A Heart in Sun and Shadow (Cymru That Was Book 1) (20 page)

“Please, Lady, I do not mean offense, but I must keep going. If you could but point the way, I will leave you in peace. Is the Lady Seren near by?” Áine asked.

Something about the home seemed so familiar but she pushed it aside as weariness playing tricks. She’d never been here, she knew that much.

“She is quite near. Why do you seek her?” The Lady’s full, sensuous mouth quirked in another condescending half-smile.

Suspicion tickled Áine’s mind and she leaned forward, choosing her words carefully. “I seek her because she has gravely wronged the men I love and I wish to put it right.”

The Lady’s smile died and she jerked up straight, her lips tightening into a line of crimson on her moon-pale face. “Wronged?” she said. “Is that how their story goes?”

Áine stood in a single motion, ignoring the protest in her tired thighs. “Seren,” she said, her suspicion blooming into certainty. She could see it now, the cold, terrible beauty that Idrys had described.

The women faced each other over the bronze brazier and neither spoke for a long moment. Áine’s heart pounded against her ribs as one emotion after another flashed through her.

She wasn’t sure what to think, much less to say. It seemed almost unreal to be standing before the cause of her lovers’ grief. To be standing before the woman whom the twins had loved first. She’d never thought about what she might feel because she’d thought this meeting further away. Her mind finally settled on simmering anger and desperate hope.

You can free them.

Áine swallowed. “You can free them, Seren,” she said.

Seren shrugged, her anger gone from her features as quickly as it had arisen.

“Perhaps. But why should I? I offered your princes what mortal men only dream about and they turned away. They made their choice. If they were so unhappy, why have they not come themselves to beg my forgiveness?”

Áine knew the true answer to this but it was one she could hardly tell Seren.
Idrys is not sure he could refuse you a second time, since he nearly failed the first. And Emyr is afraid of what he might swear to free his brother from his guilt. No, it had to be someone over whom the Lady would hold no sway. And perhaps it had to be someone a little fey themselves, to navigate this realm. It had to be me.
She’d worked out this much on her long walk.

“I came because I love them,” she said simply.

“Both?” Seren narrowed her eyes.

“Both. They are different, truly I would not have known their secret if they weren’t, and I love each for himself.” Áine had anticipated this question as well.

“And you wish me to end the curse?” Seren said. Her expression smoothed again and her beauty became an unreadable mask that hid all thoughts.

“I do. Please, they’ve suffered enough. They meant no offense to you, they were but children and…”

“Enough.” Seren said, cutting off Áine’s pleading. “I’ll break the curse.”

“What?” Áine couldn’t help herself. Shock wiped her mind for a moment.
That easily?
She wondered. Then she saw the hint of the cruel smile on the other woman’s lips.
No, it won’t be, will it.

“I’ll break the curse. Don’t look so amazed, child. I find it insulting.” Seren sat down on the bed again.

“What must I do?” Áine said, suspicion returning in the wake of her surprise.

“Well, at least you’re not completely stupid,” Seren said.

“Not completely.” Áine bit the tip of her tongue to keep in the rest of her response. It would not do to anger the Lady now, not when she had come so far.

“Quit glowering over me and sit, halfling.”

She sat. Seren waited until Áine nearly shook with impatience before she spoke again. “Now, curses are specific things. For it to be broken, I would want certain items. You’ll collect them for me.”

“Will I be able to do so before the twins grow old and die in Cymru-that-is?” Áine asked. She knew the stories and sensed that somehow there was a trick in Seren’s words, though she could not see the whole of it.

“Yes, provided you can complete the tasks I set for you at all. I would not ask if it were not possible with a little ingenuity and dedication.” Seren toyed idly with a small blue stone ring on one of her fingers as she watched Áine’s face.

“What must I do?” Áine repeated.

“
Follow your heart,
” Blodeuedd’s words whispered in her memory.

“Five tasks. Each will bring to me a part for the charm that you might use to break the curse.”

“Can all five be completed in Cymru-that-could be?”

There was a flash of something in Seren’s eyes as she answered, “All but the last.”

“Where is that task then?”

