Angharad of Llyr is heir to a matriarchy: a line of enchantress-queens that has ruled her island for centuries. Her destiny from birth: to rule as sole authority and ensure that her powerful bloodline endures for another generation. Devoted to her p...
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"Why?"
It was a raw whisper, one he barely heard above the rushing and sighing of the sea. Glassy wavelets lapped at his ankles, pulled at the filmy edges of her gown, twinkling, wherever they touched, with the same eerie green light that glowed at the crest of each breaker. Geraint watched it, mesmerized, and Angharad repeated the question.
"Why would you do this?"
She was shivering, and he was disturbed by how little heat was penetrating through her soaked garments. She had made no move away from the waterline, had spoken no word to dry either of them. He tightened his arms around her. "Because I am needed."
"When I said I needed you," she answered, in a voice as colorless as water, "this is not what I meant."
It was impossible to explain the overwhelming burden of responsibility he felt. "I know," he murmured, and pressed his lips to the crown of her head until liquid salt seeped into his mouth. Never drink seawater, boy. Memory swam into his mind: an old adage cracked from the craggy lips of a toothless old sailor he'd met in his youth. No matter how thirsty ye'are. It'll kill ye in the end. He shook it off, and chafed her cold shoulder cupped in his hand. "You're getting chilled. Come, we should get up and dry off."
She didn't move. "You promised," she said, "to stay until I told you to leave."
"And I will hold to that promise," he assured her, after a pause. "I have no illusions of my own importance, save to you. I do not know that I was brought here to serve in the rescue of this island. If you cannot let me go, I will stay with you until it crumbles under our feet."
A tremor passed through her, and a sound like a laugh seized and shaken inside-out into a groan. "So. My choice is to lose you now, or lose everything later. That is no choice."
"There are a fair few people who might feel differently about that," Geraint said, thinking of the faces he loved at Abernant. "You were willing enough to break the law for their sake, as your duty, to throw yourself on the mercy of the gwyllion and hope for the mere chance that you would survive it. Can you spare none of that hope for me?"
Angharad pushed at him and sat up, damp strands of her hair clinging to him like seaweed, but she did not look at him. "I could have borne whatever they did to me," she answered thickly. "I cannot bear the thought of what they might do to you."
The other women, after calming the tumult Angharad had wrought — a sight he had been too distracted to truly absorb, though a few vivid images had etched themselves into his mind — had maintained a small, respectful distance, standing in the shallows, watching in concern. Now Arianrhod stepped forward, with an air of gentle resolution. She knelt in the sand at Angharad's other side and curled her hand around her niece's head, cradling it against her shoulder. Over its top, her clear eyes caught Geraint's in a gaze mingled of fierce approval and aching sadness. "Angharad," she breathed, low and crooning, "Angharad, think, love. We would never send anyone, least of all him, if it were so hopeless. Of what use would that be?"
