The Keys to the Realms (The Dream Stewards) Read online

  “I’m told Pedr will recover,” she said. “And no doubt Odwain is glad to know that his elder brother and father are alive after all.”

  Finn nodded, buying a moment to tamp the emotion that surfaced at her words. “As I am glad that he is well. My boy was at the heart of my worries all the while we were gone.”

  “Odwain was wounded defending the Fane against Machreth’s beasts,” Alwen continued as though she had not heard him. Her voice held no warmth or concern for the humbled warrior. “He was fortunate to have survived. Madoc, however, was lost in the attack on the Stewardry, after you fled. As was Fergus.”

  Finn had earned Alwen’s wrath, but it was a cruelty to deliver the news of his brother’s death to him this way. Glain glanced at the elder MacDonagh, trying not to stare directly at him for fear of adding to his discomfort. Poor Finn’s face took on the look of weathered stone, bleak and fissured with grief. His despair was palpable, though he stood silent and accepting in the face of Alwen’s judgment.

  The sound of chain mail shifting called attention to Odwain, who had come dangerously close to breaking with the protocol of his post. Were it not for the stern look Emrys fixed upon him, Odwain might have made a foolish move. Worse, Rhys was so startled by his mother’s behavior that he stepped forward half a pace, as if he too were thinking to intervene. Glain hoped that Rhys would not risk it; her instincts hinted that to speak out on Finn’s behalf would only make matters worse.

  “Enough.” Cerrigwen’s voice startled them all, even Alwen, who glared at her enemy with contempt. “If it is suffering you need, Alwen, carve your due from my heart and soul. Finn does not deserve this misery.”

  “He abandoned his Sovereign, his family, and his way of life,” Alwen snapped.

  “At my command,” Cerrigwen said flatly. “Which is exactly what the blood oath requires him to do. Had Finn defied me, he would have disgraced himself and the entire MacDonagh clan for generations to come. His devotion to me is no less than was Fergus’s to you. Only you know what unthinkable sacrifices his devotion cost him. Think on that before you judge Finn.”

  Alwen’s struggle with Cerrigwen’s point caused ripples in the practiced serenity that she presented to the world. Unresolved grief and bitterness tightened her lips and creased her brow. Her eyes narrowed, but she did not lose hold on her temper.

  “All right, then,” Alwen said. “Whatever blame there is shall be yours to bear. If you have anything to say for yourself, say it now.”

  Cerrigwen stepped in front of Finn and lowered herself to her knees before Alwen. Even disheveled and disgraced, Cerrigwen still held herself with all the regality she had always possessed. She had abandoned her arrogance and her pride, but not her dignity.

  At the same moment Glain noticed the amulet hanging at the base of Cerrigwen’s throat, so did Alwen. The bloodstone pendant glimmered as though it were warmed from within. Though she could not see it from where she stood, Glain knew the lapis amulet that Alwen wore would be responding in kind.

  Alwen beckoned to Rhys. “Take the talisman from her.”

  Rhys hesitated for a moment and then retrieved his riding gloves from his belt. He put them on before removing the necklace from Cerrigwen’s neck and carrying it to his mother. Alwen was unwilling to take it into her hands.

  “Put it on the altar,” she instructed Rhys and then focused again on Cerrigwen. “Speak now or never.”

  Cerrigwen met Alwen’s glare as her equal, though she did not protest her defeat. Her hands were still bound, and her eyes had the hollow look of a lost and haunted soul. A muddle of emotions shifted across her face, but fear was not among them.

  “It was I who weakened the veil,” Cerrigwen said plainly. “I brought down the Fane’s defenses so that the Hellion legion could invade, and I conjured the wall of thorns.”

  Alwen waited, perched on the edge of her seat as if she expected more. “Out with it now, Cerrigwen. Confess it all.”

  “I will not confess a crime that is not mine, Alwen,” said Cerrigwen. “I cast the incantation that wrought the vines, but it was Machreth who turned the spell dark. I am guilty of betraying my oath to the guild and to Madoc, and of laying the Stewardry open to attack, but no matter how much you may wish to believe it, I did not curse your daughter.”

