Joy and sadness. Darkness and light. Angharad knew that paradox well enough. She lived it daily, and never more than now.
She had not believed her eyes when first she had opened them to see Geraint standing there; could not comprehend, for a heartbeat, what he was — vision, apparition, miracle, or some fever dream, popping up in the most inopportune moment possible. In seconds her scrambling thoughts had registered the reality of him, and the wild joy and relief of knowing he was alive and free had nearly catapulted her off her seat to rush to him. It was Eilwen's touch at her shoulder that checked her, a warning nudge, and just as swiftly as it had risen, her ecstasy was engulfed in horror. Alive and free for how long, now that he was here? Here, before the queen, where she had ordered him not to come?
Terrified lest she had already given him away by her own reaction, she had forced down the inclination to burst into hysterical tears of relief and joy and fear....gods, couldn't she just once enjoy the experience of pure gladness? Must it always be tempered by something else? Even giving vent to uncomplicated grief might be a relief, for that matter...just...would she never cease to feel torn in endless different directions? How much more of her was there to break apart?
She had trembled, and the world had tilted sideways, blackness threatening at the edges of her vision. Eilwen had laid a hand on her again, whispered something, and she breathed deep until the darkness passed. She had felt the hush of the crowd, the focus of their attention, and knew everyone awaited her word, but she could not speak. The burning suspicion of Regat's stare flickered from Geraint's face to her own; Angharad felt it, a terrifying certainty. Her mother knew her well enough, and was no fool; Regat would guess, would know, and there was no escaping it...
But the queen would not make a scene here, before the entire court. So long as the ceremony went on, Geraint was safe, and after that, perhaps...perhaps...no, she would not think of after that; this moment alone was difficult enough to contain. And so Angharad devoured him with her eyes, drinking in the sight of him; his face was full of import, and she knew he had a reason for coming. Whatever he had to tell her, he would get his chance to tell it. That much, she could grant him, and when she rallied to speak to him, his words, as always, filled her with gladness in spite of herself.
She had seen his nervousness as he stood there; he had seemed, for a moment, smaller than he should, here in the crowds and hush and the dark vastness of the Hall, when she knew him as he looked standing tall and vibrant against a backdrop of sea and salt-grass, with wind in his hair and his eyes reflecting sky. But he changed; she saw it, knew the spine-tingling moment he forgot Self and became Storyteller. The familiar light in his eye, the power of his stance, the fire of his energy as he spoke, and his commanding gestures captured every eye in the room and held them at his pleasure. Her delight in him, her gladness that, at last, all could see his gifting for themselves and know the wonder that composed his very being, made her breathless.
And his story...his story was magic, would have been magic enough even without the illusions that accompanied it, superfluous among the flow of his words, the spell of his voice. His listeners were as bound as if tied to the floor, every breath held and heart racing in rhythm with the cadence he set. The whole room swayed when he did, turned their heads to look anywhere he gestured, as though the visions he saw would also be visible to them. His deft sleight-of-hand seemed enhanced, somehow, so flawless in execution that even she, intimately acquainted with every one of his skills by now, gasped and cried out in wonder with the rest of the Hall, believing for that instant, heart and eyes in agreement.
So engrossed she was in the flow of the story that she nearly missed its import, until the words Dagrau Rhiannon beat themselves upon her mind. Eilwen's hand tightened at her shoulder, and the fluid darkness within her swelled and warmed in a flood of communion. Her pulse quickened and her mind raced, seeking to fit the pieces together.
There were three gems, as they had suspected: one upon her pendant, given by the Fair Folk...a token of goodwill, to heal the breach; no doubt Eiddileg had thought they would remember the first time it had been gifted to him, and see the generosity offered in the mirror of his return of it.
One in the king's crown, still buried at Pentre Gwyllion, presumably - the power her grandfather had sought, and now, likely, that which Arawn coveted. A prickle of fear touched her at this realization; she glanced at Grimgower, watching and listening like the rest; thought of Achren, secreted in her apartment. Perhaps there was a reason this story had been forgotten. Perhaps they had been meant to forget.
And one more, kept by... Angharad caught her breath, thinking back, to the vision in the scry: a silver-haired woman, ageless, gowned in shifting light, a shining star in her hand as she gazed out to sea.
Not Achren.
Rhiannon.
The goddess had not forgotten them.
When the story was ended, amidst the crowd in the Hall shouting approval, Angharad wanted to leap from her throne, desiring both to run to Geraint and to turn to her aunt and sister and embrace them in the fierce joy of finally understanding, to revel with them in the flood of peace and hope and life that broke upon her with such power that she could not stop the tears that streamed from her eyes. But she could only gaze upon him, loving him with every breath; she reached up, clutched her sister's hand at her shoulder and held it fast, felt the warmth of Arianrod's presence nearby, and wished, with all her might, that she felt the same from her own mother.
