Curse of the Celts

by Clara O'Connor

  Deverell’s eyes cooled, his steely control in place once more as he thrust Devyn away from him before striding out of the hall. People stumbled over one another in their rush to get out of his way.

  Llewelyn called for order, and the court consulted with each other as the seconds drew out into minutes. The crowd whispered urgently at the shocking revelation and Devyn was ushered from the court by the guards, who at a nod from Llewelyn escorted him back to his room.

  The castle was in turmoil after all the drama of the trial. Oathbreaking was a serious crime here, and not everyone was happy that he had been released, especially following Rion Deverell’s violent reaction.

  There were still guards posted outside his door. But were they there to keep Devyn in or others out? Their lord’s nephew had been convicted of oathbreaking and condemned to death, then moments later hailed as the hero who had returned their lady to them against all odds. People needed time to process it. Llewelyn had acted swiftly to remove Devyn, which ensured that the mood didn’t escalate and allowed people time to absorb the news. This also left me a window during which everyone was too busy talking about us to notice us and I slipped away.

  I marched purposefully up to Devyn’s door and proceeded to open it without knocking. Surprised by my boldness, the guards were slow to react. One had watched me coming, so had had a little more time to gather his wits and he attempted to block me. But I gave him the most incredulously haughty expression I could dig up and carried straight on through the door before confusion gained the upper hand on his caution. Right now, the repercussions of the revelations had yet to be evaluated and new orders had not as yet been given, so who was he to block me from my sacred protector?

  Devyn sat slumped against the far wall as if he had come into the room and, without pausing for breath, found a wall and sunk down against it.

  I turned the key in the lock, no doubt to the chagrin of the guards outside, but as they had no way of knowing if this was against the new rules, they didn’t challenge it. After all, I had identified myself as one of the most senior figures in the land. Who were they to challenge anything I did?

  “Devyn,” I called, when he failed to look up at my entrance. I was uncertain how to proceed.

  “Hey,” he said. I crouched beside him and took his head in my hands, lifting his face towards me so I could see him.

  “It’s over,” I said softly, when he refused to meet my eyes. I gently placed a kiss on his lips. “You’re free. It’s all going to be okay.”

  I kissed him again, trying to tease a response from him.

  “You’re free,” I whispered between kisses. “You’re alive.”

  He pushed me away and I sat back with a bump, off balance from crouching on my toes.

  His dark eyes were turbulent.

  “At what cost?” he snarled, suddenly alive again.

  “Cost?” I shook my head. What was he talking about?

  “We didn’t want the world to know you were alive yet. That was all very public; the whole island will hear about it.What if the poisoner comes for you again?”

  Ah, it was his usual trigger that we had somehow endangered my safety. “Stop it. Stop whatever crazy self-flagellating nonsense is going on in that head of yours. The main thing is that you are not going to be executed. You think your death would have kept me safe from whoever poisoned you? They no doubt already knew who I am. And they might not even have meant the poison for me. You believe that because you think the world revolves around me. It doesn’t, you know.” I glared at him. Did his life mean so little to him?

  “It does for me,” he growled back.

  My eyes widened at his words and I couldn’t help it. My mouth trembled as I tried to suppress it. He was in deadly earnest. A giggle popped out. Was this snarl the declaration of love I had waited so long for?

  He was on me in seconds, his fury giving him momentum until he loomed over me, his dark eyes sparking down at me. As if by sheer force of will, he was going to make me see that revealing myself to the court to save his life had been the wrong move.

  It was ridiculous, and the ridiculousness bubbled out of me as the relief and joy and sheer happiness at his reprieve washed through me.

  “I love you too,” I laughed up at him.

  He snarled down at me. An actual snarl – and then it was gone as he took me in. I was there in his arms and he was going to live. I could feel the series of realisations hit him.

