Curse of the Celts

by Clara O'Connor

  “The druids in Anglesey won’t know you,” Marcus reasoned.

  “It’s not about the druids. I will not defy my lord in this,” Devyn stated.

  Marcus’s green eyes met mine. He was as good as his word. He had found a way, and now all I had to do was persuade Devyn. Marcus would be ready.

  Devyn observed the look between me and Marcus and his mouth set in a flat line.

  “I’m telling you, it’s over,” he said resolutely, blocking me so I could feel nothing of him as he strode from the room.

  “We’ll see about that,” I shouted to his retreating back. He had explained why Rion couldn’t forgive him, and he was clearly torn in two by his divided loyalties. He loved me. He had shown me that enough times now. But he was also sworn to serve Rion, and persuading him to publicly humiliate his king would be next to impossible. But I wasn’t ready to give up yet.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The bonfire to celebrate midwinter lit the courtyard from early evening, and from my window high up in the castle I could see out across the town and countryside where more fires glowed. I leaned against the cold granite wall, which cooled my heated skin. I felt exhausted as I emerged from yet another day hiding in my room. Despite the days spent cooped up in this castle doing nothing, my energy felt lower than it had when we were on the road.

  In the days leading up to the beginning of the Yule festivities, Devyn was a ghost. He haunted the shadows but made it impossible for me to engage with him. He would slip away at any attempt to try to talk him round.

  This morning I had felt strangely off and utterly defeated, merely curling into the warmth of my blankets against the icy winter air and wishing for the comforts of home. There was no point in getting up. Devyn continued to avoid me, the castle’s inhabitants wore me out with their whispers every time I walked past, and there was no chance of being allowed outside the castle walls. I had managed to convince the maid who came to stoke my fire that I was feeling peaky so couldn’t attend the dawn service to greet the Solstice and she had all too readily brought me my breakfast, delighted to be of service. I’d hardly touched the unappetising porridge and barely nibbled at the edge of the griddle cakes that I normally enjoyed, and this had earned me lunch in bed too.

  I’d finally managed to pull myself out of bed at Marina’s urging when she and Oban arrived to deliver the creation he had made for me. Marina was in an odd mood and disappeared quickly, leaving me with her brother as he made the final adjustments to the beautiful dress. The sounds of laughter and music and the smell of crackling woodsmoke wafted in from outside.

  I entered the celebration on Marcus’s arm – an oddly familiar role. The stage might be different, but our roles within it were strangely fixed. A harpist had arrived from across the sea to celebrate the feast at Conwy. I’d never heard a harp before, and my mind snagged on the sweet ribbons that floated melodically on the air. The notes were haunting and lonely. Even as other instruments joined in, I could feel the winding central tenet of the music as if it was always set apart, intrinsic to the tune but never entirely of it.

  This feast was in my honour, apparently, and as Marcus moved me from group to group with his usual natural ease, I felt observed and judged. I looked the part – the velvet dress was divine, moulding and flowing around my body in all the right ways. Its intricate cut and painstaking embroidery were a testament to Oban’s artistry. My hair was plaited and left long, and a gold circlet was placed around my crown to denote my status.

  The room was festooned with holly boughs heavy with red berries, which Marina, fountain of all kinds of new knowledge, had told me was the sign of a long winter. There was also some precious mistletoe dangling over the doorway where we had entered. Marina had also informed me that this was a traditional decoration. With so many ill who needed it, to have even this small amount being used for this purpose was an extremely decadent gesture. Yet Llewelyn had some put over the doorway anyway, allowing everyone to walk underneath and have its blessing of love for the year bestowed upon them. Yay.

  I had been forced to stand under it for longer than most, as Llewellyn toasted my return and the impending nuptials.

  As our genial host, he had swirled me out onto the dancefloor when the music picked up, the beat of the drums and the tempo of the music proving a temptation impossible to ignore for many guests. For a moment, I was in the arms of the only other person under this roof whom I knew to be as frustrated as I at Devyn’s fate. I let my mask drop, allowing myself to become one with the music, and followed his light-footed lead.

