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Blodwen yawned after Ariana placed her next stone on the board. “So aggressive.” She sat in the highbacked chair carved with a choir of ghosts.
Ariana snorted, sitting at the bench like a soldier. “You’ve got me on the run, sister.”
They sat in the Goronwyn’s great hall playing Carreg at the long table where they shared their last meal with the Sisters Lyr. Emrys and Aeronwen leaned over the table to watch. He so rarely beat Ariana and suspected she let him win whenever it did happen that there was a thrill to seeing a more skilled player find a way around her relentless assaults. Blodwen’s game had a strange fluency to it. At the start, she seemed tentative, almost nervous, swelling her numbers on the periphery of the board and giving Ariana the middle. But while Ariana attempted to expand outward, Blodwen reined her in and held her there, surrounded by her many stones.
When she had laid down her Tree, Ariana’s eyes widened and the scrambling began while Blodwen casually picked off her pieces and crushed her shieldwall. The remainder of the game was simple clean up.
Blodwen said, “Forfeit?”
“Again.” Ariana swept the pieces from the board and pushed Blodwen’s simple pieces of flint back to her.
“How’d you do that, auntie?”
Blodwen’s head bounced from side to side with a slight smile crossing her lips. “The trick with a player like Ariana is to let her tie her own noose.”
“She always smashes through my noose.”
“That’s the difficult part.”
Aeronwen said, “Even father can’t beat her.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that,” said Blodwen.
Across the hall, Goronwyn’s men and women ate their meal of black bread and blacker stew. Emrys remembered what his father said to him the night he met the Sisters Lyr and wondered if the meat in the stew could’ve come from some monster out of the forest. If his father was truly mad enough to feed his own people the blood and flesh of one of those creatures.
If consuming their flesh made a man or woman stronger, then it also had the capacity to make them more monstrous. Some may choose such a path to power but they deserved to know the risk.
He turned to his aunts who rapidly placed their opening moves. The soft kiss of Blodwen’s flint pieces on the thick slab of wood that served as the gameboard. The soft tap of Ariana’s simple wooden pieces. The laughter from across the hall. The fires crackling. The wind outside howling, promising a cruel winter.
Blodwen turned to the windows like she could see the wind blustering by. “We’ll have to take in the harvest soon.”
“Owain’s mustering in men from the lowlands and highlands in case Lyr’s daughters speak the truth.”
“They’re only girls,” Blodwen breathed the word. “They’re worried for their sister and think threats the best way to get their way.”
“Better than mad prophecies,” Aeronwen snorted. “She traipses round promising doom everywhere she goes. ‘The sky’s aflame!’” Aeronwen shook her head and met her mother’s eyes. “You should’ve denied him.”
“That’s why you don’t have a man.” Blodwen placed another piece.
Ariana quickly countered and Blodwen placed another and Ariana slapped down another piece and Blodwen slid the very first stone she played forward one square and Ariana stood, bending over the game, her nose nearly touching the pieces. Leaning back, hands planted on the table, she studied the board.
All the while, Aeronwen flushed and ground her teeth. She glanced at Emrys and he knew not what to say or do so he offered to play a game with her.
It smoothed the discomfort a bit and Aeronwen said, “Have your own pieces?”
“Not with me.”
Ariana reached her living hand into her cloak and produced the cloth sack carrying his pieces of onyx and ivory and set them on the table.
Emrys smiled at Aeronwen. “Never mind.”
And Aeronwen was off to get her own pieces and a board.
“Was kind of you.” Ariana glanced at him, her voice soft and quiet. Emrys knew the feeling that went with that tone.
Blodwen waved a hand over the board, dismissing this. “She’s lost any right to kindness when it comes to that girl. All day, every day since Alwyn brought the girl home, she goes on about the misery of having her here. And the truth is that that girl is one of the easiest guests to have in my home. She cooks and cleans and mends clothing without even asking.”
“Shouldn’t let a laird’s daughter work like a maid,” Ariana finally placed another piece.
“The problem is Alwyn’s taken to it as well. He’s out there now helping with the harvest, working himself like a slave.” Blodwen smiled. “You should’ve seen the way Owain laughed when he heard. Thought for a moment he might choke to death right there in his throne.” She placed another piece.
Ariana sighed and shook her head. “Play again?”
Blodwen nodded.
Emrys tried to keep emotion from his voice. “You met with Owain?”
Ariana said, “How’d that go?”
Blodwen shrugged. “He demanded our presence when Rhian remained after her sisters and cousin left. Wanted to know this and that, as you might expect.”
“And you went?”
“He’s my brother. And my laird.”
Ariana snorted and placed her first piece. “What he say?”
“You don’t already know?” She tsked. “Said to keep watch on her, to read her letters. What would you expect? But there’s little to tell. Her sisters petition their father to wage war but the weeks go on and, as far as anyone can tell, Lyr’s not even gathering his people. Maybe he approves or maybe he expects she’ll come back of her own accord. Or,” she smiled, placing her opening piece, “perhaps he welcomes the peace.”
“That bad?”
“No, not really. But Aeronwen’s right. She goes around like someone halfmad.” She turned to Emrys. “What happened to her in the forest?”
Emrys opened his mouth to tell her but she continued over him. “I know you said she housed the soul of Black Goda’s lover but was she afflicted even before?”
Emrys shrugged. “We met her when she was being attacked by a monster. After Alwyn saved her, she fled into the forest. But I suspect this wasn’t the first time she ran off into the night nearly naked. Her sisters and cousin were so fast behind her. Like they expected this or knew what she was doing.”
