Page 328 of The Daughters of Avalon
The last I had in my bed was no more than a selfish little twat with dreams of wearing his father’s crown.
“Marcella,” I hiss.You’ll pay most of all, because you knew me when my heart was tender with pain… because when I revealed unto you the deepest, darkest place in my soul, still you held me and sang to me in the crook of your arm.“Deceiving little witch.”
How easily you plotted and schemed to steal away my daughter. How easily you betray me.
“Fire burn and caldron bubble,” I say, coaxing a flame about the fertile belly of my grail. And then, for a moment, I watch, fiddling with my ring. After a moment, I open the hidden compartment, then turn the contents into the kettle: Newts. Moon snails. A touch of human remnants. A pinch of bloodroot and hemlock, only for good measure.
Stirring the pot with the tempest of my thoughts, I stand and stare into the silvery solution, once again mourning the loss of my scrying stone—that heirloom of my destruction that was stolen from me, along with my cauldron and my children. I suffered Taliesin to live and he repaid me by conspiring with my enemies.
Creirwy, you fool.Did you believe there would be no reckoning? Did you not know I’d suck the breath from your lungs? Did you think I would allow you to grow old and die here in this wretched pile of stones, keeping from me mygrimoireand my grail?Nay.
Arrogant, faithless, ungrateful daughters.
Every one of you—Creirwy, Elspeth, Rhiannon, Seren, Arwyn and Rosalynde.
I brush a finger across the lip of my cauldron as Mordecai appears before me in the courtyard, his dark form silhouetted by the shifting dawn.
“Where are they?”
“Amdel.”
“Not so far,” I say.
And yet, not close enough.
“How many travel with them?”
“Six, including Marcella and Lord Blackwood.”
Cael, you fool! I told you not to lose your heart to my daughter, and what did you go and do?
My gaze moves slowly to Mordecai. “Donotcall him thus in my presence ever again. Blackwood is mine. I am done with pretense.”
“As you wish,meistres.”
“What of the lords you roused from slumber? How many will pledge their armies?”
“Allare persuaded.”
“Good,” I say. “Send my ravens. You and I will await our travel companions.”
“Aye,meistres.”
“Go now,” I say, anger darkening my tone—a fury not unlike that day so many ages thence when I last faced my makers, and they exiled me for my “tantrum.” And yet, they did send me to rule the realms of men, and this I will do.
Damned be their prophecy!
Damn be the words written in the grimoire!
I will not return to a watery grave!
Ego Draconis,
Natus Sylph
A capite ad calcem, igneus et fortes.
I am the dragon.
