Rhydderch

Rhydderch waited a few moments, then gingerly followed to the junction of the hallways, then watched his niece’s back as she disappeared down another window-lit corridor.

Descending to the stables, Rhydderch saddled his horse and ordered his dogs readied for a hunt. Then he departed for the north at a canter, Brael and Aggie slinking along on either side of him.

Try as he might, though, all he could think about was not coming back, riding north to see his sister’s body for himself, then maybe taking a jaunt to Nefyti to demand its guardian remove his damned curse or watch him die with his own sword through his belly. He would die a Ganlin. He refused to let that scheming rat bury him in Vethyle gold.

Even as he had the thought, Rhydderch’s jaw locked and he had trouble breathing.

Rhydderch was making his way north out the gates of Siorus, trying to push through the massive crowds forming at the Auldhund checkpoint, when he swore he saw Aneirin Ganlin for a moment in the crowd. He hauled his horse to a stop and twisted it around to get a better look, but the face had disappeared in the throngs overwhelming the gates, those outside trying to escape the aspens overtaking the road, and those inside trying to get free of the city before a war started.

“Make way for Auld Rhydderch Vethyle!” an Auldhund at the gate bellowed above the panicking crowd. Then the Auldhunds were widening the path, gesturing at him to leave the city.

Rhydderch scanned the faces once more, getting a vague twisting in his head as he searched the crowd watching him, almost like he should have recognized one of them, but then his horse was being grabbed by a big lizardlike Auldhund and being led forward through the masses, away from the kid he thought he had seen.

Has to be my imagination, Rhydderch thought. Wishful thinking. Though why his mind had conjured up Aneirin when it was Agathe that was tearing up his guts whenever he was sober, he could never know. Until then, he had to focus. Something was happening, and it wasn’t something a midrange Auld like Aneirin Ganlin could have produced, not with a thousand years of planning and a lifetime of veoh.

With that in mind, he burst out onto the northern road into the countryside at a slow gallop, his hounds racing behind him to keep up. The Ganlin veoh flowing through the road was totally unmistakable, and Rhydderch left the rutted track and started crossing farmers’ fields instead of using the road because it was actively spooking his horse.

The size of it, though… Whatever it was, there was no question that no one that Rhydderch had ever known could have possibly put out this much power. No one, not even the Aulds of old could have unleashed the sort of power—

He went slack in his saddle, almost falling from his horse.

Nerys Ganlin had wept tears of veoh. Wulmaer had confessed it to him when he had been entreating his help to keep Wynfor from Ranking her three hundred years ago, the Auldhund telling Rhydderch that he had used a rag to wipe the tears away, and in his mistake, Wulmaer had created that blasted Shirt.

Rhydderch let his horse slow to a walk as his brain spun through the possibilities. Nerys Ganlin spent ninety percent of her time at Ganlin Hall. Ganlin Hall had supposedly been wiped out. But if Nerys had survived and was now attacking the Spyre…

But Nerys was crippled, an undiscovered auldling whose mind had hardened weaving tapestries with her mother well into her teens, her mind latching onto cloth as a crutch, until that was all she could weave her veoh into—not water, not stone, not simple objects, just cloth. She had helped Rhydderch defeat Thibault and his tszieni alike with nothing but cloth.

It just didn’t seem her style to work with plants.

It took him a couple hours to reach the line of aspens marching across the country, but when he did, the chaos of theories tumbling around in Rhydderch’s head came to a stuttering halt. Confronted with such power, Rhydderch found it hard to breathe. The flow was like getting hit by a massive ocean wave, only to be doused again, then again. And with each new wave, a tree sprouted ahead of the mass growing over the road—and only the road, Rhydderch noted—going from seedling to a towering ancient stretching its branches to the sky in the span of a few heartbeats.

Standing there, looking at it, Rhydderch couldn’t imagine the kind of reservoir that had to have been responsible for its creation. For a moment, he wondered if the legends of dragons were true, and if they were reclaiming their former lands from a shattered Spyre. He wondered if this was some sort of lure, some way to trap Aulds that got too close.

Then his horse seemed to see the aspens snaking unnaturally out of the ground for the first time, because it reared, and suddenly all of Rhydderch’s concentration had to go into keeping the animal under control. Beside him, his hounds seemed to agree with his horse, raising their hackles as the tiny sprouts rose up in the dust and wheel-ruts, growing ninety feet in half as many seconds.

“Calm down, Tara,” he whispered, touching his horse’s mind to calm it. The animal reluctantly fell back to its front feet, but refused to move closer to the growing aspen grove.

