Page 12 of Tortured

Aneirin takes a deep breath. “He will not allow her back.”

“She’s his daughter, for Creator’s sake!”

“Don’t get me started.” Aneirin gestures for me to go ahead. After I am almost out of sight, he calls, “I’ll make sure you get out of here safely. Have no fear.”

With a nod, I press forward, walking for several minutes, with nothing but the gentle tap of my boots, the hum of bees, and the whisper of humming birds as they streak from flower to flower.

I have no idea what to expect of this High Emrys. A nervousness falls with each of my steps. I am sure every emrys in Gorlassar senses my tension. I’m the interloper. I’m the only human among the immortals.

If I can even call myself human anymore.

I might as well be meeting my maker, as insignificant as I feel.

Chapter 7

The grove is just beyond the garden wall, as Aneirin promised. I follow a moss-covered trail into stately hardwoods that overshadow the path. I have no idea how long I’ll wander before stumbling upon the High Emrys.

I round a bend, and a light catches my eye. Off the path a few meters, between two trees, a woman in pale lavender stands with her arms outstretched in front of her, as if she is ready to catch raindrops from the heavens. A glow haloes her body. Her silver-blond hair grazes her lower back.

I nearly drop to my knees.

From behind, she looks so much like Niawen.

The woman doesn’t turn, but soft words drift toward me. “One moment, Kenrik. I’ll be right with you.”

I brace myself against a tree, drawing a deep breath before I step off the path. She is beauty. She is purity. I am overwhelmed by the awe of her presence.

I stand before grandeur. The High Emrys is beyond the grace I felt in Niawen, even the grace I carry.

When I am ten feet from her ladyship, close enough to see her face, I startle. A furry bundle drops out of the sky, and the High Emrys catches it in her arms.

Not raindrops from heaven, then.

The High Emrys brings the bundle up to her chin and smiles. “He’s not very good at gliding yet.”

I try to make out what is in her hands. “Is that . . . ?”

“A flying squirrel. He misjudged his landing.”

“And you knew he’d be plunging from the sky just now?”

She doesn’t answer me. The High Emrys whispers strange words to the little critter and touches her nose to his before setting him on the ground, where he promptly scurries off.

“Well,” she straightens. “Kenrik, I see you are full of questions.”

“You already know who I am.”

“I know a lot of things. I was expecting you today.” She turns toward me. As she lifts a leg above the forest floor, her creamy, bare foot gleams with inner light. “So”—she turns her palms outward—“you are human but not human. Emrys but not emrys. You’ve changed.” She holds her hands a few inches from my body and sweeps them around my face and shoulders, stirring the air against my face and neck.

“What am I, then?”

Her hands settle near her thighs. “Something else entirely.”

“Niawen gave me her light to heal me. But why did she have to give me all of it?”

“She didn’t understand that your mortal body doesn’t share the same capacity to hold light as an emrys’s body does. Since your human heart-center couldn’t contain that much light, your body absorbed it. You are right to say that it’s in your blood and in your bones, that it’s fused to you. It cannot be harnessed the way emrys harness light, yet I see that it has given you enhanced attributes. What have you noticed so far?”

“Great speed. Strength. Remarkable hearing.”

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