Chapter XVIII

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Through the long night that followed, Emrys struggled to sleep. Ariana wanted to call a druid, a hundred druids, to examine Emrys but he refused enough that she let him sleep. She rushed Aeronwen and Cerys away though Emrys wanted them both to stay.

His thoughts kept wandering to Cerys. To her worry for him. To the green dress barely holding itself together as it stretched over her body. Tossing and turning, he imagined her dress ripping apart as they ran through the forest full of trees reaching their branches after them like thousands of wooden claws.

Lost in the black when he closed his eyes, he believed he felt the pressure of some unseen force even there in his childhood home. Dull claws scraping against his consciousness, prodding at its perimeter, circling. A moment of weakness, he feared, would allow the lord of bone back in to infect and poison him once more.

He lay there in the dark as a vigil for himself against magic.

Magic.

He had done magic. Not outside himself, but within. Perhaps that was easier. Though he wondered if it presented different dangers. People studied the inside of the human body. He knew that. Even the druids performed such rites to learn what could be discovered beneath skin, but Emrys knew nothing of the form and function of his own body. The books that came taught him so much of the world, of the skies, of the earth itself, but none yet had revealed any information about the organs beating inside him.

Fumbling blindly within himself, he had discovered and burned away the infection.

But as the night wore on and sleep ever evaded him, he began to question everything he’d done.

He should’ve gone to Fionnuala.

Should’ve called a druid.

Perhaps the infection remained within him and would turn him into a spider of shadow, of darkness. Perhaps that was where monsters came from.

Not some strange beasts growing freely within Chalon Forest but men and women who had been transformed by this blackest of magics.

His mother’s face.

The image of her face grafted to that monstrous body would never leave him. He knew that. Knew it the moment he saw it. But he expected for it to lose strength over time.

It took him a moment to recall that it had only been a week.

A single week.

In the morning, before he could collect himself and pretend he had slept the whole night through, Ariana came to him and knew from a single glance that he hadn’t slept. “Are you in pain?” She didn’t whisper but instead spoke like it was full day in his room.

But he whispered. Found it difficult not to whisper in the night, in the dark. He turned to the window still untouched by dawn. “You’re up early, auntie.”

She came to him, placed her living hand over his forehead. “You’re coated in sweat.”

“Feel all right.”

She snorted. “Don’t lie to me, boy.”

“I need to speak with Fionnuala.”

“The witch.”

“I’m a witch, too, auntie.”

She sighed. “Do you not fear for your soul? Have you lost even that?”

“Auntie,” he sighed and leaned back into his bed. Knew he could say nothing that wouldn’t hurt her and he didn’t want to do that. Too tired to fight or to herd his thoughts and collect them in a shape presentable.

Ariana said, “Aeronwen said you wandered the moors again. You have a deathwish, my boy?”

He shook his head and turned to the dark window. Couldn’t face her. “Don’t remember anymore why I was out there. Lonely, I guess.”

She touched his cheek with her living hand. “You’ve always been so inside yourself.”

Her words came out with so much emotion that Emrys turned to her. Even in the darkness, he saw the tears on her cheeks and her eyes staring hard at him. He put his hand on her wrist and pulled it away from his cheek, brought it to his chest, held it with both hands. “You’ve given me everything you could.”

“And yet it’s never enough.” Her words fell to an escaped breath at the final word. She sniffed. Swallowed. No accusation in her voice though Emrys felt it like a dull knife scraped across his throat. She squeezed his hands holding hers and kept her metal claw in her own lap.

He knew she hated what had become of her. She showed no one. Not even Emrys. But they had lived together for too long for him not to notice how, when it was only the two of them, she avoided using it. In public, she slashed it through the air as if to remind everyone the bits of herself she’d given up, to demonstrate loudly that she gave up pieces of her humanity.

She said, “I have tried, Emrys. I know I cannot be—” She swallowed, blinked and blinked and blinked. “I cannot be your mother. Could never replace her. Would never dream of even trying. But I have failed you, my boy. I’ve failed you every day and in every way.”

“No,” Emrys said. “Auntie, no.” But he could find no other words. He burst with emotions that he wanted to express, with all that she had given him, but weariness buried his thoughts, his words, and he watched the lack of them smother his aunt.

“I fought your father back then. He wanted to give you to the witch even then. Told me that you were a shadow son and would do as commanded. Thought I was protecting you. Giving you a home. A family. Trying to, anyway.” She sighed, gave his hands a squeeze, pulled her hand back.

