked. Maybe this other person, or people, could help me, or at least tell me how to control my magic… or tell me who could teach me. I needed to learn to figure out what I was doing because I had seriously endangered us last night. If the hounds had found us, I would have been depleted, completely unable to fight them off. Though it remained to be seen if I could do anything at will, whether fully conscious or not. The odds so far weren’t in my favour that I would be able to draw on my power as opposed to just stand there, entirely defenceless.

  “Rion Deverell,” Gideon answered me. The Rion they spoke of was of House Deverell, and we were headed to Carlisle, seat of the ruling family. House Deverell wasn’t just any house of Mercia, it was the house of Mercia.

  “You grew up with the Prince of Mercia?” I asked. I’d assumed that Gideon was an Anglian from the way Bronwyn had spoken of his divided loyalties. His father, at least, was Anglian.

  Gideon blinked, then answered.

  “Yes, my father and I had a disagreement. I offered my services to the Deverells.”

  “Does Devyn also serve them?” I asked. Devyn had given the impression that he had served a minor Mercian house. Apparently not.

  “Supposedly.”

  Then Devyn and Gideon both served House Deverell, the ruling family of Mercia.

  “But you hurt Devyn.”

  Amusement lit his face. “It’s complicated.”

  “Explain it to me,” I gritted.

  His head tilted to the side, the dark sheath of hair falling over his face as he contemplated me from across the hearth. The stoked flames brought the scar that slashed across his face into stark relief. He pushed his hair back as he turned his gaze into the flickering firelight.

  “I barely knew Devyn as a child; he was a few years younger than me. We met a few times at some of the great gatherings. His father was the greatest warrior on this whole island. Devyn was just this dark, intense kid, but he was the beloved son of the Griffin. I was so envious of him. My father cared little for me. I don’t tell you this to make you feel in any way sorry for me. I lived a life of enormous privilege, and I trained with the best warriors in the land. But the son of the Griffin… he was adored. By his father, by his house and by the Mercians.”

  “And you hate him for that?” I asked, confused. Devyn had known real family; he’d had a true home where he was loved. While I understood all too well Gideon’s envy, why that would cause him to strike almost twenty years later was beyond my comprehension.

  “No, I hate him for what he left in his wake, and for what it cost everyone who loved him. His father betrayed all that he was for love of that child. Saving that child cost Mercia, all of us a great deal.”

  “Devyn wasn’t to blame for that; that was his father’s choice,” I objected, seeing again the scene on the river. Even as a boy Devyn had not agreed with what his father did.

  “Maybe so. But Devyn made his own choices. I would lay my life down for Rion Deverell,” he stated flatly. “And your friend betrayed him. After everything, he broke his vow to serve him. Rion stood by him even though Devyn was responsible for the death of his mother and sister and even though he deserted him.”

  The pieces started tumbling into place. My breath quickened as my mind pulled the scattered information together.

  Devyn and his father were blamed for the death of a lady and her baby daughter. Devyn in a castle with a golden-haired boy, whom he left behind when he ran off to find that lost girl. A foundling girl with the old blood of the Britons in her veins, growing up in the heart of the Empire. The Briton lord who had been angry at Devyn at the masquerade ball.

  Rion Deverell.

  The Mercian Prince.

  My brother.

  Could it be? I tasted the idea in my mind, letting it roll around. It felt right. It felt true.

  That was why Devyn was trying to get us north to Carlisle instead of heading to York with Marcus. And that made me the daughter of the Lady of the Lake. The Lady of the Lake was legend, even in Londinium. She held power of serious magnitude. But still it made no sense. She wasn’t dead, and the threat of her power was one of the main things that maintained the balance of power between Britannia and the Empire.

  “But the Lady of the Lake is alive,” I breathed. Was my mother alive? My heart leapt in my chest, even as I recalled the sweep of power that was released as the lady from my vision was cut down.

  Gideon shook his head, casting a glance at the sleeping figure in the bed.

  “Why do you think everyone wants your princeling so badly? The lady
has been dead a long time, her death a secret hidden from the wider world, and especially from Londinium. Rion isn’t a prince, he is the king, and though he has yet to marry and have children, his daughter will not inherit his mother’s precious gift. The power of the Lakes is gone, lost for ever, as it was always passed down directly from mother to daughter. The Plantagenets are one of the few true bloodlines left in the land. And in case you had missed it, the land is dying. I’ll bet Mother Severn kissed your hand last night when you released that power. Seductive, was she? Desperate for more?”

  I recalled the swirl of love and relief that welcomed the power I had loosed into the waters last night, the eddy that had tried to pull more and more of my energy down into its depths. It had sucked my very life-force, the impact of which had afterwards left me semi-conscious for the rest of the night.

  “I thought you said that your friend, that is, the King of Mercia, had power?”

  “Yes, he’s still of the Lakes bloodline.” Gideon’s dark gaze levelled on me directly. “But what I felt coming off you shouldn’t be possible outside the old blood. It’s unheard of for a latent to have power like yours, especially not to just turn up out of nothing and from nowhere.”

  Light dawned in his eyes, and his face blanched.

  “Not out of nothing…”

  He stopped, and I watched the play of emotion over his face: disbelief, hope, anger, the very mesh of feelings I had seen flash over Callum. That was who they believed me to be, I realised now, the lost daughter of the Lady of the Lake. Come back from the dead.

  I shook my head. Bronwyn had warned me not to trust Gideon.

  “Well, it’s happened. Marina is much stronger than me – you know, the girl I helped Devyn get out of the city,” I babbled. “Like her, I’m a citizen of Rome, but I’m a latent. I must have some mixed blood, that’s all.”

  “I met your friend and her brother. She told us that you were the one who got them help.” His head tilted to one side as he eyed me. “How did you meet Devyn?”