"Pour everything out for the blood you have shed, you're wasting your time in appeasing the dead."
- Aeschylus
Hate begets hate, violence begets violence; it's as sure as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Uther Pendragon sowed the...
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Memory is a funny thing, fickle and ever-changing; no detail is safe from its prying hands.
Long years had passed since the night her world burst into flames, and while she was once able to recall the night with perfect accuracy, age and time have stripped her of that ability. Elin Rhyl finds that which remains is not the smell of woodsmoke or the vibrant scarlet cloaks her attackers wore but the beauty of the night above her shattered kingdom.
It was a spring night deep in the forest where Beladur lay, the winter cold breaking way to months of rain and green. The sky, a transparent tapestry of stars and midnight blue, left Elin's heart yearning for flight. But instead, she stood in the nursery, cradling her daughter's small body in her arms, rocking the coughing child to sleep.
Mairead had taken ill that morning, waking from a restless sleep with a fever. Elin had spent the day looking after her, tending to the toddler, coaxing her to drink potions and sweetened teas that Elin had concocted. From dawn to dusk, the Queen's day was contained in the four walls of the nursery.
While her youngest child struggled to sleep, Elin's eldest had no such issue.
Osian, an energetic young boy of six years, was fast asleep in his bed. Wrapped in a thin blanket, his legs and arms were spread across the bed, askew like the starfish they hunted for at the beach. The sight lightened Elin's heavy heart, the stress of the past weeks easing for just a moment.
Ever since Igraine Pendragon's death in childbirth, there had been whispers among Beladur's subjects. None boded well for the magical folk of their land, all dark and horrid rumors that left Elin and her husband in black moods. That was why Aneirin was not by his wife and child's sides; he was instead holed up in the library, desperately trying to contact his sister through the scrying glass. Elin didn't begrudge him that. She too worried for Nimueh, but she did fear it was a lost cause.
Elin and Aneirin had warned Nimueh about getting involved with Uther Pendragon, much less using magic at his bidding, but she didn't listen.
Nimueh insisted that it was for the betterment of their people to forge strong bonds with the surrounding kingdoms and to spread the Old Religion. While Elin agreed with the sentiment, she did not agree with the means of achieving such a goal.
What happened when an enchantment went awry or led to an unexpected outcome?
It could only end in disaster.
Still, Nimueh waved off their concerns. At times, she was young and idealistic, sure that the world was good and just, a beautiful outlook but not practical; Elin worried.