“Cymru-that-is.” Seren shifted and held up her hand to forestall Áine’s next question. “Enough for tonight. The hour is late and I would rest. I will set you the first task in the morning. Press me further and I might decide to sleep in,” she added sharply.

Áine sighed and stood up. “Good night then, Seren.”

“No need to sleep outside, child. You may stay with me.” Seren stroked the furs beneath her.

Áine shivered as she considered the Lady’s thinly veiled invitation. To sleep in the bed where her lovers had lost their innocence, to rest touching the instrument of their pain, to think it brought anger roaring back into her. She was disgusted with her own sudden and strange desire and shoved that aside in place of the cold rage.

Understanding as clear as the chiming of a bell came to her. She saw before her the root of the twins’ confusion and loss and what they’d had to refuse. A rebuke hovered on the tip of her tongue but she realized also in that moment of clarity how inhuman Seren truly was.
She doesn’t see human desire as we feel it, only as a toy to be played with and set aside.
Pity touched Áine’s heart for the Fair Lady, mixing with the anger into churning lump in her stomach.

“Thank you, but I’ll wait outside.” Áine turned away from Seren and left before the Lady could say more.

Áine dreamed. She soared over the forest and circled a holding. She angled her strong white wings to drift lower. Below she recognized Clun Cadair and dropped lower still until she came to rest on the edge of the meat shed. The air was cold and an icy breeze ruffled her plumage. Emyr stood just beneath her but did not look up. The tall black hound at his side, however, turned and stared toward the roof.
Idrys.

She awoke then with the howl of a hunting hound ringing in her mind and found herself curled up at the base of a blossoming cherry. It took her a few moments to recall where she was and why.

Áine stood and folded her cloak, tucking it away into the cloth sack after she pulled an apple out for her breakfast. She noted that the loaf of bread she’d torn a piece from the night before seemed to be whole and undamaged again. Silently she thanked Blodeuedd for yet another kindness.

Áine walked to the deep pool below the waterfall that cascaded and sang beside Seren’s home. Kneeling, she sipped some water and scrubbed at her face with her wet hands. She dried her cheeks on a sleeve and stood up to find Seren watching her from beside the pond.

“Morning,” Áine said with a politeness she did not feel.

“Sleep well, I hope?” Seren said in a tone that made it clear she also felt the question a formality only.

Áine bit into her apple and merely nodded. Not wanting to have to throw the core away in these woods, Áine tucked it back into her cloth sack. She could bury it later, when the cold silver gaze of the Lady wasn’t watching every motion.

“I am ready for my first task,” she said after a few more moments when it became clear that Seren wasn’t going to open the topic.

“Indeed.” Seren folded her arms. She was dressed in a deep-blue gown with a lighter blue underdress peeking out at her sleeves and throat. Intricate embroidery in varying shades of red decorated the neck, hem, and sleeves as well as the cloth sash she had tied low around her hips. Tiny glittering stones were sewn into the collar and cuffs and her blood-red hair fell loose to curl gently at her waist.

Áine sighed, unconsciously smoothing down the front of her own undyed woolen dress.

“Well, halfling, to make the charm I will first need two white stones from a beach to the north and east of here.”

“Any two white stones from that beach? And are they perfectly white or blemished somehow?” Áine asked, wondering at the simple sounding task.

“Nay. They must be two perfectly white stones exactly alike. And there are only two on that beach that are so.” Seren shook her head, not entirely hiding her disappointment that the girl had thought to ask. “When you have found them, return to me and I will give you further instructions.”

“But,” Áine started. Seren smiled and disappeared between breaths, one moment there and the next gone as though she’d never been.

“Don’s tits,” Áine muttered. Then she flushed. Tesn always told her swearing just brought on trouble from the Gods. Emyr would laugh. She wondered what Idrys would have said and then smiled to herself as she recalled him muttering far stronger curses. Her heart hurt and she rubbed at her chest as though she could ease the ache somehow.

Áine shook herself. Standing around feeling lonely wouldn’t help anyone. She slipped her bag over her shoulder and secured the strap between her breasts and then set out through the wood, traveling to the north and the east in search of a beach with white stones.

