“Just so.” Gideon inclined his head. “The last son of Glyndŵr has come home. Llewelyn will want him to stay. This is also the path most likely to keep him alive. The path at your side, as protector, has a less certain future.”
Gideon took a step back, looking out to the growing light
“Losing you… after Viviane died was a dark time; we have lived on borrowed time ever since, dreading the moment when our weakness was discovered. We cannot lose the lady again.” He looked back at me, his face in shadow. “If you lack a protector, I will offer you my sword.”
I shook my head. “I don’t need you. I have Devyn.”
“Do you now?” Gideon continued. “That’s going to be a problem too.”
I scowled. If I needed protection, I had someone bonded to me by ancient magic. Someone I had followed to the ends of my world. Someone I would not give up.
“Catriona Deverell and Devyn Glyndŵr… It cannot be, lady. Not in this lifetime,” he said in an uncanny echo of the warning I could never completely shake.
Chapter Eighteen
In the days after the last of the poison was eliminated, Devyn finally moved from Ewan’s rooms to his own; the cure had left him nearly as weak as he had been at the worst of the poisoning. I had seen Marcus only when I sat with Devyn in the druid’s rooms; he had practically become joined at the hip with Ewan, lapping up all the medical knowledge he could. Unlike at Dinas Brân, either because of the greater number of rooms or a greater regard for propriety, here we were given our own rooms. Meanwhile, Gideon and Bronwyn seemed to have reached some sort of unspoken agreement to keep me under constant surveillance, ensuring any conversation I had with Devyn was chaperoned. It was worse than having overprotective parents.
I was getting frustrated at the scraps of news Bronwyn fed me. I had had enough, and if I couldn’t speak to Devyn in public, then I was going to speak to him in private. I had questions and I needed answers, and nobody was going to stop me. I stormed out of my room in such a whirl of determination that I forgot to put shoes on. My feet were now suffering from my failure as they shied away from each petrifying stone that took me closer to Devyn’s room. Nor had I figured out how I was going to explain myself if I was found wandering the halls in an outdoor cloak and no shoes. A midnight craving for cake, perhaps?
“Are you going to accept his offer?”
The dark shape at the window turned around at the sound of my voice as I closed the door softly behind me.
Devyn started towards me and then stopped in his tracks.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Are you going to accept?” I persisted. Bronwyn had confirmed Gideon’s prediction that Llewelyn, having no sons of his own, would want to make Devyn his heir. It was an offer which would assist in both prolonging his life and restoring his name – or giving him a new title, at least.
Devyn shook his head softly.
“You could be Prince of Gwynedd.” If he were a prince, surely he would be able to count himself worthy of being with a neighbouring lady.
“That is not my choice.”
“What do you mean it’s not your choice?”
“My life has always had one purpose: to be the Griffin… And there must be a Griffin. To become Prince of Gwynedd, I would have to give that up.”
“I thought being the Griffin was part of your bloodline.”
He laughed softly. “Technically no. It is a gift of spirit, not of blood, though it has been in my line for many generations. As there is no other male of my line, if I accept my uncle’s offer, I would have to forsake my calling. I couldn’t be Griffin and a ruling prince at the same time.”
“You can pass on being Griffin?” This was news to me.
“Maybe. There is a ceremony that those at Holy Isle could do to release me.”
“Then let there be another Griffin. I don’t care as long as I have you.”
His brow creased at that and he took a step back.
“As you say, this is my decision and my choice is to remain the Griffin. What use would I be as heir to the Prince of Gwynedd? Britannia is falling apart; if we don’t pull together then the Empire will finally take the whole island. Is that what you want?”
The Empire expanding beyond the walls, the urban sprawl eating up mile after mile of green land and blocking out the sky… Governor Actaeon would crush the people here. I shuddered at the very idea, but that was a problem well beyond us.
“I don’t care. What does any of that have to do with us?” I was beyond tired of all of it.
“You are the Lady of the Lake,” he intoned very slowly.
“Yes, thank you. I’d figured that out.” I glared at him. “No thanks to you.”
“Do you realise what that will mean?”
“Yes, it’s fantastic, there’ll be a parade, the blood will grow strong and the land will be well. Petals will fall from the sky and the illness will miraculously be cured,” I spat out. “Have I missed anything?”
“That about covers it.” He leaned back against the wall, one arm behind him to help lever himself down onto the cushions below the window.
“Is it your wound?” He had been fine all day, and in the few days since Ewan had treated him he had made a total recovery, or so I had thought.
His shoulders slumped slightly. “It’s the middle of the night, Cassandra,”
Without thinking, I was beside him, leaning in to take his weight and help him back to the bed. The skin creased at the corners of his eyes as he looked directly at me, his face only inches away.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m helping