Seeing how it was more or less keeping within the boundaries of the road, Rhydderch had something tickle the back of his mind, some old memory about the trees and how the Ganlins had received them as a gift…

They were given to us by sacrifice, he remembered his mother tell him as she stood with him outside Ganlin Hall, looking down at the weigh-line that connected them to the rest of Bryda. Our ancestor Kelin died to protect her family, and every few generations, one of our own must follow in her footsteps. What do you know of the Ariod Prophecy, Radher?

At the time, Rydderch had known very little. It’s when the Spyre falls to pieces, he had said as dutifully as any nine-year-old could.

It’s more than that. It’s when magic itself ends. When all veoh is swept from the land and everything dies in its wake. The old ones said it will happen in the lifetime of twin Aulds who take the throne together. And every few generations, there’s a very rare birth, one in which two incredibly powerful Aulds share the same womb at the same time.

Like me and Aggie, Mommy! Rhydderch had cried. Remembering his own excitement, Rhydderch’s lips tightened bitterly. He didn’t want to remember this, but for the last four hundred years, it had become so etched into his brain that once the memory started, it refused to stop.

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…and one of those brave souls must sacrifice himself for the family, just like our ancestor Kelin.

Why Mommy?

His mother had patted his head, then. Because his existence threatens the stability of the family, Raedher. When twin Aulds are born, each with the power to shape the nation, one must bow his head and let the other rule. My advisors say you would be the best to make that sacrifice—Aggie’s too emotional to understand. Do you feel you could be brave like your ancestor Kelin and protect your sister Aggie?

I think so, Mommy. At that point, Rhydderch had been more concerned about the tears on his mother’s cheeks than the words coming from her mouth.

Rhydderch remembered his mother taking him by the hand, then the pulling sensation as the tree swallowed them both…

A feat that he hadn’t been able to do since, as that was the day his mother had taken him to the ruins of Nefyti and offered him to the old man within its boundaries. Rhydderch’s jaw tightened when he remembered the moment she had walked away. Goodbye, Raedher. I love you, now and always. Know this is what’s best for Bryda.

Rhydderch hadn’t understood then, but he understood now.

Jaw clenched together so hard he felt his teeth cracking, awash in bitterness all over again, he slipped from his horse and went to get a better look at the aspens.

As soon as he started to near the trees, he was shocked to realize he could feel them. Almost like a brother, they called to him, their movement tantalizing, their branches like arms, reaching for him. Entranced by the energy flowing from them, Rhydderch’s feet moved of their own accord and his hand reached out for one of the shoots.

Then, when his fingers touched the branch, he realized they were reaching to him as a brother.

Ganlin, they whispered. Raedher Ganlin… The voice sounded familiar, almost like…

Agathe.

Where would you go, brother?

Rhydderch felt his breath catch in his chest, feeling those words in his chest. He let it out in a tremor that threatened to be a sob. He would have said something, would have whispered back, but his jaw was locked so tight he was tasting blood.

Where would you go? the tree asked. Home?

Home. That word made him groan. After the last battle with Thibault—and Rhydderch had released the Auldhunds—Wynfor had succeeded in convincing Agathe and the Circle to ban Rhydderch from Ganlin Hall. Rees and Icel had still snuck him in on occasion, but always to heal some child or work some expert magics complex enough that the younger Aulds needed his experience. He’d never been allowed to roam the hall, never been allowed to see what he had been missing in his exile.

There was a startled feeling from the aspens, then, You have no home.

With those words came a wash of feelings—of regret, remorse, concern, love…

In a blur of faces, Rhydderch saw a thousand Ganlins, everyone who had ever traveled the weigh-lines, saw their memories as if they were his own.

I can’t give up one of my children, Wynn.

You have to choose one. I gave you my opinion—the boy would withstand the pressure better—but ultimately it’s your decision. I know it’s hard.

It’s not ‘hard,’ his mother had screamed. You’re asking me to give up my child.

You’re the ruler of Bryda. You’ve read the prophecies. You know what’s at stake. One Ganlin child or all Ganlin children, forever. Choose.

He saw his mother lock herself in her rooms, refusing to come out for weeks. When she finally had, she had called Rhydderch to her chambers, brought him into her arms, and sung him a lullaby he hadn’t heard in four years…

“Mom,” Rhydderch whispered. He could feel the agony she went through. Felt it make her sick inside. Watched her die well before her years, driven to the grave by her choice, by seeing him every day, raised as a bastard by Vethyles, while his sister was groomed for the throne.

