“I see just fine, baby sister. I see that you rode into town in that spiffy car of yours on a quest to rebuild something that maybe would’ve better been set a match to.”
Ceridwen’s fingers flew to her mouth, and she swallowed audibly. She shook her head and held out her hand, in supplication perhaps, but Rhiannon had had enough.
“These aren’t my ghosts to lay to rest. You were so hellbent on it not being my place to do so twenty-two years ago, Ceri…”
Rhiannon felt more than heard her sister’s gasp at her use of the childhood nickname, and she let her shoulders droop. This day was a lost cause.
“I will go see Seren. And I will visit Victoria at the Tavern. And I will restore this place and do what I must. I have my reasons, sister. Trust me to at least have that much. Then I’ll leave. We all will do what we must and then the cards will fall as they will.”
“You know exactly how those cards were drawn, Rhiannon.” But Ceridwen’s voice held no malice, just resignation. Any othertime, especially twenty-two years ago, Rhiannon would have fought her tooth and nail to wipe that resignation off the face so like her own. Their younger sisters were twins, but Ceridwen and her looked more alike than Seren and Deryn. Seeing her own eyes look back with so much defeat, hurt, no matter how much bad blood separated them, stirred a different emotion in her.
Before she could say what might’ve been the most foolish thing to ever cross her lips, Ceridwen waved her off.
“Be that as it may, I know where you stand. Prudence, however, doesn’t. And now that you’ve unlocked what’s in her, she is your responsibility, Rhiannon. You know this.”
Well, all the goodwill she held for her sister evaporated in one fell swoop of Ceridwen’s precisely crafted manipulation. Did Rhiannon really think her older sister of all people would let sleeping dogs lie? Did she feel that she wouldn’t use the one ace left on the table to wreck Rhiannon’s hand?
“I know nothing. And neither do you.”
Ceridwen smirked, and Rhiannon hated the way the sly lips arranged themselves with that air of superiority. Arrogance ran in the family and they both wore it better than anyone, but in this particular moment Rhiannon despised it.
“Well, if you do nothing, it will be up to me to pick up the pieces. But then I always do, Rhiannon. Prudence will not be the first or the last of your broken dolls that I have to fix, sister. And be sure that I will do so.”
The wound in Rhiannon’s chest opened up with malice and almost screamed “Stay away from her!” Except she could see the triumph already in Ceridwen’s eyes, bright and proud, and so she bit her lip and held her tongue, curling her fingers into a fist, the pain searing her palm yet again, the skin where it had connected with Pru’s on fire anew.
“So stubborn, Rhiannon.” Then Ceridwen’s features sobered, all traces of vicious victory gone, and she was her unflappable,serious self once again. “I’m not goading you into embracing magic again. I can sense you haven’t done so in some time. However, that’s your business, tending to your power, to your storms. You know where to find the coven for help and a circle for payment, should you need them. But don’t for a second think that I would abandon someone like Prudence, unaware of what is happening, to the devices of a witch who is torturing herself by denying her own craft. I can’t do that. It goes against everything that I’ve been gifted. And you know it too.”
With that, Ceridwen stepped up to her and laid a tender kiss on her forehead before Rhiannon could push her away.
“You look like you’re holding up the sky all the while knowing it will crush you. It’s painful watching you do so. I don’t know why you’re here, baby sister. On the island and in this place where you’ve chosen pain again and again. But whatever it is that brought you back, I am grateful either way. I missed my sister.”
6
PRUDENCE, FAIR LADIES & NOBLE KNIGHTS
Patches bumped her head into Pru’s ankle, and she picked the possum up, absently scratching behind her fuzzy ears. The critter made her usual strange meowing sound of contentment and Pru kept scratching, if for nothing else than to give herself some time and to process what had happened earlier, just before the crowd of tourists interrupted her and Rhiannon.
Something had. Pru had no name for it, for the heat searing her palm, for the warmth coursing in her veins. For the dreamlike sunshine seemingly awoken under her skin.
She felt like floating, like smiling. It made no sense and yet strangely Pru didn’t question it. It was natural. It seemed entirely normal despite having an ethereal and fantastical quality to it. It also held no urgency at all. It was like coming home and finally inhabiting your own skin after years of wandering and being a stranger.
She wanted to laugh at herself. For thinking these thoughts that held neither rhyme nor reason. Her emotions were tangled in a sense of contentment, a feeling of peace she could neither explain nor had any desire to.
And yet something had happened. Something overwhelming. Momentous. Something within her reach, if only she dared to extend her hand and grasp it.
Pru was not naive about the place in the world she called home. Nobody who lived on the island and particularly not in the town of Crow’s Nest was entirely oblivious of the legend and myth surrounding it. But Pru thought herself a practical soul. Someone grounded and skeptical of the fantastical. And what had just happened, what had been happening since Rhiannon set foot on the island, the dreams, the feeling of being called and seen and suddenly brought to life… These were nothing short of fantastical.
She took a few steps toward the local guidebooks section and reached for a thick volume with golden trim. She had just sold two of these to the people who came in earlier, eager as they were for the island legendary history. It was a popular one, and during the season, gullible tourists scooped it up by the box. Pru had a standing order for a weekly delivery of this title. It sold better than romance, and as everyone in publishing knew, nothing much accomplished that feat.
Yet, Dragons past had its own allure. From the establishment of the mysterious school on the cliffs to the birth of the town surrounded by the stone giants and its quaint streets and charming lagoon.
Crow’s Nest was too small, and yes, quaint, to attract the wandering hordes that other islands in its vicinity did. But Pru liked it that way. From spring to fall, they had just enough tourists to maintain the local businesses to last the cold and scarce winters. The transformation of the old Tower on Viridescent Cliff into a state-of-the-art hotel had increased the number of tourists but had not as of yet disrupted the locals’ lives.
And the island’s pull on people remained, its legend only increasing the appeal of the idyllic geography.
Pru leafed through the pages of the guide until she reached the chapter she had been looking for. The Crow and the Dragons.
The witch who ran away from the noose and the Dragons that saved her, shielded her, her family, her descendants, and then stood to witness the curse that followed them to the shores and to the cliffs. Followed the magic. Followed the power…
