The stones of Caer Colur sang beneath her fingertips, a full chorus where the vibration of the ormer shard had been but an echo. This place knew her, responded to her touch with a thrill of greeting. She molded her palm against the support of one of the great gates and breathed deep, listening. The song seemed to rise up from the land itself, as sap rises from the root of a tree; pushing itself up from the earth, through the invisible channels in stone, and into her questioning hand, a flow of joyful kinship.
Mine. And only a taste, the smallest hint of all that lay buried here, waiting for her to resurrect. She turned to Achren, who stood near, watching her intently, and asked, "Can it truly rise again?"
"I believe it can," Achren said. "Your foremothers inlaid every stone with magic, and that power will answer to you fully, once you know the proper incantations."
"And where am I to learn those?"
"When my servants recover the Pelydryn, much more will be revealed to you, I think. It is too bad we do not have the book," Achren added, almost as an afterthought.
"What book?"
"The book of spells the Daughters of Llyr used in their rituals...a treasure-trove of their knowledge and power. But it was lost in the cataclysm, and there is no use in wishing for what is beyond our reach. You shall be given what you need, when you need it."
Her mother sits by the fire, the bauble lit upon the table, and slowly turns the pages of a leather-bound book. Beautiful images illuminate each margin, around tight rows of squiggles, meaningless to her. "Who are they?" she asks, pointing at the women inked in one corner, in jewel-bright pigments, leafed in gold.
"Your ancestors," Mam says softly, in that sad voice she uses, whenever she speaks of such things. "The ones who made this book."
"Read it to me."
Mam laughs her gentle laugh. "Not just now. Things happen, when I read these words aloud."
"Bad things?"
"No. But things that should only happen for good reasons."
She sniffs, her interest waning. "There's no stories?"
Mam kisses the top of her head. "None. Only spells, and not one of them as nice as Tad's stories."
"Why do you read it, then?"
Mam is quiet for a moment, staring into the crackling fire, until the bauble's light goes dim, and whispers, "So that I do not forget them."
She came to the present slowly, this time, gently, like being awakened from a long sleep by a whisper. Achren still stood there. A hint of subtle expectancy melted from her gaze before Eilonwy had time to do more than recognize it. Waiting for me to make a mistake, she thought, discomforted. Let her wait. And let her think that book lost! It was as good as, anyway...and that was a shame, though probably a mercy, too, given what Achren might have done with all the secrets of Llyr at her disposal. Perhaps, once the threat of outside meddling was gone, she would search for it herself.
The thick walls enveloped them, opening into the courtyard. The ground before her seemed to shift, melting in her vision from one state to another. One moment she saw smooth and level slate, tiled in intricate patterns; the next, she blinked at a pile of earth and sharp-edged rubble, registering the truth just in time not to dash her shins against it, and scolding herself sternly. It was one thing to embrace the memory of Caer Colur's ancient magnificence, to take inspiration from what had been and might be again. It was another not to see the reality of its current state through such glamor. She must not lose sight of what was in front of her, no matter what visions compelled her. Staring hard at each stationary thing, she swallowed the salt-and-sweet taste of magic to the back of her mouth. It lay pulsing from somewhere deep and shivered out to her edges, like a hawk straining at its tethers, eager to soar.
The voices whispered, drawing her on, through the yawning doorway of the Great Hall. Its starkness struck her like a physical blow. Somehow, it had not looked so bleak the previous night; in the darkness, firelight had been kind, warming its broken edges and painting them with gold, leaving what it could not touch to the mystery of deep shadows. Intact statuary, columns, and arches had stood as melancholy but noble remnants of its former glory.
But now, harsh, merciless daylight stormed through the shattered casements and the gape of missing roof to expose the desecration within. Anything that still stood whole seemed only a mocking reminder of what had been lost. Eilonwy walked among the rubble slowly. A stream of sunshine burst from the clouds, engulfing her; she flinched away as though she herself were a ruined captive, stripped naked and ashamed by a gloating conqueror.
"Who did this?" Her whisper was rough with fury. Achren's expression seemed to read her thoughts, an empathy that still jarred her with its unfamiliarity. The silver head shook.
