Chapter 7
The grove is just beyond the garden wall, as Aneirin promised. I follow a moss-covered trail into stately hardwoods that overshadow the path. I have no idea how long I’ll wander before stumbling upon the High Emrys.
I round a bend, and a light catches my eye. Off the path a few meters, between two trees, a woman in pale lavender stands with her arms outstretched in front of her, as if she is ready to catch raindrops from the heavens. A glow haloes her body. Her silver-blond hair grazes her lower back.
I nearly drop to my knees.
From behind, she looks so much like Niawen.
The woman doesn’t turn, but soft words drift toward me. “One moment, Kenrik. I’ll be right with you.”
I brace myself against a tree, drawing a deep breath before I step off the path. She is beauty. She is purity. I am overwhelmed by the awe of her presence.
I stand before grandeur. The High Emrys is beyond the grace I felt in Niawen, even the grace I carry.
When I am ten feet from her ladyship, close enough to see her face, I startle. A furry bundle drops out of the sky, and the High Emrys catches it in her arms.
Not raindrops from heaven, then.
The High Emrys brings the bundle up to her chin and smiles. “He’s not very good at gliding yet.”
I try to make out what is in her hands. “Is that . . . ?”
“A flying squirrel. He misjudged his landing.”
“And you knew he’d be plunging from the sky just now?”
She doesn’t answer me. The High Emrys whispers strange words to the little critter and touches her nose to his before setting him on the ground, where he promptly scurries off.
“Well,” she straightens. “Kenrik, I see you are full of questions.”
“You already know who I am.”
“I know a lot of things. I was expecting you today.” She turns toward me. As she lifts a leg above the forest floor, her creamy, bare foot gleams with inner light. “So”—she turns her palms outward—“you are human but not human. Emrys but not emrys. You’ve changed.” She holds her hands a few inches from my body and sweeps them around my face and shoulders, stirring the air against my face and neck.
“What am I, then?”
Her hands settle near her thighs. “Something else entirely.”
“Niawen gave me her light to heal me. But why did she have to give me all of it?”
“She didn’t understand that your mortal body doesn’t share the same capacity to hold light as an emrys’s body does. Since your human heart-center couldn’t contain that much light, your body absorbed it. You are right to say that it’s in your blood and in your bones, that it’s fused to you. It cannot be harnessed the way emrys harness light, yet I see that it has given you enhanced attributes. What have you noticed so far?”
“Great speed. Strength. Remarkable hearing.”
“Yes. Typical of an emrys. What else?”
“Premonition. I see what to do before it happens.”
“Really?” Her green eyes brighten, actually brighten with light. “That is quite amazing. I sense that your body is not done with its transition. You may yet notice more enhanced capabilities as time passes.”
What more can I expect? “Am I immortal? I didn’t take Niawen’s immortality, did I?”
“As for your mortality, I cannot say. As for her immortality . . . her light will return. Slowly, but it will.”
“How’s that possible when she gave all of it to me?”
“Our heart-centers constantly regenerate light. Even if we take out all that we currently possess, new light will enter and fill the space. It takes time, but she will be whole once more.”
“Her light is the source of her immortality?”
So I might be immortal. I might not age. I’m not sure how I feel about that, especially after seeing how Niawen didn’t like watching her loved ones die.
“Her light is what regenerates her body. She’ll be quite vulnerable for a time. She’ll even age a bit, not much that anyone will notice.” The High Emrys winks.
Relief practically overwhelms me. “All I want is her safety.”
“I know, dear.”
“What of the bonds between Caedryn and me? When I took Niawen’s light, her bonds with him transferred to me.”
“Yes. This is very interesting. It was a theory I suspected, but no one in Gorlassar has ever tested it because no one has ever willingly given up their light and transferred it to another.”
“Can I break the bond? Can I get rid of this light?” I almost reach out. I almost grab the High Emrys to shake her, to make her understand how badly I want to sever my connection with a mad man.
“Caedryn and Niawen bound their lights together when they were united through marriage.” The High Emrys holds her palms in a cupping position. “Two lights together became one, inseparable.” She brings her hands together. “Light can’t be divided once it is mixed, but it can be split, so each person carries a portion of the conjoined lights. And since your light fused to you, you cannot take your light out as Niawen had. You will be bound to Caedryn unless he takes his light out to remove the bond.”
“So I am at his mercy.”
“Indeed.”
I stare off into the distance, not wanting to believe the truth. I speak with measured words, wishing the trees would swallow me up. “I’ll never be rid of him. Everywhere I go, I’ll endanger those I love because Caedryn will stalk me. He’ll continue to send his assassins, day and night.”
She touches me then. Her delicate hand closes around my wrist, raising it between us. Her middle finger traces the veins in my wrist and swirls circles in my palm, bringing back a memory between Niawen and me.
I traced the veins in her wrist, trying to convince her she was just as human as I was—because of her emotions—her compassion—her guilt.
You bleed as I do. You breathe as I do. You sin just as I do. The Creator made me just as he made you, I told her.
She was so hurt after killing those men.
“I’m sorry I can’t take this from you,” the High Emrys says.
“Is my future doomed to be one of torment?”
“Not forever. You will find peace, but it will come after much tribulation.”
“Where is Niawen now?” I ask. “Is she safe? Do you know what’s become of her?”
“You can learn that yourself.”
“How?”
“Tell me, have you been able to sense her?” she asks. “To see her?”
“Yes. But they’re usually dreams.”
“No. They are reality.” The High Emrys smiles. “Though you are, or rather were, a human, I will tell you a secret. All beings who come into the universe are given a portion of the Creator’s light. Humans do not have the ability to harness the light in their heart-centers, and they cannot carry the amount of light that emrys do, but they do have discernable light in their heart-centers.”
“What does this mean?”
“Before you parted from Niawen, after she’d given you her light, something happened between you, didn’t it?”
“We escaped from Caedryn’s citadel,” I say. “She was weak. I had all her light. We waited in the city until we could safely leave at night. And we parted ways so Caedryn would follow me and she could escape.”
“And in that time together, something transpired between you two.”
Physically? Is that what she means? “I kissed her! I wasn’t going to let her go without making sure she knew how much I loved her.”
The High Emrys grins. “Yes. You unwittingly forged two bonds with her.”
“What?”
“Mental bonds and emotional bonds are quite easy to forge, and with an emrys, they often happen without meaning to.”
“But she had no light to form a bond with!” I exclaim.
“She had a drop. A single drop. Much less than even you—a human—would possess. But it was enough. Your meager lights allowed those bonds to form.”
Creator above!
“Please tell me Caedryn can’t sense our bond,” I say.
“Your bonds with her are separate from your bonds with him,” she says. “But you must be careful what you think and recall, for Caedryn will hear and sense those.”
“Just not hear and sense things directly from Niawen.”
“Yes.”
“So it will probably be better for me to limit contact with her to keep her safe,” I say.
“Probably.”
“But I can find her if I choose.”
“Yes,” the High Emrys says.
My shoulders lower as my body relaxes. These emrys and their bonds. This is nothing that I could have ever expected.
It gives me hope nonetheless.