Firebird of Gwenydd

Sioned Owenson stood in the doorway of Gwenydd’s council chamber, a flag of black swans flying behind her. She had stood guard on the door for hours. Dressed in black silk with the Cygnet of Gwenydd spanning silver moons on back, shoulder and waist.

She held an ancient broadsword with a matching swan on its sheath. The sword was not really needed and neither was the guard. Gwenydd had been at peace for a decade. The council was made up of one representative from each of the twelve noble houses and such an important group required a guard even if there was no danger. The swan on the door watched over the council within like her father’s dry eye watched over her. In ancient days, the guards would have needed to watch every corner and be prepared for anything. In ancient days the guards were needed but those days are not today. Sioned’s sword could not be drawn and she only faced the yard to keep the sun from her eyes. She watched the gathering out of tradition and not necessity with her blue eyes. Her eyes were a shade darker than the sky but they looked even brighter next to her dark hair.

No one questioned Sioned’s ability to fight. She had raised hands to battle for her life in that very council chamber not many years before. The councilmen respected her and her father enough to make long, uncomfortable journeys to meet for the Spring Council. No one expected any trouble. The trouble had fled long ago but some part of Sioned still tensed at shadows, at unexpected voices.

But no threat had come unless the councilors themselves were counted and that was contengent upon the clearity of the law. There had been debate earlier in the day between Blacklan and Detram Kingdom over mines in the border mountains, and the argument got heated. The heat of the chamber from the light pouring through the windows made Sioned want to doze but the yelling voices made any rest impossible. The pigeons cooed from the rafters over Haf Berg’s young, pompous, querulous voice. He maunded endlessly and sent a restless blanket over the throng.

The blanket was so heavey that snores began to sound from the back of the room. Sioned stifled a yawn herself. A sudden wind pulled at her tabord. The air was a heady mix of salty sea air and huneysuckle on the vine; it seemed to come from everywhere at once: from distant countries where flowers bloom in sand and from distant times where stars sang in darkness...

She felt herself drifting on the strange wind but a sound, or really the lack of a sound, brought her back. The hall was silent. She thought that she had made a soft squeek herself but she could not be certain.

An eyeblink ago, nothing could be heard over the coucilmen. The sound from the arguing could have woken the dead. Brad Owenson could only watch Haf and the other councillors impassively. He sat at the quarter moon table and looked across at the swan banners and the nobles. The elegant lines of his face were immoble and unreadable, his wild hair so tidy that Sioned could only imagine that Rhys bespelled it into submission. Sioned and Rhys sat at his right and left repectively and added weight to his words with their reputations.

Brad Owenson asked, “Will anyone challenge Haf Berg’s painstaking examination of the land laws on mining? Any further questions?” There was a daunting note in his voice. Only a pigeon challenged. Notaries on Rhys’s left whispered and took notes.

Rush sat beside Calyx and Calyx beside Rhys. The two younger people made an interesting pair. They were both specialized in magic but they were oposites in every other way: one man and one woman, one dark and one light. Calyx studied magic and wrote spells but could not proform the simplest charm. Rhys had magic running through his veins but he did not have the patience for in depth study. The coucilmen expect Calyx to speak pearls while Rhys spoke lightning. Everyone thought that the two would become a couple after Sioned made it clear that they were only friends. It had taken months to lay everyone’s expectations to rest.

Brad spoke again with a Holder’s authority so Sioned knew that her father could handle himself. She could only be reminded that a guard was not needed. She shifted slightly, easing some of her weight onto the blade she held. Across the room, Rhys lifted his eyes at the flash of light. He had saved her many times in the past but now it was her turn to save him.

They looked at one another a moment: friends bound by more than blood. Secrets and ancient ways bound them more surely than blood ever could. Memories gathered between the two friends. Sioned would have never held a sword during her old life. She had changed from a student into an experience explorer. Rhys had transformed himself from wild boy into court dignitary so recently that the sorcery in that hidden past echoed off the walls. His eyes turned mist-pale and speculative in the morning light. They bore into Sioned and seemed to measure and weight her as he contemplated turning her into a bat to liven up the meeting. Sioned almost wished he would.

Withy Hold brought up a boarder dispute with the Detra Kingdom. The two rulers argued about a river or a mountain that used to be the boarder. One would claim the landmark as the new boarder while the other claimed it as the old... Sioned let their voices drown out into the background. She focused on the fluttering banners of the houses. The bright red fox of the Detra prowled on a field of deep blue. Sioned could imagine stars twinkling behind the fox because the deep blue reminded her of a night sky. The gold ring of Hunter Hold looked brighter than the sun in the mid-day sky. Sioned was distracted watching the sparkle of sun on sun when the intruder came. No one stood to help her or deny him. No one heard him.