The queen had watched and listened as intently as all the rest, and could not have failed to make the same deduction about what still lay beneath Pentre Gwyllion, at the very least. It was not the primary concern at the moment, however, no matter its significance; Geraint was waiting for a verdict, and his rivals were protesting, and Angharad listened in dread as he pronounced his own doom by answering Regat's questions with the truth.
Angharad knew she could have expected no more, nor less, from him. But her heart shattered, nonetheless. It was hopeless, futile, utterly wasted, but she rose from her throne, and defended him anyway, clinging to the surprising reluctance she sensed from her mother, some spark of the queen's grudging respect despite, doubtless, being perfectly aware of who he was. A true enchanter, Angharad called him, and knew, from the depths of her spirit, that she spoke truth, a truth more solid and real than law or tradition.
She clasped the hand of her love and threw her head back in defiance of her mother, who looked upon them both in a frozen moment of impossible choice. The whole world trembled upon a precipice.
And then it tumbled.
"Angharad," Regat sighed, "it is forbidden."
The princess stood, in an agony of numb horror, did not hear the dismayed clamor of the crowd over the furious, anguished cry of her own heart that filled her up. It did not reach her lips, for she had no breath to give it voice; it beat against the cage of her ribs, drowned out the conscious thought of her mind, until she was nothing but a silent scream, a door shut against all other voices. Motionless, she stood, as Geraint's hand was torn from her grasp and he was led away by guards, his eyes holding hers until his face was lost in the crowd; wordless, she made no answer to her mother's demand to choose from the remaining enchanters. She refused to look at them again, though they jostled themselves in front of her, vying for her attention, and finally the queen stood, in a desperate bid for control, and announced that the decision would be made by the morrow, and bid the assembly to disperse.
The confusion that followed, Angharad did not remember. The darkness in her mind expanded, covering her in blessed nothingness, until she came to herself and knew, by the feel, she was in her own room, lying on her couch, but with no notion of how she had come there. She was cradled in her sister's embrace, and around her, voices spoke, in fervent debate.
"...don't know what sort of spell it was," Elen's voice broke into her consciousness, "so there's no way to re-create it, is there? and no way for any of you to know what it would do now, even if you did."
"What difference does it make, anyway, if we still can't get to all the gems?" Eilwen broke in impatiently. "We know what Arawn is after, now, at least. I should think we ought to let the thing stay where it is, and concentrate on keeping him away from it."
"It is not enough," Arianrhod said. "Regat will not be content to let it lie. And I am not certain, myself...though probably not for the same reasons."
Angharad heard the furl of pages turning, dusty, smelling of magic. The spellbook.
"Do you think she realized that the third gem is the one on the pendant?" Eilwen murmured.
"I do not know. It was wise of him not to reveal it there — Llyr, too clever by half. But she may yet get it out of him."
"Where'd she take him? — Aunt, you don't think she's going to—,"
Angharad stirred and whimpered, and they all fell silent. Eilwen jiggled her gently and kissed her cheek. "Wake up, love. You're all right."
The princess opened her eyes, sat up slowly, examining herself in a daze, sensing something unfamiliar. Frowning, she raised her hand, staring at her own clenched fist in confusion, and opened it slowly to reveal a silver chain entangling her fingers.
The crescent moon pendant dropped from her grasp, the gem held between its horns sparking ice and fire as it fell.
The queen of Llyr paused before the door of the council chamber, beset by a sense of uncertainty rare to her. Moments in which she truly did not know her next move were blessedly few. But now...
"Did he come quietly?" she asked the guard standing near.
"He made no protest, Majesty."
She nodded, and he opened the door, seeing her through and retreating at her command, leaving her alone with the man who had brought them to ruin.
He had leapt to his feet when she entered, and she resisted an urge to be outraged that he had dared to sit at all; after all, it was she who had ordered him brought here and not thrown straight into the dungeons, on an impulse she had not yet examined closely.
Regat regarded him with practiced impassivity, though never in her life had her expression been more at war with her thoughts.
He bowed to her and then stood, head low and eyes averted, in an attitude of expectant resignation, his hands clasped behind him. His cloak lay folded on the council table next to a leather satchel; the rest of his attire was as plain and rough as she had expected, but no longer did she make any assumptions based upon it, or anything else about his appearance. Though his sun-browned skin and strong build spoke of a living earned outdoors and by his hands, he was, manifestly, no common laborer, and she remembered Angharad's outraged defense of him with a sensation somewhat akin to relief to find it true.
She suspected it was not the first time he had stood before a monarch. He waited, in silence, with no nervous shifting of balance, stammering, or fidgeting. No, this man was not common, in any sense of the word.