And Emrys let her, knowing he should hold on. Should hold her tight. “Auntie, no,” he repeated, uselessly.

“I am sorry, Emrys. For so much. Just try to sleep. There’s at least an hour until dawn.”

She left him in the dark, in the night, and Emrys felt his own failure weigh upon him like a stone. Heavy as the years they’d spent together and all the love she’d given him. When finally he pushed himself from his tangled blankets and opened his door, she was gone. Wandering the moors, perhaps, or praying to the god somewhere.

An apple and a roll of bread waited on the kitchen table but the thought of eating made him sick. Knew he should eat. That it would help him regain his strength but bile rose in his throat, in his chest. He opened the door and stepped back into the world.

The wide open air comforted him. The darkness inside reminded him too much of the labyrinth, of Chalon. He breathed in deep and closed his eyes and tried to step inside himself the way he had the night before. But his thoughts could not catch hold of anything. Even as he pushed the images and memories back into focus, he found himself nowhere but the cold biting air of dawn’s first breath.

Still had no cloak. He considered grabbing a blanket to wrap round himself but thought it would make him look pathetic but then decided no one would care and likely no one would even see him so he went and grabbed a wolkskin blanket and wrapped it round himself and entered the rolling hills of Matauc land.

He made a wide arc around his father’s home and walked without purpose through the dewy grass. Fog settled upon the land but the sky was clear enough that the sun would burn it all away by midday.

Giving only one thought to the direction he took: not towards Chalon Forest but as far away from it as possible, towards the interior. His thoughts wandered and he didn’t bother grabbing hold of their threads. Instead, he became an empty vessel filling briefly before emptying once more while he walked.

When he came down the hill, he understood the real reason he left home. His uncle’s home wreathed in mist stood before him in the distance. The longhouse nearly completely obscured, like Matauc land belonged among the clouds in the sky.

He stopped and decided to wait. Though it may make him seem pathetic to be waiting for her, he thought she might appreciate it. Saw no reason to be shy or coy about it. Wrapping his blanket tight round himself, he settled down into the dewy grass and waited.

Didn’t have to wait long. Though the mist shrouded the door to his uncle’s longhouse, Sian and Rhosyn burst from the place like it had caught fire. For a moment, he thought Cerys would remain behind as well.

Stay for him.

Fantasies bloomed within his chest and all his thoughts circled around a single possibility, but Sian and Rhosyn emerged from the mist dressed as they had been the night he met them. And right behind, Cerys.

Sian and Rhosyn marched away, directly west. Emrys assumed his uncle would give them a guide but there were only the three women walking through the dawns early light.

Emrys hurried to meet them.

Cerys saw him coming and said something to her cousins who turned to him without breaking stride.

Cerys said, “You all right?”

“Eh,” Emrys shrugged. “Hard to kill. You leaving?”

“You were there last night, little bird.”

His chest fluttered at that. He would be her bird for all his days. He’d stay locked up in a cage if only she kept coming back to him to hear him sing. “I’ll walk with you.”

Sian called back over her shoulder, “We’ll not host you.”

“You’d be lucky to leave with your skin,” Rhosyn spat. “Father’s going to be furious. Best tell your daddy that war’s coming.”

Emrys didn’t care. Couldn’t bring himself to care. “Rhian’s staying then.”

Sian and Rhosyn walked faster in response but Cerys said, “She plans to marry your cousin.”

“A disaster,” he said.

“Just about.”

They walked for a time and Emrys became acutely aware of the wolfskin blanket wrapped round him. He chose to lean into it. “Wanted to see you off but I’ve still no cloak.”

Cerys smiled. “You remember what you said last night?”

“You look like a fool,” Rhosyn called back to him. “Go on home, little bird. Leave my cousin alone or her daddy will join ours in this war of retribution. You think you can steal our women out of the night, magic them into compliance—”

“She’s his favorite,” Sian turned and walked backwards for a few paces. “Your cousin stole his favorite daughter. You think he’ll have nothing to say about that?” She shook her head, a forced smile upon her lips. “I’ll come back here leading an army, little bird. Maybe I’ll keep you as a pet. Make you sing pretties to me from a cage I hang in my room. Might be your own daddy’s longhouse, if I don’t burn it to the ground. How’s that sound? Will you call me beautiful too?”