Someone from the Detra interrupted the speaker from Withy Hold. A squabble broke out on the council floor. Three senior councilors broke out of naps at the sounds. The Holder let it rage a moment, probably to wake everyone up. Then he cut through it in a voice that had brought countless meetings and tantrums to a hault in the past.

The speaker from Withy Hold slid a hand over his mouth while Calyx held in a laugh. Sioned was surprised to see that Rush’s eyes were lit with amusement. She did not know he had a sinse of humor. Other councilman seemed equally surprised. They each held a look of shock. Their faces seemed frozen in it.

Sunlight lit the floor but the shadows of leaves did not dance with the wind. Sioned looked down at her own shadow. It did not move... The councillors did not make a sound. They did not speak. They did not move. Sioned looked up at the ringing silence.

In the council chamber, no one breathed. Sioned could not see their chests move. She could only feel her heart beat faster and faster. The world was silent around her but that only made her panic more. She listened for the normal city sounds in the chamber. There were no calls from street venders and no groan of wagon wheels but the sudden silence was complete. She couldn’t hear anything. She looked to Rhys, hoping that bordom had driven him to cast a spell over her. But Rhys was ensorcelled as well it seemed. He was frozen still, just like the others.

Someone had stopped time! Time could not stand still but it could move so slowly that it seemed to!

In the alian stillness, Sioned heard a footfall in the soft ground behind her. She whirled, trying to hide the shaking hands on her sword. A cloaked man stood on that soft ground. He was of midium hieght with hidden hair and eyes. His clothing appeared plain enough. He could be any man but then he moved his hand. A flaring arc of silver flew out a nothing and gave the man away. Sioned moved her sword and cut the magic in half. The broken spell startled him. The figure looked up and almost let her see his eyes. Sioned felt his attention riveted suddenly on her. In the brilliant, late light, the stranger cast no shadow.

She drew in a breath and fought to hold in a gasp and a panic that threatened to overwhelm her. Duty forced her to guard this tower while compulsion led her to tighten her hold on her blade until she forgot that she was trapped in a world out of time. Something precious must rest in the tower’s heart. This powerful sorcerer was here for no other reason. She wanted to accuse the man to his face but she could not see it. Water, or dust or time itself blured his face. He looked like nothing more than a sea of colors. She saw streams of scarlet red, peacock blue, royal purple and sparkling gold. Each stream molded into the next as he moved until he became himself again.

The man standing before Sioned was not tall but she had to look up at him. His eyes and hair were the same golden brown as the dusty ground. The dust coated his yellow boots where the moisture did not make it turn a darker shade of brown. The sand that caught in the fabrick of the waist scarf that matched his boots spoke of dry air and skys as vast as the desert beneath. A winged serpent or dragon was embroidered in silver on the left breast of his tunic and silver glinted also at his wrists beneath his sleeves. Two pouches hung on leather thongs beneath his silk belt. She could not guess what such pouches held but she could guess that they were not weapons. He stopped when he saw Sioned’s blade. He seemed as surprised to see her as she was to see him.

His earthy brown eyes flicked from her to the motionless councilmen behind her. His face was open so Sioned could see the surprise written there. This could not be the first time he had cast this spell. Every person in the room should have been in an ensorcelled time-loop. That must have been what had happened before. Her very existance amazed him.

He finally found words and asked, “Who are you?”

Sioned, abandoned, with only a broadsword to protect the house against sorcery, found her voice finally. “You are the intruder here! I should be demanding your name! If you have business with anyone in Gwenydd than present yourself to the Gatekeeper. If you’ve no business than you should leave.”

He glanced at the dark mettle gate in the distance. Anyone with good eyes could make out a motionless figure in black. “He looks busy.” Sioned wanted to argue but she could not find the words. He was right in a way. The Gatekeeper could not look away from the fields or offer her help of any kind.

“I don’t need his help.” Sioned lifted her sword again until the tip was inches from touching him.

He lifted his hand to the edge of the blade and hissed when it came away bloodied. “You can protect yourself. I can’t argue with that but you can’t keep me out of that chamber. No sword can keep magic at bay.”

“Your spells don’t appear to work on me.”

“I can see why you think that. What do you expect to do with this new power?”

“I don’t need to do anythining.”

“You have the power to see me through shifted time and to act outside of slowed time. What are you? Are you a sorcerer? An elf? Name your king or your land and I can make a deal that will be beneficial to us all.”

