Read A Heart in Sun and Shadow (Cymru That Was Book 1) Online
Authors: Annie Bellet
A Heart in Sun and Shadow (Cymru That Was Book 1) (34 page)
“I am here for you, Idrys, in whatever form you take. I care not.” She sat up with him and pulled him into her arms.
“What is it that haunts your eyes, Áine? What gave you those scars?” he whispered into her soft, milk-pale skin.
“I will tell you. But not today. Come with me to the Ilswyn and I will find a way to share the tale with you, I promise. It is not a good one, but I think perhaps you might best of all understand what it is I have done.” Her voice caught on the last part and he felt her shiver.
“Áine, my love, my heart,” Idrys said and he pulled slightly away to stare into her shadowed eyes. He recognized the tension in her face, her body. She burned with guilt and longing. “Aye, Áine, I do indeed understand, best of all.”
Emyr rose from the same restless dream he’d had for the last twelve years and, carefully removing Eirian’s soft arm from his chest, slipped from the bed. The fire was banked low and he shivered in the winter air. He pulled on a thick woolen tunic and turned to look at his sleeping wife and children. They were a perfect picture of domestic contentment in the wan light of the little oil lamp that burned on the windowsill.
The two youngest twins slept on the other side of Eirian, curled under the thick covers in such a way that only their dark curls showed. His wife opened her eyes as he started to turn away again.
“Going to see Idrys again, are you?” she whispered.
He hadn’t even known that was what he’d risen to do until she said it, but her words struck him and he knew their truth. He nodded.
“I will return in a day or two,” he said quietly.
“No,” Eirian said, “this time, I think you will not return.”
In his dream, there was always a white owl waiting on a strange forest path marked with iridescent lights. Warmth waited at the end of that path, his dreaming self knew, warmth and completeness of a sort he never felt here in his home.
“I always return.” Emyr crossed his arms.
“Follow your heart, Emyr. I cannot keep you longer, I know this now. Your heart left me twelve years ago. Find it again and be whole.” Her voice and eyes brimmed with sorrow.
“Our children? I cannot leave,” he said, feeling the old rift within of duty and desire.
“You have given Llynwg three strong sons as heirs and a beautiful daughter. You mother and I will see to them, as will Urien and Llew and Caron. They will not want, and when he reaches sixteen, Brychan ap Emyr will rule as you did when you reached his age. They will be strong; they will do well enough without you. I will be well enough without you.”
“Eirian, I have loved you. You are bright and beautiful and full of too much wisdom. You break my heart with this wish. I cannot stay, nor can I go. I am lost.”
“Hush, my husband. You are lost because your heart was broken years ago. Go to it; find your twin and your lost love. Be whole, go with my blessing. I have kept you as long as I could, but I understand now and I will fight this battle no more. This is a war I lost the day we wed and the curse was broken.”
He knelt at the side of the bed and kissed her gently, murmuring to tell his mother and children where he’d gone and that he loved them deeply. Then, with only a few backward glances, he swiftly dressed and left the chamber.
In the hall he paused, wondering if this is how Áine had felt all those years ago, creeping away in the dead of night with nothing but hope and a dream. He looked around at the dim, familiar room and sighed. His sweet wife was right, as she’d often been. This place had ceased to feel like home as soon as his brother left, and the only times he’d felt even close to belonging anywhere had been on the lone hunting trips spent with Idrys by his side.
Movement by the banked fire startled him. Hafwyn rose and walked toward her son, her face shadowed and sad in the darkness.
“Good-bye, my son,” she said, her voice breaking on the final word.
“Mother,” Emyr said. He shivered as she touched his arm and then pulled her into a tight embrace. “I, I cannot stay. And I do not see how I can go.”
“You have lived split apart long enough. Find your joy where you may, Emyr. There have been too many years of longing and sorrow here. Go toward your heart.”
His throat burned with a strange mix of grief and happiness as something inside came loose at her soft words.
“I love you, mother. I will give your love to Idrys.” He paused and pulled away from her, looking down on her white-haired head. “Take,” his voice caught. “Take care of them for me. I don’t know that the little ones will understand.”
“Go, go before the chance passes.” Hafwyn looked up at him. Then, slowly, she turned away.