  When the tune ended, he thanked me and bowed deeply.

  “Prince Llewelyn, I will do what I can to help Devyn.”

  He raised a brow. “Lady, he found you, he restored honour to his name, and I hope it will lift some of the heaviness from my brother’s heart. What more could I ask for him?”

  “You offered him your title?” If the offer still held, maybe I could persuade Devyn to accept and we could stay here.

  “I would be glad to have the boy rule once I am gone, but it was always a fool’s dream. It was an offer made to remind people of his blood, but it could never be. He broke his oath. No man or woman would ever trust him enough to swear their allegiance to him.”

  “But he did it to find me.”

  “Yes, lady.” He looked puzzled at my lack of comprehension. “The duty he owes you is beyond the laws of man. He did the right thing, but he broke our laws to do so. He broke his word to his king. You might trust him in all things, but no other in our lands ever will.”

  He smiled sadly and took his leave.

  I frowned at the gap he had left. Especially since Rion Deverell stepped into it.

  “Will you dance with me?” He grimaced at my failure to respond. “It is expected.”

  His hands were sure as he moved me in the correct steps of a courtly dance which, once again, had the mournful harp as the pre-eminent instrument.

  “You are avoiding me,” he said, sombrely pushing me away before twirling me back in.

  “What do you expect?” I had waited a lifetime to have family, and the disappointment was crushing me. Not only had Rion taken Devyn away from me, he had taken something much more fundamental, something I had never dared to hope for myself.

  “I had hoped to get to know my sister.” His voice was soft, careful.

  He thought I would get past this.

  “What? Before you send me off to York with Marcus?” He had spoken to me of the home that should have been mine then moments later informed me of his plan to send me away.

  His eyelids dropped, concealing his emotions.“Catriona,” he began.

  “My name is Cassandra.” I glared at him. He did not get to tell me who to marry and who to be as well. Catriona did not exist; the girl who they all thought had died on the banks of the Tamesis outside Londinium had not come home. I had.

  He winced, his eyes lidded again as he inclined his head in acknowledgement.

  “I would wish that we had more time but I understand that the handfast has already gone on dangerously long.”

  I maintained a stony silence as he twirled me across the hall.

  “I would like us not to be enemies,” he tried again.

  “Then don’t force me to do this.”

  He paused long enough for me to hope, to dream that he was considering my wishes, that we could rewind and begin again. That we could be family first before pieces on a chessboard, to be moved about in political manoeuvres.

  “These are dangerous times. For the battle to be won, this is the game that must be played,” he finally said. This was the philosophy he lived by, and now apparently expected me to live by too. “It is for the best.”

  “For you. Not for me. Not for—”

  He stopped cold.

  “Do not say his name. I do not know what has occurred between you, but he does not get to have this. After everything, this is too much. He has no right to reach so high.”

  “If our li
ves had been different… If our mother had not died…?” I pushed.

  His eyes took in the observing crowd and he swung me round to the tune once more.

  “But she did die. And Devyn and his father were at fault. The Griffin failed her.”

  Our mother had played her own part in what had happened. Why should she condemn Rhodri to shame for all eternity and leave four-year-old Devyn to be held accountable? I hesitated for a moment. Devyn’s father had made a confession that I was reasonably sure no one else knew. There was probably a good reason he had never told anyone before. More likely, knowing his son, the reason was foolish pride, but I couldn’t keep it to myself. This man had a right to know. Her death, and the events surrounding it, was one of the defining moments of his life; he should have all the facts.

  “She bound him. Our mother bound him with a vow that he would keep Devyn alive at all costs.”

  “What? Why would she do that?” His eyes flickered as his quick brain worked through the angles of this new information.

  “I don’t know, but you see, he didn’t betray her. Rhodri followed her wishes, despite what he wanted himself.”

  He rolled his shoulders.

