A Heart in Sun and Shadow (Cymru That Was Book 1) (26 page)

The March Cann touched down on cloven hooves like those of an ox, its hair feathered at the legs and joints. Áine gasped and the creature turned its head. She held perfectly still, wondering if the two spiraling silvery horns on its forehead were dangerous or only ornamental. She hoped the latter.

Multi-colored eyes stared at her for a moment and then it curved its slender neck back toward the water. Áine shifted slowly and looked out past it to see what the fairy steed might be looking at.

There, out on the water, thousands of iridescent moths danced in and out of the lance of moonlight where it touched the lake. The insects swirled and wove pattern after pattern until she could almost see the story they told. Was that a pack of hunting hounds? There, that pattern, was that a stag? A hunting horn? A sword held by a woman in a flowing robe?

Áine shivered and let her cloak drop slowly. Mentally she shook herself and tore her eyes away from the dance. The March Cann stood still, apparently transfixed by the moths and the story they told.

Áine crept closer, each footstep and scrap of skirt on tree root sounding like the slamming of door or the breaking of a thousand sticks in her mind. The fairy steed did not shift or look her way.

She drew so near she could see its hair waving in the breeze, feel the warmth of its body, see its sides move as it breathed. No, he; this close Áine could tell that the March Cann was clearly a male. His tail was thick and long, the strands multi-colored like his fur. Áine chose two purple ones and achingly slowly stretched out her hand to grip them.

The moment her fingers touched the steed, he jerked, coming alive again and leapt up and away from the island in surprise. Áine gripped the hairs, yanking with all the strength in her arm. She might as well have tried to uproot one of the ancient oaks she stood upon for all the effect it had. For a dizzying moment, the strength of her grip and the fairy steed’s tail warred as he lifted her clear of the ground.

Then a rear hoof struck out and slammed into her shoulder. Áine lost her grip and fell back to the roots, her left ankle turning beneath her.

She lay gasping; her sore hand trailed in the water between the roots of the oaks and her other set tight against the burning pain her shoulder. The March Cann flew up into the sky, spiraling higher and higher until Áine lost track of him among the stars.

“Get up,” she hissed. “Your shoulder is dislocated. Get up.”

The searing pain in her shoulder overshadowed the sharp ache in her ankle as she shifted to kneel, and then stand. Áine limped back to the more solid part of the roots and felt around the shoulder joint of her right arm. It was certainly dislocated. She took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. There’d be quite the bruise on her chest tomorrow.

Áine had reset dislocated shoulders before, but never on herself. She tried rotating her arm with her elbow bent placing her forearm parallel to the ground, but though she could feel things shifting, she couldn’t get enough force on her own to pop the joint back into place. She gritted her teeth and looked at the wide trunk of the oak she’d been sleeping under.

She jammed her left fist into her upper arm to help stabilize and then hobbled up to the tree. Closing her eyes, she threw her body forward, jamming her shoulder into the tree. With a horrible grinding sound and pain so harsh it brought instant tears to her eyes and a raw cry to her throat, her arm slipped back into place. The pain faded immediately to just a dull ache and Áine whimpered in relief. She sank down and pulled her cloak around herself.

Though she wanted nothing more than to wrap herself up and wallow in misery at her utter failure to procure hairs from the March Cann’s tail, Áine’s healer instincts warned her she had to deal with her ankle as well. She cut the rag from her old dress into three strips and bound the sprain tightly. That done, she put Trahaearn’s knife away and lay back against the oak. Out over the lake, the moths still danced in hypnotic patterns, but all the wonder had bled from Áine’s mind.

Would the March Cann return? How long must she wait? And how would she get the hairs free? She gingerly set her injured leg out in front of her and sighed.

The knife. Of course. She could use that to cut free hairs from the fairy steed’s tail. If he returned. If, if, if. Áine rubbed at her eyes as her tears finally overflowed. A few escaped her hands and touched the wood, turning to pearls that shimmered for a moment before sliding between the roots to sink beneath the lake.