* * *

The forest gave way after a time to gently rolling hills. The tall grass caressed Áine’s waist as she walked. The breeze brought her the faint scent of brine, drawing her ever further east toward an ocean she could not yet hear or see.

Colorful birds darted among the stalks of grass and grasshoppers, voles, and mice scurried from the disturbance of her passing feet. One mouse paused, and Áine saw it had tiny human hands instead of feet, with beady, scarlet eyes. She bent low to look more closely, but the odd creature disappeared back into the grass. Áine shook her head and moved on, watching this strange world with curious eyes.

The sun rose high overhead and though the day was warm, its light never quite reached the bright oppression of true summer. Áine paused around midday and sat down to rest for a moment in a patch of bright blue wildflowers. She drank water from her flask and then opened the cloth sack to get bread and another apple. Remembering her plan to bury her apple core, she removed her cloak from the pack and looked within. There was no sign of the remains of her breakfast.

It then occurred to Áine for the first time that she’d felt no urge to relieve her bladder either, not since that morning when she’d left Clun Cadair. She’d been so tired and chilled on the journey to the Islwyn and then exhausted and amazed after that it hadn’t even occurred to her to attend to such a natural function. She considered but cast aside the notion that she might be dehydrated or sick. She felt fine; if a little weary of walking.

“Well,” she said aloud, “that simplifies life for the moment, doesn’t it?”

Áine gave her head a little shake as she realized she was half-waiting for an answer. She sat on the bed of flowers and ate her midday meal, enjoying the play of sunlight on the glossy blue petals that shivered in the light breeze. A little family of swallows danced in a daring spiral around her, circling closer and closer until their nerve broke and they skimmed away like tiny feather ships on the rolling meadow.

Áine washed down her last bite of bread with a swallow of water and smiled as the birds left her. Her smile dropped away abruptly as the emptiness of the landscape struck her. She tucked her apple core away in her sack and laid her cloak back on top. Then she stood and turned slowly in a circle as she considered the strange feeling that had come over her so suddenly.

She was alone.

Though she searched her memory, she could not find a time when she had been without the company of another human for any real space of time. She’d spent time gathering herbs or food of course, a few hours on her own here and there. But she’d never gone far from a village without Tesn. And after Tesn’s passing, Áine had been surrounded by people. Though she’d felt alone and lost at first, they’d still been there, loud and very present.

Life buzzed around her: insects, birds, little skittering furry bodies, and the hush of wind through living plants. But there was nothing human here and she felt an emptiness spread out around her, unnatural and vast.

Tears rose unbidden to burn behind the eyelids she closed to shut them in.

“Áine, stop it. This isn’t helping anything. You have work to do. You hardly need your hand held to collect a couple of bloody rocks,” she whispered the words aloud to herself as she scrubbed at her eyes with the cuffs of her dress.

The sun was making its way past zenith in the shimmering sky when the smell of brine rode the breeze to Áine’s nose. The hush of wind in the grass gave way to the rhythmic rush of waves as she quickened her pace toward the sea. Áine broke the brow of a hill to see the grey-green expanse of the ocean. Below her lay a little cove, the beach covered in stones of grey, white, and black.

Picking her way carefully down the hill, Áine slid the last few feet down a tide-cut bank to the beach. She unslung her pack and left it hanging from a clot of low-growing shrubs by the embankment, out of the reach of the sea spray or the tide.

Áine sighed as she examined the beach. It was perhaps three times the length of a man and half again as deep. Seaweed and bits of driftwood marked a ragged tide line reaching nearly to the top of the beach. At least the tide was on its way out which gave her time even as it revealed more of the beach. Every fifth stone looked white. She shook her head.

“Two pure white stones exactly alike,” she muttered. “At least that rules out some of these.”

Tesn had often told her that the only way to conquer large tasks was to start.

* * *

Áine straightened and stretched. The sun had sunk quite low but she looked on her growing pile of white stones as progress. Using driftwood, she’d cordoned off an area to start in and begun sorting all the unblemished white stones out into her cloak which she’d tied into a makeshift pouch. She was thankful that there were few perfectly white rocks to choose from, though four were large enough that she’d had to lift them and set them aside rather than carry them.