The Keys to the Realms (The Dream Stewards) (7 page)

“What happened?” Pedr waited astride, holding rein on the other horses.

With a swift step and a spry leap, Cerrigwen was seated in her saddle before Finn had found his stirrup. She yanked the leathers from Pedr’s grip and spurred the silver mare toward the forest at a full gallop.

“Gods’ piss and shit,” Finn cursed as he hauled himself up. “Get after her, Pedr. The sooner we’re in the trees, the better. But don’t you lose sight of her.”

Pedr gave chase, and by the time Finn reached the edge
of th
e thicket, he had lost sight of his son. He’d follow the hoof trail, but Finn knew Cerrigwen would head for the heart
of thi
s smaller copse before turning toward the vast expanse of the White Woods. Even she would not enter the enchanted
forest
alone.

Finn came upon them where he expected, in a clearing that was really no more than a widening of the trail in a dense grove of bare-limbed alder and birch trees. Cerrigwen had dismounted and stood with her face turned toward the heavens and her arms stiff at her sides. He was beguiled for a moment by the sight of her in her indigo Steward’s cloak, a shock of color against the pale wintering landscape. And then he realized she was spell casting yet again.

Pedr waited nearby with her mare in tow, eyes downcast to avoid bearing witness to whatever wickedness she might wreak. Finn cursed under his breath and edged his horse near enough to hear her mumblings. As he drew closer, he could see the tears as they dripped unhindered from beneath her lashes—her eyes were closed, her arms now reaching skyward, beseeching. It was not a spell she muttered; it was a prayer.

Cerrigwen’s eyes snapped open, and her anguished gaze fell upon him. “Take me home.”

Finn stalled, but only because he couldn’t trust his voice not to break. He would take her wherever she asked to go—the oath-bound warrior in him could do no less. And to be fair, the father and brother in him understood why she would resign herself at last to such a fate. Whatever she had done, the Stewardry was the only family she had ever known. In the end, she could have no peace until she had done whatever she could for her child and faced her judgment. He felt compassion for her again, which was a welcome respite from the soul-burning hatred he had been working so hard to squelch these last weeks.

“Return to the Fane?” Pedr was as incredulous as he was relieved, and quick to finally give voice to his worries. “For all we know, it no longer stands. And if it does, who knows who rules it.”

Finn nodded at Cerrigwen. “All the more reason to hurry.”

A look of profound gratitude washed over her face before her intractable haughtiness returned. Cerrigwen resumed her saddle and led them once again into the enchanted groves of the mysterious White Woods.

S
IX

G
lain held out the velvet bundle, eager to be relieved of it. Forgery or not, having the amulet in her possession was making her uncomfortable. Her palms were dewy, and her fingers tingled. “It was discovered in a keepsafe behind a wall stone in the large spell room.”

“Place it on the altar.” Alwen approached with caution and obvious anxiety, toying with the lapis amulet that hung from her neck. The casing and chain were identical to the one Glain had found, except that Alwen’s was the key to the spiritual realm.

Glain did as she was asked and stepped away to watch Alwen examine the necklace. “It looks remarkably like the real one.”

“Yes.” Alwen reached out with tentative fingers, as if she were unsure whether it was safe to pick it up. Glain remembered the scorch mark at the base of Alwen’s throat, left by the lapis amulet when she had called upon its power to defeat Machreth’s
Hellion A
rmy.

With slow and careful movements, Alwen lifted the
necklace
by the chain with one hand and cradled the pendant in the palm of the other. The bloodstone luminesced, as though it were
drawing
heat from her skin. She flipped the pendant over and held it close for a better view, searching the backside for something. “That is because it
is
the real one.”

“How is that possible?” Glain was stunned, but not nearly as deeply as Alwen appeared to be.

“It isn’t.” Alwen was quick to return the necklace to its velvet wrap and then took a step back, as if she were protecting herself. “And yet, here it is.”

Almost reflexively, Glain crossed the room to retrieve the pot of aleberry always left warming in the coals. “Shall I pour for you?”

“Pour for us both, my dear.” Alwen had begun a slow, arcing pace from one end of her ritual altar to the other, pausing now and then to rest against the back of the Sovereign’s throne and gaze quizzically at the amulet, while absently fingering the nearly identical pendant hanging at the base of her throat.

“Does it burn?” Glain asked.

Alwen was so deep in thought, it took a moment for the
question
to resonate. “What did you say?

“Your amulet,” Glain said, “does it burn?”

“Oh.” Alwen realized she had been fidgeting with the pendant and let it go. “Yes, it does, a little. The power of the stones is amplified when two or more come together. Even more so when two or more guardians bearing keystones come together.”

