Page 234 of The Daughters of Avalon
He should have died.
Hediddie.
And still, here he was, flesh and blood, and it was Morwen who’d freed him. For that alone, he owed her a debt of gratitude.
Pensive and mirthless, the lord of Blackwood sat behind his escritoire, studying a small reliquary on his desk.
So, he’d been told, there were three of its kind remaining in the world—one his, one belonging to Mordecai, and the last he presumed must be Morwen’s…
Presumed, only because she kept it about her neck on a chain, the same way he kept his own.
Exquisitely etched, cylindrical in shape, his was about a half inch in diameter, and one and one-quarter inches long, with a strange, blue-veined crystal fashioned at one end, the fit so seamless it was impossible to remove. The metal was intricately inscribed with runes that, to his knowledge, could no longer be read.
He met a priest once who’d called it a reliquary, although, in truth, it was nothing like those receptacles they used to hold the bones of saints. It looked like one, perhaps, but it wasn’t.
If he shook it, there was nothing inside, and if he put it to his ear, he heard a hint of wind… like a seashell.
Admittedly, he didn’t know how it worked, nor did he dare disassemble it. This was all he knew: It alone was the key to his existence—a ridiculous little bauble that Morwen had called agrisialhud. In his Welsh tongue, it meant, quite literally, magic crystal.
Lifting the pendant from his desk, he turned it slowly, examining the strange metal and markings, perhaps for the thousandth time since acquiring it.
Puzzling.
Only to see it was to imagine it an impossible sepulcher, and yet… what dimensions should one expect to provide for the totality of a human soul?
It was everything… and yet…
Nothing.
Cael d’Lucy was a creature of shadow, a man with far more to lose by dwelling in light than he did in darkness. He had more secrets than most, and too much to lose—including his life—should they ever come to light.
He was confused.
He’d come to know Rhiannon Pendragon well, and, indeed, his heart wept for Uther’s heir. Still… whenever he thought to pity her, he was forced to ask himself: What was five years compared to six hundred?
Six hundred and six, to be precise.
Six hundred and six years during which his only conscious thought had been to avenge his beloveds.
Now that he had his chance, he dared not rest until the task was done. Then, and only then, could he hope to find peace.
Regretfully, the matter had become… complicated.
Almost daily, he had to remind himself who she was.Lovely though she might be, in her delicate blue veins, she bore the sins of her fathers. And, in truth, no matter how many years had gone since Uther’s betrayal, his sorrow was fresh as the loam over a day-old grave.
Thinking of Nesta, his jaw worked angrily. Faded by time, an image arose from the dusty depths of his memory—her lifeless form prone on the chamber floor, her sacrifice to save his damnable soul.
Was it worth it?
Nay,he thought.
It was not.
And still, for every moment of these past six hundred and six years, he’d been acutely aware of his losses, feeling their pain like limbs plucked from his body.
Hewas the Pendragon.
Not Uther.
