In The Beginning Gail Daley (best books to read all time TXT) 📖

Anghard sobbed. Lewys Mabinogion's face was hard.

"Someday, I will kill them," he said. "All who support this cursed system that destroys families."

The woman telling the tale looked frightened. "There is more," she whispered. "It is rumor only, but they say before her husband found her your daughter birthed a babe who was smuggled out of the compound by a servant woman."

"What happened to the child?" Anghard asked, a desperate hope in her voice.

The woman shrugged. "Your daughter had been kind to her and she was well paid to smuggle her out of the nursery. That is all I know. I'm sorry."

"You are sure the babe was a girl?"

The woman hesitated. "That is what I was told, but—"

Anghard pressed her hand. "Thank you."

She turned to her husband. "We can't go back to Ironlyn until we find the child, Lewys."

Fire Magic

THIRTEEN YEARS PASSED but the family never forgot their lost daughter or the child she might have born. The night the wasting fever took Rebecca's grandmother, spring was just starting to push up through ground frozen hard with winter. She and Catrin had been able to find only a few spring blooms to scatter on Anghard's body as they prepared it for the dawn service.

Rebecca stood under the funeral pyre looking up at the sky, feeling the weight of responsibility on her shoulders now that her grandmother was no longer there to share it. Anghard had fought the wasting sickness, and fought hard, but after months of agonizing illness, she succumbed. "You will be Draconi now," she told Rebecca. Holding her granddaughter's firm young hand in her wasted one. "Take care of your grandfather and your brother and sister. It will be up to you to find our lost one." She had pressed an amulet into Rebecca's hand. "Use this to help you skry for her."

"I'll find her grandmother," she vowed. "Mother is gone, but if her child lives, I'll find her. I promise."

Rebecca's straight, blue-black hair, plaited into a braid as thick as a man's arm, fell to her waist. Clear grey eyes below slanted eyebrows stood out against her porcelain complexion that never took a tan. The resemblance between her and the woman now resting on the funeral pyre had been uncanny.

"It's hopeless; we will never find our baby sister," Catrin said, wiping her eyes. She and Owen were sixteen now, a tall strapping pair, with curly dark hair, their father's green eyes, and sunny smiles. Just now their faces both showed evidence of grief.

Rebecca looked over at Lewys Mabinogion's ravaged face. He would miss his beloved Angharad. She reached for her sibling's hands. "He will stay with her tonight, I think. Let's go back to camp."

Dinner was a simple stew which they ate in silence. Afterwards, Owen moved the rope corral around the unicorn herd to a fresh location. The herd consisted of twenty mares and half-grown colts. It was their Grandfather's pride and joy. Moving from village to village, Lewys would occasionally sell one of the younger ones if he decided an owner was worthy to own one, but they all knew the herd was destined for the pastures of Ironlyn when they finally took up residence there.

Anghard's funeral pyre would be set afire at dawn, as was the custom. Rebecca and Catrin were finishing up the supper dishes and setting out the bread to rise for breakfast the next morning, when they had unwelcome visitors—several men from the town outside the Trade Station where they camped.

The leader, John Thomas Lazarus was an important man in the nearby village of Joppa. He had expected these Travelers to be awed by his importance, and was displeased when they were not.

"What, no dancing around the fire? I was looking forward to that," he said jovially.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lazarus," Rebecca replied quietly. "We are not entertaining visitors tonight. This is a camp of sorrow. Our grandmother Angharad passed into the great beyond this afternoon. Please excuse us."

She went back to wiping down the clean plates, ignoring him, hoping he would take the hint and go away.

Instead, he threw some coins down on the ground. "Here, I'll pay for my entertainment."

She made no move to pick up the coins. "No, Sir."

Lazarus frowned, but he hesitated. "Maybe I should ask the old man. Where is he?"

"Grandfather is sitting vigil with Grandmother," Owen, who had just returned to the camp, replied.

Lazarus looked at him in incredulity. "You mean someone actually died?"

The three just looked at him in silence.

"I see. Alright, I'll be back tomorrow." He turned and left.

Owen spat on the ground at his back.

"Make sure he leaves," Rebecca said. "I intend to skry for our lost sister tonight, and I don't want a witness."

"He and the others have left the Trade Station Circle and headed back into town," Owen reported. "Becca, are you sure this is a good idea? Grandmother always did it before."

Rebecca pulled out the bronze stone that had been Anghard's last gift to her. "Yes. I feel her spirit strongly tonight. She will help me before she passes on. I know it."

Catrin unrolled the ancient map of the kingdom, stretching it on the wooden folding worktable serving a variety of uses. She held down the map corners with four flat stones.

Rebecca pulled the necklace over her head and held the stone in one hand. She cut a small prick in her finger and rubbed it over the stone. Holding the stone over the map, she rubbed the blood on its surface.

"Bone of my bone, blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, seek now she who is lost."

Catrin picked up the knife and did the same. Handing the knife to Owen, she too rubbed the stone and map with a bloody fingertip, and repeated the chant.

After a second's hesitation, he repeated the actions and joined in the chant.

At first, nothing happened, but finally, the stone began to swing gently. There was a surge of power and the stone pulled strongly toward the