“He was in my class at school.”
“Was he now?” His amber eyes gleamed. “In the whole of Londinium, he happened to be in the same class as a girl some years younger than him who just happens to turn out to be a latent hiding enormous power. How old are you, city girl? Twenty-one? Twenty-two?”
I mutinously refused to answer. I didn’t want to give him any more clues. But Gideon knew, I could see it in his eyes; he was surer of my true identity than I was.
He leaned across and took a lock of my bright hair and rubbed it between his fingers.
“Catriona Deverell…” he breathed. “Alive.”
He trailed the backs of his fingers softly down the side of my face, his eyes lingering, studying every feature. Catriona Deverell. That was my name. It rolled around inside me, lighting me up. That was who I really was.
His face was inches from mine. At this distance, I could see through the ordinarily impenetrable mask with which Gideon faced the world. Behind that granite wall, he was considerably shaken by his discovery. Everything in his world would change when the news was revealed.
I exhaled shakily.
“Cassandra,” Marcus’s voice called to me from the other side of the room. He was sitting up in the bed, his eyes as wide as mine no doubt were. I stood up warily and made my way back to his side, taking the hand he offered.
“Is it true?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. His fingers tightened on mine.
“We’ll figure it out,” he reassured me. I didn’t need reassurance though. I needed time. Time to understand what all of this meant.
If what Gideon said was true then I was the Lady of the Lake. It felt true. I kept seeing the woman I glimpsed in that vision. The devastation in the very earth as she had fallen to the ground. Her love for the baby in her arms… me. I had been loved so very much. Why had she been so near Londinium? How had the Britons managed to hide her death all this time?
“What does this mean?” I asked. Gideon was still frozen in position by the fire.
Finally, he took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.
“Right now, not very much.” He shrugged. “We still need to keep ahead of those cursed hounds. And we need to keep ahead of York. They want their prince back, but if they could lay their hands on both of you…”
He trailed off.
“Well, that would be a lot of power to control,” he finished.
He stood and pulled on his trousers, which could hardly be dry. “We need to ride. The sooner we get you to Carlisle, the safer we’ll all be.”
“You will take us to Devyn’s father’s castle?” I don’t know why I needed confirmation. He served Mercia, he had said he would meet Bronwyn… Where else would he take us?
He nodded curtly.
“And then north to Carlisle?
Gideon smiled broadly.
“Nothing would give me more pleasure.”
We ate a sombre breakfast in the common room of the inn. Unused to visitors, the barkeep and the serving girl attempted to engage us in conversation to hear what news we had of the wider world.
I was too inside my head to do more than spoon the salted porridge into my mouth, swallow, and repeat as their mellifluous voices rippled around the room. Marcus was his usual charming self but had little to offer in the type of news that would pass as typical in this remote town. Unsure of what to say, he opted for saying very little.
They didn’t try too hard with the stern-faced warrior who sat silently waiting for us to finish our meal, eager to be on the road.
I chose to ride with Marcus, allowing myself to sink into the false security and feeling of home offered by the handfast cuff. Mostly, it made me feel tethered to a lie. The lie that the Empire was my home, that Marcus was my mate, that I belonged to someone and something as I had been raised to believe, that the handfast bound me to something real.
None of it was real though. All of it was a lie built to fence me in, to control me. Well, built initially to fence in Marcus’s ancestor, the princess who had been given to the city to seal the truce by marrying a man she must have detested to the core of her being.
The truth of who I really was washed through me, like waves rolling against the shore, inevitable and repeated, crashing on arrival each and every time.
This was why Devyn had come to the city, and why he had wanted me to leave with him. Not because he wanted me, but because others did. My brother. His sworn lord.
This was why he couldn’t be with me. The Lady of the Lake was a being of legend, a keeper of magic, the source of power among the Britons. Devyn wasn’t just any personal guard; he was sworn to protect the Lady of the Lake. His line was hated because their one purpose was to protect her, and they had failed.
Devyn had told me that his family were in disgrace, that he was seen by many as unfit to breathe the same air. It was no longer a question of being allowed to be together, but whether he would even be allowed near me once he had delivered me to the Mercians in Carlisle.
Home. I supposed it would be. A brother awaited – the tall golden masked prince of the Britons who prevented Devyn from revealing himself the night of the masquerade ball in Londinium.
Devyn had known then that I stood within touching distance, no, that I danced in the arms of my own full-blood brother. And he said nothing. My better self conceded that to have revealed who I was then not only would have started a war that would have consumed us on the spot, but I wasn’t sure anyone would have believed him – least of all me. I had only just started to accept that I was a Briton and not a citizen. That I was the heir to the Lady of the Lake? The very idea would have been laughable.
What had she been doing in the borderlands? I chewed on my lip as the thought hit me anew. Why would the most protected person on the island have been riding with her sole protector and two children so close to the city? They hadn’t expected to be attacked. But why were they there in the first place?
We stopped briefly to eat some lunch, and I ate mechanically, looking out on the sweep of the countryside before me. It was a green that rolled on for ever, with snow-covered mountains to our left and the Severn running somewhere in the distance to our right. I had long wondered what Devyn’s home was like, and now I was here.
