Once again, a stunned silence pressed the air back, stifling. The acrid magic crowded close, filling in the emptiness with its own vibration, beyond the range of hearing. Angharad's temples throbbed and she squinted through a wave of pain as she tried to comprehend what had been spoken. Next to her, Arianrhod was stiff as iron, her handclasp tight and rigid.
Regat's expression did not change, but her face darkened a shade. "We have received no such vision. You will forgive my doubts. How is it that so weighty a prophecy has not been revealed to those it most concerns?"
Achren raised one eyebrow with solemn, dry mockery. "Most likely because there are lengths, in such inquiries, to which you will not go."
Angharad thought of the rune carved into her mother's palm. She stared at Achren's sinuous white hands, wondering to what lengths they had gone, and shuddered.
"For that matter, who can tell why or how the fates choose to reveal themselves?" Achren continued smoothly. "You know as well as I that there are mysteries beyond our control. Perhaps it was given me that I might better know how to respond to your summons."
"Oh, this is rubbish," Angharad snapped. Pain sharpened into anger, overriding her fear. She could no longer bear that ice-shard smile with restraint. "We have never sought such a position. And if we did, it could be mine for no more than a word."
Achren and Regat both turned to her, and Achren's pale face colored for a heartbeat. The queen acknowledged the truth with a thoughtful nod. "You speak of Gwydion. Indeed, he would be only too happy to enthrone you at his side, when he ascends." She looked severely upon Achren. "Did this premonition of yours say how it was to be fulfilled?"
"No," Achren said flatly. "Nor indeed was it clear exactly to whom it referred. The next generation, perhaps - or even the next. But certainly, in light of your situation, the timing would appear fortuitous." She looked curiously at Angharad. "So...the prince has sought you, has he? I should not be surprised." Her eyes narrowed and she turned to Regat. "Have you considered the match?"
Regat frowned. "I refused his suit. Even were he willing to abdicate the throne to come here, the Prince of Don has no gifting of any note, save a few whimsies of Dallben's, from what I hear. It is our law to acquire consorts that are practicing enchanters of reasonably high skill—to fill in where we lack, to add to the protection of the island, and to ensure no weakening of descent."
"Given the state of things," Achren pressed, "you might reconsider it. There will be no need for him to abdicate if you were to unite the kingdoms. Unless you halt Arawn's assault permanently - which is by no means certain - the island may become too unstable to remain, and you will need to move the people to safety. The High King could have no objection to granting refuge to your subjects under such an alliance. These other trifles can be settled easily enough once the highest authority is yours to wield."
This was intolerable. "Stop!" Angharad burst out passionately. She dropped Arianrhod's hand and stumbled forward, trembling, inserting herself between her mother and Achren in a subconscious attempt to sever the twisted empathy she sensed there, and stood facing her adversary. "I will not be a piece in your gameplay. For someone who loathes the Sons of Don so much, you are terribly quick to accept a proposal from one on my behalf."
Achren's mouth twitched, her demeanor darkly amused. "It would not be my wedding, pretty one. None of you have any objection to them, I believe. But of course it is all one to me." She waved a hand dismissively. "If my vision is sound, it will be proven in time, whether you will it or no. I merely point out that such an alliance would solve the greater part of your dilemma —preserving your people and your line — in one strategic move."
"Yes," Angharad hissed, "no doubt the welfare of our people is of vast importance to you." She faced her mother imploringly. "Mother, can you not see her design? Remember her terms: a seat at the table. Do you really think Gwydion or the High King would agree to appointing her anywhere in court, in any position of influence? This is a farce."
Regat's hard face thawed just a little, a subtle sign of approval, but she made no direct answer. "I think we have heard enough for tonight," she announced, moving around her daughter to take up the spellbook. "I have much to consider, and will make no decisions until I have had time to do so. If all you speak is true, Achren, there are still several paths we might travel. And though your news is troubling, we are all the better prepared, thanks to your insight." She paused, facing the fallen queen. "For this much, you have my gratitude."
Achren made no gesture, but again, a silent and reluctant flicker of mutual respect seemed to pass between the two women, and Angharad winced at her interception of it. She reached out and snatched the Pelydryn from its stand, stuffing it into her pocket and stalking back toward the edge of the tower, looking out from its height. The island spread black below, out and out to where the sea winked, a sinuous silver line, on the southern horizon. Her throat ached, burned. The first vision, ages ago, it seemed, of fire and flood and emptiness, wavered before her eyes. All this land, all its people. Dispersed. Crumbled. Gone.
