Page 4 of The Shadow Path
“You’re his daughter’s Brightkin.” Duncan rose to his full height, ducking under the arch that separated the living room from the kitchen. “You’re nêrys ddraig?—”
“Barely!” Carys spun, leaning against the counter while the water heated for tea. “I’ve only been training six months, and most of what I’m doing is just archery. The Chahta dragon riders do not fight like the Cymric ones—which Cadell reminds me of pretty much every training session I have.”
Duncan frowned. “I thought your uncle coordinated your training with his allies. He couldn’t send over a Cymric trainer?”
There were two dragon nations in North America, and the friendliest to Cymru was the Chahta nation, who lived in the Mississippi Valley.
When Carys and Cadell had finally found the fae gate behind her house—well, when her best friend Laura had revealed it to them—it caused more than a bit of stir.
“Just because the Chahta are a friendly dragon nation, that doesn’t mean they want Cymric soldiers on this side of the ocean.” She heard the kettle start to boil and reached for two of her mother’s earthenware mugs that hung underneath the wooden cabinets. “It was complicated enough getting permission from Laura’s people to allow Cadell to live here and use their gate.”
The past six months of her life had been a riot of revelations and a crash course in a brand-new world.
And she’d also had to go back to work teaching three classes at the college. Unlike Duncan, she was not independently wealthy.
Carys tore open two tea bags and plopped them in the mugs, then took a deep breath and poured boiling water into each mug, enjoying the rising steam scented with black tea, bergamot, and orange.
She turned and saw Duncan looking at the photographs pinned to a corkboard on the wall. “How is Laura? And what’s Kiersten up to? Has she seduced the dragon yet?”
“She’s tried her hardest, but I think…” Carys couldn’t stop her smile. “I think if that dragon has any affections under his scaled armor, they may be directed at someone else.”
Duncan’s eyebrows rose. “That sounds like a story that needs whiskey.”
“You’re not wrong.” But it wasn’t time for that kind of gossip when a royal coronation was looming over her head. “Laura is good. Busy with work—she’s working on that new solar project for the tribe she was talking about over the holidays.”
“The one for the elders’ village?”
“Yep.”
Laura—who was Brightkin like Carys—was one of the designated pauwau inwe of her people. The Yurok, unlike the majority of the population of Baywood, knew about the Shadowlands, and in every generation there were Brightkin chosen to cross the gates to serve as representatives between the two worlds.
It was how Laura had immediately recognized Cadell as a dragon.
“I just don’t think I’m equipped to be Dafydd’s heir. Not even close. It’s not that I don’t want to have a relationship with him, but Seren trained her entire life to be queen. And whatever a queen needs to be, it’s not… me.”
She turned and saw Duncan leaning against the arched doorway, watching her as she set the mugs on a carved wooden tray. His admiring gaze made her cheeks warm up. “Tea is ready.”
She set it on the island her father had built between the kitchen and the living room. Duncan pulled out a stool on the other side and sat down gingerly.
“Am I going to break this?”
Carys smiled. “Cadell sits on it, so I can’t imagine it won’t take your weight.”
She squeezed a bit of lemon into her tea and sipped the fragrant, warm concoction, waiting for it to soothe the lump that had landed in her stomach the moment Duncan had mentioned returning to Briton. “I just don’t know if I can do this.”
He cocked his head. “Do what?”
“Be… whatever they want me to be.”
“You don’t know what they want from you.” He shrugged. “Right now all they want is your presence. Your summer break is starting at work, right? The timing couldn’t be better. You have three months free.”
Carys set down her mug. “You have to understand. You haven’t crossed over the gate here. I know my bloodline is in Briton, but the Shadowlands here? They feel… safer. More like home.”
Laura’s Shadowkin—a warm and maternal village healer named Kere—was the one who had led Carys and Cadell across the fae gate near Mad Creek. Crossing over to the Pauwau Aki—the common name for the Shadowlands in North America—felt far more familiar even though the magic there was like nothing she’d studied in books.
“It’s hard to explain,” Carys said.
Duncan nodded silently, sipping his tea. After a few minutes, he straightened up, set his mug down, and looked Carys dead in the eye. “So don’t explain it. Show me.” His eyes were glittering with anticipation.
