“And how did you become friends with a Baukan and gain his loyalty?” asked Gwyn. “Aye, I’d have to be a fool not to see that he’s not a human.”
“I freed him,” said Kaetha. “He was cursed. Trapped in rock.”
Gwyn drew closer to them. “You freed him? How?”
“I have Fire magic.”
“You—?” Gwyn’s eyebrows were raised.
“And Air magic.”
Gwyn’s mouth fell open. “Like she had.”
“My Air magic. It came from her.”
Gwyn held Kaetha’s hand in hers, seeming unable to speak.
“Kit was brilliant,” said Donnan. “Determined to help Tam even before she knew anything about him. Willing to risk her safety for his freedom. I’ll never forget that fire, white like lightning.”
Gwyn gazed at her with a look of pride and Kaetha felt warmth rise to her cheeks. She coughed. “But tell us what’s happened here. Why are you not living in the hall?”
“King Svelrik stripped me of my title and lands because I’m Edonian. He gave it all to Laird Alistair MacWallace instead. But, fortunately, in Alistair I found a man who was secretly loyal to Rhona and, together, we’ve worked to gather intelligence, create a web of contacts, find out who might be called upon to support the old king’s daughter.
“And you’ve done all this whilst managing to survive alone in the woods?” asked Kaetha.
Gwyn started carving patterns into a piece of wood with her knife. “I can hunt and Alistair doesn’t object if his vegetable garden looks more depleted than it should. But I’m careful not to let the servants see me. It’s best if people think I’ve left the clanland.”
“Why did you stay?”
Gwyn stopped carving but did not look up from the piece of wood. “She would have wanted me to. To keep support for Rhona’s claim alive.” She looked up. “And to wait for you.”
A quietness descended.
“Did you find her?” said Kaetha in barely a whisper. In the pause that followed, Kaetha sensed the whispered shapes of memories that came into Gwyn’s mind but she stopped herself intruding any further.
“Come.” Gwyn led Kaetha and Donnan further into the wood. Emerging from a hazel thicket, Kaetha saw the oak, it’s branches spread out like welcoming arms, and below it, a cairn. She knelt beside her mother’s burial place, stones rough and cold against her hands, and tasted salt as her tears fell.
Lines furrowed Gwyn’s brow. “I saw no sign of how she died. I still do not know. I carried her to this wood and laid her down under the shelter of an oak. I planted rosemary around her and snowdrops. They’ll return in the spring.”
Gwyn knelt beside her. “I made a promise to our parents that I would do everything I could to protect her. I brought us here, escaping war. I made a life for us. I thought that serving a Dalrathan king and adopting Dalrathan ways would keep us safe. We thrived. But only for a time. I’d thought my promise was fulfilled yet I failed. I failed her. And I failed you, Kaetha. There is much I regret.”
The old ache pressed down on Kaetha’s chest. She gazed in silence at the assembled stones.
“Come, Donnan,” said Gwyn. “You can help me find dinner.”
Kaetha was aware of them leaving, though her mind was filled with the presence of her mother’s memory. The stones below her were darkening with her tears.
“Why couldn’t you have stayed with me that day?” she said. “Why did you go to Ciadrath?” A gentle breeze in the branches above her was the only reply. “And why couldn’t you and Pa have shared a life together? We could have been a family.” She laid her head down, her cheek cold against stone. “Why did you leave me?”
She lost sense of the passage of time as she knelt there, dwelling on the dream of a past that never happened, listening to the wind rustling through the leaves. Finally, she sat up. She kissed her fingertips and pressed the kiss onto a stone. Then an idea came to her. She searched for the power of the Earth stone, it hummed softly against her arm and soon she felt its strength flowing through her. She rested her hands on the stones before her and closed her eyes. She felt stone scratching against her palms as she thought of all the markings of Morwena’s tattoos and the symbols in her jewellery, her embroideries and paintings. Opening her eyes, she saw how her memory of these images had etched their way across all the stones of the cairn. She lifted her hands. On the stone beneath them, she saw the heron in flight and caressed its wings with her fingertips.
“I will find him, Ma,” she promised. “I will find him.”
Alone, she made her way back to Gwyn’s underground home.
“She’s awake and has asked for you,” said Gwyn. “I’ll leave you to talk.”
She stepped into the warm, bright cave. The strangeness of the place was at odds with the familiarity of the things within it. The comforting fragrances of herbs hanging from lines of string across the room did not mask the damp, earthy smell of the floor and walls of earth, root and rock. The painted linen screens and fur hangings were the same but Gwyn had decorated the walls with
