Chapter 45

"Mom doesn't know the whole story, does she?" Henry asked.

"What is the whole truth, Henry? Even I don't know that. She made a choice years ago as did I and we are still paying for that. There are things that even I don't know. Our fate is one of them. Henry, your mother agreed to help me whenever I needed it, but I never dreamed that it would be like this. I had the gift of sight and with that I gave it up to help my daughter. I haven't lost sight of what is important to me," Rhiannon told him.

"Yeah, and what's that?" Henry asked.

"Family."

"I agree," Snow stated.

"But, she doesn't know that I am the child of the prophecy," Henry stated.

"How could she, young prince? I told her to drink a memory potion. It is likely that until she set eyes on Shannon that she didn't remember ever meeting her. She won't remember anything that I told her. She won't know unless Birgit and Shannon told her about it."

"But, why, Rhiannon? Why tell her only to make her forget? What was the point?" Henry asked, as he looked up from the books on Avalon that Belle and he had found in Regina's study.

"I needed her help, but I also needed to give her hope."

"Why?"

"Because the hope that she would find her happy ending finally allowed her to succumb to Rumple's will, it give her enough of a reason besides ending my happiness to cast the curse," Snow said knowingly, as she passed a map across the table to Rhiannon.

"It did. She was never too far gone, Snow. You must believe that. She was angry and full of vengeance. She hated Rumple more than you, but she couldn't take back what had happened. She had to learn to live with it and she knew that you would never believe her about what happened with your father. She knew that you were child. She knew that you didn't know better when you told her mother about Daniel, but she still wasn't prepared for the destruction that your innocence and naivety cause. Who could? No one except Cora is to really blame for all the death and destruction that Regina caused. If I could have saved her from her own mother, I would have, but it wasn't meant to be. I tried. I tried to warn her. I did, but in the end, it was your mother's decision," Rhiannon told him.

"And, now?"

"I would do anything for her, Henry."

"Why? You keep talking about this oath, but no one knows about it but you two. What is so damn important about this oath and why can't you tell us what it is?" Henry asked her.

"Henry!" Snow scolded him.

"Not now, Grams. I think that we need to know. My moms have risked their lives for your daughter. According to this prophecy, I am to be the new Pendragon and I am sure that Mom is going to love to hear that. So, what exactly is your oath to my mother?"

"Such a fine young Prince you are, Henry of the Winterlands, son of the House of Swan, but an oath such as your mother and I made is not for your ears to hear."

"Bullshit!"

"Henry Mills!"

"Not now, Snow. I want to know. You've come here, upset my family, told some great stories, got my mom to go save your daughter from a former evil handmaiden named Mara and you can't tell me why. I don't think so. Look, we agreed to help you because it is really what we do. We help people. We save the day. Now, what happened that is so damn important that my mother would gladly die for your daughter without so much as a thought about me or our family?"

"She owes me her life."

Snow gasped and reached out for Henry, pulling his tall body back into hers. She looked bewildered and Henry was gob smacked. Rhiannon sat down in front of the map. She turned it back towards them and placed her finger on it.

"This is where I am from. It is the land of the Fae. People of your world consider my world a land of myth and legend, and I guess that it is. Your mother's and my story starts here on the Phoenix plains near the Phoenix valley. There is where our oath began and that is where I can save her again. I only have so much Phoenix oil with me and I don't know if Birgit and Shannon have any left in the reserves that I sent her for them," Rhiannon told them.

"What is there?"

"That is the valley where my foster brother and I grew up. You see I was born a princess of Avalon, and I was reared as such by my father. The throne descends through the female lines in our lands. I was a precious to him as any prince was here. Having a daughter was a blessing. Regina saw this and admired our lands. She sought to strengthen the alliance that my father and her mother had by marrying my brother. She was of royal blood and he was technically as well, but he wasn't destined to rule."

"I take it that Cora didn't approve of the match, then?" Snow asked.

"Oh, see did, but she wanted her vengeance on your mother first, dear. Hatred can be such a powerful motivator. She couldn't see beyond it. My father agreed to the match on one condition. It was too bad it was a condition that Regina could never give."

"What was that?" Henry asked.

"She had to give her heart to my brother and he to her."

"But, why?" Snow asked.

"It is an old custom of ours. You carry your loves heart and they carry yours. It is the ultimate sign of love and trust. Regina was already too far gone by the time it came for the marriage. Leopold was dead. She was hunting you. Father was on his death bed. There was no more time. If she were to marry him and unite our kingdoms and the realms, it would have to be done quickly. Regina wasn't one to do things as others would want her to do them. She came to me in a fit of rage, demanding that she be released from whatever contracts her mother had signed her into. She would not be another man's wife. I could see into her heart and I knew that it would destroy my brother and divide our house further. I couldn't let her marry him and she knew it. So we took a trip to the Phoenix Valley and I killed her."

