Hafgan’s attention lashed back to his adopted son. “Not three days ago I saw you crowned in Caerwyn.”
Hafgan looked from one to another of them, finally settling on Dafydd with a nasty crook to his smile. “Crowned, indeed. The war is over. Emyr ap Caerwyn is dead, and all of Annwn saw him fall at your hand.”
Twenty-nine
“What?” Dafydd’s faint question was all but lost under Ioan’s urgent, “No. No, he can’t be. Without him we have no
“What does it matter? The Seelie king is dead and his son, my heir, sits on his thr …” Hafgan’s smugness faded to a slow frown. He repeated, “I saw you crowned,” then turned to Lara, angry incomprehension written on his features.
“Tell me what you saw.” Lara heard cool command in her own voice, so remote she barely recognized it, and king or not, Hafgan acquiesced.
More than acquiesced: a twist of his wrist brought living flame up from the dust-covered floor, each lick dancing apart to become an image. Armies clashed together, flame rolling over itself as one side overwhelmed the other or fell back, very near to the edge of the chasm protecting the Unseelie city.
It was eerily silent; this was no scrying spell, no method of looking across or back or forward in time, but only the reconstruction of memory in an element that didn’t carry voices. Water carried sound, if poorly; enhanced by magic it made a viable conductor, but flame had only its own snapping, crackling song as it ate away at the fuel provided. Without that fuel, all it provided was imagery, noiseless when it should have been ear-splitting.
The focus came closer, picking out individuals: Hafgan rode with his army, intent on reaching Emyr, whose icy pale countenance was somehow reflected in warm flame. But before Hafgan reached the Seelie king, Dafydd slammed through the Unseelie ranks, riding from behind them, his presence unseen by Hafgan until he was already past. Astounded Unseelie fell back; delighted Seelie made a path, silent faces lifted in cheers.
Dafydd ap Caerwyn rode straight for Emyr, and slammed a sword through the sovereign’s chest when he reached him. Lara, knowing it wasn’t true, knowing it to be impossible, still gasped at the impact, and Aerin let go a child’s cry of horror.
On the battlefield, delight turned to dismay, cheers to howls, as Dafydd caught the falling king and tore the silver circlet from his brow. He jammed it onto his own head, triumphant in the midst of a mob that could no longer be called an army. Even Hafgan drew his horse up, too agape to ride on, and so no one was there to stop Ioan ap Annwn as he followed in Dafydd’s wake, and slew his brother with the same efficient brutality Dafydd had shown Emyr.
This time the yelp of dismay was Lara’s. She jerked forward, reaching for the fiery images against all sense, against everything she knew. Dafydd drew her back, his hands icy on her shoulders as they all gawked, horrified, at unfolding events.
There was no triumph on the flame-made Ioan’s face, no joy as there’d been in Dafydd’s. He slid from his horse, bearing Dafydd’s body to the ground. It was too late by far to show Emyr such gentleness, but Ioan stood when both bodies lay at his feet, and lifted his silent voice to the stunned armies.
“The war is over,” Hafgan echoed, putting words into the simulacrum’s mouth. “Emyr and Dafydd are dead. I am Ioan ap Caerwyn, changed but still the last son of the shining citadel, and I will have no more of this war. We will bear these bodies back to Caerwyn and put them to rest, and there I will take the crown and embrace Seelie and Unseelie alike, so both my adopted people and my blood people might finally know peace. Do not defy me, my Seelie family. There are still far more Unseelie than there are of you, and I will have peace at any cost.”
Flame melted away, leaving Hafgan staring at Lara with angry expectation. “Three days,” he said, his voice his own again. “Three days later, three days ago, Ioan was crowned in Caerwyn, with Emyr and Dafydd buried in the barrows as they ought to have been. These two
“All of that was Merrick.” Even the attempt at further explanation defeated her. Lara took Dafydd’s hand instead, trying to impart comfort. He flinched at her touch, then turned a suddenly haggard gaze on her.
“Is my father dead?”
Lara pressed one hand against her eyes, then shook her head. “I don’t know. If I were Merrick, I’d have murdered Emyr in your guise, then built the illusion of Ioan coming for you, and switched from one role to the other when they came together. But I don’t know. The way flame dances, Dafydd … it disguises any hope I might have of seeing through the illusions. If I’d
Hafgan waited a heartbeat, then two, before bursting out with, “
“What bitter dregs those must be for Merrick,” Dafydd said with a thin smile. “To plot and plan so long and be left wearing another man’s mask when victory is in his hand. The war is not over, Hafgan. I will not allow Merrick to sit on my father’s throne for long, no matter what the cost to myself or the Barrow-lands.”
“You cannot be such a fool,” Ioan protested. “Emyr is dead, our chances of learning the past’s truth have slipped away, and you would still continue with these endless skirmishes, the eternal war? To what end, Dafydd? To what purpose?”
Dafydd whispered, “I might have let it go, if it were you. Changed or not, beholden to the Unseelie or not, beneath it all you are my brother and Rhiannon’s son. Had you come to the throne of—”
“Of Annwn,” Ioan put in strongly, and Dafydd broke off to stare at him a moment before continuing.
“Had you come to Emyr’s throne I might have found my way past the differences between us. But Merrick has tricked and murdered his way there, and I will not let it stand. He was my brother, closer to me than you ever were, and this betrayal runs too deep. My father is
“Is he?” Aerin asked the question this time, with more grief than either Dafydd or Ioan had shown. Her green eyes were red-rimmed, a show of emotion that seemed tragically mortal to Lara, and the hope in her face was more desperate yet.
Lara, for the second time, whispered, “I don’t know. It feels like all of Annwn believes it, and I can’t tell if it’s the land or the truth whose music I’m hearing.”
Hafgan sneered. “Perhaps you do not wish to know. A truthseeker is of no use if she refuses to accept her power.”
A sharp laugh broke from Lara’s throat. “It really has been a long time since you’ve dealt with a truthseeker, if you can make yourself believe that. I’ve spent a lifetime wondering why people don’t just accept the truth. I don’t think there’s any comfort in not knowing. But it doesn’t matter how I twist it in my head, ‘Emyr is alive, Emyr is dead,’ neither one sings clear. So neither is true or they both are.” She sharpened her gaze on the Unseelie king. “The sleepers under the sea. Are they alive?”
“Yes.”
Discord crashed through his answer and Lara released another sharp laugh. “But do they live?”
“No.”
The same wrenching music played, and Lara dropped her forehead against the staff, hanging on for a few long seconds. “So they’re dead.”
This time Hafgan gave no answer at all, and when she looked up again, irritated confusion had settled across his face. The others were so silent as to be statues, not even their breath stirring the air as she turned to them. “There’s a chance, then. If I can’t tell, then maybe he’s somewhere between dead and alive. That means there’s a chance he’s alive, maybe in the Drowned Lands, maybe … you said there was a place of remembrance in the citadel, Aerin. Does it share any of the drowned city’s aspects? Could there be a stasis hall beneath it?”
“We never found one, playing as children.” Aerin sounded as if the lack of discovery implied it was impossible one should be there.
“It took me to find the way in the drowned city,” Lara reminded her. Aerin shrugged an eyebrow in cranky assent and tension-ridden amusement sparked in Lara. Whether it was her mortality or her magic, the idea that she could find what Aerin couldn’t visibly annoyed the Seelie warrior, and Lara didn’t quite blame her. She was the outsider, usurping far too many things, but momentum had her in its grasp. Dafydd and then Ioan had asked for her
