C. E. Murphy - Wayfinder

With child, when Lara was certain that she had not gone again to Emyr’s bed. Only her mortal lover had come into Rhiannon’s arms, and in all the world, only three of them knew it.

Confrontation, so quick it had slipped by unseen in the greater view of history: Emyr, outraged, threatening Rhiannon; threatening the unborn child. Rhiannon, cool-eyed and not so capricious after all, warning that Annwn itself would come unleashed should she die or should the coming infant be harmed. She already lacked the power to stop his thievery, but she knew of it. She knew of it, and had made her single move against him.

And Oisín, watching, knew that Annwn’s footing changed, but not how or why. He would have stayed anyway, even beyond Rhiannon’s death, because the land was now his home, and like Rhiannon, it was fond of him. But he stayed for the child, as well, even knowing that Rhiannon’s blood would breed true, that there would be no mark of mortality on the bright-haired boy born to a fairy queen and a mortal poet.

Not until the day Dafydd asked if he might have the staff that so reminded Oisín of his mother. Not until the ivory stave had reacted eagerly, images of destruction sluicing through Oisín. Destruction and then temperance, even against the weapon’s own desires: the very land whispered a promise that it would not be ruined, not if Rhiannon’s younger son wielded the staff against his nominal father. Annwn might be restored, if that battle came to pass.

But not when Dafydd was still little more than a boy, uncertain of his own elfin powers, much less the mortal blood that connected him to a cycle of life in a way no Seelie could ever quite echo. He was ephemeral, capable of choosing a mortal existence, and in that way, didn’t belong to Annwn at all. And only those who were other , whose magic the staff couldn’t subsume, could master.

Dafydd was a dying goddess’s last stand against the kings who had taken her power.

Lara shook herself, throwing visions off to gawk at Dafydd, whose expression mirrored her own. When he finally spoke, it was with a child’s incomprehension, picking one irrelevant detail out of the mass of information he’d come into: “But Emyr’s already dead. Or out for the count, at least.”

“Not even a goddess can plan for everything.” Oisín gestured to Lara and the staff. “She awaits you, Dafydd. Together you will master the magic and raise the lands, and Annwn will be restored.”

Dafydd looked from Oisín to Lara and back again, then swore. Clearly refusing to give himself time to think, he stalked forward and caught the staff on either side of Lara’s hands.

Magic and music erupted around them.

Lightning spattered, Dafydd’s elemental gift seized by the storm. It arced toward the water and the sky, reached for Oisín and the others, and the staff shrieked anger when Dafydd’s wordless howl called it back and refused its unleashing upon his friends.

It tried again, throwing forth an impulse to drive ivory into the sand, so it might ground itself and break the world apart. Lara shouted that time, familiar with the desire, and called on a strength she didn’t know she had to keep Dafydd from upending the weapon and doing as it asked. “Stop it, stop it, don’t listen to it!”

Dafydd bellowed, “I’m not!” but the lie of it was in his voice, and he knew it as well as she did. Lightning flared again, making a cage around them. Triumph surged through the staff and the electrical cage collapsed, dropping close enough to singe Lara’s arms before it dissipated under Dafydd’s frantic control. “It wants, it wants—”

“It wants to command your magic and destroy the Barrow-lands!” Lara shouted. “Like it did with Ioan’s in Boston! But it’s your magic, Dafydd! Yours, and if you’re part mortal, then it can’t just take over the way it did with Ioan! You have to let it and so help me God, if you let it, I’ll … I’ll …”

A completely boyish grin broke through his panic, disarming not only Lara’s warning but also the staff’s strength, as though it relied on terror to overwhelm him. “You’ll what, Miss Jansen?” Dafydd asked with cheery confidentiality. “What threat does a tailor make? Seven at one blow? Will you slay me a giant, then?”

“I’ll kick you in the shins.” Wet hair was in her mouth, across her face, and the storm screamed around them just as the staff roared impotence in their hands, but Lara laughed as Dafydd looked disappointed. “I’m sorry. It’s the best I’ve got. Now, listen—”

“I am.” The laughter was gone from his face, wonder replacing it. “Lara, there’s song in the storm. Kettlehead drums and rainsticks and cymbals and—”

“That’s its power,” she whispered beneath all those instruments and more besides. “You’ll be here forever, naming them. But I was talking to the staff. Listen ,” she said to it again. “You recognize Dafydd’s power, don’t you? You can’t make it do what you want, but it connects you to this world in a way I can’t, so if he lets you use it, if you let him and me direct you, then you’ll have your chance. You want to wreak havoc, we can do it. We can uplift the land and send the ocean back. Changes that will break the world. Those are your choices. Take it or leave it.”

Resentment churned through the weapon, but its acquiescence was never in question. Not to Lara, at least; she had carried it long enough now to understand its rage wanted release in whatever manner it could get it. Dafydd, though, raised a startled gaze to her as the staff quieted, readying itself to be used. “How do we direct it?”

“Listen to the song.” Lara closed her eyes, reaching for the land’s song, so long drowned by the sea and corrupt kings. It lay below the surface fury, below the thrashing music of the storm, below the stirring earth that responded to the lashing waves. Those were mutable, and had been in so many ways mutated, with Emyr and Hafgan remaking the world in their own image.

But beneath that lay the music of the sea and of the sky; of Llyr and Caillech, who had come together to make the child who became Annwn’s goddess. That song remembered everything, its notes stretching so far back through time that even now the reverberations were from a tune plucked aeons in the past. That music knew how the land and sea had once been, and how it might yet be again, if the crushing weight of Seelie magic was lifted.

Lara whispered, “Sing to me. Show me the way,” and light flew apart from every aspect of the universe.

It was almost like the true path she’d laid down to escape the burning Unseelie city. Almost like the great golden tear through time that had shown them the story of Rhiannon’s fall. Almost, and yet entirely unlike either.

Ancient land formations rose as crescendos of music, fixed in place by light that pinned them to the sky. Orchestras drove the waters back, chased by pathways of light and held where they belonged by an archaic sense of rightness. This, Llyr’s voice sang to her, this was how the valley once was; this was the land she had walked beneath the waters, gifted with his ability to survive there. This was an image of how it was, a true vision, but not even a truthseeker’s magic could unmake the past.

Lara hung on to the staff, hands aching with effort as she held in mind the true landscape, long since drowned. Time fought her, demanding its due: it shot piercing notes through the brilliance holding magic in place. Here and there it won, shattering the way it had been into something new and different. No one and nothing could stop time forever; its ravages would have left their mark whether Emyr drowned the lands or not. Lara held against it as best she could, clinging with all her failing strength.