  “I don’t know why she would have done such a thing. But it changes nothing,” he said finally. “Devyn still lives. And tomorrow you wed Marcus.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  My chest felt tight, so tight that it could crush the very life out of me. “The druid tells me that the handfast has already gone on too long. The Steward of York arrives in the morning. Why wait any longer?”

  My vision blurred as I looked past him, searching the room. He couldn’t do this. I wouldn’t do this. We were out of time. My sight cleared as I sought the shadows of the room. There. My eyes met intense dark ones across the merry music. Could he sense my panic? His eyes were like those of the eagle on his back as he tracked our movements and I knew he could tell that something was wrong.

  I broke free of my brother’s arms. I needed a moment to breathe. A large form materialised beside me, sheltering me from the crowd, manoeuvring me as I stumbled blindly to the exit.

  I found myself at the walls of the castle, the sea air whipping through me, blowing out the panic that Rion Deverell’s words had brought about in me. My knuckles were white in the dark as I gripped the battlements.

  “Breathe,” the gravelled voice behind me commanded.

  I pulled the fresh tang as deep into my lungs as I could, feeling the oxygen reach the depths of my mind and body. My soul lightened in response.

  Trapped. I was trapped as surely as I had been in the cells beneath the arena.

  “I won’t do it.”

  “Won’t do what?” asked Gideon.

  He tracked my eyes as I contemplated the other side of the castle where freedom lay.

  “Hey.” Gideon pulled me around by my arms to face him. “What did Rion say to you?”

  “Your father arrives tomorrow,” I informed him. Surprises were the worst. The least I could do for Gideon in return for getting me out of there was to warn him that the steward was on his way.

  “Right.” His tone was bleakly expressionless at the news.

  “In time for the wedding.” My tone was equally bleak, but with a tad more expression than Gideon’s stoic response to the news of his father’s imminent arrival.

  “Ah,” he said in understanding. “To Marcus.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “Rion means well. He has been preparing for war ever since your mother died. Our protection from the Empire rested on the pretence that his mother lived and the magic was strong. Both of those protections are gone now,” he said in defence of his lord. “You are known to Londinium, and they do not fear you. Your magic is new and unmastered, and the powers your mother wielded may never be in your gift. He is acting swiftly, doing what is in his power to ensure our survival.”

  I understood all this and more. Of course I knew I wasn’t strong enough to defend the Britons as my mother might have. Though what use had her powers been to her when she had fallen so easily under the hooves of the sentinels’ horses? She hadn’t been able to protect her baby daughter, much less an entire island.

  “I have waited my entire life for a family of my own.”

  “You will have that,” he assured me gently in the dark, his body moving closer to mine as if to warm me. “You will have a brother and a husband. You have a family.”

  I didn’t trust myself to speak as a wave of self-pity washed through me.

  “Like you do,” I said, tracing the scar that slashed down his right cheek.

  He huffed a breath in acknowledgement of the hit. “Your brother is not my father,” he said quietly. “You’ve just got off on the wrong foot.”

  I exhaled in disbelief. The wrong foot was if I had accidentally spilled something on him, or been rude before I knew who he was. Rion Deverell had put the love of my life on the ground and then threatened to kill him. Repeatedly.

  “Isn’t he?” I asked. “What did your father do to you, Gideon? Because a man I’ve just met is forcing me to marry someone against my wishes because it is to his political advantage.”

  “You don’t understand. It’s not as simple as—” Gideon spoke quickly to defend his friend, displaying no surprise at learning that I did not want to marry the man everyone believed I was happily betrothed to.

  “Cassandra?” The call came from the bottom of the stairs. Marcus’s form took shape in the moonlight as he came up the steps and emerged from the shadows.

  “Your brother sent me to find you.” His eyes snagged on my hand at my neck, reaching for my absent pendant, and Gideon’s position so close to me. I summoned up a small smile in greeting that I knew failed to reach my eyes. Gideon, of course, didn’t move an inch.