No. It could not be.
Her mind raced. She barely heard her mother saying something about escorting Achren to her private apartment, and presently registered that she was alone with Arianrhod upon the tower. Arianrhod, gentle, peace-loving, maternal - she had remained almost silent throughout the exchange, unfailingly submissive to her authoritative sister. Now she moved close to Angharad, stood next to her at the tower wall, her arm resting warm around her niece's shoulders.
"Do you think she speaks truth?" Angharad whispered. The wind pulled the words away, lost them in the darkness. "About any of it?"
"Who can say?" Arianrhod sighed. "Given her reputation, it would be foolish not to be wary of her information."
"I suppose she must believe what she says," muttered Angharad, "or she wouldn't have come at all. Unless she thinks to manipulate us with it somehow. If this vision of hers is true, I don't know why it should be such a revelation. There have been marriage alliances into neighboring kingdoms before, after all - as long as we have an heir and a priestess, any further Daughters are free to marry off the island if they choose."
"True, but it was never common," Arianrhod pointed out. "If you look through our histories, love of the island has nearly always won out over love of foreign men and their oppressive customs. Branwen and the king of Iwerddon set too grave a precedent. And not since Penarddun herself has the blood of Llyr mingled with that of Don."
Angharad, recalling something, smiled grimly. "She forgot her own words in her haste to bid for a quick solution. Mind what she said: 'Neither will the Sons of Don keep what they have stolen.' That sounds like she foresaw a supplanting, not a marriage - not that it's a better explanation," she added, her smile fading into a puzzled frown. "Does she think one of us will overthrow the High King? That's even less credible. Laughable, in fact."
"I do not know what to think of it," admitted Arianrhod, "but I would say this: whatever she saw, such prophecies are vague and uncertain by their very nature, easily misinterpreted and even possible to thwart, though deliberate attempts to do so usually fail. But so too, do attempts to hasten their fulfillment - such meddling often has unexpected and very mixed results. It is why I do not hold with soothsaying as a general rule; it tends only to confuse the present with unnecessary distraction. We have enough to concern ourselves with, without worrying about infinite possible futures." She tapped her fingers upon the parapet. "More pressing is this question of an unknown power on the island."
"Your father sought the same," said Angharad, quietly.
Silence. Heartbeats. "I thought of that as well," Arianrhod murmured.
"Do you think Mother did?"
"She cannot have forgotten it. I should think she must have."
"If she did, she hid it well," Angharad said, thinking of Regat's blank face. "It beggars belief, that we could be harboring something powerful enough to tempt Arawn without knowing it. How could we have forgotten such a thing? From what source did your father acquire his suspicions?"
Arianrhod shook her head. "I don't know. His notes and records were all destroyed, and Regat always maintained that it was nonsense, a chasing after empty legend."
"Yes, but what legend?" Frustration chewed at her mind with grinding teeth. "The only legend connected with Pentre Gwyllion is that it's where the king was buried and his sons—," she sputtered to a halt. The body of the king. The desecration. The Gwyllion, the protection of... "Aunt," she whispered, "what are the Dagrau Rhiannon?"
Arianrhod made the divine sign automatically, but her face showed only bewilderment. "Tears of the goddess?" she queried.
"It's the name of something, the things the Gwyllion were protecting during the war of the sons of Llyr, the whole reason they were given the spot."
"I have never heard of them. Where did you find this out?"
"Come with me," Angharad gasped out, gripping her aunt by the elbow and dragging her toward the stairwell. She dug the Pelydryn from her pocket as she flung herself down the winding steps, Arianrhod hurrying behind.
"A bit slower, love. I've neither your light nor your youth," Arianrhod panted as they reached the bottom, turning into a passageway. Angharad grabbed her hand and pulled her along, her mind racing feverishly. She made no answer to Arianrhod's breathless questions as they swept along, back toward her own chamber; she would say nothing that might be overheard by anyone.
Her room was dark, the embers black in the hearth. Angharad waved Arianrhod inside, shut the door, and laid the Pelydryn on a table with trembling hands. Her satchel still lay near her couch, and she seized it, drawing out the parchment roll. "Look," she ordered. "It's the treaty — the one recorded after your father was banished, the one we discussed this morning. I found it and read over it all."
