Angharad of Llyr is heir to a matriarchy: a line of enchantress-queens that has ruled her island for centuries. Her destiny from birth: to rule as sole authority and ensure that her powerful bloodline endures for another generation. Devoted to her p...
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"There's been another slide."
The words were delivered through pale lips that set themselves in a flat, thin line when they were done. The messenger who brought them kept his eyes averted, downturned, as though unwilling to witness the reaction to them.
He need not have feared it. Angharad, darting a quick, perceptive glance toward her mother, saw the queen's chest rise and fall once, heavily, but Regat's carved-marble face remained impassive, her dark eyes unreadable. When she spoke, her voice did not waver. "Where?"
The man's gaze flickered a little up and vaguely toward the left, still carefully avoiding that of his monarch. "The eastern coast, at the village of Llamorset." He swallowed. "It happened in the night. Half a dozen cottages were lost; six families, along with their livestock, while they slept. Twenty-three in all. They recovered two bodies on the beach this morning; children."
Angharad sucked in her breath, but Regat still made no indication of distress. "Did the seawall afford no protection?"
"The wall was taken, your Majesty, from its north end, two-thirds along. You know that Llamorset had built right up to it." He shut his mouth suddenly and took half a step backwards, as though he had said more than he meant. "It...the entire slope crumbled from below. They are evacuating the remaining houses at the edge."
"Thank you." Queen Regat waved him away. "We shall see to the rebuilding of the wall, and to the relief of those misplaced. I shall send an emissary to assess the needs tomorrow. You may go."
The man looked taken aback, and wavered a moment. He glanced in Angharad's direction; she chewed at the insides of her cheeks, and gave him a curt nod. Not until he had bowed himself out and the heavy oak door had shut on his heels did she speak, turning to the queen indignantly.
"Mother. To send him away with no other message?"
"What would you have me tell him?" Regat, bending over the herbs in whose processing they had been interrupted, picked up mortar and pestle as though their weight had doubled. Now that the interloper was gone, weariness and grief were evident in her face and bearing, but her voice was hard. "When the people persist, against all advisement, on building up to the very cliff edges, there will be loss."
"They're blaming us for it," Angharad countered, "for not outright forbidding the building at the edge. For not opening up the interior for settling when they asked, two years ago. You know they are. He almost said it."
"It is well for him that he did not," Regat murmured, darkly.
Angharad fell silent, warned by the tone, and attended to the bunches of dried lavender in her hands, snipping the ties and shaking the pale gray-purple buds into the parchment spread on the table. She scooped them into a pile, breathed in the scent to calm herself, steadying her will before she spoke again. "You could have at least assured him that we are seeking the cause."
