“Dev,” he said with some urgency, his other arm coming up to help brace Devyn, who wobbled before his strength gave out.
Marcus’s hand restrained me as the fair-haired man, Rhys, bobbed forwards underneath Devyn’s arm and took his weight as he sagged down; they moved quickly to get him inside. A quick flick of Llewelyn’s hands told his guards to stand down as the trio made their way across the courtyard.
Gideon watched the guards drop back before giving Marcus and me – as usual, at a loss how to proceed in this strange world – an indication to follow. I took Marcus’s hand to reinforce our status as a couple, admitting to myself that it also gave me comfort. A comfort which, with Devyn back in close proximity, was no longer tangled with other more confusing feelings.
We were led through the huge oak doors and along a hallway into a larger room where massive tables stretched the length of the hall. Unlike at Dinas Brân, here there was life: long-haired warriors looked up from their food as we entered the great room and several women bustled over in attendance as we made our way along the tapestried wall at the side of the hall. The prince called for aid for his nephew. One young boy ran off the way we had come as if his life depended on it, while others milled about in our wake, exclaiming at the return of the long-dead scion of the House of Gwynedd.
We arrived in a room with one entire wall given over to a cabinet made up of tiny drawers and bunches of herbs hanging from the ceiling like I had seen in Madoc’s room. Like, and also not like. Where there chaos had reigned, here stood cosy order. A beautifully woven rug lay on the floor and a warm fire crackled in the hearth. Llewelyn gently manoeuvred his nephew down into an armchair, tenderly running a hand through the dark curls before turning to his niece for answers.
Bronwyn’s blue eyes showed her worry as she pushed her long dark hair back over her shoulder.
“He has been ill.” Her eyes flicked over to us where we hovered inside the door. How much would she reveal to her concerned uncle? He had barely allowed Gideon in the door; the whole truth at this point probably wasn’t the wisest course. “We came here for help.”
At this, the shrewd eyes flicked to Madoc who had just reappeared with another robed figure.
“There’s something in his blood that weakens his life force,” Madoc explained as the druid followed us in and crossed to the patient in long-legged strides that ate up the room. “I was able to hold it off temporarily, but it was beyond my skills to cure it.”
The new druid bent down to examine Devyn, who had started to recover in the relative comfort of the warm room and bristled at the presumptuous hands that prodded at him. The newcomer turned Devyn’s head first one way and then another, then tipped it back and used long fingers to stretch open his eyelids to look into the deepest corners of his eyes, while Madoc was briskly stripping Devyn of his cloak and undoing his tunic. He eased it off his shoulders to reveal the bandage on his right shoulder, before removing that too to reveal the dark stain that spread out beyond the wound. Black and purple tendrils spread like an ink stain under his golden skin.
The tall druid tsked, even as the rest of our party gasped at the return of the stain, which had receded the last time we had seen it.
“I thought it was getting better,” I accused Madoc. How was this possible? Devyn had been so much stronger since Madoc had started treating him; he had ridden here, upright, on a horse.
Madoc shook his head. “I drew it away from his heart but I wasn’t able to extract it. I merely routed it back to the surface wound. It was the best I could do.” He spoke to the other druid, who was removing the last of the bandage from the site. “Tell me I didn’t make it worse, Ewan.”
The festering wound was now entirely visible to everyone in the room, the injury still as fresh as the day it had occurred but oozing more of the dark-purple matter that discoloured Devyn’s skin. My stomach dropped at the sight of it; the parasitic poison was gaining territory and without thinking I used our bond to slip under his skin.
Devyn’s eyes flicked in my direction as he directed me to withdraw. I stared at him mulishly. How did we know this Ewan would be any more able to help than Madoc had been? If I dropped my defence, how much more of Devyn’s flesh would be invaded by the malicious spread? Devyn pushed at me as I became aware of a new flicker of consciousness entering the fray. The slithery energy recoiled as I slipped away, and I hoped the druid’s focus would be on the enemy he faced and not my friendly protective energy exiting stage left.
The druid’s face went blank as he mentally probed the infection. The air in the room felt strangely light and my eye snagged on the dust motes caught in the light of the fire as they danced in the warm air. The wind was beating at the windows from the encroaching night outside, as if the darkness was trying to gain entry even as that light and energy danced and swirled. The very health of the light forced away the dark, yet the dark remained, and the rain lashed at the windows as fingers dug into my wrist. I tried to shake it off and when I couldn’t, I followed the offending grip up to Marcus’s glaring face.
I had fallen into the druid’s energy.
