Chapter 37
The convoy waits in tense silence. Even the horses seem to sense the danger, stamping nervously against the rocky bank. If not for the roar of the river, the anticipation would be deafening.
Taliesin kneels at the edge of the rapids and skims his knuckles across the water.
Almost instantly, frost blooms outward beneath his touch. Ice races across the river in twisting veins, spreading like creeping vines over stone. The temperature plummets around us, cold enough to burn. The forming bridge groans, then cracks violently as the rapids hurl themselves against it.
Gasps ripple through the convoy behind us. But Taliesin grits his teeth and forces the ice outward again.
The river fights him every inch of the way, smashing against the forming bridge hard enough to send sprays of freezing mist into the air. Ice and water battle for dominance. But the ice begins to win, pushing back the current until it stretches across the divide between the banks.
Taliesin closes his eyes. Sweat beads along his brow despite the cold. The ice thickens and widens and roots itself deep into the riverbed.
“Go,” he croaks out, the word nearly swallowed by the crackle of the ice and the relentless churn of the river battering against it like a war hammer.
I lurch to my feet and turn toward Rhian. “Go.”
“No,” Taliesin grunts immediately. “You first.”
“Taliesin, I—”
“You fucking first, Angharad.” He plunges his hand deeper into the ice, and a violent crack splits across the surface before sealing itself again. His entire arm trembles from the effort. “Stop distracting me and go.”
“Just do it,” Rhian says gently, placing a hand on my back to urge me forward. “It’s fine. We’ll be right behind you.”
I frown. I don’t like this. The harp is more important and should clearly go first. But one look at Taliesin’s strained expression, and I can tell there’s no point arguing.
I step onto the ice carefully, every muscle in my body tightening to a brittle point. The bridge shudders beneath my boots. Cold bites through the leather soles and climbs straight into my bones. Beneath the cloudy surface, dark water churns and crashes like a storm.
I force myself not to look at it for too long.
Instead, I stare ahead at the opposite bank and move forward one small step at a time, arms held out for balance. Water hammers against the ice hard enough to send shivers travelling up through my legs.
Behind me, the convoy springs into action. Rhian’s voice cuts through the noise, directing people into position while the harp’s wagon slides onto the bridge first. The wheels creak against the ice. The horses whinny, their hooves scraping and slipping as they’re coaxed forward.
Then the bridge releases an almighty crack. Heart lurching, I glance back before I can stop myself.
Taliesin is still kneeling at the riverbank with one hand thrust deep into the ice, his head bowed.
Frost has crawled up the length of his arm now, tracing white patterns across the dark fabric of his sleeve.
Every few seconds, fractures burst across the bridge, only to freeze over again beneath the force of his magic.
“Keep moving!” Rhian bellows at me.
Clenching my teeth, I turn and move on.
The farther out I get, the more exposed I feel, suspended over all that violent water with nothing but Taliesin’s willpower holding the bridge together. Mist lashes against my face, and my fingers ache with cold.
The wagon inches painfully slowly across behind me.
I swallow around the lump in my throat and force myself onward until my boots finally scrape against dirt instead of ice. I stumble onto the riverbank.
Relief shudders through me.
I turn immediately, my breath fogging the air as I look back across the river. From this side, the bridge appears terrifyingly thin and fragile. The convoy crawls over it, so slowly my bones feel like they’re itching to jump from my skin.
And Taliesin is still kneeling, holding the whole thing together by sheer force alone.
“Angharad,” a familiar voice calls from the trees lining the bank behind me.
Instantly, the world around us seems to slow. Heart thumping a painful beat, I slowly turn. Osian stands just beyond the treeline, alone. He wears his Order leathers, his star pin at his throat. And the golden light of his eyes calls to me, like a candle in the dark.
It’s a trick.
“What do you want?” I ask in a steel-hard voice I’ve never used toward him before. “Actually, better question. What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I’m here to tell you something, Angharad,” he says pleadingly. He holds up his hands to show he carries no weapons, like a sword might be the problem instead of…literally everything else.
I glance over my shoulder at the convoy. They’re almost three-quarters of the way across now. If I sound the alarm too early, everyone will panic. I can’t risk the bridge cracking beneath hurried steps and sending the whole lot of them into churning darkness.
