Curse of the Celts

by Clara O'Connor

  The tall druid tsked, even as the rest of our party gasped at the return of the stain, which had receded the last time we had seen it.

  “I thought it was getting better,” I accused Madoc. How was this possible? Devyn had been so much stronger since Madoc had started treating him; he had ridden here, upright, on a horse.

  Madoc shook his head. “I drew it away from his heart but I wasn’t able to extract it. I merely routed it back to the surface wound. It was the best I could do.” He spoke to the other druid, who was removing the last of the bandage from the site. “Tell me I didn’t make it worse, Ewan.”

  The festering wound was now entirely visible to everyone in the room, the injury still as fresh as the day it had occurred but oozing more of the dark-purple matter that discoloured Devyn’s skin. My stomach dropped at the sight of it; the parasitic poison was gaining territory and without thinking I used our bond to slip under his skin.

  Devyn’s eyes flicked in my direction as he directed me to withdraw. I stared at him mulishly. How did we know this Ewan would be any more able to help than Madoc had been? If I dropped my defence, how much more of Devyn’s flesh would be invaded by the malicious spread? Devyn pushed at me as I became aware of a new flicker of consciousness entering the fray. The slithery energy recoiled as I slipped away, and I hoped the druid’s focus would be on the enemy he faced and not my friendly protective energy exiting stage left.

  The druid’s face went blank as he mentally probed the infection. The air in the room felt strangely light and my eye snagged on the dust motes caught in the light of the fire as they danced in the warm air. The wind was beating at the windows from the encroaching night outside, as if the darkness was trying to gain entry even as that light and energy danced and swirled. The very health of the light forced away the dark, yet the dark remained, and the rain lashed at the windows as fingers dug into my wrist. I tried to shake it off and when I couldn’t, I followed the offending grip up to Marcus’s glaring face.

  I had fallen into the druid’s energy. I snapped back, and when my full consciousness was back in my body, I drew in a long shuddering breath. The druid was not winning.

  I looked back to the fireplace to find Ewan looking in our direction.

  “Unusual,” he mused. “It’s not entirely magical; there is something synthetic to it, making its progression strange. I’ve not seen anything like this before. If it weren’t for the knife wound forcing it to the surface we never would have caught it. It appears that being pulled to the surface has drawn it out, but that in itself may kill him. Your attempts here have held it off, but not for long. It’s in the blood, but it is not so far gone that we cannot do something about it.”

  Ewan turned to start working up whatever potions he deemed would cure whatever was killing Devyn.

  He pulled some labelled bottles from their neat rows, arranging them on the clear workstation and giving the usually bristly Madoc succinct directions which he followed without hesitation.

  Ewan turned back briefly and raised an eyebrow at what he deemed to be an unnecessary audience.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” I said in a tone even I could hear was mulish. I had learned from our earlier experience that it was hard to get back in once a druid had kicked you out of the room. A slight tug of humour whispered along the bond as the druid and I had a silent standoff. I pushed it away; it wasn’t funny and I wasn’t leaving.

  “Please,” Marcus appealed on our behalf. “I am… was a doctor. I would like to understand more about your medicine. I am told I have some ability; perhaps I can also be of some help, under your guidance of course.”

  My charming, handsome princeling to the rescue! The druid pursed his lips, the glint in his eyes sharing that he was not unaware of the calculating strategy beneath Marcus’s courteous approach.

  “What the lad says is true,” Madoc supported him. “He seems to have healed Lord Rhodri… completely.”

  A lone brow rose at this.

  “Does he now?” Ewan blinked. “All right then. But stay out of our way.”

  Where Madoc’s process of concocting had been a chaotic symphony of bottles and jars – lifted, put down, sniffed, tasted, a smidgeon of one, a scrape of another – Ewan’s was a singularly methodical process of selection, addition and completion. He was composed and focused, doses were given in small quantities and the results contemplated, then the patient was judged and the potion was adjusted before the cycle would begin again. Over and over until I could scream from the repetition of it all. Ewan responded to Marcus’s inquiries shortly at first, but as night turned to day, and the final solution continued to elude him, he opened up. His frustration was as restrained as his potion-making, but as the cycles slowed, he became even more thoughtful.

