Home > The Forgotten Kingdom (The Lost Queen Trilogy #2)(4)

The Forgotten Kingdom (The Lost Queen Trilogy #2)(4)
Author: Signe Pike

I turned back to find that Angharad was not listening and fought the compulsion to throw up my hands. Such inattention from a novice was inexcusable. But Angharad was my kin, and the girl had never before visited a circle. I held my tongue and watched her explore, fingers tracing the pale lichen that bloomed from the speckled skin of a stone.

But then.

It was as if the air around us had gone cold. I looked up, expecting to see a swift-moving storm, but the sky was cerulean, dotted with fat, friendly clouds. Strange. Yet there could be no question—the atmosphere had shifted. I could scarcely focus on Angharad’s form, my sight gone blurry.

Stones had a particular fondness for the attention of children. But with Angharad in the stones, this was something more. Ill at ease, I closed my eyes and turned inward, searching for the cause of such a shift, and felt suddenly as if I were being observed.

Nay, not observed.

Stalked.

My blood beat against my temples. These stones were born of my own kin. Never before had I felt such malevolence. What dared stalk me now? What dared stalk my niece?

Angharad stood with her palms pressed flat against a stone. I strode into the ring, but she did not notice my presence. The wind shifted again, but now the smell that met my nose was rank, like flesh gone rotten. I did not wish to speak, fearful of lending more power to this unnamable thing, yet I could sense it, a shadow approaching, traveling across the ages. Ancient. Such power stirred I nearly reeled.

A strange look had come over Angharad’s face.

“Angharad, step back.” I spoke evenly, not wishing to cause her alarm. But the child did not hear me. It was as if she were entranced. “Angharad. Step back, I said.”

Pulling her from the rock was a danger, too abrupt. She had clearly joined some part of herself with the stone. There was risk in tearing her away that all of her might not return. But I could not wait. Reaching out, I yanked Angharad’s hands from the granite and drew back, startled, as she rounded on me, crying out as if wounded.

“It is coming for you! It comes for my mother!” she cried, then slumped against me, boneless. I caught her limp body in my arms. She weighed little more than a sack of feathers. Her freckled skin had gone waxen.

“Angharad. Speak to me. Are you all right?”

Even as I held her, even as I questioned, I knew what had taken place. Angharad had experienced a Knowing.

My tutor Cathan was wont to have them, but he’d held such mastery over himself, his utterances were more akin to a common suggestion than a vision arrived from beyond the veil. Few Keepers I’d known had possessed sight equal to his. For me, divinity spoke through nature. Augury and rhetoric were my skills. Book learnings and king lists. Strategic maneuverings. I was a counsellor—an advisor—not a priest as such. Yet I knew some Seers suffered exertion from their visions, and I imagined the effect could be more taxing on someone young, one who did not yet know how to wield it.

The girl was far too open. Angharad had opened herself and something had come, something unbidden. And I had unwittingly placed her in danger.

I should not have brought her here, I thought. Not without yet understanding her. Then she stirred in my arms and my shoulders dropped with relief. Angharad looked up at me, blinking.

“I’m all right, Uncle. Truly.”

I studied her. “Nay, not quite. But do you think you might stand?”

Angharad nodded and I placed her down gently, searching her eyes. Her gray eyes were stormy, but thank the Gods, wherever her vision had taken her, it seemed all of her had returned.

“Angharad. You must tell me what happened,” I said.

“What happened…” She spoke slowly, as if only just remembering the use of her mouth.

“Aye,” I encouraged, and her gaze turned distant.

“The stone felt soft. Soft as a sea sponge. And empty. Hollow. As if I might push it. As if I might push it and fall right through.”

“And did you? Did you… fall through?” I watched her intently.

“No, for there was something else then. Something coming as if through a tunnel deep in the earth. It rushed toward me like a wind, fast as a thousand galloping horses.”

“And then? Angharad, I do not wish to press you, but I must know the entirety of what happened so I know you are now truly safe. This spirit. Did it feel an evil thing? A… beast of some kind? What did you see?”

She frowned, frustration mounting. “I saw nothing, Uncle! It was a feeling, that’s all.” She struggled to find the words to explain it. “It was… a Thing.”

“A Thing.” I drew her to me. “I should not have brought you here. Not so soon. There are things I must teach you. I made an error, one I shall not make again. I am sorry you were frightened.”

“But I was not frightened.”

I could not hold back my surprise. “Were you not?”

“Nay. The Thing did not come for me,” she said simply. “It came for you.”

A shiver traced my arms, and I pressed her more tightly. Then quite suddenly Angharad’s face shifted and she drew away, laughing. “What is it, Uncle? Why do you embrace me so?”

“I—I wish to comfort you.” I blinked.

“Comfort me? Whatever for?” She smiled. “I am sorry, Uncle, for I must not have been listening. I cannot recall what you did say! Tell me again what such stone rings were built for. I do so wish to explore.”

The child had no memory of the events that had taken place only moments ago.

“Nay, Angharad.” I reached for her. “Perhaps tomorrow. But the stones are before you. Now you have seen them! You will be hungry. Come, let us return to camp. The air grows chill. It will soon be time for supper.”

She furrowed her brow but followed nonetheless. As we picked our way back over the grassy tufts of moor, I puzzled over what had taken place. I had spent time in shadow. In caves and underground pathways. In ancient stone chambers built for the dead. I’d faced my own darkness and my share of shades—in this world and the other. Yet never had I encountered such a… Thing.

At our camp beside Wildburn, the night fire was crackling. We slathered on ointment to fend off the midges that swarmed with a vengeance. Dreon whittled a shaft of ash with his blade, shaping a new spear. We filled our stomachs with hot stew, and the men took turns recounting tales of the woods until Angharad’s lids dropped and she slept where she sat. I picked her up and laid her gently on her bedding in the cart, tucking the sheepskin round her face, so peaceful now in sleep.

But I did not close my eyes that night for fear that the Thing, whatever it might be, should return, that Angharad would somehow be lost to me. I sat awake the long night, spine slumped against the wheel of the wagon, watching the shadows cast from the fire as they flickered and shifted, growing in the dark.

 

 

CHAPTER 2


Lailoken

“Uncle, why is it you have no wife?”

Angharad twisted in the saddle before me, searching my face in earnest.

We’d broken camp at sunrise, determined to reach the fort before evening. It was our third day on horseback and overcast—the air threatened rain. We had traveled scarcely a league, and it occurred to me now that the day would be interminable if this were to be Angharad’s line of questioning.

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