Seren saw it all now.
She’d witnessed the tapestry of time weaving itself through the ages: the brotherhood of twelve kings, their dewine imbued swords; the bloodshed that ensued betwixt them; the betrayal at Llanrhos, where her forebear, Taliesin, conspired with Uther to take the life of the true Dragon Lord.
And, aye, she knew now what he was, as well—a Shadow Beast, whose soul was bound, and whose eternal life could only be ended by destroying the reliquary his soul was bound to.
And, more importantly, she knew what and who her mother was. Morwen had lived by many names: The Dark Goddess, the Shadow Crone, the Shapeshifter of Legend, the Mother of Avalon, Keeper of the Cauldron and Defender of the Grail. But there was only one true name for her: Cerridwen, destroyer of realms.
And still she was more: She was a true-blood daughter of the God and Goddess, who’d created all realms. She was, as Lucifer was, an angel fallen from grace, and in her true form, she was a Sylph—she who was tasked to protect the realms of men, and who, in her fury, betrayed her promises to the coven and was banished from Heaven and earth.
Morwen’s soul, like Cael’s and Mordecai’s souls, was bound to a reliquary, but for one very crucial difference: Hers was the soul of a goddess, and could never be fully destroyed.
At best, they might hope to put an end to her mortal form.
As it happened, gods and goddesses did not die the same way mortals died, and the crux of it all was that, despite their immortal blood, a dewine was only a demigod, and therefore bound by mortal laws. They bled as men bled. Their hearts beat as all hearts beat. They were merely more attuned to the aether, which was, in its essence, the breath of life.
The day seemed bleak as ever.
The sun refused to shine.
At the end of July, there was a pall over the land that lingered, despite the season.
In truth, there was no reason to believe they would prevail. There were no more favors to be called upon from Scotia, or anyone else.
And, aye, the Church had sent its company of paladins, but it would never dare confess its true relation to the company of assassins, and neither would they ever acknowledge a preternatural threat to this realm that was directly opposed to their doctrine. No matter the truth, to their specifications, witches were not angels, or natural beings. They were aberrations of nature, to be feared and reviled.
And neither would they acknowledge any but the “One True God” and put no others before him, not even the woman who was his mate. England was a patriarchy in the truest sense.
Truth itself was a weapon to be feared, and therefore, a call for banners would be raised in the name of England, but it could be that Warkworth’s would be the only army to bear the King’s standard.
As though to add insult to injury, the skies parted about midmorn, pouring down over the troops—a wet, cold deluge that dampened the spirits as surely it did the infantry, and even hope itself.
But this was no time for weakness in spirit.
No time for despair.
Every able-bodied warrior was conscripted to ride, and once the sisters were ready, they moved together to the head of the line, preparing to lead their warriors into battle.
Taking his cues from Rosalynde, Warkworth’s seneschal rode to the helm. Loyal to his lord and lady, Edmund cried out to the gatekeeper. “Gates!” To his troops, he said, “Prepare to ride!” And then, if only because he insisted, he rode ahead of his mistresses to secure the way.
“Art ready?” asked Rosalynde of Elspeth as Edmund passed them by.
Elspeth nodded, and then both sisters looked to their Regnant—wholly transformed by her recent consecration.
White hair flowing at her back, face and skin radiant as a pearl, lips red as an apple, and cheeks rosy with color, Seren Pendragon moved to ride directly behind Edmund, with the sword Excalibur in her belt, and a small, bent crow riding atop her shoulder.
Their destination: Amdel.
22
First, they discovered the riderless horse.
Then, traveling in the direction from whence the horse had come, they happened upon a man’s body lying next to a brook. Caught unawares with his breeches down, there was a bloody hole between the man’s eyes where a sharp blade had once rested. The wound was deep, penetrating the skull, and to inflict such a wound, the assassin must have been very, very close, or very, very precise and skilled.
Since it didn’t appear there was any sort of scuffle, Giles presumed the latter.
He knew only one woman who could wield a knife with such deadly precision: Marcella le Fae. However, if, indeed, she had passed this way with her charge, then everything was going according to plan and he must let them go. The sooner they found Eustace and returned him to his father, the sooner they could return home.
At his back, Wilhelm busied himself inspecting the boot and hoof prints surrounding the carcass. “These tracks are fresher than the rest,” he said.
“Boot or hoof?”
“Both.”
“How many?”
“One man, I believe. No less than fifteen stone, riding a courser, so it appears.”
That was not Marcella. She was tall for a woman, not heavy. “Fresher than the rest, you say?”
“Aye,” said Wilhelm. “’Tis as though he came lately, and stopped to investigate.”
“Same direction as the rest?”
“Aye,” said Wilhelm, again.
“This one’s a King’s man,” said Giles, examining the livery of the dead man. He wore Stephen’s standard on the front of his gambeson. However, nothing on the horse they’d found, nor on the corpse had been pilfered, even so near to Darkwood. In fact, the horse’s satchel still contained all his travel supplies and there was a small gold purse, filled with coppers, tied to his belt.
It was only by a stroke of luck they’d encountered the horse, standing beneath the shade of a tree, so they’d first thought, waiting for its master to return for it. It was a good-sized destrier of the sort normally conscripted for the King’s army, and thinking it might be Eustace, Giles had put Wilhelm in charge of tracking. His brother could scout better than any man Giles had ever encountered, and for the most part, he trusted Wilhelm’s instincts without fail. When they’d spied the vultures circling over this woodlot, they knew they’d found their man.
“How long do you suppose he’s been dead?”
“Half the day, no more.” Giles had seen more than his share of dead bodies to know. “How many traveling altogether?” he asked his brother.
Wilhelm shrugged. “Looks like four, mayhap, not including the dead man.” He hitched a thumb at the corpse. “Appears to be either three women traveling together, else three young men. The one following behind is more than twice their size and weight.”
“Hmm,” said Giles.
“Whoever the fourth rider is… he didn’t linger long. He took a gander, then moved along.”
“Neither did he bother to inspect the body,” said Giles, pointing to the sack of coppers. “Else he hadn’t much interest in coins.”
“So he’s in pursuit of the others?”
Giles nodded. “That’s what I gather. Can you tell which direction they are going?”
Wilhelm examined the woodlands, then peered up into the trees at the sun in the sky. “They came southwest, more or less, traveling northeast.”