  “What are you doing?” Marcus asked for the hundredth time as Ewan paused to observe the effects of his latest attempt.

  Ewan’s brows crinkled and he extended a hand to Marcus, who took it as he stood over Devyn, who had fallen asleep again. Since taking the potions, he had started to drift in and out of consciousness, which Ewan told us was merely a result of the base ingredient and not the lingering poison.

  “Focus on his blood,” he instructed his new pupil. Marcus’s green eyes lost focus as he followed wherever it was the druid led him.

  Not wishing to be left out, I rested my head on Marcus’s shoulder as if I were tired, but with the physical connection established I was along for the ride. I had frequently assisted Marcus in Bart’s, temporarily lending him power when he was mysteriously healing the ill in his hospital.

  We drifted down through Devyn’s body, following as the druid tracked through his limbs and organs, examining the results of the latest concoction. We wafted along, applying the essence of the potion to the greyish sections he sought out; some sections were resolved, healed, while others resolutely resisted. He stayed with one particular dark-grey area for a while, pushing and prodding at it; Marcus seemed to understand and began pushing at another side, causing it to go dark. It was his mistake, but I got it, and I nudged him to an adjacent spot and then pulsed my energy through him.

  I could feel Marcus’s surprise at discovering I’d hitched a ride, but it was working.

  “Again,” Ewan encouraged him.

  I sent a pulse at the darkness and the area coloured, becoming suddenly vibrant and healthy. Marcus figured out what I was doing and we flowed through Devyn’s blood at Ewan’s direction, seeking out and destroying the damage that the potion couldn’t beat on its own.

  Finally, after what could have been either minutes or hours, we were done. I blinked as my vision returned to the workroom, where the once aloof Ewan was now regarding Marcus with a new respect.

  “That was well done,” he said. “How did you learn to do that?”

  Marcus shook his head, catching my eye. “I don’t know. It just came to me.”

  I made my way through the dark halls. I felt trapped; I needed air. I stumbled through the stone-flagged corridors, finally finding a door that led out into the courtyard we had arrived in earlier… or yesterday, I supposed. I just needed to breathe. I tripped on the cobbles in the dark, but regained my balance and headed for the high walls surround the keep, somehow managing to drag my weary bones up the stone steps that led up to the massive boundary wall. I felt like I was being called by the growing light in the sky. Eventually, I found myself at the top of the ramparts and saw the vast undulating sea sparkling in the distance as the sky in the opposite direction began to glow a light grey.

  I breathed out into the sea air, expelling the darkness and the slimy touch of the evil that had slugged its way through Devyn’s veins. Gladness filled my heart and I tasted the salt on my tongue, felt the wind whipping through my hair, and I lifted my face to the growing light in the east.

  The sound of a step behind me alerted me to the fact that I was no longer alone. I didn’t turn though, wanting to savour the moment for as long as possible. I inhaled the clean, open tang of
the air into my lungs and through my body.

  “How is he?” A gravelly voice spoke softly into the air at my back.

  “Better,” I said, turning to the dark shadow that now stopped at the top of the stairs.

  Gideon exhaled.

  “The Griffin will live?”

  “Yes, no thanks to you,” I snapped, out of habit more than anything, because now we knew that Gideon’s knife had probably saved Devyn’s life.

  He arched a brow before continuing as if he hadn’t heard my snarky comment. “Was the druid able to tell you any more about the poison?”

  “He didn’t know. Perhaps something Devyn had eaten or drunk before we met you on the road.”

  “Who? When?” He was immediately attempting to identify where the threat might have come from.

  “I don’t know. Nor do I care right now.” Devyn was well again; that was enough.