"Well, Geraint of Gellau," she said at last, "...and is that truly your name?"
His eyes did not move; she thought he must have picked out a spot on the floor at which to stare. "It is, Your Majesty," he answered, low and calm. "Everything I spoke was the truth."
"Yes," she acknowledged, and did not conceal the quiet, unexpected bitterness in her voice. "I could almost wish you had lied."
His gaze moved then, in a surprised jerk, and he nearly looked at her, but checked himself in time. Regat frowned to herself; the formality was a barrier, and it was no time for niceties. She stepped around him, slow and deliberate, and spoke as if to the surrounding walls. "I would that the father of the next Princess of Llyr should look me in the face."
The pause grew a touch long before he replied, in a voice that sounded strained. "No doubt it will be a great privilege for that man to do so, Majesty."
"Indeed," she said coolly. He was diplomatic; that she would grant him. "Then do it."
She watched the golden lines of his neck move as he swallowed. "I...I do not...unders—,"
"Do you not?"
She had moved behind him now, observing the tension in every line of his posture; the veins in his clasped hands and forearms stood out in branching lines, and his chest expanded in a breath that shuddered out of him. Finally his head lifted and turned, and his eyes rose, wary, and wide in disbelief, to meet hers. The blue haze of sea and sky shone in them, all the more brilliant for the flush in his sun-kissed face. His cloud of tousled curls, the color of ripe barley, floated around his face like a halo. Llyr. If a golden son of Belin himself should walk into the room, she could hardly have known the difference. No wonder Angharad...
Damnation. "Angharad carries your child," she said bluntly, "a full month on." His lips parted in a heavy breath, and in the open book of his face she saw many things...shock, dismay, fear...yet also, beneath it, a glimmer of tremulous joy, and it was this that made her turn away from him. "It has put her, and all of us, in even greater danger than we already were. You see why I cannot allow her to stay unwed. She was resigned, today, to do what she must. Until you arrived."
He stood silent, and Regat let the silence play out long, angry with herself for not knowing what to do with him, angry with him, for just...being. "Do you take me for a fool?" she demanded, turning back to glare him down.
The blue gaze faltered a little, but his voice stayed low, controlled. "I know that you are not, Majesty."
"Yet you played me for one," she accused, "today, and long before today, you and my daughter."
"It was never our intention," he protested, in a gasp, his composure breaking at last, and he halted, collecting himself. "I did not come here today to make a mockery of you or your laws," he said, meeting her eyes again, and she read the sincerity in his face. "I knew I had no hope of deceiving true magicians, nor of rising so far above my station as to win the hand of the Princess. I came to keep my promise to Angharad, to fulfill the charge she had laid upon me. Presenting myself as a suitor was the only ploy I could think of that would grant me a last audience with her, that I might tell her what I had learned."
What he had learned. Regat sank into the chair at the head of the table, mulling over what she had seen and heard in the Hall, reluctant curiosity warring with a warning alarm within her heart. A hundred thoughts pressed upon her, voices in her mind that jostled each other for her attention. "That tale of yours," she said slowly, "was a pretty cobweb, spun by a master hand. An impressive performance."
"It was no mere performance," he answered, bristling a little, "but the history of your people, forgotten by them, but not by the spirits of the sentinels that still guard the body of your ancestor. It was they who gave it me, while I walked among the sacred stones, not three days ago."
A tremor ran through her, a dread disbelief. "The gwyllion?" she whispered, and her hand tightened into a fist upon the table. "How? They give nothing to anyone, not even..."
Regat cut herself off, angry and dismayed at her own weak display. He was looking at her as though he knew far too much, an expression of painful understanding, compassion, even pity. She would not be pitied by him, this powerless man, nay, barely more than a boy. How had he survived the gwyllion unscathed, where others far worthier...
She caught her breath, her heart pounding. "How dare you breach our agreement with them and put us all in peril of their wrath?"
"Your treaty with them forbids only the people of Llyr to enter their domain," he answered, taking an entreating step forward before remembering himself, and halting, his hands raised to her in supplication. "Angharad and I discovered it together. She had told me of the suspicion of an unknown power on the island, and certain of her visions led her to believe it to be connected to Pentre Gwyllion. We knew it was forbidden for her to go there, so she sent me, to learn what I could. They were not...an easy audience," he added, with a rueful twitch of his mouth. "Indeed, they give nothing for nothing, and in the end I was obliged to strike a bargain with them that cost me much. But such it was my honor and my privilege to do, for the sake of the people of Llyr that I have come to love, and for the sake of Angharad..." his voice broke, and his jaw tightened; he swallowed hard and finished, low and rough, "...for whom I would give my life."
