Page 121 of Haunted

I will find you, Kenrik. Your light will be a beacon to guide me.

His light!

I close my eyes and scan the horizon.

There. To the south of my city. I’m right. Her light trail, an essence as familiar as my own, moves steadily. Even though it’s Niawen’s light, it’s in Kenrik. I cannot see her, just the prince. They travel south. I send messengers immediately to alert the men I’ve already dispatched.

What I need is Albus, but I’m too weak to enter him.

I spend hours of my delirious healing trailing Kenrik’s light with my mind. It’s all I can do while stuck in bed.

I cannot sense Niawen at all. Her light within her is truly gone.

Something is different about Kenrik’s light, different from what I know about the light of an emrys, different from what Niawen’s light looked like. His light is not centralized in his core, in his heart-center. From my centuries of study, I know humans have a heart-center, but not one that can harness light. They possess light just the same, but in such miniscule amounts that it’s scarcely detectable.

Yet here is Kenrik, with obvious light.

A hazy light that presents in the shape of a body.

Could the light have fused to his cells somehow? It’s everywhere in him.

His strength. The light imbues him with strength.

What other traits has the light given you, Kenrik?

Can he pull the light from his body? Will he try to be rid of me as Niawen did?

I gather not. Not if he can’t concentrate the light in his center.

Not if he can’t harness it.

Maybe he doesn’t know how. He wasn’t born with the intuition of an emrys.

Until Niawen teaches him how to use the light, he’s stuck with me.

I laugh.

I see you, Kenrik. And thus Niawen, if she is with him.

She may be free from our bonds that are held with the light, but we were bonded by our physical union. That cannot be undone.

We are still wedded.

And our child?

Our child’s light is meek, too meek for me to discern from a distance. Still, the child gave Niawen strength to fight me. Will the child continue to give Niawen strength? Her light should return with time. The heart-center continually generates light. Just because she doesn’t have it now, does not mean it won’t return. It just won’t be linked to me. When it does return, Niawen and I can reforge our bonds.

I can be patient.

You will still be mine.

78

After years of being unable to locate Niawen, I find her. She’s with Owein, a fur trader. She feels safe with him. I don’t know why; he’s not immortal. He’s not a prince either. Niawen never returned to the princes.

She and Kenrik went their separate ways.

They thought this would keep her safe, since I was following his light and assuming Niawen was with him.

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