  “You should care, kitty cat. Why would anyone target the Griffin? What could anyone hope to gain from it? Was Marcus the target? Were you?” he mused aloud.

  “Whoever it was, what does it matter now? We’re safe.”

  “Are you? Somebody tried to kill Devyn, or one of you. Where it was worth trying once, it will be worth trying twice,” he scoffed. “Was it done before you left Londinium? In Oxford? While you were travelling on the road?”

  My current exhausted indifference didn’t mean that my mind hadn’t been worrying at the same problem. Was he right? Had Devyn been poisoned by accident or on purpose? We had travelled closely together; if it had been someone singling Devyn out, then there would have been few to no opportunities. What reason would anyone have for cutting down Devyn? Most Britons had thought him dead for nearly a decade. A few had known he lived: Fidelma, Bronwyn and the man I now knew to be my brother.

  Bronwyn I believed we could trust and Fidelma seemed not to care for politics. Then there was the ruler of Mercia, my brother. I had danced with him at the ball and he had somehow known who Devyn was. But he had saved Devyn that night. Why protect someone only to kill them later? And when would any of them have had an opportunity? We hadn’t seen anyone on our way from Londinium. Except for Callum…

  My mind balked at the idea that Devyn’s former teacher could have done such a thing. But every time I asked these questions, my mind always brought me back to Callum.

  Gideon had a point though; someone clearly didn’t want Devyn to return home.

  Or had the poison really been intended for Marcus or me? Most likely, Marcus; I was of little value dead, whereas Marcus wasn’t just a powerful healer, he was a symbol of power to both peoples on this island. The magic in his veins was either a hope or a threat, depending on which side you stood. But how would the council have got to us out here in the Wilds? Or could it have been done before we left?

  My peace utterly shattered, I glared at the bearer of these unsettling questions.

  “Fine, you have a point, but it could be anyone,” I said.

  “We should be safe here for now.” Gideon was reassuring me, and it didn’t pass me by that he included himself as one of us.

  “Why?” I asked. “Not why are we safe, but why are you helping us now?”

  “You are my lord’s beloved sister, back from the dead; your boyfriend is my own nation’s true heir, returned to us at a time when power has been waning in the land, and your not-boyfriend, while not my favourite person, brought you both back to our people, so if he stays alive, I’m okay with that,” Gideon answered. What did he mean, my not-boyfriend?

  He smirked at me.

  Damn.

  I glared at him.

  He moved closer, invading my space. His voice was substantially lower as he spoke again, merely a whisper on the salty wind between us.

  “It is the Griffin’s job to keep you safe, and if he cannot do so then somebody else will have to,” he said.

  “I told you, Devyn is going to be fine.”

  “The Griffin has issues of his own that may make it difficult for him to be your protector.”

  “You all keep saying that, but you never explain what you mean and I’ve had enough.” I was fed up of never quite understanding the forces that kept us apart.

  “Devyn broke his oath to the Lakes when he ran off to find you, princess. He has given up his right to be Griffin.”

  “But he found me,” I whispered. “Surely that counts for something.”

  “Depends on who has him.”

  “How so?”

  “In Anglia, he would find little mercy. My home is made up of people who would rather die fighting the Empire than live in it for one second. We are warriors first and last. My father would show no mercy to a warrior who broke his oath. You saw my reception here; House Glyndŵr has certainly not forgotten that my father voted to have Rhodri executed twenty years ago.”

  “York would kill Devyn?” But we weren’t in Anglia. “Then just as well we happen to be in Gwynedd.”

  Gideon shook his head. “Not really. There’s a reason I didn’t want us to come here. It will provoke York all the more. My father will see it as an act of war that Devyn flees justice.”

  “Why?”

  “House Glyndŵr has run thin. Devyn Glyndŵr is the last of their line. Llewelyn and Rhys will have no children, and his sister, Cerys, married the prince of Kernow and bore him daughters. Rhodri has only one son.”