  He swooped down on me and kissed me hard and fast and completely. The flames whooshed over us as we ignited. His mouth swept mine and our breaths entangled. My fingers looped in those dark curls as I crushed him to me. It was all I could do to remember to breathe, and I wasn’t sure I even did that anymore.

  His hands pulled at the intricate lacings of my Celtic dress, releasing me more skilfully than I managed to every night, his early stubble sweeping across my bare shoulder. Sensation tingled my skin as I came to life beneath his touch. My neck arched away from him as he curled into it, his mouth tracing its way across the tender skin there.

  I pulled in a deep breath as his lips moved further down my body.

  He backed away and looked down at me as my eyes struggled to focus on the mischievous curl of those talented lips.

  “Not laughing now, are you?” He nipped my lower lip with his sharp teeth, the sensation twanging through the haze his earlier onslaught had created and ratcheting up the heat that was building inside me.

  I groaned as I clung to him. No more thoughts, only sensation, touch, heat.

  I scrabbled to release his shirt, yanking it over his head, in a hurry to lay my hands on his warm, velvety skin. Removing his shirt revealed black ink and raw skin over his heart.

  I paused at the sight of the tattoo and the inflamed skin around it. Devyn looked down at the pattern that had caught my attention. It was a Celtic swirl, of course, but still it was recognisably the emblem worn by the Mercians: red roses and lakes. I had been forced to look at it every day of the trial as it sat front and centre of the jury’s table. Since the prosecuting lord and highest ranking individual was lord of Mercia, the Mercian arms had dominated the table. This was a similar design but woven into a Celtic knot.

  “Why?” I asked, tracing the air above it.

  He sat up, pulling me with him. His eyes darkened as he pulled my dress up over my shoulders once more.

  “When I left, I was too young to bear ink. I was glad of it when I got to Londinium as a tattoo would have all too easily revealed my origins. But tattoos are what we on this island use to proclaim our history, our affinities, our loyalties, our lives. My skin was unmarked. I did not want to enter the afterlife with no story.” His eyes locked with mine. “I have a story.”

  I traced the roses and the lakes etched over his heart, careful not to touch the tender-looking skin. He said nothing as I contemplated what he had chosen to represent himself in what had so nearly been his final days. My brother’s coat of arms.

  His vow to Mercia was how he had defined himself.

  “Oh.” I felt a little jealous. He had chosen my brother over me.

  His brow furrowed as he took in the disappointment I was helpless to conceal.

  “The form is a dara knot, signifying my oath to Mercia… to him. And for us…” He took my fingers in his and lightly carried them across a swirl that branded his arm, the curves winding up and down through the tattoo in a vaguely recognisable pattern before ending in a Celtic symbol.

  “The Tamesis,” I smiled. He had included the river, the one which had separated us and on whose shores we had found each other again. “The river flows into a triquetra, signifying life, death and rebirth.”

  I felt his answering smile through the bond.

  “And for you…” He turned his back and my eyes almost fell out of my head. He must have really missed being able to ink himself while living in the city. He certainly couldn’t be identified as anything other than a Celt now. Across his entire back was etched what, from Rhodri�
��s description, I knew to be a griffin. Celtic knots and swirls looped across his back in flaring wings while the watchful eyes of the eagle looked straight at me and the powerful lion’s body was poised. And there, at its heart, was a crown. Me.

  He turned back to face me. This time it was Devyn who caught my face in his hands and I turned my gaze from the ink on his skin to his eyes.

  “I love you,” he said and kissed me again. This time it was warm and deep as it reached into shadowed parts of my heart that had existed in darkness for so long that they barely recognised the light he brought with that kiss.

  When he pulled away again, I felt an all-encompassing warm haze, as if sunshine had bathed my soul. He smiled at the state his kiss had reduced me to.

  “That good, huh?”

  I blinked.

  “That must have taken some time?” I asked inanely, giving myself a moment, as I pushed at his bare shoulder so I could examine his back again. “How did you do it?”

