Trigger Warning: suicidal ideation
Angharad lay, staring at nothing, listening to her own breath in the silence of her chamber.
Eilwen and Arianrhod had left, very late, after getting her settled and breaking the news to Elen, who had not been able to refrain from a single, bitter "I knew it," before biting her tongue, for all appearances to keep from saying more that she might regret. She had helped ready Angharad for bed in unwonted silence, offering none of her affectionate scolding or pertness, and Angharad heard her sniffling to herself quietly throughout. She felt oddly cross about her own impulse to comfort Elen, to reach out with conciliatory words. What was there to reconcile? If anything, she herself was the one in need of comfort, but there would apparently be none forthcoming from this quarter.
"I didn't do it on purpose," she had murmured finally, when Elen moved to retire to her own chamber. The girl had paused, looking at her sadly.
"But you didn't not," she said, "and you're not sorry."
Angharad had lain back into her cushions, tempted to say something defensive, and paused to consider. "No," she sighed, "I am not."
Elen had taken up her candle and disappeared without further comment.
Alone in the darkness, Angharad thought, and her thoughts tangled and twisted one into another until they melted into nothing but feeling. But even feeling did not know what it wanted, and the tears that wet her pillow were mingled of grief, fear and hope.
It should not be so. A new life should be a thing only of joy. I am inside-out, she thought. Made of everything at once, and nothing. It made her angry, but anger that, yesterday, would have set the cold embers in the hearth ablaze now simply clenched in her fists and her chest, a dark and formless vise. Fear that Geraint had returned and been captured, that even now there might be guards dragging him, bound and bewildered, before Regat, made sleep impossible. Arianrhod had promised she would stay and watch for the guards' return, sworn she would allow nothing to happen to him. But it was cold comfort in the face of her mother's wrath.
At some endless hour she rose, sleepless, lit the Pelydryn, and pulled her grandfather's sheet of parchment from beneath the mattress where she had sequestered it. It was creased now from much folding and re-folding, the ink blurred in spots from the continued pass of her fingertips as she read over its scrawls, the stubborn words that would not unlock their mysteries. Of all the things that chafed at her, the helpless lack of anything to do about her situation had been the worst, and it had become her nervous habit, since Geraint had gone, to ponder the pages at every opportunity, hoping that some clue to their meaning would become clear if she just meditated upon it long enough.
She traced the triple spiral with a racing heart as she read the words again, and noticed the last line with a sudden jolt that prickled over her scalp. "Cleave the tomb," she whispered, out loud, "the fruitful womb shall bring Llyr home."
Fruitful womb? Manifestly so, she thought, with a touch of her old irony, though really, there was nothing so surprising about it, in her line, and no reason to think the words should apply especially to her. Even Arianrhod had said it was most likely a reference to the goddess or the sea - or both. Still...the timing was...
But it made no sense. Bring Llyr home? They were home. This island was their home, and it was in danger. If there was something she was meant to do about it, Rhiannon would have to do better than cryptic verses from the ramblings of a power-drunk and long-banished ancestor.
Only the blood of Llyr could atone.
Could it even, anymore...now that the very bones of Llyr had been bound to the blood of Achren?
Angharad shivered at the thought, at the memory of her calculating glance and the cool certainty in her words, as they whispered hauntingly into her mind. A Daughter of Llyr will sit on the throne as High Queen. She sucked her breath in, horrified. The next generation, perhaps...or even the next.
Gods. Angharad sank back into her pillows again, pressed heavily down under a wave of bleak terror. Any future prophesied by Achren was bad enough - it had been a threat, but vague and ephemeral, a guess about that which did not exist. But now...
Now it was real, a menace that stared her in the face, reached with clutching hands for the new spark kindling within her. Driven by this prophecy, Achren would covet her child, saddle the next heir with own twisted ambitions, attempt to maneuver her like a piece in a game...and, if successful, set her on a puppet throne, and bring an entire nation to ruin through her. And how could it be stopped, now that Achren had them by the throat?
Sick fear pushed up her chest in a wave of nausea, and Angharad gasped, and clutched at her unadorned pendant with shaking hands. She rose from her bed and paced the floor, unseeing. I will not allow it. I won't. The cold metal bit into her fingertips as she pressed the crescent moon against her mouth. She'd have to kill me first. I'll take my child away...leave the island altogether.
