Lara sought those similar places, binding notes together to bolster their sound. The pathway she created ran a little ahead of her, intensified enough to shake away calcification and find new elements of music to respond to and grow with.
It went slowly, so slowly. Lara’s weariness was mirrored in the staff’s passiveness, and the terrible amount of time since Rhiannon’s binding handicapped them both even when eagerness might have hastened the journey. But finally the ivory began to shift, carvings growing indistinct, then fading entirely. The staff lost length, turning from a rod to a long shard, then bit by bit shrank to a stained bit of shell stolen from the beach.
Lara smeared her thumb across still-red blood, wiping most of it away, and in the distance, a woman walked free of the sea.
Thirty-seven
Dafydd and Ioan went still as stone. Aerin fell to her knees, and Lara sagged, eyes closed against the astonishing song that accompanied the woman. Viewing Annwn’s history hadn’t warned her of a music so deep and strong that it connected Rhiannon to all the myriad aspects of the world and universe. Lara had barely touched those herself, and already knew she could never stand against them. Looking at Rhiannon was looking into those secret symphonies, and she lacked the strength to even try just then. Someday, perhaps, but not today. A headache tightened a band around her skull, so mundane that Lara laughed wearily and put her hand over her eyes.
The song lessened abruptly and two fingers touched her under the chin, tilting her head up. Lara frowned upward and met Rhiannon’s equally frowning gaze, then climbed to her feet as the white-haired goddess’s fingers remained beneath her chin. Sympathy tempered Rhiannon’s voice as she said, “Truthseeker and mortal. I can change neither, but let me banish the pain in thanks for your services.” She trailed her finger from Lara’s chin to her forehead, tapping the latter, then turned away, utterly unconcerned as Lara’s headache vanished and she slumped in astonished relief.
Looking at Rhiannon was possible now, the connection she had with Annwn less visible, less loud, though the woman herself was no less stunning. She was much taller than Lara had imagined, towering over the gathered elves. Aerin was closest to her in height, but still dwarfed by a palm’s length as Rhiannon, looking youthfully delighted, drew the Seelie woman to her feet.
“Granddaughter,” she said with obvious pleasure. “Many-times granddaughter, but I see my look in your bones and feel Annwn’s pulse in your blood. This land has not been so badly served, if those such as you still walk it. Who is your master?”
A shiver rose up from Aerin’s core, her green eyes wide. “Emyr ap Caerwyn was, lady. He was king over all of us who called ourselves Seelie, but he has proven himself unworthy. The people don’t yet know, but I do. Let me be the first to lay my sword at your feet, and the first to bow my head to our goddess returned. Welcome back, my lady. Welcome home.”
Rhiannon smiled, so brilliant it could be a blessing in itself, but then her expression fell into such solemnity it suggested a child’s transition between joy and abject disappointment. “But you’re not carrying a sword.”
Aerin knotted fists at her hips, disappointment flashing across her own face. “Then let me be the first when we’ve returned to the citadel and I’m garbed as a warrior should be.”
“Ap Caerwyn. The citadel of white stone,” Rhiannon murmured, as if she’d needed more pieces for even Emyr’s name to fall into place. Then recognition turned her voice hard: “I remember now.”
She turned toward the mountains, lashing a hand out. Space foreshortened, bringing the citadel impossibly near in vision if not in fact. Lara winced, expecting her headache to return, but her vision remained clear as Rhiannon’s voice filled the air, musical thunder: “Empty these walls. The city falls.”
Towers that had remained standing through the land’s upheaval crumbled as she spoke. Within seconds, people fled from the shaking city, rushing out by dozens and hundreds, then trickling away to a handful, and then to none. Rhiannon clenched her fist and pearlescent walls shattered, collapsing in on themselves and turning to dust. It continued for a long time, and when she finally released her fist, all that remained of Emyr’s city was a sheen in the air, settling across oak forests already growing up anew.
She turned her palm up, capricious, demanding, and not one among them doubted what she asked for. Lara dropped the shell shards into her hand, and for the second time Rhiannon made a fist, delicate calcium falling between her fingers. “Flame, anathema to my birthplace, come.”
Fire burst upward in her hand, searing the disintegrating shells before heat erupted in a contained explosion, utterly destroying the fragile pieces. It spewed from within the ruined citadel as well, a brief flare that sent land flying upward and falling back down in a rain of dirt and roots. Lara gasped, a hand clapped over her mouth, and even the elves surrounding her flinched. Rhiannon, satisfied, flicked the image of the citadel’s ruins away and turned a wholly guileless smile on the little group who had unbound her.
“You …” Lara swallowed, then tried again. “Was that Emyr and Hafgan?”
“Born of my blood, destroyed as my blood. Never again can it be used against me,” Rhiannon said blithely, then tipped her head, once more childlike with curiosity as she examined Ioan and Dafydd. “Born of my body. Must you be destroyed as well?”
“No!” Lara jolted in front of Dafydd, hearing as much panic as truth in her own voice. “None of us knew where we’d end up when this started, but they’re mostly responsible for you being free at all. Don’t you dare take revenge out on them.”
Rhiannon’s eyes widened with laughably pure astonishment. “You tell me what I may and may not
“Remember, Rhiannon, that mortals are impetuous. It was what you liked about them. They reminded you of yourself, once upon a time.” Oisín stepped forward, gentle humor deepening the lines of his face.
Rhiannon, uncertain, said, “Oh,” and then
Oisín put his hand over hers, smiling. “Time, kind as it may be in Annwn, takes its toll on all mortals. I’m satisfied to stand in your presence once again.”
“For a little while.” Rhiannon looked crestfallen. “Only for a little while, my poet. I can see the end of your song as I can see the end of our son’s.”
“What?” Dafydd’s voice broke, startled human sound in the one word, and Rhiannon turned to him with compassion tempered by a remoteness not present when she looked at Oisín.
“My blood runs true in you, Dafydd ap Annwn, but Oisín’s leaves its mark as well. You cannot be king over this land. That is the price of your blood. But its gift,” she said more softly, “is that unlike any other born to Annwn, you may choose a mortal existence, if you so desire. And I think that unlike any other, it may be a choice you are glad of.”
She dismissed him that easily, bringing her attention to Ioan. Lara fumbled for Dafydd’s hand and found it cool with shock. She drew breath to speak and he shook his head, then glanced toward Rhiannon and Ioan.
Ioan knelt as Lara looked their way, Rhiannon’s fingertips light against his forehead. “You might be king in Annwn,” she said to him. “Blood of my blood, blood of the land. Do you wish a crown?”
“I’ve worn one half my life, whether I wished it or not. Annwn doesn’t need a king, Mother. It needs its goddess, the life and light of the land. That’s what gives us our strength.”
Darkness came into Rhiannon’s voice: “And, it seems, your ambition.”
“I have very few ambitions that are not already met. A family, perhaps.” Ioan lifted his eyes to smile briefly at Dafydd and Lara, then returned his attention to Rhiannon. “I would gladly be your steward, if you have no wish to rule Annwn yourself, but I will not wear a crown.”
Rhiannon, with more clarity of mind than Lara expected from such an elemental creature, admitted, “I am not meant to rule. To create, to love, to destroy, perhaps, but had I the desire or talent for holding a crown, none should ever have taken it from me. You will do, my son. You will do well in making Annwn what it should be, and should you ever need my guidance, your white-haired witch there can call me through her bond with the land.”
She bestowed a smile on Aerin, then offered a hand to Oisín. He took it unerringly, but drew Rhiannon to a stop as they passed Dafydd and Lara. “Worlds come changed at end of day, Truthseeker. You’ve done well.”