  Alwen stiffened, but she did not speak. This was not what she expected to hear, but even Glain could feel the sincerity in Cerrigwen’s words. Despite their suspicions, there was no denying that in the hours after the poison had first taken root, Cerrigwen had made every effort to help.

  Cerrigwen steadied herself, gathering the last few remnants of her poise. “Every choice I have made since I first felt the quickening in my womb has been for my child. I did not understand it then, but the day Ffion came into this world I was no longer fit to be called Guardian of the Realms. Nothing could ever come before her in my heart—not the Stewardry, not Madoc, not even the prophecy. For her I have harmed and been harmed. For her I have sacrificed my conscience and my destiny and broken every covenant I have ever made. For her, I have traded on the lives of those who trusted in me, and I would do it all again. But I would no more harm your child than I would my own.”

  She pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling, but it was clear she was dangerously close to unraveling. “This is my defense: that I am devoted to my daughter above all else. It has been my failing all along, though I worked hard to hide it. And so it is that I come before you as I am, for my daughter’s sake and none other.”

  “Your daughter’s sake?” Alwen appeared unmoved, but her angry tone made a subtle shift toward sorrow. “How does your shame do anything but destroy her?”

  Earnestness overtook Cerrigwen. “Ffion is innocent in all of this. There has never been an indignity I would not endure or any loyalty I would not betray for her best interest, but she knows nothing of my deceptions. I have hidden it all from her, even her father’s name. I’ve kept that secret since the day he cast us out, at first to save her from his blade and later, from his connivances. But Ffion is in danger still, even now that he is dead. I can no longer keep her safe.”

  Cerrigwen appealed to Alwen as one mother to another, attempting to reveal something of her character beyond the self-furthering opportunist she had thus far shown herself to be. Glain could never absolve Cerrigwen for the loss and devastation her alliance with Machreth had wrought, but she might understand that something other than ambition could have driven Cerrigwen to treachery.

  So could Alwen, a woman whose destiny had called upon her to sacrifice her own child. Glain could already see the weight of empathy straining Alwen’s rigid stance, and she began to worry that Cerrigwen might have discovered the one plea that the new Sovereign would hear.

  “I fail to understand how you could think that betraying the Stewardry could possibly protect your daughter?” Alwen was unconvinced. “If anything, it has brought her to greater peril.”

  Cerrigwen’s jaw clenched, as though the answer on her lips was sour. “Exile made me bitter, and Madoc’s favoring you when we returned only angered me more. Machreth told me what I wanted to hear. He offered me the power I had always desired and promised my daughter would have everything she deserved.

  Alwen shook her head. “And you believed him.”

  “I am not so foolish as to ask forgiveness for myself. I am beyond mercy.” Cerrigwen swallowed hard. “But I will beg you to pity Ffion, if for no other reason than her having had the double misfortune to have been sired by a tyrant and born to a traitor. I will submit to whatever judgment you impose upon me if you will bring my child under your protection, just as you would your own.”

  Alwen managed to appear indifferent. “If I were inclined to agree, what would you have me do? Ffion is still on the travels that you insisted she take. She is outside my influence.”

  “But it has been months. How can she not be here by now?”
Cerrigwen struggled to her feet, clearly panicked. “Clydog’s men will find her on the road, or Machreth will.”

  “What has Clydog to do with this?” Hywel forced his way to the dais. “What is he to you?”

  “He is less than nothing to me,” Cerrigwen spat. Her face twisted ugly and dark with hatred and then settled again into the flat, resolved expression of a woman facing her end. “But he is of Cadell’s seed, the same as she, the same as you. My daughter is your sister, Hywel ap Cadell. She shares your blood. She is also mageborn, like me, and heir to my legacy as Guardian of the Realms.”

  Hywel’s shock, if he harbored any, was stifled so deep within him that not a single sign surfaced. He stared at Cerrigwen as though he were examining an intricately detailed map.

  “My father made a careful practice of eradicating the product of his affairs,” he said, nodding. “But I remember you at Cwm Brith for many a hunting season. I was just a boy, though, and took you for one of the servants at my father’s lodge.”