* * *

Emyr opened the door to his room and let Idrys out into the hall. He turned back to finish dressing and walked to the window. Unlatching the casement, Emyr leaned out the opening to get a feel for the weather that morning.

Spring mists clung to the buildings in the dawn light, lending a surreal touch to the village. It was still chilly but Emyr guessed the sun would burn away the mist and they might have a more or less clear spring day. He started to pull the wooden shutters back closed but stopped as something caught his eye. A weak ray of sunlight sparkled on two tiny white droplets resting on the window’s ledge.

Emyr’s heart leapt into his throat as he realized what they were. Pearls. Two perfect teardrop pearls that he guessed would be a match to the one even now resting in his beltpouch. He snatched them up and threw wide the casement, dark eyes searching the passages between the buildings.

Nothing stirred and he managed to stop himself from yelling her name. “Áine,” he whispered. “Áine.”

Two pearls. Two years. Does it mean something
? Emyr clenched his teeth and abruptly threw the pearls away, out into the muddy ground beyond.
Does it mean wait? Two more years? Why? What’s the point of waiting for a woman who walks away the moment a terrible secret is shared? Can you see us, Áine? Do you see our hollow hearts, our hungry eyes
?

He slammed the shutters closed and wrapped his arms around his chest. He could feel more ribs than usual, even after as hard a winter as the last had been. Idrys had grown thin as well; both of them were locked into a war between hope and despair, trapped in the monotony of their own lies, of the curse.

“We’re lost, more lost than if you had never come into our lives,” he murmured. “Without you, there is only hope, and we’re running thin on that, aren’t we?”

Before her, there was no hope at all
, a traitorous voice in his mind whispered.

With a soft cry, Emyr turned back to the window and opened it again. He climbed through the opening, barefoot in only his pants, and bent to search the freezing mud. He found the pearls, one a mere arm’s length from the other.

He clambered back through his window and rinsed his muddy hands and feet off in the basin near the hearth. Then Emyr added the two pearl tears to the third in his belt pouch.

Three pearls. Mother is silently pressing us to move on, to attend to our duty as Llynwg’s Chief. One more winter, Áine. I can give that much, just come home to us; I promise we’ll forgive the absence. Please come home
.

* * *

Áine slept fitfully throughout the remainder of the night and into the day. The sun was high overhead before her stomach reminded her that she still needed to eat. She rose reluctantly and pulled bread free from her pack. Her ankle felt tight and ached but looked well enough. Her shoulder was a different story. She pulled aside the neck of her gown and winced at the deep purple and red bruising that traced the hoof of the March Cann.

Mechanically, Áine chewed her bread and drank from the waterskin as she considered the coming night. She couldn’t try the same thing again. Assuming the steed showed again and landed in the same place, she’d likely face the same outcome without a better plan.

She recalled the speed at which the creature had reacted to her touch. There was no way she’d get a good grip on its tail and have time to bring up the blade with her other hand before it pulled her off the ground again, especially since her right arm was already injured and therefore slowed.

Shaking the crumbs out of her skirt, Áine watched absently as they filtered between the roots and into the lake. She jerked and looked over to where the fairy steed had landed the night before.

The roots there were thinner, more spread out as they arched gently above the water. There was room enough between some for her to squeeze herself down and the lake here was only waist deep. She could hide there to the side, and out of range of the steed’s powerful kicks. She’d be pulled into the air; she knew there was likely no way to avoid it. But she hoped she’d cut the hairs before they flew too high, and the lake would cushion her fall if she landed in the water.

Her plan firmly in mind, Áine sat back against the broad oak to wait for dark. She wasn’t thrilled at her chances and held Idrys’s little wooden horse in her palm, rubbing a thumb over it.

Emyr had been teaching her to ride. She wished he’d taught her more, that she’d had more time, more skill. A true heroine, like one from the tales Tesn had told her as a little girl, would leap fearlessly to the fairy steed’s back and ride it into the sky until the creature grew tired and had to land. Then she would climb down and triumphantly cut free two perfect strands of hair from its tail and stride back to the evil fey Lady and demand the curse be broken.