They both settled on the couch as Arianrhod took the scroll and unfurled it. Angharad bent over it, searching the lines. "Look, this bit here. '...in the protection, during the blasphemous desecration committed by the accursed sons of Llyr upon said hallowed ground, of the third of the Dagrau Rhiannon'. That's the legend, isn't it? That the brothers desecrated the king's tomb, but the story never says why. It seems as though it's put up to just battle rage and madness...but maybe it wasn't. Maybe they were looking for something...these Dagrau, whatever they are, and the Fair Folk protected them....or a third of them, anyway."
"Good Llyr," Arianrhod whispered. She scanned the words swiftly, over and again.
There was a soft, familiar step nearby and Elen appeared at the end of the couch, bed-tousled and hollow-eyed, clad in her nightshift and robe. When she saw Arianrhod she dropped a hasty curtsy and a murmured formality before seeking her mistress's eye. "What's happened? Are you all right, milady?"
Angharad nodded, reaching to clasp her hand. "Oh, Elen, it's so late. You needn't have gotten up."
"I couldn't sleep," Elen sighed, returning her squeeze and then turning to the hearth. "I knew I wouldn't." She bent to place a log on the blackened embers. Angharad set it ablaze with a preoccupied flick of the wrist, wondering how much to tell.
"Achren's come," she said, after a moment's hesitation. Elen's pale face turned even paler, and Arianrhod cast Angharad a swift, warning glance. "That's why Mother wanted me."
"Blast," Elen breathed softly. "I've been hoping all along she wouldn't in the end. What's she like?"
"Horrible. Smooth as cream and curdled underneath. I don't know what I expected, but not that," Angharad grunted. "But she did reveal a few bits of information that may be helpful."
"Is she here in the castle?"
"Mother said something about a private apartment. The guest quarters in the east wing, I'd imagine. She's not to do any magic without one of us present, but I'm sure it won't stop her from working what mischief she can. No one is supposed to know she's here, so keep your ears open for any talk among the staff."
"Who's waiting on her?"
"I don't know." Angharad turned back to Arianrhod. "Did Mother mention to you how she's handling her?"
"She's under a false name while she's here," Arianrhod murmured, without taking her eyes from the text, "but she's mostly to stay within her apartment, and Regat has provided for her amply. They discussed the terms before you arrived this evening, and she seemed reasonably satisfied. Though how your mother thinks she will occupy any time not spent working with us, I have no idea." She waved this away, and nodded at the parchment. "We must speak with Regat about this. No matter how she feels about Pentre Gwyllion and the associated legends, this track must be pursued. It is too vital."
Angharad thought of her mother with a shiver of apprehension, and then a guilty twist of conscience. Of course they should speak to her; she was, after all, the queen, and should know their suspicions. Perhaps she even would know to what the strange name referred.
"That dream of yours this morning," Arianrhod said thoughtfully. "Remind me of the details."
Angharad pulled the other parchment from the satchel and handed it over, feeling somewhat startled. In her intense attention to the treaty she had forgotten about her dream; she could almost hear Eilwen's exasperated remark: Yes, that is why you write them down. Now the images came back to her vividly; the ominous stones, her tumble to the quaking ground and her bloody fist clutching her pendant, her assurance to the ancient sentinels there that she hadn't come to steal but to—
To...
Her mind froze, sending a wave of ice-coldness prickling over her scalp and down the back of her neck. She sprang up from the couch and stumbled toward the fire blindly, her sight turned inward, desperately searching her hazy memories. The jewel, flashing upon her pendant in her dream, burning in her fingers upon awakening. It had come from the Fair Folk, and the Fair Folk protected Pentre Gwyllion, or perhaps something hidden within Pentre Gwyllion...
"Milady!" Elen's anxious voice broke into her mind and she startled at a hand laid on her arm. "What is it? Are you ill?"
Angharad turned to her, grasped her arms, still trying to catch at the threads of her thoughts. "The gem," she gasped. "My gem. On the pendant. Aunt — do you think it could be—,"
Arianrhod looked up from the scribbled dream. She stared at Angharad, her face a mingling of shock, doubt, and dawning, cautious comprehension. "The gift of the Fair Folk," she whispered, "on Regat's wedding day. But—no, how could they? To accuse our father of attempted theft, but then make Regat a gift of the very thing he hoped to take? It would be a cruel joke. There would be no sense in it."
Angharad shook her head. "No, there wouldn't, but... did they say anything when they gave it? Any sort of explanation?"
"Oh, mercy," Arianrhod sighed, putting a hand to her brow and wincing. "It was so long ago. Something about a renewal of trust between our people, and proof of their continued esteem. Regat may remember better - though she won't like being asked about it."