  Cerrigwen nodded. “Think of it. A sorceress with blood ties to the two most powerful legacies in the land, and no more willing to submit to your brother than you are. The only person Clydog could ever want dead more than you, is her.”

  Hywel circled Cerrigwen slowly, considering the possibilities, and then faced Alwen. “Cadell would have let such a child live, if for no other reason than to give him a legitimate claim to the Stewardry, another stake in the prophecy should I not succeed.”

  “Yes.” Alwen looked at Cerrigwen again, as though she had suddenly made sense of it all. “That’s why you forced Aslak to send Ffion on the expedition to retrieve Branwen. To keep her away from Machreth.”

  “We were friends once, Machreth and I. When the time came to return to the Fane, I hoped we might renew our acquaintance, that I might still have an ally in him, but I knew better than to trust him blindly,” Cerrigwen explained. “I was not about to put Ffion within Machreth’s reach before I was sure of him.”

  Alwen stiffened, digging her fingers into the chair arms as if she were holding herself back. “You were allied with him from the beginning.”

  “Yes,” Cerrigwen confessed. “In the year before Madoc sent us away, Machreth had begun to talk of reform. There were factions within the guild who supported his more progressive views, and I admit I found his ideas appealing. I never advocated defection, and certainly not revolt, but I did share Machreth’s interpretation of the tenets and the prophecy. I was nearly condemned for it, but I supported his views, and in return he supported me.”

  “You also shared his bed,” Alwen sniped.

  “So I did.” Cerrigwen affected a dismissive shrug. “He was revered then and very powerful. Nearly every sorceress in the Stewardry coveted his attention. I enjoyed his favor, as he did mine. I counted on Machreth remembering me fondly enough that he would agree to take Ffion’s cause as his own.”

  Cerrigwen turned to Hywel. “Ffion is as entitled to your father’s name and his lands as you and Clydog. But Madoc would never have agreed to approach Cadell on her behalf.”

  “Not Cadell,” Hywel said. “But he would have come to me. Had he known, Madoc might well have petitioned me to acknowledge her.”

  Cerrigwen’s chin lifted, but her lips trembled. “And would he have succeeded?”

  “Not while my father still lived,” Hywel admitted. “But Madoc would have protected her, knowing that I would eventually see how a blood bond between the Stewardry and Seisyllwg strengthened my claim. Instead, she is outside my protection as well as yours.”

  Tears glistened in Cerrigwen’s eyes, but not a single drop spilled. “And as vulnerable to Machreth as she is to Clydog.”

  Hywel frowned. “Then they both know.”

  “I took Machreth into my confidence when I first returned here,” Cerrigwen explained, “and he disclosed the truth to Clydog.”

  Glain could see the new King of Seisyllwg already plotting and planning, and she was uneasy. She envisioned the two stags on the hill and the river of blood from her dream, and she knew destiny was about to take a dangerous turn. Though she had envisioned a path to peace that circumvented the carnage, Glain now realized that no matter what path Hywel chose, his destiny would ultimately lead him into it.

  Alwen obviously saw the same. She stood abruptly. “Hywel.”

  “We must intercede,” Hywel announced, “and quickly.”

  “Hywel,” Alwen said again, more forcefully. “I caution you to remember who rules here.”

  “On what heading will Aslak’s expedition travel?” Hywel all but ignored Alwen’s warning. “From what direction?”

  “From the east,” Cerrigwen offered.

  “How do you know that?” Alwen was aghast and quickly losing control of her own audience. “Hywel, be silent!”

  “So, I will take my men east, through the woods.” He addressed Alwen directly. “We will intercept the expedition, warn your guard of the threat, and send them on their way here. And then I will press on to Cwm Brith and deal with Clydog.”

  “Enough!” Alwen ordered. “That is quite enough from the two of you! Be still, or I will have you both removed.”