“You have no business in this council, you have no business in this house, and you have no business questioning me.”

“You’re somehow messing with my sorcerery and that is my business,” he said. “You are coming into power you don’t understand and you’re fumbeling in the dark. Whatever you did nulified my spell. Sorcery does not work on you for a reason.”

“You’re here for a reason too,” she said sharply. “Why have you come here?”

“I want something that was hidden in this council chamber.”

She moved her blade in like a dance in a flourish. “I cannot let you enter.”

“You’ve seen my power. I can turn any stone wall into a doorway and you cannot be everywhere at once. I’m getting in that chamber and you’re going to have to make your peace with it.”

Determination hardened her voice and pushed every scrap of fear out. “I can do the impossible if I need to.”

The man did not speak. He turned over each of her thoughts before continuing. “The magic I’m looking for cannnot be trapped in a sword or a piece of cloth or a woman. None of the things you’ve brought out here can be the thing I seek. The only option I have left is to get into that chamber.”

He caught her wrist in one hand and held it so tightly that the sword in it rattled to the ground, He moved so quickly that Sioned would have missed it if she had blinked. She wrenched and twisted at his grip but her hind might have been swallowed by stone.

“It’s not in the sword. The power must be inside you.”

Sioned was visably shaken, breathing heavily while he studied her, looking for a secret. “Maybe the secret is in your council chamber. No one would work so hard to keep a mage out for a few forgotten scrolls.”

She raised the blade again, swallowing drily. “No one may enter while the council is in session. You may not enter.”

“But no one will ever notice,” he said softly. “The thing I want hass been hidden for so long that no one even knows it’s there. No one will miss it! No one will miss me! I will never return to Gwenydd. Let me pass. If all you’re brandishing against me is a point of honor, you won’t be dishonored. No one will ever know.”

“I will,” Sioned said succinctly. “And so will you. Knoweldge and lies are not words that you can toss at me. They means nothing to you! You may not enter and that’s that!”

The stranger was still and silent as if his own spell had been cast on him. His eyes had narrowed; light or memory flashed through them. “What made you the guardian of truth? Or is it magic you’re protecting?” He breathed. “You’ve seen the forgotten dark places where magic shifts form. The green fires still flicker behind your eyes. You’ve seen wonder and terror. You know more than you’re letting on. But you are not a mage. Or are you?”

She did not answer. She was too surprised at hearing her own question echoed back at her. He moved closer until he could touch her. She did not move back. The creature on the crest looked Sioned in the eye. He said, “If you do not let me enter, I will turn every flower and vine on this tower into flame.”

“Then you will burn what you have come for. Not even you will risk that.”

He moved closer. A blade of ice appeared in his hand and flicked the sweat from her neck.

“Are you sure about that? You know I could. I have the power.”

“You won’t risk your treasure.”

“I will suck the air from the chamber and turn it into a grave for those you guard.”

“It looks like a tomb now.” Her voice shook.

He stepped so close the blade could not have slid between the two of them. Her back burned with tension but his gaze glittered like a sword and never left her shivering form.

“I wish I could offer you a choice but I must be honest; if you try to stop me from entering I will kill you. I’m out of choices too.”

“Then we are both out of choices,” she said as light glinted in the sweat that poured from her brow to the blade in her hand. “One of us must kill the other.”

He moved then and ignored the sword and the warrior as if they were both made of smoke and dream. The animal on his surcoat changed and became something real. It flew at Sioned but she kept the sword leveled to the creature’s heart until it became smoke and blended with the night. The mage’s hard face had melted into a face of wonder. The expression on his fine bones frightened her.

“You deserve better than theives in the night but that’s all I can offer you. That and a doorway,” he said abruptly.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“What kind of place would send a child with no power but honor against any and all threats? Who would pitt courage against something as evil as me? Any fool can see that you can’t stop me. You hold a sword like you know how to use it but steel is useless against magic. I could make it fall from your hands. I could make flame appear and engulf everyone you love... but I don’t want to have to do that. I need information. Tell me about yourself and about this place.”

“I have sworn allegiance to this land. I will not betray it even in answering a simple question!”

“Have it your own way then!” His hands came together as the longest fingers traced symbols into the air. “Kuin Toivya!”

“What? What have you done?”

“Answer my questions now.”

Sioned felt her body stiffen to obey.

“What is your name?”

“Sioned Owenson.”

“Where are we?”

“Gwenydd.”

“Are you a sorcerer?”

“No.”

“Did you study as a mage?”

“No.”

“Who taught you to use the power to move through time?”