Emyr took his cloak from its peg by the door and slipped out of the hall, heading into the wintery night, heading toward his heart.
He went to the woods, reaching them as dawn broke across the moor, and was unsurprised when a white owl alighted on a branch before him. The branch lit up with soft white light and slowly more trees ahead glowed as well, illuminating a clear path through the woods just as they had in his dream. Emyr nodded to the owl and walked into the woods, no longer looking back.
He walked through the day, following the white bird as the sun rose and the soft light on the path faded away. As darkness fell again the glimmering path returned, guiding him on his journey. He paused only once, stopping at a stream to drink before crossing it. Emyr’s hands and face were chapped with cold and he pulled his cloak tight around his body as his boots soaked through slowly from the snow.
Finally, as if he passed across an invisible threshold, the snowy landscape gave way to a lush valley. The air warmed noticeably and beneath his feet the crunchy, dry snow was replaced with thick grass and tiny blue flowers. The stars shone bright above and he had no trouble picking his way down toward a lovely stone cottage nestled among apple trees that were in bloom and fruit all at once.
The owl disappeared and his glowing trail ended at the thick oak door of the large cottage. Emyr took a deep breath and knocked, looking about himself in wonder at this odd place. After a moment, the door opened and a young girl with soft brown hair peered out at him. Her leaf-green eyes went wide and she opened her mouth, but no words came.
“I greet you,” Emyr said, realizing that this must be one of Áine and Idrys’s four daughters. Though he knew their names, he was unsure which stood before him.
“I greet you, but you cannot be my father?” she said and turned to look within the cottage with a comically confused expression.
“I am not he,” Emyr said, controlling his own grin. “But I seek him.”
As if in answer to this, he heard Idrys’s voice within. “Braith, who is at the door?”
Braith stepped back, clearly unable to tell who he might be, and allowed Emyr to step within.
Idrys sat on the edge of a large stone hearth, carving tools in his hands. At a table to one side sat Áine and two smaller girls with dark curling hair, gathered around a beautifully carved tallfwrd board. Next to the hearth was a girl who matched Braith’s looks exactly, except for a single blood-red curl tucked behind one ear. She was slowly feeding wool into a drop spindle from the pile in her lap but stopped to stare at Emyr.
For a moment, no one spoke. The three adults stared at each other, frozen with emotion too deep to voice. Then Idrys and Áine rose almost as one, moving around their children to throw their arms around Emyr and each other.
Áine pressed her cheek into his chest and wept, her strong arms clinging to him. Idrys, who had aged somewhat more gracefully than Emyr, as Emyr observed in that moment, leaned his dark head in close to his twin’s.
“Welcome home, brother,” he whispered, “welcome home.”
Look for the second book in the Cymru That Was Duology, which finishs the tale of Seren, Bran, Áine, and the twins through the adventures of their daughter, Braith, in:
The Raven King
Word-of-mouth and reviews are vital for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review wherever you purchased it. Even a few lines sharing your thoughts on this story would be extremely helpful for other readers. Thank you!
Also by Annie Bellet:
The Gryphonpike Chronicles:
Witch Hunt
Twice Drowned Dragon
A Stone’s Throw
Dead of Knight
The Barrows: Omnibus Volume One
Cymru That Was Duology:
The Raven King
Pyrrh Considerable Crimes Division Series:
Avarice
Wrath
Hunger
Envy
Lust
Short Story Collections:
The Spacer’s Blade and Other Stories
Gifts in Sand and Water
River Daughter and Other Stories
Deep Black Beyond
Till Human Voices Wake Us
* * *
About the Author:
Annie Bellet lives and writes in the Pacific NW. She is a Clarion graduate and her stories have appeared in magazines such as AlienSkin, Digital Science Fiction, and Daily Science Fiction as well as multiple collections and anthologies. Follow her on her blog at
“A Little Imagination”
* * *
If you want to be notified when the next Annie Bellet novel or collection is released, please sign up for the mailing list by going to: http://tinyurl.com/anniebellet. Your email address will never be shared, you will never be spammed, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Word-of-mouth and reviews are vital for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review wherever you purchased it. Even a few lines sharing your thoughts on this story would be extremely helpful for other readers. Thank you!