Áine snorted and tucked the little horse away in her pack again.
Too bad I’m all they’ve got, isn’t it
?

The day passed with the sluggishness only boredom can lend. Áine ran through every recipe and cure for every common ailment she could think of before abandoning that to make little oakleaf boats that she sent out on the lake. The pain in her shoulder died down to the ache of a bad bruise and her ankle let her put a little weight on it by the time the sun slipped down behind the forest.

Áine put her pack up in the tree after tucking her dress, belt, and cloak safely inside. She kept only the knife, removed from its sheath and gold wrappings. Her right hand’s grip still felt weak to her, so she put the knife in that hand and decided she’d use her left to catch the tail when the time came. If the time came.

The lake water was cold and her feet sank into the mud up to her ankles. She could feel submerged edges of smaller roots beneath her feet and against her thighs as she slid down into her hiding place.
Gods, let this work, please
.

The stars emerged and the moon peeked over the lake to the east. Crouching there in the dark, Áine fought the cold and her own doubts.
Emyr, Idrys, I’m a world away from you. Did I only imagine your love? If I fail, if I die, you’ll never know what I tried to do for you, for us
.

For myself
.

Her teeth chattered and her skin felt as though it might crawl free of her bones in protest before the moon rose far enough to send its light out over the water like the broad blade of a spear pointing straight at the island. Áine nearly cried out with joy as she heard the whirring of wings and felt a strange wind lift her blood-red hair from her damp cheeks.

The moths returned, appearing as if by magic over the lake, swirling in their tapestry patterns as they’d done the night before. And above her, like a gift descending from the gods themselves, came the March Cann. He settled in the same place he’d been the night before, snorting and pawing at the roots and looking around the island before turning his attention to the moonlit dance over the lake.

His tail was a hand’s breadth from Áine’s face, its ends resting on the root in front of her. Hardly daring to breathe, she turned her body toward the steed and slowly raised her hands. She’d positioned herself perfectly off to his side where she hoped his kick wouldn’t touch her. She inched her hands forward and with a last prayer grabbed a thick handful of tail and pulled it toward herself.

Again with preternatural speed, the March Cann sprang into the air. Áine held fast even as she was ripped free of the gap in the roots and dragged upward. Her body swung hard to the other side of the steed and his kick went past without connecting. For one terrifying moment Áine saw how far over the island they were, the lake with its moonlit spear looked as tiny as a lady’s polished hand-mirror. Then she swept the blade up and cut into the tail as high above her fist as she could reach.

The hairs parted. With an iridescent fistful of hair and a triumphant yell, she fell out of the sky.

As though emerging from the very darkness of the night itself, hundreds of ravens appeared beneath her as Áine plummeted toward the lake. A cacophony of cries echoed through the air as body after body buffeted her, slowing her descent. She rested on the back of each raven only a moment before it would drop away and another would sweep in to take its place.

Áine dared to look when she realized she should have touched the water already and saw that with their strange method the ravens were carrying her out over the forest.

It felt like no time at all to her racing heart before she was allowed to fall to the soft ground at the base of a hill. All around her ravens landed, some shifting into dark-skinned people. Áine shivered, naked except for her fistful of fairy hair and her knife. Her head spun and she took deep breaths before rising.

“Thank you,” she called out to the raven people.

An odd clicking laughter rippled through the gathering crowd. She stood carefully, keeping the weight off her injured leg, and noticed that they parted before her in a clear path toward the crown of the hill. Taking the hint, Áine limped between the laughing people.

Her eyes widened as she reached the top. The top of the hill was a huge marble slab of purest white that glowed in the moonlight. And on it stood a handsome youth with glossy black eyes and a brilliant white smile in his blue-black face. He was clad only in a cloak of raven’s feathers that fell from shoulder to ankle in thick gathers and a simple silver circlet that bound his curly black hair.