Glorious, luminous light broke through the clouds to bathe the vast, open countryside, the hills and valleys, in pale sunshine, and it sparkled off the water droplets nestled within the russet golds of the autumnal leaves. I heard the crackle and crunch of twigs and leaves under the hooves of our horses. I wished I could be here with Devyn. My heart dragged at the pain of it. Where was he? Had they crossed over into Cymru yet? Had he heard the sing-song voices of his home?
“Did you know?”
“What?”
Marcus stood leaning against a tree behind me as I surveyed the open world before us.
“Did you know?” He hadn’t spoken of this morning’s revelations all day.
I lifted my hands as if I had an answer and then let them drop helplessly to my lap. I had known nothing, suspected nothing.
“How could I?”
“You knew who he was.” He spoke of Devyn.
“I knew bits and pieces,” I admitted. “That Devyn came to Londinium looking for a girl, a Briton, who had been stolen away somehow. But I didn’t know she was…”
The truth sat in my mind, waiting for me to summon up the nerve to say it out loud.
“The Lady of the Lake,” he supplied when I didn’t.
“Exactly.” I was no happier with him saying it out loud, if I was honest. “How could I suspect? As far as I… as far as any of us knew, she was safe and well in Mercia. Could you imagine if the praetor had known? No need for his crazy plan with us. He could have ridden out and crushed the Britons at any time.”
I paused, my breath snatched as if someone had punched me in the gut. It was true. If the Empire had known, they would have destroyed the Celts. It was the threat of magic that kept the Empire co
nfined to Londinium. Without the main source of that power, with the lady gone, they would have been practically defenceless.
“They wanted a baby they were fairly certain would have magic. What luck to have found me.” I stopped. You make your own luck. Was this what Calchas had referred to? Sentinels had taken me from my mother’s arms. Chance? Coincidence?
“It wasn’t luck,” I said finally.
Marcus looked at me in confusion.
“Calchas knew exactly who I was,” I breathed.
“Of course he knew. Marrying us, the York line and the Lakes… Imagine the power he would have held.”
“But he was going to execute you… No, not Calchas.” I thought it through. “He never planned to pour that power into the sand. He never planned for you and me to die. He sentenced you to a beating. The governor forced his hand. The governeor was the one who wanted us dead.”
What if Calchas hadn’t finished playing his hand? Master manipulator of the mob, would he have conceded defeat to Actaeon so easily? His plan had been decades in the making.
How could he have spun it to save Marcus and me? I’d seen him do it time and again at the Metes. Justice was doled out to victim and villain alike, according to how he framed it.
But it had been over. We had already been sentenced as Codebreakers, as the villains of the piece. Unless he had planned to reframe it with a new villain, making us the victims somehow, as he had done with Oban and countless others. But how? Nothing would have changed by the time we took the sands the next day. A night in the tower would…
Wait.
“Calchas sent me to that room after he took my charm away. I didn’t want to be there. Devyn had been dosed with the bridal tea and he was all over me the moment I walked into the room.” I picked through his strategy, and the details of how it had actually played out. “He didn’t know that Devyn’s proximity cut through the handfast and that I would come to my senses. If things had played out as he expected them to, then the scene would have gone very differently.”
“My bride being taken against her will by a Briton,” Marcus finished for me.
I nodded, stunned. “Right. Did anything happen? Did he say anything to you when you talked? He must have had a plan to reprieve you too in the eyes of the mob.”
Marcus shook his head.
“How did you find me? How did you break free of him?”
“I… My father put something in his drink.”
“But if things had played out according to Calchas’s plan, what would have redeemed you?”
“Killing your Briton attacker?” Marcus suggested.
I nodded. If I had managed to get away… No, not that. If Calchas had taken Marcus’s wristband from him, my match would have come for me. It would have been easy to arm him, to show him the way.
“Win-win,” I said. “I’m redeemed. You’re redeemed. Calchas has the mob in the palm of his hand, and we’ve just proven our loyalty. Actaeon couldn’t have us executed then.”
‘If all that is true, then why haven’t they come out to crush us already? Why didn’t they follow you?” Gideon slunk out from the cover of the trees.
My eyes narrowed in annoyance at his eavesdropping; I got an innocent look in reply. Or at least as innocent as his darkly handsome, scarred face could pull off.
“If he knew what he held in his hands, why didn’t they chase you through the borderlands? If they had finally figured out how weakened we are, why wait?”
“I don’t know. Actaeon hates Britons.” I caught my breath. “He doesn’t know. Actaeon doesn’t know. Calchas is the one pulling the strings. He’s the one who wants to control everything.”
“Then why didn’t he follow you?”
Put like that it seemed obvious.
“They did chase us,” Marcus reminded me flatly. “My father died making sure they didn’t think there was anything left to chase.”
As far as the praetor was concerned, we had died in a fireball on the Tamesis with Matthias as we tried to flee.
“The York troops tore up Oxford trying to find you,” Gideon informed us. “So, if the city thought you dead, it doesn’t anymore.”
“How would they know what happened in Oxford?” I asked.
