The ending came in a rush, for all that Lara knew Rhiannon had only scant years to live once Dafydd was born; that she would drown in the sea saving Merrick, and everything would change for Annwn.
And it did, but not in the way Lara had imagined.
Rhiannon rushed into the water she’d come from, determined to save her sister’s child. The sea was her birthplace, her home, and sudden raw strength roared through her, a reminder of what she’d been. Tumultuous song filled Lara until she felt like she might fly apart with it, but Rhiannon had no such fears. She gathered that power, remembering what it had been to be Annwn’s goddess, and still within the sea, she pushed Merrick to shore on a wave of compassion and rage.
And there on the shore, at the edge of sea and sky and earth, Emyr drove the bloodied shell shard into sand; into the sea-laden earth at water’s edge, and worked a magic to put all history to shame.
The pieces to make the spell were Rhiannon’s, not his. The sea her father, the sky her mother, the blood her own, and so it was the magic of Annwn itself that Emyr commanded. But Annwn had no will of its own, and could only be directed.
Directed by a king, himself made of Rhiannon’s blood, who was the closest thing to the goddess herself the land recognized.
Everything Rhiannon threw at the shore, her impotent anger, her desire to save Merrick, her memories of what she had been and what she might yet again be, came together at a single focal point. Emyr took them all in, draining Rhiannon of all the strength she might ever wield, and bound it in an item of power.
Lara opened her eyes, finally recognizing the rage within the staff as the terrible fury of a goddess confined.
Thirty-five
The others awakened more slowly. Dafydd and the other Seelie had unforgiving eyes for the sleeping kings, but Oisín, like Lara, gazed at the staff, grief aging his lined face even more deeply.
“You knew.” Accusation was beyond Lara. The best she could manage was soft horror, and that was enough.
Pain spasmed across Oisín’s features, but he nodded. “I suspected. The staff would not—will still not—abide the touch of royal hands. That, I think, was what drowned the lands, far more than any intent on their part.” He made a small gesture toward the kings, and Dafydd stirred.
“Then you didn’t see?”
Lara’s stomach twisted. “See what?”
“How Emyr raised the staff and unleashed its magic on the valley. He meant to destroy Hafgan’s court so Rhiannon’s power was his alone. No wonder we think of the seas as killing. They took Rhiannon and the valley all in the same day.”
“No.” Lara shivered, looking around the gathering. “I didn’t see that. I woke up when I realized what they’d done to Rhiannon. I thought the lands had drowned before she died. I thought …” She trailed off, not really doubting the truth in Dafydd’s voice. History so old it became legend was hardly reliable, even for those who had lived it. Not even her magic could winnow falsehood from truth at such a remove. She was reminded of her world’s stories of Robin Hood, none of which had ever satisfied her. Neither could this world’s tales of drownings and retributions, not until now, with the story played out for all of them.
“I almost remember.” Aerin’s eyes were closed, her voice faint and distant. “I do remember she went into the water after Merrick. I remember that the sea rose up and cast him out. I do not … quite … remember that it kept coming, only that we took to the horses quickly, and rode hard. Dafydd had seen only a handful of summers. He rode with me. That, I remember. How can I forget that which I was witness to?”
“You were young,” Oisín answered. “Young, and lied to, and memories slip into fog as time passes by. You’re not to blame for forgetting, Aerin, though I, perhaps, am.”
He took the staff from Lara, resting it across his lap, fingers light on its carved surface. “I wasn’t at the ocean that day, but I recall that tremors shook the whole of the land until Emyr cast this away. My eyesight was failing by then, and I took it up, never certain of why its presence felt so familiar. I imagined it to be my Rhiannon, returned from the sea, but I am a poet. Pretty stories are my trade.”
“I must have known Emyr had it when we left the shore that day. It always reminded me of my mother. Why did you refuse to give it to me?” Dafydd asked.
“Because you were too young to stand against Emyr, and the staff would have asked it of you.”
Lara gave Oisín a bemused look. “It doesn’t
“It would have, of Dafydd. Of her son.”
“Ioan’s her son, too, and it was ready to burn through him and obliterate Boston!”
“But we were right.” Ioan spoke for the first time, interrupting Oisín’s drawn breath. He gestured at the staff, though he made no effort to actually touch it. “Emyr drowned the Unseelie lands. My people have been done wrong by, Truthseeker. Will you help us now?”
Lara, sourly, said, “Hafgan isn’t exactly innocent of wrongdoing himself,” but wiped her words and tone away with a movement of her hand. “It’s not your peoples’ fault, though. It’s these two. The kings who are the last of Rhiannon’s blood.”
“Not the last. Ioan and Dafydd are as much her blood as any of the firstborns,” Aerin objected. “Give them their fathers’ crowns, if the Barrow-lands need kings.”
Lara breathed a laugh. “Just like that? Depose Emyr, to whom you’ve been unswervingly loyal?”
Aerin shrugged, obviously untroubled by the notion. “He has never deserved it. The dishonor is not mine, nor any of those who served him. No one will doubt the truth when you tell it to them, and minds will be changed. We don’t cling to the past. If we did, someone would have clear memories about Rhiannon’s fate.”
“Is it that simple?” Lara asked with real curiosity. “Humans would complicate it. We’d question their loyalty, question the ambition of the sons who will become kings. We’d wonder if we’d been tricked. Somebody would form resistance cells, even if most believed the right thing had happened.”
“There will be resistance and anger. We’ve fought for … ever.” Aerin smiled and Lara smiled back, hearing no mistruth in the phrase. “But no one will disbelieve you. Not with Dafydd’s return from the dead and with Emyr’s sleeping but living body here, and not with Merrick unmasked and alive. The evidence is in truth’s favor, even if we lacked a truthseeker to speak it, but we’re a people of magics, Truthseeker. With you to bear the news, there may be opposition, but there will be no doubt. Perhaps it’s an advantage we have over humans.”
“Maybe it is. I’ll try,” Lara said to Ioan. “Of course I’ll try to raise the lands. I’ve said that all along. But what are we going to do with these two?”
“Put them with Merrick in the chamber below. It’ll keep them out of trouble until we have a better idea.” Dafydd stood, gaze still grim as he studied the sleeping kings. Then he left the garden nook abruptly, and a few minutes later the entrance to the chamber cave open again. Ioan waved off Aerin’s help, carrying first Hafgan, then Emyr, to the biers below, and the four of them remaining walked together to meet Dafydd at the remembrance gardens’ entrance.
“The citadel is still filled with Unseelie. Shall we play at prisoners again to make our escape?” Aerin sounded resigned, but Oisín made a dismissive noise.
“The Truthseeker can open a way to the stables for us. No one will see us coming or going.”
“The Truthseeker will what?” Lara’s eyebrows shot up, despite the serene confidence in Oisín’s voice. “Oisín, I only made a walkable pathway with the staff’s help!”
“You made a very fine path out of the forest the very night I met you,” Oisín disagreed. “You need not cross chasms, Lara, only make a road from here to there visible to your companions alone. Or did you think following truth’s path would mean leaving us all behind? That would be lonely indeed.”
Lara put both hands to her head, as if the act could physically hold in her feelings of astonishment. “I can make roads the people with me can see but no one else can?”
Oisín pursed his lips. “A wayfinder would be of little use if she could not. I wonder at times if that’s how the very first roads between our world and Annwn were created, by wayfinders in search of new roads.”
“I thought that was a magic of the land. That only royalty could …” Lara trailed off, putting her hands over
