Page 22 of The Shadow Path
Everyone sat again, and Carys immediately noticed that her food had gone cold.
“They adored Seren,” Dafydd said. “I’m sure the three of you will enjoy getting to know each other as soon as they have time.”
“Oh, they hate me.”Carys sat in a large embroidered chair in the chambers that Dafydd had prepared for her. “They hate mesomuch.”
Laura was sitting in another chair near the fire, holding her hands out to warm them. “They might have loved your Shadowkin, but they were also mentally preparing their own coronations after Seren died,” Laura said. “Now you show up—bonded with your Shadowkin’s dragon and wearing Seren’s face. They’re not going to be your biggest fans.”
Carys dragged her chair next to Laura’s and kept her voice low. “I don’t want to be queen of Cymru,” she whispered. “But I feel like that’s Dafydd’s idea, and it’s not a good one.”
“You’re not Seren.”
“Exactly!” Carys kept her voice to a hissed whisper. “I’m a mythology professor from California. I don’t even speak Welsh. There is no way I would make a good queen.”
“So you need to make that clear to your uncle,” Laura said. “Just like you need to pick a Scotsman. Because two is kind of too much.”
“Easier said than done.” Carys sat back with a groan. “Do you want to pick for me?”
“As of right now, I’d pick Lachlan,” Laura said. “Because I know him, and I don’t know Duncan nearly as well. But from the look on your face right now?—”
“What look?” Carys sat up and schooled her expression. “I have no looks.”
“—and the fact that you didn’t leap into Lachlan’s arms the moment you saw him at the market,” Laura continued, “I’m guessing the affections are getting a little blurry these days.”
Carys squeezed her eyes shut. “How do you pick between two good men?”
“Well, Lachlan lied to you and Duncan didn’t.” Laura shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong; I get it. If you wanted to get picky, you could even say that I’ve been lying to you my entire life by not telling you about the Shadowlands.”
“You didn’t lie to me. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“But I didn’t tell you the whole truth,” Laura said. “Because we’re not supposed to. And that has probably been drilled into Lachlan’s head from the moment anyone found out he’d gone through a gate. So I have some sympathy for him.”
“You can relate to him.” Carys nodded. “That makes sense.”
“I also watched Lachlan drag you back to life when I was really scared for you.” Laura’s voice got soft. “So I can’t be unbiased. I love Lachlan, and I love how happy you were when you were together. That doesn’t mean that Duncan isn’t also a wonderful man, and I recognize the fact that Lachlan was married to your Shadowkin makes things impossibly messy.”
“Yeah, it really does.” Carys sighed. “Did you really not know that Lachlan was Shadowkin when he showed up in Baywood?”
Carys’s best friend had said she didn’t know, but sometimes it was hard for Carys to imagine she couldn’t sense anything different about the Alban prince.
“I knew he was different, but he was from an entirely different country,” Laura said. “Had he shown up with Duncan, of course I would have known. But on his own?” She shrugged. “He didn’t have magic in the Brightlands.” She scooted forward. “Wait, so does he have magic here? What do they call it here when humans?—”
“Fae-touched.” Carys stretched out her legs, growing sleepy with a full stomach and a roaring fire. “He’s got a bit of musical magic here.”
“And Duncan?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “He’s a normal Brightkin. Unlike me.”
“You know what Cadell and I think.”
Laura and Cadell were both of the opinion that Carys’s mother Tegan wasn’t born in the Brightlands at all. Which meant that somehow her mother had made it from the Shadowlands of Cymru to the Brightlands of California and bore a child, which should have been impossible.
But Carys was clearly more than mundane, so that was the best theory they had.
“I’m going to fall asleep,” Carys murmured. “Is that okay?”
“I’m about to join you.” Laura yawned. “We have full stomachs and our bodies think it’s three in the morning. Or maybe in the afternoon. We’ve got jet lag and shadow lag.”
“Is that a thing?”