“I don’t understand.” Glain returned with two pewter cups full to the brim with the mulled spirits that Alwen brewed from a recipe she refused to share. It was a bit too sweet for Glain’s taste, but she was so rarely invited to partake that she would force herself to sip at it in order to accept the intimacy it fostered. “How can the key be here when the sorceress is not?”

Alwen shook her head in bewilderment. “Obviously, Tanwen left it behind, but did she do so intentionally?”

Glain wasn’t sure whether she was expected to answer. Alwen began pacing again, sipping absently from her cup and never
taking
her eyes from the bundle on her altar.

“But how could she have hidden it?” Alwen might well have been speaking to herself. “Madoc placed the amulets round our necks only moments before the four of us left the Fane. There was neither time nor opportunity.”

“The necklace had been in that keepsafe a good long while. Years and years.” Glain had a heretical thought. “Could she have returned?”

Alwen shrugged, admitting the possibility. “For all I know, she might never have left.”

“That is impossible,” Glain said. “Madoc sent you each in the custody of an escort. You left through the labyrinth. None of you could have found your way back without help. And even if she did return, where could she have hidden all this time?”

Alwen stiffened and then slowly turned toward Glain. A glimmer of suspicion tinged her quizzical gaze, but her expression was placid. “I would ask how you know all this, but I expect you would rather not answer. Isn’t that so?”

Glain thought she might choke on her tongue. Any truth she gave would be revealing that there was something to disclose, and a violation of her oath to Madoc. A lie was unthinkable, not only on principle but also because Alwen would never be fooled. Silence was the only possible response.

“Just as I thought.” Alwen’s smile was a relief. “You needn’t worry. I would never ask you to betray Madoc’s trust. Though I cannot help but wonder what else you know.”

Glain’s misery nearly breached her capacity to contain it. Even the aleberry had little effect on her guilty conscience, though she sucked her cup dry in an effort to find some comfort for her nerves. There was no escaping Alwen’s all-knowing ways.

“You are a mystery, Glain.” Alwen had resumed her pacing back and forth in front of her altar, one hand grasping her cup and the other toying with her amulet. “Most people, be they plainfolk or mageborn or something in between, reveal themselves to me
without
my having to search very deeply. More often than not, I find that I must make an effort to avoid learning things I’d prefer not to know.”

Glain pretended to drink from her empty cup, suddenly desperate for an excuse to appear distracted. Alwen had the power to see into a person’s psyche if she wished, and even to alter their intentions. The conversation was taking a dangerous turn.

“But your thoughts…” Alwen altered her pacing and looped around the Sovereign’s throne to meet Glain face to face. “They hide themselves from me.”

Glain’s mouth fell open, but thankfully none of the garbled thoughts in her head escaped before she could pinch her lips shut. Glain was desperately confused and a little afraid. It was uncomfortable to look Alwen in the eye, but she could do nothing else.

“I confess,” Alwen spoke in an even tone that was far more unsettling than any of the alternatives Glain could imagine. “I have tried to look into your mind more than once. Every instance was an invasion of your privacy, and I am not proud to admit my transgression. I must also admit that I failed at every attempt. I was more than a little surprised to discover that the best I could glean were particularly strong feelings. Your grief for Madoc, for instance.”

Alwen let these words linger a few moments, so their underlying intent could surface. A tightening resonance took hold in Glain’s chest, and her heart trembled as if exposure were imminent and escapable. Glain knew Alwen’s power, and it was unthinkable that she was somehow invulnerable to it. It could not be true.

“A very rare ability,” Alwen continued, and though there should have been, there was no accusation at all in her words or her voice. “Cerrigwen could evade my intrusions, but not completely repel them. The only person I have ever met whom I could not read at all, not even a little, was Madoc.”

Glain felt as though she were utterly transparent and
completely
lost. “I don’t understand.”

“Nor should you, I suppose.” Alwen’s head tilted slightly to one side, and a faintly bemused look crossed her indecipherable face. “Odder still is your origin. Try as I might, I cannot seem to find any written record of you. If you were a wildling, your arrival would be noted in the membership ledger along with the other foundlings and the halfling births here in the Fane. That was not so surprising because I assumed you were mageborn and expected to find your birth inscribed in the record of one of the original bloodlines. But I did not.”

Again Alwen paused as if she were baiting Glain to explain or own up. The answer was obvious, and the missing scroll would destroy any doubt of her identity. By remaining silent, she risked Alwen’s trust, but if she spoke she would betray Madoc’s. Glain felt as though she were daring fate by dancing on a thread that was stretched too thin, with no safe place t
o fa
ll.