"They did it to themselves."
"Never." She curled her hands, heat like embers clutched in her grip.
"It was not their aim," Achren amended, "but there were many causes, beginning with Arawn's attack. He found a weakness and exploited it."
"I still don't understand why they asked you for help. Did they not know what you were?"
Achren drew her head up, a little stiffly. "Regat knew my history well enough—better than you do, in all your sheltered ignorance. May you never have cause to understand what has made me what I am."
The words were low and rimmed with ice, prompting a sudden shiver. Eilonwy glanced at Achren and quickly away. She was accustomed to the cold rage in those eyes, but not the broken, bitter thing behind it. Whatever empathy they now shared, it had its limits.
"Do not think that she trusted me," Achren went on, after a moment of silence. "Your grandmother was a worthy ally, but how she chose to think of me mattered little, for my part. She knew the danger of the game she proposed and was bold and desperate enough to play it. If you have half her wit and will, it will be enough to rule. Indeed, to expand your reach beyond this island."
As if in response to the suggestion, a surge of magic rushed up, eager and willing. For an instant the Hall shimmered into view as something else: opulent with color, lit with dripping candles and hot torchlight, breathing with figures that moved, elegant and stately, over its mosaic floor. The gleaming statues stood like marble sentries, all their attention converging on the dais. Women clustered there, upon and around the thrones: tall and regal, with fierce light in their eyes, flashing lunar pendants on their breasts, gold and silver upon their heads.
Your ancestors. The image wavered, and became those ink figures, frozen upon parchment.
Eilonwy blinked, and the vision faded. "I have no wish for that much power," she said, but the words tasted dry and bland, somehow, and her hands burned with the restraint of forcing the magic in them back into her bones.
"Well," Achren said, with a tight smile, "that choice will be yours to make, of course."
They stood silent for a moment, measuring one another. The voices muttered over the distant percussion of the sea.
"So you helped them," Eilonwy said finally, and gestured around at the rubble, "yet here I see nothing but ruin. Was it failure, then, or betrayal?"
Another frosty glare. "You assume much. It was I who was betrayed, forced to defend myself against an attack from your aunt. And in so doing, I broke Regat's terms by casting magic outside of her express approval. But had I any other choice?"
"My aunt?"
"Your mother's sister, Eilwen. A reckless little chit, even more impulsive than Angharad. The moment she decided I posed a greater threat than the one we were allied against..." Achren shrugged and gestured to the room. "Well, you see the outcome. One attack provoked another, from every quarter, until the castle could not withstand the assault. Meanwhile, the spells Regat had laid out meant the sea itself was loosed against me, once the terms were broken. The island, weakened from Arawn's enchantments, was subjected to tides and quakes the like of which it had never endured. And so it fell."
The voices turned to the echoes of cries and screams, shrill over the low groaning of stone crashing in upon itself. Eilonwy pressed her hands against her temples until the sounds faded. "And the people..."
"All would have perished, but for your mother. Somehow she opened a gate to another place, another world, and all of Llyr passed through."
"Everyone?"
"All those not killed in the chaos. There were casualties, Regat among them, felled in this Hall. But all the rest—yes."
She sounded oddly regretful. Eilonwy surveyed her skeptically. "Except Mother herself. Why did she not go with them?"
Achren glanced around the hall, her expression veiled but for the glitter of her eyes. "Because of your father. He was not of Llyr, and could not stay in that other place, and she would not leave him."
Uneasy, Eilonwy thought backwards in confusion. Something was wrong, did not fit in with what she knew. Of course, she knew precious little, but the threads of it were a different color and weave than this tale of Achren's. "I thought my parents ran away together, after Regat refused their marriage."
The glittering eyes returned to her, cautious. "Who told you that?"
"I..." She opened her mouth to say a name, but none came. Somehow, she seemed to hear a voice telling her the tale, but it no longer had a face associated with it, only a blank space. "I don't remember who told me, but I do remember the story. Mother had to marry an enchanter, and Father wasn't one, just an ordinary man. But she fell in love with him, and they eloped, and the queen forbade his name be spoken."
