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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Joy and sadness. Darkness and light. Angharad knew that paradox well enough. She lived it daily, and never more than now.
She had not believed her eyes when first she had opened them to see Geraint standing there; could not comprehend, for a heartbeat, what he was — vision, apparition, miracle, or some fever dream, popping up in the most inopportune moment possible. In seconds her scrambling thoughts had registered the reality of him, and the wild joy and relief of knowing he was alive and free had nearly catapulted her off her seat to rush to him. It was Eilwen's touch at her shoulder that checked her, a warning nudge, and just as swiftly as it had risen, her ecstasy was engulfed in horror. Alive and free for how long, now that he was here? Here, before the queen, where she had ordered him not to come?
Terrified lest she had already given him away by her own reaction, she had forced down the inclination to burst into hysterical tears of relief and joy and fear....gods, couldn't she just once enjoy the experience of pure gladness? Must it always be tempered by something else? Even giving vent to uncomplicated grief might be a relief, for that matter...just...would she never cease to feel torn in endless different directions? How much more of her was there to break apart?
She had trembled, and the world had tilted sideways, blackness threatening at the edges of her vision. Eilwen had laid a hand on her again, whispered something, and she breathed deep until the darkness passed. She had felt the hush of the crowd, the focus of their attention, and knew everyone awaited her word, but she could not speak. The burning suspicion of Regat's stare flickered from Geraint's face to her own; Angharad felt it, a terrifying certainty. Her mother knew her well enough, and was no fool; Regat would guess, would know, and there was no escaping it...
But the queen would not make a scene here, before the entire court. So long as the ceremony went on, Geraint was safe, and after that, perhaps...perhaps...no, she would not think of after that; this moment alone was difficult enough to contain. And so Angharad devoured him with her eyes, drinking in the sight of him; his face was full of import, and she knew he had a reason for coming. Whatever he had to tell her, he would get his chance to tell it. That much, she could grant him, and when she rallied to speak to him, his words, as always, filled her with gladness in spite of herself.
She had seen his nervousness as he stood there; he had seemed, for a moment, smaller than he should, here in the crowds and hush and the dark vastness of the Hall, when she knew him as he looked standing tall and vibrant against a backdrop of sea and salt-grass, with wind in his hair and his eyes reflecting sky. But he changed; she saw it, knew the spine-tingling moment he forgot Self and became Storyteller. The familiar light in his eye, the power of his stance, the fire of his energy as he spoke, and his commanding gestures captured every eye in the room and held them at his pleasure. Her delight in him, her gladness that, at last, all could see his gifting for themselves and know the wonder that composed his very being, made her breathless.
