“I trust you’re not severely injured? I appreciate you holding them off for me.”
“Of course,” said Belis, tugging her sleeves down over the bitemarks on her arms. “What have you found?”
Rhiannon finished cleaning the stone. “Pass me a waterskin,” she said.
Belis fumbled in her pack and handed one to her. I crouched down, looking at the slab. There were deep lines carved into the stone, interlocking like knots. They seemed familiar but I couldn’t quite place them. Rhiannon pulled the top off the skin and emptied it onto the marble. I sighed. That was all the water we had left.
The water sank into the lines, trickling around until the entire carving was covered. Belis squatted beside me.
“It’s the valley we’re in,” she said, “that’s the path the streams were making.”
I looked more closely and saw she was right: the pattern swirled to an inner circle. Even now the water was beginning to flow the way the streams had before we’d stepped onto the island.
“So that’s us, in the middle?” I pointed towards the centre. Rhiannon slapped my hand away.
“Don’t touch it,” she snapped. I withdrew my stinging hand. “Yes, I think so. This is the heart of the corruption. I’ve never seen it before. It’s more than just some disease, I think, it’s a fundamental wrongness. I thought that it must have been fae mischief but it’s not. I think it stems from the living world…”
“You said this began almost twenty years ago. When exactly did you notice it?”
Rhiannon screwed up her face in concentration. “Nineteen, no, eighteen summers ago. Early in the summer, when the blossom was beginning to fall.”
Belis slammed her fist on the ground. “Eighteen years ago was when the Romans invaded, Rhiannon! I was five years old. I remember the druids whispering that troops were massing on the mainland. My father told them not to worry, that ancient spells girded the island, that no invading army could pass through.”
“That’s true,” Rhiannon said. “I was there the last time the spells were renewed, written in the blood of forty chieftains.”
“The Romans must have undone the spells, perhaps allied with one of the rulers who lost their land under Cymbeline,” I said. Belis glanced at me, surprised.
“You know of Cymbeline?”
“I do pay some attention to the kingdoms of men,” I muttered. “Especially when their armies clash and leave me a thousand souls to collect.”
“It doesn’t matter how it happened,” Rhiannon said. “Those spells were braided into the heart of the island, both living and dying realms. If they were broken the worlds would begin to splinter. The living island lost its protection, and the dead began to rot.”
“So the Roman greed for empire has brought pain and destruction even to the land of the dead,” said Belis, her voice sharp with bitterness.
“Less Roman greed than British treachery,” Rhiannon countered. “But we should put away our disgust at the past. There may yet be time for us to repair the future.”
“How?” I asked.
“The enchantments must be sung again,” Rhiannon said. “The worlds shifted back into their places.”
“Can you remember them?”
“I never forget a spell. The words aren’t the problem, nor the magic.”
“What else do you need?” Belis asked. Rhiannon stared at her.
“The magic requires more than mouthed words. It requires a sacrifice. I told you I saw the spells cast all those years ago. Forty kings and queens gathered together to pay the price. Each gave a cup of blood. There’s power in royal blood. Not from the rulerbut from the ruled. Each of those chieftains bore within them the love, the assent, of those they represented so that through them all the inhabitants of Britain came together to bind the island anew.”
“Royal blood,” Belis said softly. “You need me.”
“You are the only one who can serve.” Rhiannon’s voice was quiet.
“You can’t take all the blood from Belis alone,” I said. “You need pints of the stuff, you’ll kill her.”
“Like I said.” The old queen looked at my friend. “It requires a sacrifice.”
“No.” I grabbed her arm. “You can’t do it. You’re a queen, why can’t we use your blood, too?”