  Emrys and his lieutenants snapped to attention, prepared to assert their authority should Alwen command it. Cerrigwen looked a little chagrined, whereas Hywel seemed smug and even a little amused. The rest of the room hung on the tension and worried they were about to witness a battle of wills between the Sovereign of the Stewardry and the king of the prophecy.

  Alwen lowered herself back into her chair, sighing as though the happenings had pushed her past exasperation. “Have we any idea where Machreth is now?”

  Cerrigwen responded cautiously. “Three days ago, Clydog claimed to be expecting him at Cwm Brith, but Machreth had yet to arrive.”

  “The Cythraul trail leads southwest toward Castell Banraven,” said Thorne Edwall. He stepped into the conversation with such command that even Hywel deferred to him. “It is possible that Machreth is there.”

  “It is more likely he is already at Cwm Brith,” Hywel countered, “or at least well on his way.”

  “All the same,” Alwen said, wearily, “with the mage hunter in pursuit of the Cythraul, and you on your way to meet the escort, one of you is bound to come face to face with him. Thorne Edwall is well prepared to confront magic, Hywel. Are you?”

  A fair point, but Glain was surprised by Alwen’s lack of diplomacy. Surely it would be better to support the king than to try to subdue him. Hywel had no reply, at least not one that he was willing to voice, but his expression said more than enough.

  “Perhaps you should not presume to commit horses and men to a campaign that is not yours to issue and that you are woefully unprepared to undertake.” Alwen’s sarcasm was slightly undercut by exhaustion. She seemed taxed beyond her willingness and unable to see a clear path ahead of her. “I will decide what is to be done about Ffion, and your brother, but before I can even begin to consider that, I must first decide what to do with the traitor before me now.”

  Whether she meant to or not, Alwen had completely undermined Hywel’s authority, and in front of a room full of his subjects, no less. Such a misstep, were it an unmindful one, was an insult that might yet be redressed. But if Alwen’s intent was to force Hywel to accept her rule in place of his, she foolishly risked the freshly forged relationship between the two of them. Hywel’s reign might well come to pass without their alliance, but the Stewardry would never survive without it. Glain could not begin to fathom how Alwen had managed to lose her equability and her wisdom all at once. The Sovereign seemed in need of counsel but showed no sign that she intended to seek it.

  Hywel’s posture squared, and his jaw clenched tight. Glain dared not wait for Alwen to find her way. In another moment, Hywel’s self-preserving nature would drive him to confrontation. The result would be ugly.

  “Sovereig
n, if I may.” Glain stepped into Alwen’s line of view. “It seems clear to me the king’s plan has the potential to solve our problems as well as his. If the most urgent task is to reunite the Guardians of the Realms, sending aid to the envoy can only help to ensure their safe return. Branwen travels with them, as well as Ffion. And if I may be blunt—”

  “As if you weren’t already,” Alwen said, more bitter than sarcastic. “But go on.”

  Glain continued with the confidence that came from deep conviction. “You will need Ffion to complete the circle. Someone must take Cerrigwen’s place, and her daughter is the only possible choice. And if the king is to ride into battle with Machreth, as you have pointed out, he will need the means to fight magic or, at the very least, defend against it. Aside from you, there is only one Steward among us who is powerful enough to confront Machreth.”

  Alwen’s eyebrows had arched so high her eyes looked like they might pop out of their sockets. “Just what are you suggesting?”

  Glain expected full well that Alwen and Hywel and likely everyone else in the room knew exactly what she was suggesting. It was a heretical idea, but it was the right one. All the same, it was not an easy thing to say. She took a slow breath to steady her nerves.

  “Send Cerrigwen with him.” Glain swallowed. “No matter what crimes she has committed, none of us doubts her dedication to her daughter. For this single purpose, I believe she might be trusted. She and Hywel have a common interest in defeating Clydog, and as it stands, she is the only Steward you can spare.”

  Alwen stared at her, her eyes stark and almost vacant, as though she were shocked out of her wits. Glain felt her hands shaking. She could hardly believe she had spoken the words aloud, but Glain knew she was right.

  “Get out.” Alwen spoke so calmly at first that no one reacted. “Every last one of you, get out of my receptory.”