"That is well," Regat said drily, "for the penalty for a common man who dares touch a Daughter of Llyr as you have is death." He flinched, but it was subtle, a mere moment's reflex, before he straightened his shoulders and gazed at her in silence, waiting, and she ignored a twinge of resentment that he made no plea. But she had never been one to torment anyone needlessly. "Fear not," she told him, "I am not so cruel as that, despite what you may have been told. It is my duty to enforce our law, yet also may I pardon anyone I choose."
She paused, bitterly aware of the poetic justice that she, forced to banish her own father because eldritch creatures without pity demanded adherence to the slightest trivialities, should show mercy to a man who had outwitted those same foes. "Whatever guilt is upon you is not entirely of your own making, and certainly my daughter has been neither dupe nor unwilling victim. I do not yet know what to do with you, Geraint of Gellau, but your life is safe from our executioner, at least."
His shoulders slumped a little, and he bowed his thanks silently. "Yet what does this benefit us?"she asked — speaking more, almost, to herself than him. "Though every word of your tale be true, we are entangled in that which will require more than legend to unravel. Angharad seems to have informed you of things far beyond the bounds of prudence. I presume you know something of our struggles."
He spoke haltingly. "Yes, Your Majesty. I know that Arawn seeks a hidden power here, and I know also whom you have employed to aid you against him."
Was there nothing the girl had not told him? So much for for obedience, for respect for her authority, for the importance of secrecy! Had she ever had control over her own household, or had it all been false — as ephemeral as this man's illusions? Regat took a deep breath to keep from setting something aflame; she nodded instead, a short acknowledgement of the truth, and tapped at the table, mentally turned over all she knew: the scrawling on her father's parchment, the legends, the hints.
"Dagrau Rhiannon," she said slowly, "is a name I knew, but thought to be myth. I think you did not speak the whole truth. Tell me the end of your story again."
His blue gaze faltered and broke, and he glanced away, as though uncertain. "Indeed, Your Majesty, you discern well. One line alone in all my tale was a half-truth, for it seemed unwise to reveal too much, in the company of...certain of those present."
She stared at him, not knowing whether to laugh at or curse the irony of how perfectly suited a match for Angharad he should have been. For he was correct, of course - evidence of a discerning political mind. Along with being intelligent, brave, and well-spoken; every thought and manner, so far, marked him as worthy of the position for which he had applied, far more worthy than either of the other two disappointments...except in power.
And it was power that they needed, more than anything.
"A gem still lies in the king's tomb at Pentre Gwyllion," she said, a guess she did not need him to confirm, but he nodded.
"But I must warn Your Majesty," he added, blunt, "They were adamant that any attempt to take it, while they still stand guard, would be treated as theft."
Regat frowned, annoyed at the implication that she needed to be told this. Yet the gem was, doubtless, the thing their enemy desired, and a power that must be kept from the wrong hands could only be truly safe in the right ones. Moreover, now that Achren had bound them, it was even more imperative that they use everything at their disposal. There could be no question that it was powerful, and if its secrets could be discovered, used to do more than simply guard from invasion...
Something worried at her mind, like an itch, and she turned to it. What of the third jewel? The gift to Eiddileg? Was it...could it possibly be—
Suddenly there was a frantic thump and scuffle at the door, and the muffled protest of the guard standing outside it was shouted down by a commanding chorus of women's voices. The door burst open, and Angharad tumbled through it like a bolt of lightning. With a strangled cry she flew across the room and fell into Geraint's arms.
Regat sprang up, but quickly masked her startled dismay. Arianrhod and Eilwen had entered the room on Angharad's heels, but they stood back, now, unwilling to intrude on what both considered a sacred moment. Perhaps they were right, the queen thought, as with a crushing sense of dread and grief she watched her daughter sob into Geraint's neck; he was crooning to her, in incoherent murmurs, in fervent whispers, his lips near her ear.
Belin, not again. Regat turned away from the sight, silently cursing fate. She had no wish to separate them. It had been torment to speak her verdict in the Hall, to watch her words tear hearts and betray the trust of her own flesh and blood — a cruel enough destiny once, let alone twice in her life. But what were any of their choices? Love and legend would not save this island; power alone could do it, and by the gods she would do what she had to do — as she had always done.
She opened her mouth to order them apart, but the words never came. A crash shook the floor, vibrating beneath their feet. Once, it struck, then twice, the sharp crack shivering into a rumble as the ground quaked; there were screams in the distance, and the hot, metallic taste of foreign magic poured through the air in a flood. Eilwen and Arianrhod both cried out in horror. Angharad froze, looking toward the door.
It burst open again, and the guard fell into the room, his face white as death. "Majesty," he gasped, "we are—," but before he could hit the floor, the queen was already sweeping past him, catching up her long skirts over one arm to run toward the Hall, the surge of magic pulling her to its source like a whirlpool, sucking all around it into darkness.