“Don’t be so naïve. Shadowers earn their entry into the city by keeping the council well-informed about what happens in the borderlands. Why do you think there is so little information about the Lady of the Lake? Carlisle is too far north for what little word might have leaked beyond the Lakes to have reached the ears of anyone deemed to have divided loyalties.” Gideon slanted us a mocking smirk. “That’s why your disguise as Shadowers was useless once you left Oxford. Shadowers are deeply discouraged from crossing too far into our lands since she died. Now mount up, we need to go.”
We rode hard for the rest of the day, Gideon pushing us even harder as the winter sun lowered in the sky. Suddenly, riders appeared in the gloom on the road before us. There had to be twenty of them. I looked to Gideon for guidance. The hounds were behind us and armed warriors were in front.
What did we do now?
Chapter Fourteen
“They’re York troops,” Gideon confirmed.
“How can you tell?” Marcus asked.
“I can tell.”
I could feel his body tensing as his head turned from side to side, his gaze sweeping the road in front: mountains to our left, ever darkening forest to our right.
“At least we’ll have company when those bloody dogs catch us.” He shrugged. His arms went to my waist. “You’d best ride with your boyfriend.”
“Why?”
“They’re looking for Marcus. He’s their prince and they will protect him with their lives; let’s hope that protection extends to his little city girlfriend.” And with a mocking “M’lady,” he swooped me down to the ground. I took the step back to Marcus’s horse and in a moment was up on the horse in front of him.
I ran over Gideon’s reasoning for changing our arrangement. If riding with Marcus gave me more protection, then what did that mean for him? But it was too late to ask as the York riders had gathered pace and were on us in moments.
The York riders wore similar leathers to Gideon, but their tunics had something like a breastplate to them. Where the Mercian warriors we had ridden with had been wildly Celtic, the Anglian troops were somewhat more martial in appearance.
Any hope I had that we could hide our identity was blown out of the water as a familiar bearded man sat at the head of the troops.
“Callum,” I gasped in dismay. I had thought him our friend, but he had clearly led this troop in pursuit of us.
“My prince.” He bowed his head to Marcus before turning to Gideon. “My lord.”
My lord. Gideon was a lord. He certainly didn’t act like a noble. I retraced that thought. Actually, he had no shortage of the arrogance of one privileged from birth.
“Callum.” Gideon knew him too, it seemed. Had he also been Gideon’s teacher? But no, that made no sense; Callum had been Devyn’s teacher in Carlisle. Gideon hadn’t arrived there until he was a teenager. “I see you’ve disappointed my father recently.”
A small cut marked Callum’s cheekbone. I looked at the similar location of Gideon’s own much older injury. Who was his father?
“Why didn’t he kill you?” Gideon asked.
“I guess he must still have some use for me,” Callum answered drily.
“Like hunting a member of the blood?” Gideon nodded at Marcus. At least I hoped that’s who he meant.
“Seems I’m not the only one following the fresh scent of magic across the countryside,” Callum said as another howl rang out in the distance, echoed by the rest of the pack.
“We need to ride,” a dark-haired warrior spoke up, addressing Callum but nodding respectfully at Gideon.
“Let’s move then.” Gideon urged Marcus’s horse forward. He had clearly assessed the competing threats and deemed the York riders the lesser of two evils as he dropped behind to ride
between us and the pursuing hounds.
“City girl, ride with Callum,” he ordered.
I turned to look at Gideon. “No.”
I was tired of him ordering me about. And what was with the city girl moniker again? Now that I thought about it, it had been m’lady all day. Not a hint of the dismissive nickname with which he had christened me on sight.
“He’s right, girl.” Callum spoke up. “If we need to move fast, having the pair of you, as has barely ever ridden before, on the self-same horse is going to give them hounds an easy target.”
Marcus was obviously not the best rider, but I felt Callum had an ulterior motive in splitting us up. If the hounds came, I was their target, not Marcus. It would give Marcus a better chance if we separated. Callum was effectively tying his survival chances to mine.
For the second time in a few minutes, I changed horses. We took off again, the York troops putting Marcus in their centre while Gideon moved to ride behind Callum and me.
It was a move that did not go unnoticed by my former teacher, who caught the younger man’s eye for a moment before meeting mine contemplatively. I inclined my head, confirming his suspicions. His eyes narrowed in response, clearly not happy that I had company in my new-found knowledge.
“We ride,” Gideon called out and the entire troop headed into the oncoming night as if the bats of Hades were on our tail. If only. Bats would be preferable to the horse-sized hounds that were in pursuit.
It felt like we rode for hours at that terrifying speed, but eventually, we were forced to slow as the horses tired.
“Dismount.” The call came from the warrior in the lead.
Walk? Was he crazy? Did he think the hounds were walking too? I had no doubt the vile beasts could run for ever if needed.
Callum dismounted before reaching up to help me down.
“The horses will get fresh legs sooner if they are not bearing our weight,” he explained.
A whimper escaped me. The hounds were closer and their calls to each other had become less frequent as the net closed. Now there were more of them than the two that had followed us through the borderlands at Samhain.
Curse of the Celts Page 19