Geraint's voice whispered into her memory, fervent and low. Come away with me, he had said, that night she had stepped out into madness at last, dragging him with her - only a few weeks ago; how had it been such a short time? I can make us disappear, I know how... She buried a bitter sob of irony in her fist. If only she had done so, then. What good had it done, staying here out of obligation to her place and position? Not one of them was better off for it.
She should have left with him when he had asked. Now he was gone, gone to the gwyllion with little hope of returning, and she would have to leave alone, to protect their child from Achren.
And what of Llyr, of her people? If she left, Eilwen would inherit the throne - an idea that almost made her laugh at its desperate absurdity. Not that Eilwen couldn't rise to the challenge - only she'd never forgive her for it. And the island would still be in danger from Arawn, and the Dagrau Rhiannon would still be lost and vulnerable, and Achren would still be here, spinning her webs. Unless...perhaps Achren would pursue her, and leave the island. That would render the people safe, at least.
But it would put her child in danger again. Achren would never stop pursuing her.
Her heart pounded like a hollow drum, somehow faraway. She felt as though she were drowning. Belin, Llyr and Rhiannon. I have no good choices. Only terrible ones.
For a black moment she paused by her window, and thought of the dizzying, fatal drop to the flagstones below.
It would be simple. Only conquer the fear, and in a final few seconds she could put herself and her child beyond reach of harm, to themselves or anyone else, forever. Free of Achren's plots. Free from choosing between bad, worse, and unthinkable. A quick end.
An easier end than many were ever afforded.
She opened the casement and stared down without emotion. A few fiery sparks dotted the land beyond the castle walls, where midsummer fires still burned for late-night revelers, but here in the courtyard the festival had ended hours ago. The handful of night watchmen on the walls all had their eyes turned outward. No one would even know until morning...
She laid a trembling hand on the masonry, and sat on the edge of the sill.
"Milady!" A yelp that was almost a shriek made her start and whirl around, and the hand that had held her pendant to her lips jerked away so suddenly that the sharp-pointed horn of the crescent caught her lip and pierced it. Pain flared into her mind like a torch, pulling an ugly sound of anguish from her throat, and Elen was clutching at her, yanking her away from the window.
"What are you doing?" Elen gasped out, "What are you thinking..."
Angharad, with a strangled shriek, grappled with her, but she was divided against herself, and Elen was not her most common sparring partner for nothing. Her handmaiden knew all her weaknesses, and after a few moments of breathless struggle, the princess found herself on her knees, with her face shoved into her own mattress, her arms pinned behind her with a strength unbelievable from someone as slight as Elen. Angharad gave up, fell limp and screamed as hard as she could into the muffling feather tick. Elen burst into tears, unpinned her wrists to throw her arms around her instead, and sobbed into her shoulder.
"You wouldn't," she gasped, "you wouldn't. There's nothing that's solved that way. Nothing as bad as that."
Angharad sagged down to the floor, her resistance drained away. "You don't know," she groaned, pale as sand. "You don't know how bad it is."
"You said you weren't sorry," Elen sputtered, jerking her by the arms like a scolded child until a sound like a laugh with its throat cut out was shaken out of her.
"Sorry! I'm sorry I was born."
"Stop it. Stop. I won't listen to it. You were born, and you're alive and you can end that but you can't unmake it. You'd kill us all, take the hearts of everyone who loves you. How could you even think of doing that to us? How would he feel?"
He. Angharad sobbed at the very acknowledgement from Elen. "He is lost to me."
"So if you can't have him you'll break him?" Elen hissed. "How is that love? If he loves you then he'd rather you were alive, even if he can't be with you. Anything else is just those stupid romantic tragedies only men believe. You have a child to think about."
"I am thinking about her," Angharad groaned. "She'll be hunted by Achren all her life, Elen. Used as leverage for the throne of Prydain. She's as good as sworn it."