I turn back to Osian. He hasn’t moved a step, but there’s something strange in his eyes now. A gleam I find wholly unnerving.
“Are you here alone?” I demand.
“Angharad, you must come back with me,” he says, still pleading, his voice soft and almost desperate.
“There’s been a horrible misunderstanding.
The Order would never harm you. I hope you know that.
They’re trying to restore what was lost and fix the broken sky.
” His eyes flick to the convoy behind me.
“The rebels are the ones who want to control all magic for themselves. Think about it. They have nothing. And with magic in their hands, they can finally rip our kingdom apart. They will rule us all.”
My heart pounds. In all my life—or at least the life that I can remember—Osian has never spoken so softly to me. There’s always been a hard edge to him. I never noticed it before, but I do now.
My own voice hardens. “You didn’t answer my question. Are you here alone?”
His body shudders, like he’s trying to fight the command. Like something in him is straining against it. But he can’t. None of them can.
“No.” The word rips out of him.
And then the world truly stops.
I cast a desperate glance over my shoulder.
The wagon is only inches from the riverbank now.
As soon as the wheels hit dirt, I know what will happen.
Whoever Osian has hiding in the trees will surge forward and go straight for the harp.
But if the rebels turn back, they won’t make it to the other side.
Taliesin already looks seconds away from collapse, his strength close to breaking point.
I whirl back toward Osian, my heart hammering. “What do you plan to do?”
“Kill the rebels and take the harp,” he answers automatically.
Anger and fear pound through me.
“And me?” I ask, my voice hitching.
“We have chains for you.” A muscle in his jaw twitches. “We’re to take you to Caer Draen dungeons.”
“So you didn’t need to talk to me,” I whisper. “Tell me how you’re here, Osian. Why aren’t you in the lab anymore?”
“They thought you might yield to me, so they sent me with the message I gave you.”
Heat surges up my neck. “So they’re using you against me. Again.” Tears burn at the edge of my vision. “How much of it was real, Osian? Our friendship?”
His gaze drops. “At first, yes, but not as much in the past few years. I was meant to be your emotional anchor to them.”
Something piercing and violent pounds behind my ribs. I can’t listen to any more of this.
Behind me, the wheels grind over the pebbles along the shore, and a fresh spike of panic runs through my heart. If I don’t do something, they’ll all be dead in minutes.
“Leave us be!” I roar at Osian, putting as much command into my voice as I can conjure, wishing for once my magic could control the resurrected.
But Osian does not have to answer to me. He’s not a revenant. And so when he lifts his hand and brings it down, signalling to those who are with him, I turn on my feet and run.
“The Order is here!” I shout at the convoy. “Weapons out!”
A flicker of confusion crosses Rhian’s face, but it’s gone in an instant.
She leaps forward from behind the wagon and draws her sword in one fluid motion.
Other fighters weave past the wagon, having reached the shore.
Only Taliesin remains on the far side. He meets my gaze across the rushing water, despair and anger written in every line of his face.
But I don’t have the luxury of focusing on him for a moment longer.
I yank my dagger from my hip sheath and join the band of rebel fighters gathering on the riverbank. A dozen Order members have emerged from the trees. A reckless tension tightens between two groups. Neither moves.
Sweat slickens my palm, and I clutch my dagger tighter. The sound of crackling ice and the building roar of the rapids tries to draw my attention away, but I don’t dare move an inch. The moment someone does, this bank will fall into chaos.
“Give us the harp,” Maelor says, moving to the front. Of course Osian brought him. “And no one has to die.”
I clench my teeth. “Osian already told me you plan to kill us all.”
“Us?” Maelor arches a brow. “The High Swynwragedd insisted you would never join the rebellion, that you being with them was against your will, or that there’d been some kind of mistake. But here you are, slithering with them through the mud like the worms you are.”
I spit at the ground, fury rising in me like a snake ready to strike. “Better a worm than a liar’s butcher.”
Maelor scowls and turns to his fellow Rhyfelwyr. “Kill them all except the Swynwraig. She’s coming with us alive.”
The Rhyfelwyr move forward in formation, Maelor at the center, the others fanning out behind him in triangular lines. For a long quiet moment, nobody breaks it. Then they all lunge forward as one.