“And you hate him for that?” I asked, confused. Devyn had known real family; he’d had a true home where he was loved. While I understood all too well Gideon’s envy, why that would cause him to strike almost twenty years later was beyond my comprehension.
“No, I hate him for what he left in his wake, and for what it cost everyone who loved him. His father betrayed all that he was for love of that child. Saving that child cost Mercia, all of us a great deal.”
“Devyn wasn’t to blame for that; that was his father’s choice,” I objected, seeing again the scene on the river. Even as a boy Devyn had not agreed with what his father did.
“Maybe so. But Devyn made his own choices. I would lay my life down for Rion Deverell,” he stated flatly. “And your friend betrayed him. After everything, he broke his vow to serve him. Rion stood by him even though Devyn was responsible for the death of his mother and sister and even though he deserted him.”
The pieces started tumbling into place. My breath quickened as my mind pulled the scattered information together.
Devyn and his father were blamed for the death of a lady and her baby daughter. Devyn in a castle with a golden-haired boy, whom he left behind when he ran off to find that lost girl. A foundling girl with the old blood of the Britons in her veins, growing up in the heart of the Empire. The Briton lord who had been angry at Devyn at the masquerade ball.
Rion Deverell.
The Mercian Prince.
My brother.
Could it be? I tasted the idea in my mind, letting it roll around. It felt right. It felt true.
That was why Devyn was trying to get us north to Carlisle instead of heading to York with Marcus. And that made me the daughter of the Lady of the Lake. The Lady of the Lake was legend, even in Londinium. She held power of serious magnitude. But still it made no sense. She wasn’t dead, and the threat of her power was one of the main things that maintained the balance of power between Britannia and the Empire.
“But the Lady of the Lake is alive,” I breathed. Was my mother alive? My heart leapt in my chest, even as I recalled the sweep of power that was released as the lady from my vision was cut down.
Gideon shook his head, casting a glance at the sleeping figure in the bed.
“Why do you think everyone wants your princeling so badly? The lady has been dead a long time, her death a secret hidden from the wider world, and especially from Londinium. Rion isn’t a prince, he is the king, and though he has yet to marry and have children, his daughter will not inherit his mother’s precious gift. The power of the Lakes is gone, lost for ever, as it was always passed down directly from mother to daughter. The Plantagenets are one of the few true bloodlines left in the land. And in case you had missed it, the land is dying. I’ll bet Mother Severn kissed your hand last night when you released that power. Seductive, was she? Desperate for more?”
I recalled the swirl of love and relief that welcomed the power I had loosed into the waters last night, the eddy that had tried to pull more and more of my energy down into its depths. It had sucked my very life-force, the impact of which had afterwards left me semi-conscious for the rest of the night.
“I thought you said that your friend, that is, the King of Mercia, had power?”
“Yes, he’s still of the Lakes bloodline.” Gideon’s dark gaze levelled on me directly. “But what I felt coming off you shouldn’t be possible outside the old blood. It’s unheard of for a latent to have power like yours, especially not to just turn up out of nothing and from nowhere.”
Light dawned in his eyes, and his face blanched.
“Not out of nothing…”
He stopped, and I watched the play of emotion over his face: disbelief, hope, anger, the very mesh of feelings I had seen flash over Callum. That was who they believed me to be, I realised now, the lost daughter of the Lady of the Lake. Come back from the dead.
I shook my head. Bronwyn had warned me not to trust Gideon.
“Well, it’s happened. Marina is much stronger than me – you know, the girl I helped Devyn get out of the city,” I babbled. “Like her, I’m a citizen of Rome, but I’m a latent. I must have some mixed blood, that’s all.”
“I met your friend and her brother. She told us that you were the one who got them help.” His head tilted to one side as he eyed me. “How did you meet Devyn?”
“He was in my class at school.”
“Was he now?” His amber eyes gleamed. “In the whole of Londinium, he happened to be in the same class as a girl some years younger than him who just happens to turn out to be a latent hiding enormous power. How old are you, city girl? Twenty-one? Twenty-two?”
I mutinously refused to answer. I didn’t want to give him any more clues. But Gideon knew, I could see it in his eyes; he was surer of my true identity than I was.
He leaned across and took a lock of my bright hair and rubbed