  “Devyn Glyndŵr,” I repeated. Not Devyn Agrestis. Just like how, to these people, I was not Cassandra Shelton.

  “Just so.” Gideon inclined his head. “The last son of Glyndŵr has come home. Llewelyn will want him to stay. This is also the path most likely to keep him alive. The path at your side, as protector, has a less certain future.”

  Gideon took a step back, looking out to the growing light

  “Losing you… after Viviane died was a dark time; we have lived on borrowed time ever since, dreading the moment when our weakness was discovered. We cannot lose the lady again.” He looked back at me, his face in shadow. “If you lack a protector, I will offer you my sword.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t need you. I have Devyn.”

  “Do you now?” Gideon continued. “That’s going to be a problem too.”

  I scowled. If I needed protection, I had someone bonded to me by ancient magic. Someone I had followed to the ends of my world. Someone I would not give up.

  “Catriona Deverell and Devyn Glyndŵr… It cannot be, lady. Not in this lifetime,” he said in an uncanny echo of the warning I could never completely shake.

  Chapter Eighteen

  In the days after the last of the poison was eliminated, Devyn finally moved from Ewan’s rooms to his own; the cure had left him nearly as weak as he had been at the worst of the poisoning. I had seen Marcus only when I sat with Devyn in the druid’s rooms; he had practically become joined at the hip with Ewan, lapping up all the medical knowledge he could. Unlike at Dinas Brân, either because of the greater number of rooms or a greater regard for propriety, here we were given our own rooms. Meanwhile, Gideon and Bronwyn seemed to have reached some sort of unspoken agreement to keep me under constant surveillance, ensuring any conversation I had with Devyn was chaperoned. It was worse than having overprotective parents.

  I was getting frustrated at the scraps of news Bronwyn fed me. I had had enough, and if I couldn’t speak to Devyn in public, then I was going to speak to him in private. I had questions and I needed answers, and nobody was going to stop me. I stormed out of my room in such a whirl of determination that I forgot to put shoes on. My feet were now suffering from my failure as they shied away from each petrifying stone that took me closer to Devyn’s room. Nor had I figured out how I was going to explain myself if I was found wandering the halls in an outdoor cloak and no shoes. A midnight craving for cake, perhaps?

  “Are you going to accept his offer?”

  The dark shape at the window turned around at the sound of my voice as I closed the door softly behind me.

  Devyn started towards me and then
stopped in his tracks.

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Are you going to accept?” I persisted. Bronwyn had confirmed Gideon’s prediction that Llewelyn, having no sons of his own, would want to make Devyn his heir. It was an offer which would assist in both prolonging his life and restoring his name – or giving him a new title, at least.

  Devyn shook his head softly.

  “You could be Prince of Gwynedd.” If he were a prince, surely he would be able to count himself worthy of being with a neighbouring lady.

  “That is not my choice.”

  “What do you mean it’s not your choice?”

  “My life has always had one purpose: to be the Griffin… And there must be a Griffin. To become Prince of Gwynedd, I would have to give that up.”

  “I thought being the Griffin was part of your bloodline.”

  He laughed softly. “Technically no. It is a gift of spirit, not of blood, though it has been in my line for many generations. As there is no other male of my line, if I accept my uncle’s offer, I would have to forsake my calling. I couldn’t be Griffin and a ruling prince at the same time.”

  “You can pass on being Griffin?” This was news to me.

  “Maybe. There is a ceremony that those at Holy Isle could do to release me.”

  “Then let there be another Griffin. I don’t care as long as I have you.”

  His brow creased at that and he took a step back.

  “As you say, this is my decision and my choice is to remain the Griffin. What use would I be as heir to the Prince of Gwynedd? Britannia is falling apart; if we don’t pull together then the Empire will finally take the whole island. Is that what you want?”

  The Empire expanding beyond the walls, the urban sprawl eating up mile after mile of green land and blocking out the sky… Governor Actaeon would crush the people here. I shuddered at the very idea, but that was a problem well beyond us.