"I..." Elen released her at this, and sat back in dismay. "What does all that mean? How could—,"
Angharad shook her head wearily, leaning against her bed in exhaustion. "I told you. You don't know how bad it is." She held a hand to her throbbing mouth and winced at the sight of the blood on her fingers. "I don't know what to do anymore. I don't see any way out that doesn't end in...in any way that..." she trailed off, dropped her head, and was silent.
Elen sat still for a moment, then rose, padded away and came back with a wet cloth to hold against her bleeding lip. "There's plenty I don't know," she muttered, "but one thing I do - you're thinking clear as a bog right now, wrought-up with worry and excitement. Thank the gods I heard you open that casement. You get back in your bed, and don't make another move until daylight. There's no thought comes in the witching hour that isn't better left until the morning."
Angharad pulled herself up gingerly with a groan, and crawled back into bed. The burst of manic energy and fright had burned away, left her shaking, and Elen sat beside her and thrust a wine goblet into her hands. "Drink. Just a bit, though. Not good for you, now." She watched her mistress drink, a stubborn frown on her brow. "Now you listen to me. You're still waiting for him you sent on an important mission; he went for love of you, and it's just pure mad nonsense to give up on him so soon - and cruel to him, to boot. As for Achren, she doesn't know about the baby, and she's not in charge yet, last I checked, so there's no sense borrowing trouble. Furthermore, you've got two enchanters vying for a position here - and no matter how you feel about that position, you can't argue that one of them might prove useful if he's got the power to help somehow, and the least you could do, seems to me, is find that out. So it's a bit premature to be thinking the only way out of your trouble is the one you can't return from. It's stark witless, in fact, and it's horrid to me - did you think of that? That I'd be suspected of pushing you? Or blamed for not stopping you?"
Elen's pale, tear stained face, and the truth of her words, smote her with reproach, the depth of her heartbreak. "Oh, Llyr, Elen." Angharad reached for her, pulled her dark head to her shoulder, and for a long time they clung and wept together, without words; there were none left. Finally Elen, sniffling, made her lie back again.
Her grandfather's parchment still lay haphazardly on her bed and Angharad took it up to fold it. The parchment sizzled in her hands, a buzz that she felt rather than heard, startling her; she paused on the verge of tucking it away and stared at it.
She had inadvertently streaked blood from her lip across the page, and a print of dark crimson lay directly over the triple spiral. The lines of ink were glowing now, the symbol glittering like a star. Next to her, the Pelydryn, which had been dimly flickering, flashed and glowed. Elen exclaimed in surprise. "What's—,"
Angharad heard nothing more of her. She had instinctively laid her fingertip upon the glowing symbol, and in an instant her surroundings were swallowed up in blinding light. There was roaring in her ears, drowning out all other sound. She had the impression of standing in the midst of a swirling tunnel of water, and the light shone from it and through it and blazed brilliant at its far end. A desperate longing filled her, a pull like a tether that drew her forward, as though whatever lay at the end of this path were anchored to her very spirit, distant and yearning to be joined. She took a step...
...and it was gone. Elen was staring at her in the golden glow of the Pelydryn. Angharad snatched up the parchment; the symbol, marred by the dark smudge, had ceased to glow, and further proddings did nothing to repeat the performance. She hissed out a mild oath and thumped the page to her bedside table in a temper.
Elen gripped her hand. "What happened? I saw that bit glowing and then you went rigid and stared through me for a solid minute, and didn't hear a thing I said. What were you seeing?"
"I don't know. Water and light in some sort of tunnel, or...or path. One I wanted to follow, but couldn't." Angharad dabbed at her lip again, thoughtfully. "The first dream I had about all this...it was after I'd cut my hand, and gotten blood on the spellbook. Now blood on the symbol. Always blood magic. The blood of Llyr..." she muttered. "I wish I knew what it meant. What I am supposed to do."
Elen sighed. "Right now, you're supposed to be resting. You'll be the death of me the next nine months."
Angharad lay back soberly, averting her eyes from Elen's appraising glare. The girl's impassioned lecture had brought her back from the brink of her madness, but not from her resolve.
It was true enough that it was too soon to give up on Geraint. She would wait for him, and for whatever he discovered, and meanwhile she would learn as much as possible of those who had come to court her favor, and she would guard herself from Achren. She would do what she could, not to leave the island helpless.