“Your father,” Cerys snapped, “might strip you of your kinship, cousin.”

Sian’s lips became a thin line and she turned around.

Cerys said, “Think he’ll forgive you for losing your sister twice over? He’ll just be happy to hear she’s still alive and doing well.”

“Doing well!” Sian turned and stomped towards Cerys. “Trapped in this valley with father’s enemies is doing well?”

“Not his enemies,” Cerys said. “Father’s not such a fool to fight wars over childhood romances.”

Sian drew her sword. “Take it back, cousin.”

Rhosyn grabbed Sian’s wrist. “Enough.”

Cerys squared her shoulders and stood tall between Sian and Emrys. Her hands didn’t move towards her bow or sword but instead hung limp at her sides. The cousins stared hard at one another and Emrys knew he missed the undercurrent beneath this exchange, but he wondered if Sian had fallen in love and been spurned by some young lord from another clan.

Rhosyn said, “Put it away. You kill her here and the clan is shattered. You know that. She knows it. Don’t let the bird witness it.”

Sian’s hard eyes darted to Emrys and she snorted, sheathed her sword, turned, and stormed away.

Rhosyn pointed a finger at Emrys and held it there for a moment.

Emrys held his breath, feeling her finger almost like a pressure against his soul. He staggered back and reached for Cerys, gripping her wrist tightly while clutching his own chest. The wolfskin fell from round his shoulders but heat poured into him, like a fire burning within.

Rhosyn dropped her hand and followed after her sister.

Cerys said, “What is it?”

He released the breath he held and coughed repeatedly into his fist while he attempted to catch his breath.

“Emrys,” she rubbed his back. “What is wrong with you?”

Swallowing, he raised his face to her and wondered if that expression on her face was love or pity and feared he knew the answer. Had always known the answer. He was an orphan, small and fragile, now broken by some feral god of the forests marking the edge of their world. Taking another breath, he fought against his fear, against pity, and forced a cavalier smile and steadied his voice. “You’ve met me at a very strange time.”

She cocked her head. “Figured you met every woman in a cursed forest.”

“Well, I do try to make it seem special each time.” He steadied himself on her and took another breath.

Only then did she let him go. “I should catch up with them.”

“Will you—”

“Come find me,” she smiled. “Stay alive. Make it through autumn and winter.”

“I will.”

She grabbed his hand again, gave it a squeeze. “Bye, little bird.”

And Emrys watched her go. Watched all three of them disappear into the early morning fog.

The cold settled upon him as he watched and he wrapped the wolfskin back round his shoulders.

The weeks that followed bled together. Emrys woke to Fionnuala and practiced magic with her until exhaustion took hold of him. Somedays, he didn’t even rise from bed. A weariness so bonedeep that he became submerged in sleep, only surfacing to Fionnuala feeding him broth.

“You need to catch up,” she said. “You should’ve been training for years already and we need to make up the time if you’re to be of any use to your brothers.”

He didn’t tell her about what he had done inside himself. He feared what she would say but also feared what harm he may have done to himself, and so he said nothing. Better to not know, he told himself.

He was alive. Still himself. No harm befell him.

When he saw Ariana and they both behaved as if all was well, as if nothing had changed between them. Often, they played Stones in silence or talking the way they always had. The texture of the silence changed, though. Where once Emrys found it comforting to only hear the kiss of stone on wood or the brush of their hands over the table, over fabric, it gained weight since returning from Chalon.

The comfort remained but it wasn’t the same. Could never be the same.

He kept going back. Kept trying to recapture what he’d lost. He had not scene it before Chalon. Had not understood the love she shared with him and how much he meant to her, and now that he understood it felt too late.

Like the love had fermented.

He returned often to Goronwyn’s longhouse to spend time with Aeronwen and Alwyn. Rhian, dressed in Blodwen’s dresses, was always nearby predicting disaster from the air.

“The skies aflame!” Aeronwen called every time she entered or left a room, but it never bothered her, which annoyed Aeronwen all the more.

Emrys took no part in loving or hating Rhian, refusing to be caught between his cousins. He found her strange and beautiful, in a fragile kind of way. The hold she had on Alwyn disturbed him, for the joy seemed to be slipping from him. Once so easy to laugh, he took all his cues from her.

And she promised only disaster.

Though he came for his cousins, he asked always after Rhian’s family on the off chance that Cerys had sent him a letter or some word.

“My sisters continue trying to convince my father to war, but it’s nothing.”