Achren let out a huff of amused mockery. "What a charming interpretation. I imagine your father came up with it himself, to amuse the ragtag spawn in that caravan you all traveled with. No doubt the tale has made its way all around the country by now."
"If it's such a myth," Eilonwy retorted coldly, "then tell me the truth. If you even know how."
She had used such a tone with Achren a handful of times in childhood, when provoked beyond endurance, and she had been made to regret it, every time. But the anticipatory dread that had been her vigilant companion then was now silent, crushed out of existence by the exultant flush of new power. And Achren, staring back at her, flushed as though about to retaliate, did nothing. Nothing.
"All I have told you here has been truth," Achren said, her blood-pricked cheeks paling again in a mask of calm. "I may deceive, when necessary, but I do not do so for malice or idle amusement. It would serve neither of us for you not to understand your history.
"The truth is that Regat had sent out requests for enchanters to come offer suit to your mother. Two arrived here shortly after I did. There was a ceremony in which each was to present himself and showcase his abilities, so that the princess might choose one as her consort. Your father showed up there, entirely unexpected, and put on what was, I must concede, a rather brilliant performance. Angharad would doubtless have chosen him, but it was all an illusion. He was no enchanter, and Regat had to refuse him, by law."
"It sounds like a stupid law."
Achren made a sound that, in anyone less elegant, might have been called a snort. "Oh, yes. Centuries of strategic marriages between magical bloodlines resulted in a dynasty of women so powerful they feared almost nothing, but you know better, of course."
Eilonwy flung her hands out to the ruin around them. "Well, it certainly didn't help them, did it? Where is their kingdom, now?"
"It is wherever your mother sent it," said Achren severely, stepping closer, "a thing she would never have had the power to do, without that heritage. She saved her people, and it cost her gravely. Would you mock her sacrifice?"
Again a tense, thick stillness fell. Even the muttering voices silenced themselves. Achren turned away, moving to the dais and climbing its steps as she spoke. "When your mother refused to choose between the other enchanters, such commotion broke out in the Hall that the guard had to move in. The common folk were dispersed, and the family retired. A few hours later, Arawn struck a final blow, through one of the visiting enchanters, a weak fool who had no idea how he was being used. I felt it happen, and rushed to the Hall to find the puppet sitting on the throne. When the others entered, Regat disposed of him before he even knew what had happened." A wry smile ghosted over her mouth for an instant at the memory. "But seeing me there, they assumed treachery, of course. I tried to explain, but they would not listen. Eilwen lost patience and cast the first curse. In the chaos that ensued, your mother ran from the Hall with your father, and after that my only aim was defending myself from the others. The next any of us knew, the gate appeared."
She stood at one end of the dais, spreading her arms. "Here. A ring of light that swallowed everything. I have never seen its like. Those still standing, here in the Hall, went streaming through it. I would have tried to go, myself, called by whatever lay on the other side, but I was injured and could scarcely move. And then Angharad stepped out of it, pulling that young man through, and closed it again behind her."
Eilonwy trembled as visions flashed across her field of view in rapid accompaniment to Achren's words, every one of them a confirmation of the story told. The Hall crumbling, beams blasted with fire, stones shaken from its walls. Words of power, shouted out against the sounds of the destruction. A great white light engulfing everything, and two figures emerging from it. But the images were disjointed, one moving to the next in a choppy transition, and the gaps between them were blank and fogged, a collection of lost time in which anything could have happened. "How did they get off the island?" she demanded, and Achren shook her head.
"I know not how they or I escaped with our lives. They paid no heed to my calls, only ran from the Hall as it crumbled around us. I followed, as best I could. And then I fell into darkness so deep that I could see and hear nothing at all. I have no memory of time passing in that state. When I knew myself again, I lay abandoned on the shores of the mainland. It was long before I had any thought other than finding shelter."
Magic was throbbing through Eilonwy the way her pulse throbbed after a hard run, beating in time with the rhythm of the voices in her head. Llyr sang a warning, a protest, a song in which one false note plucked a discordance, one which made her feel almost physically ill. One thing she knew: this elaborate account might be woven with threads of truth, but the final image was an illusion, a deception. Only Achren could speak nothing but truth and still somehow be lying.
