Page 244 of The Daughters of Avalon
And, if by chance she were slain during her escape… well, then, he could wash his hands of the entire affair, and call himself blameless. For all intents and purposes, he would have done precisely what her mother expected of him—marry Rhiannon for better or worse.
There is only one woman I have ever loved, and she is not you…
Clasping her fist to her heart, with the key nestled in her palm, Rhiannon sank down on her bed, reminding herself that all things in life bore consequences: Stay or go… she would pay a price…
Tears brimmed in her eyes as she remembered a night so long ago in their cottage at Llanthony—that night she’d convinced her sisters to summon a brume to help Elspeth escape the priory. She’d known then that she would be destined to tradeplaces with Elspeth as Blackwood’s bride. She’d known it with all her heart.
Effectively, her sisters had agreed to the bargain only because no one ever supposed that Rhiannon, with her afflicted eyes, could make an agreeable choice for the great lord of Blackwood. After all, he had bargained for Elspeth, whose pale violet eyes were soft and gentle and whose birthright could provide him Blackwood without contest.
And yet… knowing what she knew about fate, Rhiannon had never doubted her vision. She had known then that this day would arrive, even despite that for all these years it had been all too easy to deny Cael.
For so long they’d played a game of cat and mouse, neither entirely committed to catching a prize. But here they were… precisely as her vision foretold. In scant few hours, she would be wed to the lord of Blackwood—a loveless match, with a single purpose:To bind him to Blackwood.
But Rhiannon had never anticipated this—notthis.
If she did as Cael asked, she would become a fugitive, if not from the law, then most certes from her mother. And knowing her mother as she did, Morwen wouldneverstop searching until she found Rhiannon.
Arwyn learned the truth of that the hard way, and so, too, would Rhiannon, if Morwen ever caught her.
Their mother hadn’t a single bone of compassion in her body, and the blood they shared only gave her more cause for enmity.
No matter… how could she not seize this opportunity to escape? Even now, with scant hope of seeing her sisters again, she felt a quickening joy.
What was more: Her heart leapt with anticipation over the return of hermagik.
Oh! What glee to feel it coursing through her veins!
Oh! How she missed the tingle beneath her flesh.
The inspiration of power in her breast!
Bide your time, Cael had said.
Bide your time.
And so, she must, despite that she suddenly longed for freedom even more than she did her next breath—oh, what a cruel, cruel jest it would be if he’d purposely given her the wrong key!
Fighting a nearly overwhelming urge to slide it into her shackles and test the lock—because if she removed the shackles, she would never put them back on—she slipped the key into a hidden pocket of her dress.
As children, she and her sisters had learned the value of sewing hidden compartments into the seams of their gowns. All the while living at court, they’d used them to hide foodstuffs from the kitchen—a bit of bread from the table when no one was looking… a grape or two from the King’s plate. A bite of cheese, or length of salted meat. And they had done so without remorse, because even then, they’d been forced to fend for themselves. After all, who should have cared for Morwen’s brats?
It didn’t matter that they were Henry’s daughters as well. And perhaps Henry had honored them well enough by giving them a home in his palace, but behind his back there was no one who would willingly share a morsel with the Welsh witch’s eldritch brats. Her mother was as despised then as she was now, and no matter; that woman lost no sleep. She certainly never once let a thought of hungry bellies stop her from doing her worst, and if they dared complain, she would remind them of their blood, and bade them to figure it out. And so they had. All together they had “figured it out.”
To this day, no matter that Rhiannon hadn’t Seren’s skill with a needle or thread, she fashioned a pocket into every new gown. Although her stitches left much to be desired, the pockets were nearly indistinguishable from her seam—threesmall threads to keep the material from gaping. The tiny key slid easily between the folds.
Come what may, she would make the decision to trust Lord Blackwood, and not once would she dare peek out of her room, no matter if her guards did not return—mostly because she was afraid that if she went to the door, she might keep going and never return.
But neither did she dare gather her belongings. If her mother should appear in her doorway, she didn’t intend to be caught packing. Therefore, she realized… when she left this place, she would be departing with nothing but the clothes on her back… that and hermagik.
Come to think of it, maybe not even that.
She worried whatevermagikhad been cast upon these shackles, it had depleted her, like darkness banishing light.
Fortunately, the one blessing of these shackles was this: Whilst it allowed nomagikto leave her person… neither should it allow any within—at least that’s what Rhiannon presumed, and soon she would put it to the test, because if her mother suspected treachery, she would unleash the worst of herhud du, and not even Cael would manage to survive it. She prayed to the Goddess that he knew what he was doing, and then resigned herself to wait…
It wasn’t long before she was summoned belowstairs.
To her surprise—and to her dismay—along with the summons arrived an unexpected gift: a gown unlike any she’d ever beheld. It was a silvered surcoat, dyed purpure, with a snow-whitechainseto wear beneath. Only, no matter how desperately she searched the folds, there was no place to hide a key, and no time to sew a pocket into the dress.
