Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

L ong ago, in a time when Romans still roamed the lush green hills of Albion, Bleddynn, Deryn, and I lived in the sheltered and protected lands of Gwaed Lyn. I was the little prince, barely a century old, full of power, and a scholar of magic and the supernatural world. My mother was a flame-haired beauty, the Lady of the Lake, and a delight to all that knew her. She was compassionate and loving to all she met.

People spoke this way of the dead to make them out to be better people than they were, but in Deryn's case, it was all truth. She calmed my father's and my own rough tempers, putting us in our place when we were out of line, and soothed us with her laughter when we met with failure or frustration.

In that time, Gwaed Lyn was a haven. Humans came for knowledge and healing, and Deryn earned her title as the Lady of the Lake. Time and carefully placed lies had ensured Gwaed Lyn's anonymity, and the title of the Lady of the Lake had been used for lesser women, such as Nimue and Morgan, but there was only ever one, and that was Deryn. The few humans that lived or worked on our lands saw that none of us aged. Yet, they knew they didn't have to fear us. Deryn cared for them as she did her mortal family who took up the surname of Wylt.

From the earliest years, the Autumn Queen had seemingly stayed her hand from attacking us, so Nimue was the first of Seelie blood I had ever seen. I was walking in the woods when I came across the cave Nimue had been hiding in. I knew from the moment I saw her that we were somehow made from a similar cloth. She had been born in a human village, and then as she had aged and her powers started to manifest, she had been shunned and eventually hunted as a witch. I convinced her to come back to Gwaed Lyn where she could be safe.

Bleddyn knew in an instant that she was of Seelie blood, and if it weren't for Deryn's intervention, he would have slain her on the spot. One drop of her blood confirmed what Bleddyn had suspected. She was the half-bred Seelie daughter of none other than Ryn Eurion.

You must remember that these were older, wilder times when humans knew the fae kind. More than once did a love-struck human maid fall victim to Seelie charms. Nimue claimed no knowledge of her parentage, and fearing the damage her power could have if left unchecked or untaught, Bleddyn and Deryn agreed that she could stay at Gwaed Lyn.

She became my Brentisiaid , my very first apprentice. She was a quick and clever student, more than a match for any proud young man. I won't tell you how I fell for her, how my every waking moment and every breath in my body pulsed with her name and ached when we were apart. It was more than her beauty or her mind that drew and astounded me at every turn. It was the full knowledge that we were the same. Both torn between two worlds and two wars that we were too young to comprehend.

Gwaed Lyn was and still is a protected place set completely apart from the turmoil of the world. It was our haven devoted to learning magic and each other. Deryn loved Nimue, and even Bleddyn learned to tolerate her. We were a family.

When Ryn attacked us, we were nearly defenseless. The wards around Gwaed Lyn had been weakened, allowing Ryn and his raiding party to enter undetected. They managed to capture Bleddyn, but my mother was a fierce and jealous lover, and she would never have allowed the Autumn Queen to lay a finger on her husband. She attacked the band with Widow's Fury , cutting through his jailers and freeing my father.

Where was I? I had been trying to get Nimue out of harm's way, and she turned on me. She trapped me in a tree. I was stuck fast, forced to watch as Ryn, glamoured to look like Bleddyn, put arrows in my mother. I watched the light in my father's eyes die as blind fury consumed him with a bloodlust that couldn't be slaked. Ryn and Nimue escaped as his men sacrificed themselves to cover them.

Leaving me trapped in the tree wasn't a part of Nimue's plan. She was meant to gain my allegiance, and then take me to the Aos Si for the Autumn Queen to kill or convert. But after years of waiting, the queen had become impatient and sent Ryn. The Autumn Queen didn't manage to capture me, but Deryn's death cut to the very heart and soul of Gwaed Lyn.

The loss of my mother destroyed Bleddyn and I both. After he helped free me from the tree, I left Gwaed Lyn. He blamed me for Deryn's death, having warned me of Nimue from the start. I blamed myself wholly and completely. I lost the two great loves of my life that day and had estranged the other, so I fled—mad with grief, rage, and heartache. I wandered until I found myself in the heart of Celyddon Forest, but my time there and how I found my way back to the land of the living centuries later is a story for another time.

So now you know, my friends, that even the strongest and most intelligent man can be destroyed by love; that no one can ward against its power; that there is no cure for the pain once it is gone.