patted Swanne on the head. ―There is no escaping me, my dear, and it is far better to work with
me than against me.‖
Swanne lay on the filthy floor of the attic space clutching at her belly for hours after he
had gone. She felt as if her world had disintegrated about her.
Never before had Asterion treated her so cruelly. Why? Did he hate her so much? Had
she failed him so badly?
Swanne succumbed to a fit of weeping. She felt hate sweep over her, but not for Asterion.
For Matilda, who stood in her way, and for Caela, who had once thought to stand in her way and
who had now retreated into a smug complacency.
Why, Swanne had no idea.
She remembered what Caela had said to her last night.
Swanne, if ever you need shelter, I will give it to you. If ever you need harbour, then I am
it.
―Silly bitch,‖ Swanne muttered, and managed to struggle into a sitting position. Shelter
from what, for the gods” sakes? All Swanne had to do was murder William, and then Asterion
would be grateful, and pleased, and would love her again, and would give her all the dark power
she craved.
―I‘ll kill Matilda first,‖ she said. ―Yes. I‘ll kill Matilda, and then I‘ll take William. Easy.
Simple. I should have thought of it sooner.‖
They would be in London soon and, there, Swanne knew she could get what she needed.
EIGHTEEN
Thinking only of fleeing William‘s not-unexpected anger, Caela did not immediately
register the fact that the door to the chamber had not been closed when she fled through. All she
could think about was returning to her own small chamber, gathering her cloak and then making
her way to the courtyard where she might prevail upon someone to escort her back to London.
But the moment she entered her chamber, leaving the door open as she only needed to
snatch at her cloak, Caela heard a footfall behind her, and then the sound of the door closing.
She spun around.
Matilda stood there, staring at her. Caela began to speak, but Matilda waved her to
silence. She closed the distance between them, lifted her hand, and placed it firmly on Caela‘s
breastbone.
―Show me what you showed William,‖ she said.
―Matilda—‖
“Show me!”
And so Caela did.
Eventually, as William had, Matilda stood back, her hand falling away from Caela, her
face pale. ―Who are you?‖ she whispered. ―What are you?‖
―Matilda, I did not want to involve you in this.‖
―I have been involved ever since I married William! Tell me.”
Caela closed her eyes, and tried one last time. ―If I tell you, I will involve you in
witchcraft so malevolent that it will destroy—‖
―What? My entire life?‖
―This life, and all future lives,‖ Caela said softly.
Matilda stared at Caela, and suddenly everything fell into place. ―That is why William
and you know each other so well…this is not your first life together, is it?‖
Caela shook her head.
―But how can this be so? Nothing that the Church teaches can explain—‖
―We come from a time long before the Church existed. It cannot know of us, and of what
we do.‖
―A time of dark witchcraft!‖
―And a time of great beauty,‖ Caela said gently.
―Tell me,‖ Matilda said.
―Matilda, are you sure that—?‖
―Tell me.‖
And so Caela drew Matilda back to the bed where they sat, and Caela told her.
For hours after Caela had left him, William sat in the chair, head in hands, his entire
world a turmoil.
Aldred…Asterion.
Swanne…perhaps even now lying with Asterion, plotting William‘s downfall.
Caela, a part of this land in a way William had never imagined.
For the moment, Asterion and Swanne, and what they planned, what they could
accomplish, was too frightful to consider, so William concentrated entirely on Caela.
Oh, God, how beautiful and desirable she had been. Perhaps oddly, he had no trouble
believing what she had told him about her nature as it was now, and not simply because of what
Caela had shown him of herself. He remembered how only relatively recently Swanne
had told him Caela (and Cornelia) had harboured Mag within her womb. As Cornelia she
had loved this land the instant she‘d seen it. He remembered how she‘d stood on the deck of the
ship, their son Achates in her arms, staring at the line of green cliffs in the distance. He remembered how she had once told him that arriving in this new and strange land was not
―strange‖ at all, but felt rather as if she was finally coming home.
He remembered how she had instinctively known what the Stone Dances were for, their
purpose, their magic.
He remembered how effortlessly Cornelia had learned the Llangarlian language, as if
she‘d merely been remembering it.
He remembered how immediately she had become close to the people of the land—to
Erith and her family.
To Blangan.
To Coel.
Cornelia had walked on to this land and instantly become one with it.
He, as Brutus, had walked on to this land and instantly become its enemy.
Why? Because he‘d only seen Genvissa? Only seen the power and lust she‘d
represented?
William‘s mind began to worry at him as he tried to piece things together. Genvissa had
been Cornelia‘s instant enemy. Genvissa had done nothing but plot Cornelia‘s murder from the
moment she‘d known about her. Genvissa had used the excuse that Cornelia was Asterion‘s
tool—but that wasn‘t it, was it? Genvissa had seen within Cornelia a terrible threat, and it had
nothing to do with Asterion but everything to do with this land.
William groaned, wondering how he could have been so blind. How could he have so
blithely ignored everything Genvissa was? Everything she did?
Ariadne had wrapped the Aegean world in catastrophe. Genvissa—and in her rebirth as
Swanne—was doing the same here.
No wonder the Llangarlians had been so antagonistic. No wonder they had fought so hard
against Genvissa and all she stood for.
William rose and paced slowly about the room, thinking now on the Game. Caela said it
had changed, become attuned to the land.
Could it? William tried to remember everything he had been taught about the Game, but
nothing he had been taught catered for the current situation. No Game had ever been left so long
incomplete between the opening and closing dances.
Had the Game become attuned to the land to the extent that it had all but merged with the
land?
There was no reason that it should not have. Two thousand years left uncompleted. Gods!
It could have done anything in that time.
Slowly William‘s mind began to unwind from its turmoil into a peculiar kind of peace,
even though he felt disjointed and a little disorientated. He found himself standing in the centre
of his chamber, seeing not the cold stone walls, but the Labyrinth as it had stood atop Og‘s Hill,
the maidens and youths with their flowers dancing around him and his Mistress.
He saw the Mistress of the Labyrinth standing before him, dressed only in the
hip-hugging white linen skirt. He saw her lithe body, her breasts glowing in the torchlight.
He saw her deep blue eyes and her smile as they rested on him.
He saw Caela, and William was suddenly hit with such a longing that he again groaned,
and doubled over, as if in pain.
Could Caela be the Mistress of the Labyrinth? Yes, of course she could, if she was
taught, but she had to be
taught, and it could be none of his teaching. The mysteries of the Mistress were alien to
William. He could dance with a Mistress as her partner, but he could never truly understand her
power.
Was he angry that Caela sought to become the Mistress of the Labyrinth?
No. Not truly.
What angered and embittered him—even as he could not understand it—was that she did
not want him to dance with her as her Kingman.
What frightened him was what he had seen when she lay with Silvius.
When all was said and done, she had betrayed him as deeply as had Swanne.
―There,‖ said Caela eventually, ―you have it all.‖
Matilda felt numbed by what she‘d heard, and yet she disbelieved none of it. Everything
fitted her own experience and observation.
―You do not seem overly surprised,‖ said Caela, watching Matilda carefully.
―The details have shocked me,‖ Matilda replied, ―but I do not find them difficult to
believe.‖
Caela took the other woman‘s hands. ―Matilda, listen to me carefully. Do not become
involved in this any more than you are now. I could not bear that you should be injured in a
battle which has nothing to do with you. I have hurt and murdered too many innocent people,
sometimes wilfully, sometimes unintentionally. I could not bear to have your hurt or death on my
conscience as well.‖
―‗Murdered‘ is a strong word, Caela.‖