"You did what?!" Henry asked her.

"I killed her in front of my brother. She didn't want to corrupt our throne and she didn't want to corrupt my brother. He was good man and she was…well, she had liked him once. I don't think that it was ever love, but she did care for him. I didn't see it at the time, but I do now realize that she did what she did that day in order to save my kingdom."

"What about the marriage?"

"It was a farce. She gave him someone else's heart. She kept his for a while and reveled in its power before she gave it back to me. She told me that she didn't like that way that it felt. We went to the Valley for her to die and to release my brother from his vows. She died and I transferred the hearts back to where they belonged. The fake heart back to Regina and my brother's back to him. What we didn't know that was that some of Regina's memories were bound to his heart and it began to drive him mad," Rhiannon told them.

"What happened?" Snow asked.

"When he realized that Regina was alive and evil, he took it upon himself to come to your realm to save her. As soon as she found him, she had him locked up and put in a tower while she sent world to me, now Queen of Avalon, to come fetch him. He was devastated. He was and still is madly in love with a woman who was never your mother, but he would save her. He would fight for her and he would make her understand the ways of love, again.

"She came to see me again that summer, like she had when we were children and she brought my brother with her. I took her to the Lake of the Pendragons and we spoke little. She was happy to be rid of my brother and her need for hatred and vengeance had grown so much in that short time that her black heart was now reflected in her face, clothes and mannerisms. I didn't know what to do with her. I have promised once when we were children that I would protect her from the evil that her mother wielded and instead, I delivered her back into it.

"I begged her to stay with me and let you go. I asked her to turn the kingdom over to you, Snow, that she might forget her pain and suffering and finally find redemption with love. I didn't care if it was with my brother or anyone else. As long as she stopped her pursuit of you, I would do anything in my power to save her. She laughed at me. She actually laughed at me. And, do you know what she said to me? Three hateful words," Rhiannon told them.

"Love is weakness," Snow stated.

"Yes, how did you know?" Rhiannon asked her.

"Cora used to tell her that all the time. Especially after she married my father, I didn't understand it then. I was so small. I didn't know what was going on."

"No one did. Her heart had been abused by the one person that she had always unconditionally loved and the one that would betray her the most. Her mother. She couldn't find a way back to love because Cora had destroyed every bridge that she could before Regina pushed her through the looking glass and then again when she sent Hook to bring back her mother dead. She had always loved Cora, but she didn't know until the very end that Cora never had her heart. It is impossible to love someone or something without your heart unless it is True Love."

"And, your brother?" Henry asked.

"He ran off and joined the Merlins, much to my dismay. He swore that he would find a way to earn back the love of Regina if it was the last thing that he did. When he died in the Phoenix Valley trying to protect not only myself and Regina, but our kingdom, I made Regina swear, in blood, as my sister, that she would do the same. I didn't know at that time that her son would be the son that would reunite the realm and bring back the Pendragon name to the throne. My sight was limited and I couldn't see that. Besides the prophecies had been written for ages and the kingdoms were united when they were written. No one knew that the death of my brother would signal the turning of the tides for Tir Nan Og," Rhiannon explained.

"How so?" Snow questioned.

"He was the heir to another kingdom, wasn't he?" Belle asked.

"You are right, little one, he was. He was to be the High King of Tara 'Nic Leodhas. It is the lands of the Merlins and mostly forests. He had already joined the Merlins and the crown was already his, all he had to do was go there and take it. When he died, Pawl gave it to his friend, Mara's husband instead. The Merlins were not pleased. This man was not a Merlin and he wasn't of royal blood. He was a farce of a king. When the Merlins threw him out of their lands and took the crown back, they sent word to me that any child of mine would be welcome and could rule in my brother's stead. I was pregnant at the time."

"But, the oath?" Henry pushed.

"Your mother owed me a life for a life and she signed it in blood. And, as you know, blood magic is strongest magic there is this realm or any realm. She will protect Shannon until she dies because my brother could not do it. I didn't know at the time that the prophecy would also make her give me her son as payment. You are to be a Pendragon, Henry. I cannot stop it. You have already passed half of the requirements to be named as such, but a Merlin will have to anoint you with the titles. I cannot."

"And, you won't," Regina said as she entered the study with Emma, Birgit, and Shannon behind her, "Because, I will. I still bear the blood of the Pendragon and I will name my son. Hello, Sisters, glad to see that the family is all here. I have a bitch to deal with and her name is Mara. No one threatens my family, blood or not and gets away with it. Nobody!"