Page 110 of The Daughters of Avalon
Born in London, neither Rosalynde nor Arwyn had ever chanced to see their family estate in Bannau Brycheiniog, but she recalled every word of Elspeth’s stories, and she envisioned it clearly… the ivy-tangled courtyard with the sacred cauldron once tended by Gwion, that boy who’d stolen the Witch Goddess’s potion. Pregnant still, and fat with its great iron belly, the cauldron sat above a ring of blackened stones, the fire beneath it burning with an eternal flame. Rose couldn’t see what was being brewed within, but she watched smoke that curled above the cauldron and rose into the open courtyard toward a cloudless blue sky, rushing past lichen-covered stone…
And then, suddenly, she herself was the smoke… drifting through rusted metal bars and coalescing into a solid form…
Here, from her prison bower, she had a view of the Endless Sea… and outside her door stood a man… leaning against the wall, facing away, so she couldn’t see his face, though she could still hear his voice. “There is no future but the one your mother has ordained.”
Familiar laughter. “Ah, my lord… the Goddess truly works in mysterious ways. You have yet to realize what you would give to win your true desire.”
Silence.
“And what if my desire is you?”
Like wisps of smoke from the cauldron, her lips curved into a slow smile, and she laughed again, very softly, even as her nipples hardened with desire. “And you jest, my lord… but you will learn… the heart wants what it wants.”
Silence.
“No matter what you may call yourself, your blood is Welsh, lest you forget… and I know what you really want.”
She was not afraid, though his words should engender fear. “You will never leave here… Rhiannon,” he said, angry, and then she heard him push off the wall and walk away.
His footsteps echoed sharply on the ancient stone.
Silence was the gift of his departure.
Rhiannon!
Rosalynde’s eyes flew wide to find it was late afternoon.
She was horrified to discover herself resting like a limp doll in Giles’s arms. Straightening at once, embarrassed, she saw that he’d laid a hand atop hergrimoire, holding it fast, and without meaning to, Rosalynde wrenched the Book away with a gasp.
“Pardon,” he said. “I feared you would drop it and I didn’t wish to wake you.”
Disoriented still, Rosalynde jerked forward, trying to gauge how far they’d come. As far as she could tell, they were still alive… and still on the King’s Road.
On the road, their ambling shadows formed gargoyles—two of them: one big one small—with hoofed protuberances pawing at the ground, and thick bodies with strange appendages growing from their middles, five jouncing heads. For a befuddled instant, she studied the grotesque shadows, realizingthat Wilhelm must have fallen behind, and she turned to find him hunched over his horse, somehow dozing. “How long have I been sleeping?” she asked.
“A bit longer than Wilhelm.”
Rose tilted her head, stretching the cords of her neck, and turned again to peer at Wilhelm, marveling over the contortion of his body and his curious ability to sleep in his saddle. At least she’d had Giles to hold her, and for that she was thankful. And nevertheless, she was horrified to discover that, like Rhiannon’s had in her dream, her nipples were pebbled and straining against the course wool of her nun’s habit. Defensively, she pressed thegrimoirecloser.
Ignoring her traitorous body, she considered the dream. Could it be that her sister had given her a glimpse into her cage? Or, was it only an invention of Rosalynde’s tired, overwrought mind?
Somedewinescould descry by dreams—Rhiannon did so all the time, but Rosalynde had never once had any occurrence herself, and she only knew it because Rhiannon had told her so, not because her sister had ever infiltrated her dreams before. And yet, nodewineworth her blood would ever ignore a message from theaether, and it was quite possible Rhiannon had discovered a safer way tomindspeak.
“I’m guessing you mustn’t have rested well last night,” Giles said. “Much to be expected, there aren’t many ladies I know who could sleep so well in the woods.”
Clearly, he didn’t know her. Rosalynde could sleep anywhere, and the forest was like a second home to her.
Once, she’d fallen asleep in an elm tree, like a cat, and her sisters had worried all day long until she’d returned to the priory that evening. Even so, she was chagrined to confess, even if only to herself, that she had rested far more easily in Giles’s arms than she had in her warded pentacle.
“Speaking of woods, my lord...” She peered up, looking at clear skies—completely unobstructed by the boughs of trees, in perfect view of Morwen’s black-feathered spies. “Should we not seek the shade for a while?”
She turned to look at him with pleading eyes.
Giles blinkedat the sight of her very, very blue eyes… but he’d imagined they were green—a shade of green that recalled him to rich, thick moss, not this peculiar shade of blue that made him think of bellflowers.
“What is it?” she asked.
Giles scratched his chin, uncertain whatitwas, precisely.