Elen was watching the exchange with apprehension. "Are you saying you think that sparkly bit of rock on your pendant has something to do with the trouble on the island?"
Angharad paced to the couch again and sat, her hands working feverishly in midair, a mirror of her rapidly revolving thoughts. "I don't know. But Achren says Arawn wants something we have. Something powerful, separate from our magic. And we know the gem has power of some sort, though I never would have thought it would be enough to draw Arawn's attention. And yet it's been...awakening, I suppose you'd call it, lately. Behaving oddly, showing up in my dream...both dreams!" She gasped, as her dream from the woods suddenly blazed into clarity. "I remember! I remember..." The words tumbled over one another, her voice rising in excitement. "The first dream I had — the one with three stars. I was..."
She choked as the full weight of the memory broke upon her, thoughts reeling. "I was...crying. And my tear fell and split into three stars. They formed that..that symbol, the one we all saw in the scry...And...something happened in the midst of it. I can't recall that part. But by the end one of the stars had settled right at my throat. I thought I'd swallowed it, and I woke up clutching at my pendant so hard the jewel cut my finger."
Arianrhod stared at her as though entranced, white-lipped and eyes wide with disbelieving awe. "Dagrau Rhiannon," she breathed. "The tears of the goddess. Three in one. Oh, blessed gods."
The treaty slid from her slack grasp to the floor and Elen snatched it up, muttering, "I don't understand any of this."
Angharad groped blindly at Arianrhod's sleeve, her eyes shut in a frown of concentration. "And our visions - Aunt! The woman in our scrying vision, you remember - silver-haired, and holding a jewel very like mine...perhaps the same one. It's what made Eilwen think of hiding it from Achren."
"And both vision and dream indicated a connection with Pentre Gwyllion," Arianrhod breathed. "Oh, Angharad. The jewel. Bring it out, love, let me see it."
Angharad jerked her hand to her throat in surprise, realizing for the first time that her pendant had slipped beneath the neckline of her gown, hidden to observers, and she pulled it out with trembling fingers. "I...I don't have it. This is my old pendant. I left the gem at the cove." She gulped, and went pale, as a stone seemed to sink to the pit of her stomach. "With Geraint."
Arianrhod blanched, and silence fell like the blow of an axe, broken only by the crackle of the fire in the grate. The very walls of the room seemed to hold their breath. Angharad sprang up, heart racing. Geraint, alone at the cove with the jewel...this thing of power, if they were right, this thing so potent Arawn himself was tearing through their very bedrock to find it. She whirled, stumbled to her wardrobe and threw it open, snatching up a cloak. "Oh, Llyr, I've got to go to him."
Arianrhod stood up also, her posture straight and serious. "Yes. But not alone. Go and get the spell book - we left it on the tower - bring it, and meet me in the grove. I shall arrange for horses. We'll go together."
Angharad hesitated in surprise, then nodded. "Yes. Yes, that's...oh, Aunt," she gasped, over a sob trying to escape, "if he should come to harm—,"
"All right now, no need for hysterics," Elen interrupted, jerking the cloak from her trembling hands and laying it over her shoulders briskly, fastening it with the carelessness of long familiarity. "Whatever the thing is, it's not likely to have killed him in a few hours when you've worn it for years. Good Llyr, it's the middle of the night. If all this fuss can't be put off 'til morning you can at least be dignified about it. Take those slippers off and I'll get your boots. No use ruining another pair of shoes." She bustled away, grumbling to herself, and Arianrhod cast an affectionate smile in her direction as she took Angharad by the arms.
"She's right," Arianrhod murmured. "We need answers, not fears. Peace, now. Whatever else, it seems to me that you carry the favor of Rhiannon." She bent forward and kissed Angharad on the brow. "I do not think she brought you such a gift only to wrest him away. Now. In the grove, within the hour. Elen," she added, with a glance at the girl. "Say nothing of what you have heard. If the queen sends for Angharad - unlikely, at this hour - tell her only that she is with me."
Elen curtsied and Angharad stared, brought up short. "You're not going to tell her?"
Arianrhod hesitated and her eyes, full of doubt, lowered, turned inward. "Not now." She cupped her hand to her breast, touched the silver disk that rested there with thoughtful reverence. "No. Not yet. Not until we know."
Her clear eyes flashed once again, resolute. "Within the hour," she repeated firmly, and left the room in a hurried sweep of long silver-gray robes.