An ominous statement so frequently spoken that Goronwyn eventually brought the news to Owain who demanded Emrys come to him.

But he refused, feigning illness and weakness.

As Gynhaeaf, the harvest festival, approached, Fionnuala said, “You will meet with your father, Emrys.”

Emrys closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, trying to shut her out even while he attempted, once more, to bring fire forth. In the weeks since that first spark, he had failed at every attempt except for the magic he did within himself. He told himself to be like water. To be an empty vessel for the magic. The power. Let it enter him. Flow through him. He gave shape to it in his thoughts and only that.

The shape of flame. Amorphous and wild. A fire. Let it burn. It felt right. Like he truly held a fire within. Emotionless, he separated himself from excitement and anticipation. Heat swelled within him and he breathed forth and pushed with his hands but the fire did not go with.

He took in another breath and pushed again, the fire growing warmer. A true fire. Burning. He took another breath and breathed out the fire. Or tried to. It remained inside him. Scorching. He winced. Sucked in a breath. Tried again.

The fire took shape. Caught hold of his breath and filled his chest, his lungs, scorching pathways through his blood.

“Emrys!” Her words broke through and he opened his eyes but smoke clouded his vision from within. His body burned and he tried to scream but he only coughed more smoke.

Fionnuala struck him in the stomach just below his ribcage and he doubled over, vomited a fountain of flame onto the floor where it pooled and spread round him.

With a single stomp, she sent a gale through the room dispelling the flames. She grabbed his shoulders and swung him back up, didn’t like what she saw in his eyes. While he tried to catch his breath and tell her that the fire yet burned, she opened his mouth and pressed her open mouth to him.

Rather than a kiss, she sucked.

She pulled all the breath and fire within him, then pushed him away, and breathed fire out the window. Wiping her mouth, she turned to him and asked if he was all right.

His chest and lungs hurt. Gasping to catch his breath, he coughed and choked and she stood beside him and pressed her palm to his chest. “You’re burnt from the inside.”

He nodded.

She took a breath and closed her eyes and he felt her inside him. Tendrils of light slipping through his pores, between the cracks within him. Probing him.

Invasive and eerie but also exhilarating.

This was magic.

He focused on what she did. How she traveled within him, how she studied the geography of his body, and the posture of her body, the way she muttered words.

It made sense to him that magic would be bound to words, but she had yet to tell him what the words of power were. He grabbed onto this and held it. If she didn’t explain, he would find his own words of power. The druids had books. He’d scour their libraries using his father’s name.

He lost track of time watching her but night approached. The day burned away while she tried to heal him. Make him whole.

A hole. He had a hole inside him.

A mother shaped hole. He knew that. Everyone knew that from the moment they saw him.

She sighed and wiped the sweat from her face. When she opened her eyes, they bored into Emrys. “What have you done?”

“Nearly burnt myself alive.”

“This is not time for your jokes, boy. You have turned inward. When did you do this to yourself.”

He swallowed. “It was accidental.”

“When?”

“Weeks ago. When the Sisters Lyr were still here.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and took a breath.

He saw the fury in the way she flared her nostrils and the way her ears colored slightly. The vein in her forehead and the clenching of her teeth.

When she opened her eyes, he said, “You’re mad.”

“And you are a fool. Do you know what damage you may have done to yourself while you groped blindly within your own body? Even I would not do such magic upon my interior flesh. It requires precision, knowledge of magic and of the body.”

“You did it to me just now.”

“To work on another is not the same as working on oneself. I have healed many but I would never heal myself in this manner unless there was no other option. Do you not understand the danger?”

“The lord of bone. A piece of his shadow remained within me. You missed it. It was how he reached me.”

“Reached you?” She turned to the window and closed it, as if that would keep the god out. “Tell me of this sliver of smoke.”

He told her.

“You are in great danger, Emrys, my fool. Greater danger than perhaps any other living man. You believe you know so much yet you know nothing.”

“Then teach me!”

“I am.” She spoke calmly, flatly. “It is you who must begin learning. You made fire today. That is good. You’re not the first to burn yourself alive. Many who first feel the touch of magic within them end their brief lives in the same way. It is not so uncommon a way to die.”

“Well, at least I was being typical.”

“It is not a joke, Emrys, my fool. Stand up. We shall try again.”

And he tried again.

And again.

And again.

At the very least, he did not burn himself alive again.