Page 77 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
Delyth laughs, high as birdsong, and fixes me with a solemn, knowing look. “English’ll drown the town in a hundred years or so to provide water for Birmingham, of all places. Too many Welsh speakers in one place, and too many mining disasters to apologize for convincingly. By the time they shut the mines and put all those boys on the breadline, the names of the dead will be so many that they won’t fit on the plaque.”
She keeps walking while I pause and stare at the lake, trying to imagine some immense body of water in place of my town. All I can see is my little house, ripped from the terrace and sat atop this reservoir like an island. I can’t envision a world where that house doesn’t exist.
“Worst part is,” she continues quietly, “they never even use it. The reservoir just sits where we used to live, and there’s not even a sign to say that we were there. That we loved it so, that we’re still here.”
Something rips inside me, tears me clean in half. I don’t knowwhy. I’ve never liked Llanadwen, but it’smine. I don’t want them to take it, either.
We leave the lake, trudging over low, marshy hills covered in dead gorse. The wind picks up, and it carries with it the salt of the sea. I think we’re getting close—not just to Y Lle Tywyll, but to the very end of Eu gwlad itself.
When I reach it, this story must end, too. All stories need endings. But first, I must become a hero.
“How did you win immortality if Y Lle Tywyll didn’t exist?” I ask.
If she’s surprised by my curiosity, Delyth doesn’t show it. “The king fell in love with me.”
The ageless king she was afraid to share her family with. The king that took away her twitch for his benefit. I wonder if that’s love, or if it’s something else entirely.
“Ah, well,” I sigh, “that’s off the cards for me, then.”
“Maybe a king is off the cards as you say, but certainly not a prince.”
“Unlikely.” My hand unbuttons my pocket, wanders inside, and prods uncertainly at the dead flesh of his amputated finger. “I maimed him on my way out.”
Delyth giggles. “Oh, he’ll like that!”
I release the severed finger and clamp my mouth shut. Delyth leaves space for me to explain, but I have no idea what to say. Instead, I ask, in a voice so small it hardly sounds like me, “Do you regret it?”
Delyth’s hands twist as they clasp each other. Ceridwen stands like that, when she wants to say something but can’t find the words.
“I can’t profess to know what life would have been otherwise,” she admits. “I assume I’d be the sad, haggard widow of a miner. Sometimes, though, I wonder what I would have looked like with white hair, and when I dream, I’m always with my sister.”
“If you could go back—”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “Don’t ask me that. Please. This is the story I told. It’s the only one I’ll ever get. Don’t make me open another book and find one that’s better.”
“But… what do I do?”
She pauses. Her eyes open and flick up to the watercolor wash of gray, then back to me, and a small smile plays on her lips. “You’ll know.”
24
byd y dynion
(THE WORLD OF MEN)
Delyth and I stand atop a windswept coastline, buffeted by dagger gales cast down from dark, silver-laced clouds. The sea below us is murky gray, roiling against sharp cliffs. I squint into the white haze of the horizon, eyes straining against the cold air and the great expanse of the violent ocean, which stretches past comprehension.
“How far does it go?” I ask.
Delyth’s long hair whips my face as she turns to answer. “I don’t know. No one that’s still here knows.”
“You used to be human,” I say. “Where has your curiosity gone? Did you lose it somewhere on the way to eternity?”
She bites the inside of her cheek. “You have my sister’s sharp tongue.”
“What’s in the rest of this world?” I say instead. “Is there an Ireland that way with leprechauns and a Greece somewhere south that’s still ruled by gods on a great cloud?”
Delyth shrugs. “Why don’t you go yourself and tell me? It’s never occurred to me to look for more, but what you seek now is not at sea.”