Then the memories were Agathe’s. Where’s Raedher, Mom?

Raedher is gone, tulip.

Gone where? He was going to play Aulds and Auldhunds with me this afternoon.

Rhydderch saw Agathe’s confusion as her mother’s breath had suddenly caught in a sob and she’d rushed away, leaving Agathe alone with her fake wings, waiting for her brother who never returned.

“No,” Rhydderch whimpered, remembering the ache of not being able to speak to her, to play or study with his twin. Of being forced to watch from afar, the reviled son of a rival family, as she grew up alone and her smiles wore away, replaced with the lines of leadership.

However much he didn’t want to watch, however, Rhydderch couldn’t tear himself away.

I want Rhydderch, Agathe had told their brother Wynfor. I feel something for him I’ve never felt for anyone else. How can I get that infernal bastard to love me?

Oh, I don’t think it should be too difficult, Wynfor had said, smugness seeping into his thoughts.

Wynfor. Rhydderch’s fist tightened on the bark of the aspen in rage. Wynfor had discovered his secret during the last war. He had known, and he had still refused to tell anyone. He had used the knowledge that Rhydderch was his brother Raedher as a bargaining chip, as a bribe. He had offered Rhydderch a trade: Cast your vote against the illiterate weaver and I will see you regain your place as a Ganlin.

Rhydderch had spent hours drinking himself into a stupor in his room afterwards. He knew Wynfor despised the fact that Nerys, the simple weaver who could only infuse her veoh into cloth, had been the only Auld strong enough to evade and defeat Thibault, when Wynfor himself—supposedly the strongest after Agathe—was strung out naked and helpless in a line of slaves, fed upon like cattle.

Even then, Wynfor’s shame came to Rhydderch’s mind in an overpowering rush, his seething, the disgrace and degradation, the humiliation of knowing that he had been helpless to keep his family from being eaten by a monster while an untested auldling and a runaway Auldhund had saved them all. An untested auldling he had thrown aside as worthless, who had somehow claimed an Auldhund by the laws of the Old Order. Rhydderch experienced Wynfor’s total mortification when the two of them publicly denounced him as a liar and a coward.

Give her to me and rejoin your family. Or…don’t. Wynfor had wanted Nerys outed as an Auldheist so she would be killed. Either by Auldhunds, Vethyles, or Norfelds, he had known that the moment it was made public that she held the power of the ancients, she would become a target, and wouldn’t live the requisite two years to replace Agathe as Auldheim. His hatred was rooted in his horror, in his shame of his own shortfallings.

Instead of going to the Circle to cast his vote, Rhydderch had gone to the Auldhund Block and freed every single Unmade of Wynfor’s enchanted bonds, something that Rhydderch shouldn’t have been able to do, something that should have proven to the world that he was stronger than Wynfor, and therefore the missing Raedher Ganlin.

But the world had been too afraid of the creatures they had once owned to spare the extra thought as to why Rhydderch had been able to break the spells of an Auld ranked nine-seven.

And Wynfor, out of spite, had refused to admit defeat. He had left his brother in the hands of strangers and spent the rest of his life trying to degrade Nerys Ganlin as deeply as he himself had felt degraded at the hands of Thibault, when she, untrained and hobbled, had so easy brushed the Auld of Nefyti’s attacks aside time and time again.

Then there was Nerys…

The horror of being separated from her Auldhund. The fear of being alone, the anxiety, the nerves, the inner agony. The rage towards Wynfor, the feeling of betrayal, the desire to hurt him as badly as he had hurt her…

Then Rhydderch saw himself, a little boy clinging to his mother’s arm, about to sacrifice himself for the good of the family, yet having no idea what that truly meant. He remembered trying to follow her after the old man had worked his curse on him. He remembered the blank wall he got where there had been a pleasant welcoming before, the nothingness, the cold bark on his skin, the indifferent limbs swaying overhead. He remembered feeling alone. He remembered wandering the Slopes, cold and hungry, and being picked up by a merchant on his way to Siorus.

Raedher, the aspens whispered to him. Welcome.

With those words, Rhydderch felt the grove pull him within it for the first time since he was nine. He felt the joy of joining with every fiber, every leaf, every drop of sap that connected the aspens across the vast countryside. He felt every river village, every road, every ruin under its roots, everything that had been long forgotten. He felt the history, understood the knowledge that had been forgotten. He was Bryda, and like every Ganlin before him, he was there to protect the land and its people.