“Curious,” Alwen commented, and before Glain could decide whether to respond, the conversation changed course yet again. “I understand you have been to see Hywel.”

“Yes.” Glain was still dancing on a thin thread, but this one seemed a little less tenuous. At least she could give an honest answer. “He wanted to know about my dreams.”

Alwen nodded, as though this did not surprise her. “A born seer is rare, Glain. Divination may be a common magical art, and most any mage can acquire some mastery through the runes or a scrying stone, but unbidden foresight like yours is a gift. Even with the bequest of the dream-speak, I struggle to find guidance from beyond. The language of the Ancients does not come naturally to me, and their messages are so obscure. I had hoped to find Madoc’s voice among them, but I have yet to hear him. However, the dream-speak was never intended to
be m
ine.”

“Whatever foretelling comes to me I give to you.” Glain meant to offer reassurance of her loyalty, but to her own ear she
sounded defen
sive. The dream omens had been visited upon h
er al
l of her life, and she had always accepted the responsibility to
act o
n their warnings. “I withhold nothing from you.”

“Of course you don’t. It would never occur to me to think otherwise.” Alwen returned to the altar, hovering just out of reach of the amulet. “This is the mystery that most needs solving just now. Though we may not yet know how and why it came to be here, it is a good omen that the key is now in our possession. One less challenge to overcome.”

Alwen turned to Glain again, taking her thoughts in yet another direction. “I expect you will want to know that Rhys h
as a
lso been charged with a finding task, though his will ta
ke hi
m away from us for a while. He leaves at first light.”

This time the clench in her chest was so tight if felt as if her heart might be crushed. Glain did her best not to show her distress, but Alwen would know. Glain’s fondness for Alwen’s son was a secret none of them tried very hard to keep.

“Go.” Alwen smiled slightly. “He’s been waiting outside my chamber doors for some time now, but not to see me.”

It was harder than he’d thought to contain his excitement. He would miss her; at least he expected as much, but the
opportunity
had awakened a longing for purpose and adventure that Rhys had stifled for too long. He had hoped she would understand, but Glain was having none of it.

“Your mother has commanded that you go?” She made an effort to edge indifference into her tone and turned toward the window, just to keep from accidentally catching his eye. “I am surprised she would knowingly put you in reach of
danger
, with your sister lost to the faerie realms and your father st
ill aw
ay.”

“I did not say she commanded it.” Rhys tried a smile,
hoping
somehow to lessen the tension. Glain would not look at him. “Only that she has agreed to it.”

He saw her delicate frame square and her neck stiffen, a subtle yet telling reaction. She might be angry, she might be frightened, or she might be both. He had seen the same posture on more occasions than he cared to recall, but he’d never before been the cause of it. Rhys steadied himself.

“Then you have
asked
to go?”

“The mage hunter requires it,” Rhys explained. Thorne Edwall would not have taken the assignment otherwise, and his mother had made it clear he was to do whatever it took to engage this particular Ruagaire monk. To be invited along on the adventure could be considered an honor, though Rhys doubted Glain could appreciate that just this moment.

“But you would go anyway, if you could.” Glain finally turned to face him, the full measure of her disappointment revealed on her face.

Rhys knew better than to admit it, but she was right. He would go, even if it pained her, which it obviously did. The Cad Nawdd was a duty of necessity, and he had been sincere when he’d taken the oath, but it was not a calling he would have sought for himself. Glain had heard him complain often enough of his need for purpose of his own choosing. He could not refuse this adventure and still feel true to himself. Surely she must know that, and yet she argued. “We must have Cerrigwen’s amulet.”

“But at what cost?” Glain’s voice trembled.

“A very fat bag of silver, to start.”

Rhys regretted the quip as soon as he’d said it, but he really couldn’t help himself. A bit of a jest was the best way he knew to deal with difficult situations, though it wasn’t always as helpful as he meant it to be. He felt compelled to make some offering of amends and moved closer to take her hands. She stiffened even more, twisting her fingers together in a tightly clenched ball. He reached for them anyway, but she would not allow it.

“And what next?” she challenged him. Her eyes lit her entire being with their fire. “Your life?”

It was then that he realized he was abandoning her, as she saw it. During the fight for the Fane a bond had taken root in the midst of the maelstrom and bloodshed. They had survived dark times together and shared an understanding that few could. But there was also desire between them that defied denial.
Intimacy
, at any level, was complicated by their respective duties to his mother and the continuing uncertainties within the Fane. The times were still dark, and the new order demanded a great deal more of Glain than she felt qualified to give. She had not yet found her stride. Nor had he.