  He laughed at my question. So, my brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders in that moment. I was aware of this.

  “Llewelyn was not so confident of the trial’s outcome that he would deny my request. It is a tradition and is unveiled when the chosen Glyndŵr takes his place at his lady’s side,” he explained. “He sent some of the best artists he could summon at short notice. They weren’t entirely happy about doing the griffin; one refused to work on me at all. But Hari knew me as a child and he said that if I had dedicated my life to serve as the Griffin despite everything, then that was a story I had a right to own.”

  I exhaled in awe at the intricacy of the tattoo, at the sheer size and power of it. The eagle’s eye that seemed to capture something of Devyn’s watchful gaze that had followed me for almost half my life. The integrity and loyalty shone in every line.

  I looked again at the one on his chest that signified Mercia.

  “He’s angry,” I said. It wasn’t exactly news, but with Devyn’s cheek starting to swell from the punch that had landed there, it also wasn’t something we could ignore for ever.

  “Yes.” Devyn was resorting to monosyllables. Never a good sign.

  “Because we didn’t tell him straightaway.” In fact, we couldn’t have found a worse way to tell him what should have been good news.

  “Yes.”

  “And he didn’t like us holding hands.”

  “No, he didn’t.” I had to restrain myself from rolling my eyes. I understood that these were painful subjects for him, but a little insight here on how we could resolve this wouldn’t go astray.

  “You don’t think he will allow us to be together?”

  “You heard him. He will not forgive a third betrayal.”

  “Us being together would not be a betrayal.”

  “In his eyes it would be.” His tone had gone flat, deadened, the words all too familiar, the start of a downward cycle that he repeated over and over.

  “Enough. We’ve talked about this. Give me a chance to talk to him. I’ll make him listen.” I smiled at him.

  I stood, straightening my dress and composing myself in order to hide all evidence of the recent activities that wouldn’t help our cause. Unlocking the door, I said before exiting, “Anything is possible. You found me, after all.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The hall was busy with people decorating every available surface with holly and ivy for Yuletide, which began on the Winter Solstice less than a week away, when Gideon found me the next morning, his familiar expression of lazy arrogance something of a relief. Since the dramatic ending to the trial and the revelation that Devyn had succeeded in his quest to find me, people had been acting strangely around me. I wasn’t just risen from the dead, I was the new Lady of the Lake; people looked at me as if I was a legend come to life which, I supposed, to them I was.

  I hadn’t seen Devyn since yesterday. I had tried to get in to see him again, but the guards posted at the entrance to the lower part of the castle now clearly had new instructions. And they were Mercian guards.

  Gideon had come to escort me to the King of Mercia’s rooms where I had been summoned to speak to Rion.

  “That was quite the scene,” he said with a smirk as I scurried to keep up with his long legs.

  “Yes,” I said, my stomach churning. I was grateful to have finally upgraded from the second-hand clothing to a fantastic Oban creation. The dress was cut in the Celtic style but it had a flavour of something else to it, something unidentifiable. Like me.

  We walked in silence for a few minutes.

  “The High Druid, she…” he started slowly.

  “Fidelma.” I frowned slightly. She had sentenced Devyn to death. I supposed she had no choice but to carry out the duties of her office. She had concealed our previous acquaintance and I could only assume that she had been overruled by the majority behind closed doors. Even though she hadn’t been able to sense who I really was, she had warned me that Devyn was not for me. Had she in some way foreseen what was to come?

  “Hey,” he snapped at me.

  I jumped, startled.

  “What?” I put a hand to my heart, which had already had a rough few days.

  “I need you to listen to me.”

  “I am listening,” I said tartly. We were nearly at Rion Deverell’s room. We were finally going to meet as… family. He had barely looked at me yesterday, beyond that moment where realisation had sunk in.

  “Dammit.” A large hand circled my upper arm, bringing me to an abrupt and unexpected halt.

  I scowled up at the manhandling oaf. We were back to this?

