Her Cinder Throne (Completed)

Chapter 80

After another minute, the door to the home opened and the sound of two voices, murmuring and soft, filled the room. The female voice came close to the couch and Cole heard the sound of a small stool being drawn up. Then the deep and rusty sound of a bowed lyre dragged up, growing from soft and slow to more deep and steady.

The throaty drone of the lyre began to stir in Cole's mind, like deep pockets of mist across a moor. Images of ancient mountain halls filled with gold and animal pelts danced like firelight across her eyes, and she felt the weight of hundreds of lives that she had never lived. Lives of war and honor and survival. Lives from the deep and ancient past.

With wide eyes she turned her head to look at Tanwyn.

"It is the magic of the bards," Tanwyn explained in a whisper. "They can make you see... make you feel what they need you to in the space of a tale."

With the hushed tones of one who was suddenly in the presence of something scared, she whispered, "I see mountains. Warriors drinking warm ale and smoke mixing with snow."

Tanwyn nodded. "I see similar. Maelona sings of the halls of Rydedd. The land of the dead for those of the mountain Eldritch. She came from them, long ago."

Cole rolled back, staring up at the underside of the thatched roof. Maelona's bow drew steadily over the lyre and then her voice added to it, a sweet alto. Amongst the images of hunters come home to rest, her voice wound in the smiles of women with their hair loose, smiling at their infants as they rocked them by firesides.

As if an invisible hand dropped across her face, Cole found it almost impossible to keep her eyes open. Her whole body relaxed into her blankets, as comfortable and safe as if she was the infant being swaddled. The fire in the hearth seemed to burn brighter, telling them all that the night and its dangers were far away. They were tucked in safe and sound at home, where they could rest and sleep as long as they needed.

Tanwyn stirred at her side, and Cole slowly turned her head to look at him. He was already looking at her, his aqua eyes reflecting the light of the flame. She leaned forward, pressing her lips to his cheek before she realized what she was doing. Somehow it felt safe to do so. As if she had no worries that he might reject her, or that she might be forming attachments that could become dangers later on. Instead, she rolled over and forced herself to her knees, fighting against the lure of Maelona's floating voice. Peeking over the edge of the couch, she saw her mother, laying still and gentle across the cushions. The crease in her brow was gone, replaced with smooth skin and a gentle smile on her lips.

Cole's eyes trained upward, to where Cadfael sat in a chair, his chin dipping toward his chest and his eyes fluttering with sleep. He had wrapped himself in a fur blanket, ready for the sleep he must know was coming. Next to him, on a low stool that was nearly at the ground, a woman sat with a pine green gown spread around her. Behind her, delicate black wings fluttered in the air, like lace curtains in the breeze.

Two delicate leather slippers stuck out from her hem, her feet crossed at the ankles. A long braid the color of the space between the stars at night, fell across her shoulders, at contrast with her sparkling blue eyes. If the color of pure winter ice could be captured, and given to a human to place in their eyes, it must have been done for Maelona. The wintery gaze fell on the lyre laid flat across her lap, about the size of a small child, and the bow which she drew across it with one hand. Cole wouldn't have been able to tell anyone how old Maelona might be, which she was starting to see might be a trend with the Eldritch. But the melody slipping from her lips made Cole think that the Eldritch woman had seen many things that a single human lifespan could not cover.

The words were in Eldritch, which Cole could not understand, so she slipped back behind the couch and lay down in her blankets. Tanwyn was already asleep, so Cole let her own eyes slip closed. Her body let go, floating away on the foreign words and the deep drone of the lyre, into a world that she had never known but felt like she belonged in.