  “You can go now,” Marcus said to Gideon in dismissal. Marcus had always been top of every pecking order, his position here even higher than it had been in the city, and he knew how to use it to his advantage.

  Gideon’s lip curled in response. I was pretty sure he knew Marcus and I only played at being together in order to hide my relationship with Devyn. But we were officially to be married now so he could hardly refuse to leave us alone together.

  “Okay?” He waited for my consent before he left us, his route ensuring that he took his taller, broader frame closer to Marcus than the battlements strictly required on his way past.

  “Ass,” Marcus said, as Gideon made his way slowly down the stairs before casually sauntering across the courtyard, back into the light and music and laughter that emanated from the great hall.

  “You know he enjoys pissing people off.”

  Marcus grunted.

  He took my cold hands in his before shrugging off his jacket and wrapping it around my bare shoulders, sheltering me from the biting breeze. “We need to go.”

  “What?”

  “Rion tells me we can finally get these bloody armbands off tomorrow.” He spoke in a low voice, his words for my ears only.

  “I know.” The words felt as heavy as lead. “He told me.”

  “I spoke to Rion earlier today about us. I tried to persuade him, but Fidelma has advised him that it’s dangerous for us to remain handfasted any longer. We need to leave tonight.”

  “We can’t.”

  “You want to be with Devyn, don’t you?”

  “He won’t do it. Rion Deverell will never forgive him.”

  The consequences of our actions would be too high a price for him. Devyn had refused to give up on me but he had also made it clear that he would not easily break his word to his liege lord. Not again. Not even for me.

  “Would you rather be married to me and living in York? The Anglians are hardcore; Devyn’s life would be a living nightmare. You saw how Gideon treated Devyn. He stabbed him on sight. You see how it is now. He’s a non-person, and he’s only allowed to skulk about in the shadows near you because they consider it his sacred duty.” He spoke urgently. “They won’t kill him fo
r marrying you, you know that. You’ll be able to live together here or in the Lakelands. I’ll go to York and they’ll get over it.”

  Marcus’s words were convincing but I wasn’t so sure. I had heard my brother in the stables that day. Devyn had cost him his family and been forgiven. He had then become the closest thing to family Rion had left and Devyn had abandoned him. Rion Deverell was an unyielding man; he asked and gave no quarter and yet he had loved Devyn beyond forgiveness. Twice. There was a reason Devyn had tried to push me away; he’d known this would be the thing that broke them for ever.

  “We can fix it. Once the deed is done and you are married, they will have to accept it. I will be the King of Anglia and your brother will come around.” His tone was softly persuasive. “We need to get to the druid community on the Holy Isle of Anglesey; the druids there can marry you. Hopefully the news won’t have reached them yet.”

  “Devyn will never agree.” Nobody wanted this. Not even Devyn. Maybe I should stop. Maybe it was for the best. “If we do this, whatever alliance exists between Anglia and Mercia will be destroyed. It will be a fracture down the centre of this island. If the council comes for them when they are too busy fighting each other, they’ll be annihilated. Maybe Devyn is right.”

  “You’re giving up?”

  I shrugged. I had resigned myself to marrying Marcus once before and maybe I could do so again. The wrongness of it threatened to choke me. To have come so far, and to end up living this half-life anyway… The irony was killing me.

  Marcus took hold of my shoulders. “I will speak to Devyn. He has to do this now, before it’s too late.”

  “You think you can persuade him? How?” I had barely even seen him all night. A single sighting, that was it. Did he already know what we had just learned? Was that why he was avoiding me? Delaying the inevitable of telling me for the latest and final time that we could not be together. Was this what my future would be like, knowing he was nearby but unseen, waiting on the edges of my life, and appearing only when I was in danger? Watching me be married to Marcus?

  “I will find a way. We have to go tonight. I will have horses waiting at the back of the herb garden.” Marcus looked determined. “Be ready; we leave after midnight with or without him.”