Page 100 of The Shadow Path
The words on the paper flickered and moved. “‘People of Briton.’ It’s in Anglian!”
“It’s glamoured.” Laura had grabbed one too. “Because it’s in Yokut for me. They’ve used some kind of spell so that everyone will see it in their own language.”
“But it’s the same message?”
“‘For too long,’” Laura read, “‘you have ignored the old magic. You build your cities of stone and metal. You school your children, but you teach them nothing.’”
They set down in Dafydd’s courtyard. Cadell dropped them as gently as he could, but her sore ankle still jolted when shelanded in the mud. Then, without a word, her dragon flew into the darkness.
Carys heard the soldiers milling around the courtyard—all of them had fae pamphlets in their hands.
“‘You offer no sacrifices to your house spirits,’” one soldier read, his forehead furrowed. “What is this?”
A maid reached down and grabbed a pamphlet from the mud. “‘You cut down trees that are older than the cities that have grown up around them.’” She looked around in confusion. “Who sent this?”
“‘It is time…’” Laura continued reading the pamphlet in her hand. “‘…for you to forget the lure of the Brightlands and the false worship of human leaders. It is time that you pay homage to yourtruerulers.’”
“True rulers?” The maid tossed the pamphlet in the mud. “I serve King Dafydd. Who wrote this nonsense?”
Laura’s face leached of color as she looked at the bottom of the page. “It’s signed Cian of Temris, High Lord of Éire, Consort of Queen Orla, and…” Laura looked up. “High fae king of Briton.”
Duncan said nothing, but his face was grim, and Carys knew exactly what he was thinking.
The fae had just declared war.
“What’s happening?”she shouted at the nearest dragon rider she saw. There was chaos as every nêr and their dragon readied their coracles to fly to Cymru.
“You!” Anwyn was clinging to the side of a war coracle, and her dragon was beating her wings, waiting for the signal to fly. “In the hall now! The king wants to see you.”
“The children?—”
“The remaining nestlings have been moved to a new nesting ground,” Anwyn shouted and slammed the door to her coracle. “Go and speak to the king.”
Cadell was stormy and silent in her mind. She could feel his desire to mount the sky and follow the nêr ddraig who were already winging toward the mountains, but he crouched near the stables, waiting for Carys.
Nêrys, do not ask me to take human form right now.
Are they your children?
All dragon children are my children.
“I understand.”
“What are we doing?” Duncan said. “Carys?”
“Anwyn said Dafydd wants to see me.” Carys was already walking into the hall, and Duncan and Laura followed her. “So I’m going to see the king.”
There was a red-coated messenger standing next to Dafydd in the hall.
“Carys, you’re here.” The king’s face was grim. “Harold has just sent a messenger. The news is everywhere. Crows and ravens filling the skies. They struck all over Anglia. They took wolflings, humans. We have not heard of any missing unicorn young as yet, but there are gates opening all over Briton.”
Carys asked, “Were Cymric children taken as well? Other than the dragons, were human children taken?”
The king’s face was grim. “We are waiting for news.”
Duncan asked, “Have Orla and Cian formed an army?”
“We don’t know yet.” Dafydd’s face was dark, and his eyes were fixed on a map spread on the table. “But we know that children all over Anglia have disappeared. Snatched from their beds in the middle of the night, lured into forests. They’ve disappeared into fae mounds and barrows that we cannot breach.”