But if it came to leaving, if she had to leave to protect the child...nothing must hinder her from it.
She rolled over in bed, turning her face from the light of the Pelydryn, and it dimmed and went out. "I'm all right, Elen. Thank you."
Elen snorted wearily. "I don't believe you. How am I supposed to sleep, after this?"
"Lie down here where you can't miss me if it makes you feel better."
"Belin," Elen muttered, and crawled into bed next to her, settling against her back. "You'll tell me if you have any more such fits, before it gets so bad, won't you?"
"Mmmph," Angharad mumbled noncommittally, but she reached back and squeezed her hand. Silence fell, full and thick, and she knew from the tension and quiver in her body that Elen was still crying silently in the darkness. Elen would never forgive her for leaving, either.
You'd kill us all, take the hearts of everyone who loves you. Suddenly the angry red crescent-shaped brand on Geraint's chest stole into her mind's eye, hovered there like an accusation.
I will burn everyone who loves me, in the end, she thought, miserably, one way or another.
They should have named me something else.
She must have slept at last, for the noise of the door opening woke her, and Angharad sat up in confusion as her mother entered the room without ceremony. Elen was nowhere to be seen, and the door shut behind the queen, the two of them facing one another alone.
She knew, instantly, by the cool frustration in her mother's stance, that the guards had returned without Geraint, and she blurted out a strange broken cry of relief.
"I told you he was gone," she said, and the queen's impassive face twitched. Regat took from beneath her arm a bundle of fabrics and shook them out to show her a familiar rough tow-linen shirt and patched leggings. She held them up distastefully.
"This, Angharad? You betray your lineage for such coarse and common—,"
Angharad threw back the bedclothes, leapt up and snatched the items away, clutched them to her breast in outrage. "Don't you dare say it! You know nothing of him, of who or what he is. How dare you accuse me of betrayal after what you've done?"
The queen went white, and took a quick step back, then flushed at her own weakness. "He may be gone for now," she said, low and dangerous, "but no man of such limited means leaves his possessions behind without intending to return. Did you think I would not know?"
Angharad turned away to hide her alarm. "It had nothing to do with you. I did not send him away out of shame or fear. But I have no assurance that he will return." She sank to her couch. "Waste all the guards you like, watching for a man who poses no threat to us while you host Achren within our very walls. If he does come back, you can drag him here in chains when he would have willingly come on invitation, but then you'll have been successful in one thing at least."
There was a crackle of heat in the room, an angry flash, and Angharad would have flinched, before, but now she felt no fear, only a reckless amazement that she had spoken to her mother in such a fashion. She waited, in stony silence, for a rebuke, but it did not come. The flicker of heat faded, and a tense, melancholy stillness took its place.
"Angharad," Regat breathed, a strained and broken word.
Llyr. If she tries to cajole me now...
"What do you know of the men who have come to court me?" Angharad asked sharply. From the corner of her eye she saw her mother stiffen in surprise.
"A little. Lord Grimgower comes from a family stronghold near the Preseli Hills. An old house, with a somewhat...questionable past." She shook her head doubtfully. "There have been branches that dealt deeply in dark magic. He would bear watching. But they are allied with the southern cantrevs of Prydain, and have been of some service to the High King in recent times. I suspect they will look upon a marriage alliance with another power friendly to the Sons of Don as a move that will continue to heal their reputation."
Angharad resisted an impulse to snort. "I see. And the fat one?"
"Gildas, of the House of Glynn, from Pwyll's domain in the north. He recently came into an inheritance, from what I hear, and has enjoyed a rapid rise in prominence and favor. He looks to be the sort to curry it wherever he can, and I must say I find his preening repulsive. But I know nothing of his powers. If they prove more impressive than he currently seems..." the queen shrugged, "it would not be the first time such a thing occurred. I do hope, for your sake and the kingdom's, that we have better options by the time of the ceremony."
Angharad clutched Geraint's shirt to her face, and breathed in the lingering smell of him, sun and salt, marsh-grass and the smoke from his turf-fire. "So do I," she murmured.
In the end, it might not matter. But...
"So do I," she whispered again...a plea to the listening air.