Dudod laughed. “I did indeed. Why don’t we go out by the pond, and I’ll play some songs for you? Would you like that?”
Rhiannon cocked a sardonic brow at Dudod. “Leaving me alone with the Dreamer? Thanks a lot.”
Gwen looked over at Gwydion. Pulling her dignity about her, she said, “We do not know each other.”
“I am Gwydion ap Awst var Celemon, Dreamer of Kymru,” he bowed.
“I am Gwenhwyfar ur Rhoram var Rhiannon, Princess of Prydyn. I am also clairvoyant and psychokinetic.”
“Are you now?” Gwydion said with interest. “Can you Fire-Weave?”
Gwen glanced at Rhiannon, who was standing stiffly by the hearth. “Um, not yet,” she replied.
“But you can Wind-Ride? And Life-Read?” he asked.
“I Wind-Ride very well. And Life-Read a little.”
“Ah. But the psychokinetic abilities—not quite familiar with them yet?”
“Mam doesn’t have them, so she can’t teach me.”
“Would you like to learn?”
“Oh, yes,” Gwen replied, her eyes shining.
“Well, perhaps I can arrange something.”
“Perhaps you could leave the arrangement of my daughter’s education to me,” Rhiannon said sharply.
Dudod rose and took Gwen’s hand. “Well, you two have a great deal to talk about—”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Rhiannon broke in.
“So Gwenhwyfar and I will be on our way,” Dudod continued smoothly. “Come, child.”
Gwen hesitated, waiting for Rhiannon’s response. Rhiannon reluctantly nodded at her daughter, and the two left the cave.
Rhiannon went to the hearth and poured two steaming cups of chamomile tea. She placed one in front of Gwydion and sat down at the table opposite him. Holding her mug with both hands, she took a few careful sips, frowning into her cup.
“I’ve been looking for you for a long time,” Gwydion began.
“Have you?” she said in a disinterested tone.
“I have,” he replied mildly, and supped his tea. He waited for Rhiannon to ask him the next, obvious question. But she did not. She drank her tea, ignoring him.
“I went a lot of places looking for you. One place I went to was Arberth.”
Her eyes cut to him, her green gaze sharp. “And they didn’t know anything there, did they?”
“No. But I talked to Rhoram. He gave me a message for you.”
Rhiannon’s hands tightened on her cup until her knuckles were white. But her voice was cool. “Did he?”
“Yes. He said that he hoped to see you again. He said that he wanted to see his daughter, too, very much.”
“Is he—is he well?” she asked hesitantly.
“He wasn’t, no. But he seems to be better now.”
“For having seen you?” Rhiannon laughed harshly.
“No.” Talking to this woman was hard work. He felt as though every word he uttered could be turned into a trap, a snare. He took another sip of tea, wishing for something stronger. “It was something that Achren did. He had been very unhappy for a long time. It seems that Queen Efa didn’t turn out to be all that he thought she was.”
“I could have told him that,” Rhiannon said.
“So Achren mocked him, you see. She mocked his—what shall I call it—his living death, the living death he fashioned out of his regret. And it woke him, brought him back to life.” He was silent for a moment. “Perhaps the time for living death has passed for you also. Perhaps it is time for life for you as well.”
Rhiannon sat back, eyeing him sardonically. “What a lovely sentiment. And how kind of you to be concerned. You have been looking for me, you say.” The subject of Rhoram was apparently closed. “Why?”
Now for it. He took a deep breath. “You hold a memory. A clue.”
“Do I?” she said flatly.
He spoke slowly, clearly, and firmly, as though to a child of erratic temperament. “Yes, you do.”
“And?”
“And I must get it. It is a clue, handed down through certain descendants of Bran the Dreamer. It has come to rest in you, in your subconscious.”
“I see.”
Her palpable disinterest, her monosyllabic replies, stung him. But he attempted to keep calm. “And that is not all.”
“No?”
“No,” he said shortly. “The dead High Kings of Kymru themselves have told me that you must accompany the rest of us on a quest.”
“The rest of us?”
“The captains of Kymru. Cai of Gwynedd; your friend Achren from Prydyn; Angharad of Ederynion; and Trystan from Rheged.”
“And the quest is?”
“To retrieve Caladfwlch from wherever it now lies.”