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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The stones towered tall, dark giants rising from mist and shadow. They seemed to loom inward toward the space they encircled, as though to intimidate anyone foolish enough to enter it. She stood in the center of the ring, turning slowly to regard each one in turn, feeling an odd inclination to bow to them. Whispers teased at the edges of her hearing, as though the moment her back was turned, the ancient sentinels discussed her presence with disapproval.
I didn't come to take anything. She tried to say it, but no words came out. Only an empty breath, but the whispering ceased, replaced by foreboding silence. The mist swirled and quavered as though shaken by a draught, but there was no wind.
She tried to speak again. I've brought something instead.
A surge of magic condensed from the air, from the ground; it pushed her backwards and then forwards and she stumbled and fell, cutting her hands upon the rough stone beneath her. The same power buoyed her back up, enveloped her, shrank itself small and potent, a pulsing light that came to rest on her own breast. It was searingly hot; she grabbed it away from her skin and realized she held her own pendant. The gem glowed like captured fire, azure and emerald and gold and sunset colors she had no name for. She pulled the chain from her neck and held it up like an offering in her scraped and bloodied fist.
The whispering began again and rose to a murmur and then a roar, full of sounds that made no sense, voices speaking in a cacophony of unintelligible words. A sudden gale tore at her, swinging the pendant wildly in her grasp; she clutched it and curled herself protectively away, crouching. Below her the ground glowed as though on fire; a path of golden light spiraled out from her feet, out and out; it reached the boundary of the stone ring and then broke beyond it, and the towering monoliths roared and crumbled, flinging shards and splinters of stone around her in a dusty grey storm. Beyond them, shimmering through the mist, she saw light, and sea, and sands silver-white stretching up to green hills under a full moon, felt a longing so powerful that her heart leapt and her body tensed to run toward it. But the ground shifted beneath her feet, groaning and quaking, and threw her down amongst the rubble of the stones, and the sea rose up in mountainous waves and rushed toward her, the roar of the water drowning out her scream...
"Milady!"
Angharad opened her eyes with a jolt, cold with dread. She found herself staring into Elen's face, pale in the light of a single candle. Elen had her by the arms, gripped as though in the midst of tussling with her; her eyes were wide and frightened.
"Llyr," the girl gasped, "I thought you'd never wake up."
"A dream." Angharad clutched at her, panting, trying to shake off the fear that gripped her. She shivered, realized she was sweating. "How did you..."
"You were shouting. Strange words I couldn't understand. And then you shrieked to wake the dead. If no one else heard it I'll be skinned...we'll have guards as guests any minute, I daresay. What was it?"
