Page 58 of Arise the Queen
“If I ever face that monster again, I wi?—”
Her gaze snapped to his, knowing exactly who he meant without hearing him using Loc’s name. “You will do nothing,” she demanded. “His life ismineto end!”
Bryn nodded, conceding, and appeased, Gwendolyn told him everything else—all about her adventures with the Púca, her chance meeting with the fat trolls, her Fae reflection in the pond, about her introduction to Arachne, and the gift of Arachne’s cloak. She confessed the fear she’d felt during her subsequent arrest and her imprisonment in the Fae court. And she told him in great detail about the court itself and the City of Light, with all its strange denizens. She described the sordid ball she’d attended and shared the keen sense of betrayal and envy she’d felt when Esme and Málik appeared upon the King’s dais—the bone-jarring fear she’d felt when Málik unsheathed his sword at the King’s command…
“He wouldn’t have done it,” Bryn said, with certitude. “I know him.”
“And I do not?” Gwendolyn lifted a brow, snapping her rein gently. Indeed, she knew him better than anyone, and she knewin her heart that Málik would have done exactly what he was compelled to do.
“He’d slice his own throat before harming you,” Bryn persisted.
“So you believe,” Gwendolyn allowed. But he did not see what she saw—the purposeful swing of his blade, the look in his eyes as he’d advanced upon her. Gwendolyn so desperately wished to believe Bryn spoke true, but her memories of that moment in Aengus’ Court were still too fresh in her mind. Málik had hesitated, true, but he’d raised that sword, preparing to strike. “I would like to believe it,” she whispered, but she didn’t, and Bryn leaned closer to her, his eyes boring into her.
“Well, I do. And I hold to this belief,” he said. “Málik would not harm a lock on your head.” Gwendolyn thought wryly that perhaps they had evidence to that, because she’d not soon forget the look on his face as Esme presented him the knife to snip her hair. Only looking back at that moment, Gwendolyn wondered if his hesitancy had more to do with the fact that he already knew he would face the inevitable truth. He loved her—she knew he did.
So why was he avoiding her? Was he guarding his own heart, or hers?
Together, she and Bryn rode in silence for a while before he spoke again, hitching his chin at her. “So tell me more about that cloak Arachne wove. Was she really a spider?”
“She was!” Gwendolyn nodded. And then, reaching up, touching the silken fabric that lay draped over her shoulders, she explained, “I believe it may be a cloak of anonymity, to veil my true self.”
“That could be useful.”
“Oh, believe me, it was,” Gwendolyn allowed with a rueful smile, recalling how she’d used it to hide from Aengus. “That foolgave me the means to end him, and did so in the last moment, when I thought my life forfeit.”
Bryn listened quietly as she told him about how she’d recognized Aengus, and then how, in the end, she had determined the way to slay him—her blood bond with Manannán. “I think he is… my… father,” she said.
And then, just as quickly, she denied it. “But I do not know this creature, and King Corineus will always be my true-blood sire.”
“How can it be that you have two fathers?”
Gwendolyn shook her head. “How can I know? All I know is that I am born of two worlds. Queen Eseld is—was—my mother, even as both Corineus and Manannán are my sires.” She had a moment’s deliberation about who might be her mother, but this was not something she remembered.
Bryn peered behind him at Emrys and Lir, both still chatting quietly with Amergin. He spoke low, so they could not hear. “You know… I always knew there was something.… odd about you,” he allowed. “But I believed it only because you strove to be so annoying.” He snickered, and Gwendolyn reached out to smack him on the arm.
“I confess I did, too… only now I wonder if the reason so many people viewed me so… differently… is that some saw my Fae spirit, others my humanity?”
“It could be.” Bryn nodded. “Makes sense. Although, for my part, I only ever saw a maddening little puck, who liked to poke me in the arse with her wood sword.”
Gwendolyn couldn’t help but laugh at his ignoble description. “Still, it confuses me,” she allowed, intent upon her thoughts. “Because why should so many who knew me so well—you and Ely included—not see me as Fae? And why, should those whose virtue was left wonting, see my Fae countenance?”
Bryn lifted his shoulders. “A warning, perhaps? Or mayhap the answer is much simpler than that, Gwendolyn. It was a test of their loyalty—an attestation that was meant for you more than for them?”
Gwendolyn considered that a moment. Certes, the sentiments of others had been too-easily revealed through their actions—if not at first, always in time. So, the gift might only appear to have been a cruel jest, and her golden mane only further corrected Gwendolyn when her own perceptions went awry—as with Locrinus. On the night of their wedding, when he’d clipped her hair, she saw him for exactly what he was—a monster, a fiend, greedy only for her name.
“And my mother?”
“It is hardly my place to say, and who knows what Queen Eseld saw in you, but I would say that a mother knows her own babe.”
In all Gwendolyn’s years, her mother had never actually mistreated her beyond trying to appease her curiosity. But she had been relentless in her search for the truth.
“What matters most is that she loved you,” said Bryn. “Fault her for her methods, but I never once saw her do ought to injure you.”
Gwendolyn’s brow furrowed. “What would you call subjecting me to endless probing, only to prove my humanity?”
Bryn turned to her, lifting a brow. “What wouldyoudo if you discovered a changeling in your child’s crib? What mother would not call a thousand physicians to heal a sick babe?”
“But I was not sick,” Gwendolyn argued. “I was?—”