Blodwen shook her head. “In love with a madwoman.”
“Perhaps a witch.” Ariana’s eyes fell on Emrys. “Perhaps her omens are true, given from the dark lords of Shadow.”
“Can’t be true then.” Blodwen spat to ward evil and raised her eyes to the great antlers over her hearth. “The Shadow only knows lies.”
“All power bleeds from the same source,” Ariana said. “Is not evil until it’s manipulated.”
“This again. Your move. Come on.”
Ariana placed her piece. “You cannot have shadow without light, sister. The Shadow could not exist without the god.” She tapped her metal eye with her living finger. “I have seen beyond the veil.”
“And I’ve seen a midnight sun.” Blodwen placed her piece and took a breath, yawned. “She’s a sweet girl, if a bit mad. She’s not who I’d choose for Alwyn.”
“Where is Alwyn?”
Blodwen didn’t look at him. “With Rhian. Like always.”
Ariana said, “Better get a leash on that or they’ll—”
“Alwyn will keep his honor, sister. And they are not as alone as they may believe. But the girl is pious, if nothing else.”
“Some believe the best way to see the god is from your back.”
Blodwen snapped, “Make your move.”
Ariana giggled. “I remember where my piety led me when I was that age.”
Blodwen ignored this and the game progressed but Blodwen had lost her advantage. Ariana pressed her attack and found a crack in her shieldwall. Blodwen cursed and, for once, took a long pause between moves.
Aeronwen returned, saw her mother scowling at the board and Ariana smiling, leaning back. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Blodwen said.
Ariana laughed. “Take a look.”
She set down the Carreg board and her pieces and studied the game between her aunt and mother. After a moment, she tsked. “Well done, auntie.”
“It’s not over,” Blodwen said.
“Will be soon,” Ariana kept laughing.
And it was.
Emrys and Aeronwen’s game was more evenly matched, less given to dramatic moves and shifting power dynamics. Quickly, it became a war of attrition with Emrys’ ivory and onyx pieces swirling in and out of her simple stone pieces. While the ovular ivory and onyx pieces glistened in the firelight, Aeronwen’s stones reflected no light. Carved into squares with rough edges, they went well with her mother’s pieces of uneven flint and Ariana’s scarred and brutalized wooden pieces.
They were, in a minor way, a reminder that he was not a member of the family. Not really. He had such beautiful pieces whereas they kept to the ancient spirit of the game. Simplicity in design, complexity in play.
Blodwen spoke of the harvest and Ariana spoke of the traveling merchants and Emrys knew he needed to meet them and inspect what books they had, what news from the University they carried with them.
He’d become so disconnected from the day to day life of the clan that even the seasons flitted past without him paying attention. The moors filled with the temporary structures that would become stands and stalls and games for Gynhaeaf, the Harvest Festival. The sound of hammers and saws became nothing but background noise while Fionnuala tried to teach him. So focused, his life so narrow, he never stopped or slowed down to take notice of the Travelers who filled the festival with their games and songs and dances. He said, “When’s the festival?”
“Soon as the harvest’s in,” said Blodwen.
“End of the week.” Aeronwen chewed on her lip while she held her piece above the board. She placed it but kept a finger on it while she scrutinized the board. “No,” she hissed and lifted it once more.
The weeks since Chalon ran rapidly past him yet the days since Cerys left dragged. He even came to his aunt’s home in hopes of news from or about her.
He could escape during the festival. No one would even know. This time, he wouldn’t wait until Alwyn or some other cousin latched onto him, keeping him caught in Matauc land. He wouldn’t need to be a shadow son or protect his half-brothers from whatever misfortune his father feared.
His life belonged at the University. He knew that.
But there was the magic. Fionnuala would not let him leave so easily. She’d drag him before his father.
“You need to go to your father before the festival,” Ariana said.
Blodwen snorted. “Don’t see why.”
Ariana hissed, “Owain’s his father.”
“Not if he won’t claim him. We give up rights on someone if we cannot pledge ourselves to them. Do you think Goronwyn would remain with me if I treated him like a dog? Would I deserve to consider him mine if I kicked him whenever he said a kind word or looked at me with sad eyes.” She turned to Emrys. “No offense, Emy.”
Aeronwen placed her piece at last and Emrys studied the board. So distracted by his wandering thoughts, he had to take in the shape of the play once more. After a moment, he placed his Tree, attempting to shatter her shieldwall.
Aeronwen cursed and leaned over the board, elbows on the table, fingers digging into her hair. She cursed again.
“What does he want?”
Ariana met his gaze. “You.”
He snorted. Like his father. Like all of them. He had no name, but he was Matauc. He was Owain’s. “And what if I don’t want to see him?”
“Been weeks. His patience runs thin.”
“I won’t go, auntie.”
“Will.”
Emrys leaned back, crossed his arms, and stared at the black bones of the whale holding up the rafters. So long ago that none could name when, the great skywhales fell dead from the air and landed there, on Matauc land. Morfil, as others called it before and since. What people lived nearby, scrabbling in the stone and the dirt, descended upon the enormous monsters and cut them to pieces, harvested their bones, their organ. And from the plenty, they built a world.
All the clans descended from that whalefall. That they’d fractured and died and combined and congealed in the many centuries since then changed nothing of the inheritance.
Emrys thought of great beasts flying through the air, of castles in the sky, of the tower somewhere out there in the world that people claimed pierced the sky itself.