It's no good, asking her. I must see it myself.
Eilonwy moved to the empty dais, watched her own bare feet as they padded up the steps; one, two...by the third she saw them wrapped in leather sandals, delicately engraved with silver and embroidered in pearl beads. Her tattered linen skirt melted into turquoise silk; she felt its sensuous swish around her ankles, its decadent weight pulling from her hips. She looked up, heart pounding, breath swelling in a tremulous inhale; it seemed to her that a lovely woman stood before her, dark-haired and grey-eyed and smiling, white-robed and bare-armed, with a silver disc dangling at her breast. In the woman's slender hands lay a circlet, its metalwork an intricate weaving of delicately twisted silver bands, and she reached out to place it on Eilonwy's head. The voices of Llyr sighed, not from inside her mind, but from all around, for once speaking words she could understand. Angharad. Hail the princess. Angharad.
No, she said, frozen with dismay. I am Eilonwy.
She thought she spoke aloud, but the words made no sound. And yet the world trembled upon them, and fell away like the shards of a shattered mirror, and there was no dark-haired woman, just Achren, standing there, watching her.
With a cry, Eilonwy whirled away from her. Would she never be free of her, never have a thing untainted by the presence of this woman? Even here in this place—this place where the salt in her blood pulled her toward the sea, where her people's magic clung to her like a spiraling vine the moment she had set foot on its shores—here, where everything should be hers, and hers alone?
A voice spoke, within the chorus. It is yours. Claim it.
I already did, she thought, in wild frustration.
With words and will. One thing remains.
What else must I do?
Blood draws blood. Add your own to that of those who came before.
The woman stood before her once more, the dark-haired woman with the clear eyes, but instead of a crown she held out a slim silver dagger. "Gently, now, love," she said, with a sympathetic smile. "Only a drop. No need to be overly dramatic."
She watched her hands reach for the knife, and they seemed to be someone else's hands—alike to hers in size and shape, but gleaming with silver rings in place of scars, shining delicate nails instead of ground-in dirt. The right took the blade; she felt its cold weight. Its silver edge nestled against the palm of the left hand, her left hand; it slid until she felt it sting. A bright red berry ripened against the white field of her skin, drew a crimson trail across her palm, and fell to the stone at her feet.
The moment the drop touched the ground, there was a roar as from a multitude of voices, or the thunderous crash of surf; perhaps both, in a grand concert. A current of power rose from the bones of Caer Colur. Free and unbound at last, it swept up within her, a flood of unleashed longing; it embraced her and enfolded her until she could touch each individual strand of magic, filled with an ecstasy so vivid it bordered the edges of pain. Fire and water wrapped her in their incandescent spiral, until every sense was filled with liquid light, until she felt she would burst with it, and scatter sparks across the water like a goddess birthing a constellation. Somewhere in the calm center of whirling, overwhelming sensation, she felt a brush across her brow, and remembered the silver-white woman who had kissed her there, one night while she had watched the moon rise.
It might have been seconds, or an eternal moment. At last, the maelstrom ebbed, leaving her breathless and slightly weak. But when she opened her eyes and looked about her, she felt rapt.
There stood the Great Hall, resplendent for a gala occasion. Flames leapt in the hearth and braziers. Banners swung from the rafters. A large table was set for a feast. A general air of expectancy hovered over all, watchful, waiting. But the room was empty of all living, save a single woman, silver-haired and dark-robed, who stood nearby. In her hand lay the silver dagger, and on her face shone an expression of utter exultation.
My apologies for the long gap between uploads. This chapter gave me much more trouble than I anticipated, and for a long time I had to lay it aside to tend to other things. Many thanks to my longtime reader/friend/sometimes editor ZosiaDetroit for helping me set it straight while I was floundering...and if you haven't started reading her new story, Queen of Iron and Bone, you should do that, because it's already fantastic. Our various depictions of Achren are so interlinked and influenced by each other, that familiarity with both is the only way to get the whole picture.