  His jaw had a tic jumping at the side; the careless Gideon was really worked up. I tilted my head. How curious.

  He exhaled roughly.

  “Fidelma is…” He ran a hand over his jaw roughly. “You shouldn’t trust her.”

  ““Why not?” I asked. Where was this coming from?

  “I’m not saying she’s your enemy, just that she…” He shrugged. “She has her own reasons for doing things. I see how you… Just be careful.”

  Be careful? Out of all the Britons I had come across, she was one of the few who had ever helped me. The High Druid had been the only person apart from his uncle to have tried to give Devyn a fair trial. I frowned as Gideon knocked on the door and the call to enter came from within.

  Rion Deverell hadn’t paid me a great deal of attention since his arrival; I’d had a chance to study him though. But I couldn’t even guess at his reaction to his sister’s return from the dead. My existence shifted the balance of power in Britannia, but would that bother him? Would he be glad?

  He was sitting at a desk when I entered the room and made no move to come around and greet me. It felt like I was entering the principal’s office for a dressing down for some sort of misbehaviour.

  He looked up at me, his expression collected and formal as he gestured with a snapped wave of his hand for Gideon to leave. Ouch. No wonder Gideon was off with me. Helping to conceal the truth of my identity must not have gone down well with his liege lord.

  “I apologise for not summoning you sooner,” he started, his composure even.

  “Summoning?” I echoed. Seriously?

  He stood, shaking his head slightly.

  “I didn’t mean… that is, yesterday I was angry. Not at you. That is, I was taken by surprise.” He stopped, a wry smile tilting at his lips while his blue eyes met mine. “In all these years… He always said… I never allowed myself to really believe… To dream…”

  I stared as the oh-so-dignified and regal Rion Deverell disintegrated in front of me. I had had time to think about what this might be like and had been observing him for nearly two weeks. This was clearly a shock for him.

  I smiled back, a goofy, lopsided thing that spoke to everything swirling around inside me. He returned it and got up to come around the desk.

  His eyes surveyed me intensely, taking in every feature, every expression, as I did the same to him.

  “I can’t believe afte
r all these years you will really be coming home.” He hesitated, a flash of uncertainty crossing his face. “Fidelma would like you to join her community in Glastonbury, to train to tend the leys as the lady has done for generations. I was hoping that first you might come home.”

  Home. The word thrilled through me. I nodded.

  “I’d like that,” I said, and a broad smile lit up his face. “What is it like? What was it like to grow up there?” I had so many questions.

  “Beautiful,” he said, his smile fading. “Empty.”

  He had grown up without the family that should have been his.

  “How old were you when…?”

  “I was four when Mother died. Father held on until I was in my teens but he was a ghost after she died. He was all heart, and when she was gone, so was he, really.”

  “Do you remember her?”

  “A little,” he confirmed. “Feelings mostly – her laughter, her sheer force of will. You have her temper, and her way of… I don’t know how I didn’t see what was right in front of me.” he exhaled. “Catriona.”

  He pulled me into his arms and it felt right. It felt like the welcome and security of home. Finally, a home. He was family, someone who would love me unconditionally, simply because I existed.

  I pulled back. I wanted, needed, to see his face. Did we look alike to others? Did we look like brother and sister.

  “Rion and Catriona?” I asked.

  “Yes, my— our mother liked the way they paired.” He smiled again, as if unable to hold his happiness to himself. “Ridiculous, I know. The Lady of the Lake usually has a more traditional name.”

  “Like what?” I asked, only vaguely focused on this conversation. Most of my mind was still marvelling that this was really happening. I felt giddy with it.

  “Like Nimue, after the lady who aided Arthur back in legend, or Evaine, or Viviane, like Mother.”

  “Viviane,” I sounded it out just to feel it roll off my tongue. “Catriona, Cat… Devyn calls me Cass. Do you think it’s because it sounds similar?”