“No one taught me.” Sioned wanted to scream with the need to find an answer for him.

“What other powers do you have?”

“I have only small powers.”

“Who gave you that small power?”

“My blood.” Sioned bit her lip before she could say more.

“You have power. You are standing here talking to me when no one else in this house can move. Someone or something put that power in you. Tell me what gave you this ability.”

“I have no power. Nothing like what you’re talking about. I can’t control time!”

“What gives you this power?”

“Nothing.”

“You are guarding something in that chamber; something that consumes you fully. Why else would you risk your life at this door? Tell me what you guard!”

“That is none of your concern! You may not enter!”

“You already admitted that you don’t have a mages’ power or training. Can you stop me?”

She was silent. She reached for her sword but never reached the glittering hilt. The mages’ spell changed.

“Sioned!” The Holder’s voice rang out.

She turned to Rhys with a question in her eyes. Romric had vanished! The stranger stood in the threshold to examine the tapestry.

“The history of this chamber is shrouded in mystery and memory. Experianced scholars have been known to get lost in such things,” Sioned warned the unnamed mage. “The oldest books in the upper chamber say that the very stones will move to defind the council chamber.”

“The oldest artifacts are housed in the upper chambers,” the mage repeated her words. “Thank you for telling me. That is all I need to know.”

He vanished with those words. When their echo fell silent he was nowhere to be found.

For a moment she stared senselessly at what she saw: the inner yard, the council chambers, the outer yard and the Gatekeeper on the ground, his back to her, opened the gate to a couple of riders.

Then she looked down at her hands. The hilt of a sword is locked in her grip. The sword seems to be the only real thing in the world... if anything is real. I fell asleep, she thought surprisedly. I had a dream...

Sioned wanted to let herself believe that it was all a dream but the shock and fear mirrored on the faces around her told her a different story. This strang sorcerer was real and he was powerful.

Then the Holder’s voice snapped across the chamber. “Sioned!”

She turned, startled.

Rhys followed her turn. The sword slipped out of her hold, rang against the stones like a challenge, and she saw beside it the rose that had flung itself off the outer wall into the room to lie burning in her shadow. She dragged her eyes away from it to the dais.

Rhys had vanished.

Dream shifted into time, became memory; she felt the blood leap out of her face. She reached down, snatched up the rose and began to run.

On the dais, the sorcerer had felt the sudden shift of time. He sat silently and watched the world go by around him. He knew where he needed to go now... the upper chambers...

He traveled through the walls as he threatened he could have done. He traveled swiftly and invisably into the upper rooms. The very top of the coucil chambers happened to be a library. This could be just what he needed. There could be no doubt that the councilmen used it to archive meeting minutes but this building was not always a council chamber.

The sorcerer had no idea that he was being watched even in his invisable state. Rhys watched him. Romic had been watching him for some time... much longer than Will could have known.

Rhys simply sat still, which was a difficult thing to do for anyone who used to run in the open fields. He he felt the tention in Sioned’s body and heard her silent call. Rhys came to her and saw the sandy-haired stranger waiting at the threshold. Rhys’s attention focused, on his friend, who was waving a sword at the stranger. The stranger did not seemed concerned. The two fo them spoke but their voices did not carry on the wind. The silence across the courtyard was eerie.

He watched, unblinking, while the stranger came so close to Sioned that a blade could not be passed between them. He could reach out a hand and touch her. Sioned had been trained to fight with a sword but he was too close. Rhys moved towards them, hoping to offer what help he could. He was not fast enough!

The stranger paused and touched Sioned’s hand gently. Power flew from him and into her. He transformed Sioned’s shadow into a rose and a swan.

“No!” She screamed, pulling her hand away.

His hand wrapped around her wrist and held her tightly. “My magic cannot touch you. You already know that!”

He would not let her go until his curiousity was satisfide. She pulled but it did not good. His magic pushed into the world around her weather she agreed or no.

His magic could not touch her but it could touch the things around her. He touched her surcoat and watched as it transformed into a robe of feathers. He touched her hand but he could not change her.

That protection did not seem to plaicate Sioned. She pulled her hand away with a fierce yank and a quick step.

He had followed her as she moved away into the hedgerows but he paused when he saw the banners. At the stairs, beneath the Blood Fox prowling between green swamp and starry night on the Detra banner, he hesitated. He could feel the power in Gwenydd. Rhys saw the reflection in Will’s eyes.

The power within Gwenydd was complex, layered as it was with ancient wizardry, time, portals, the experience of every sorcerer, guardian and magic-user who had left a lingering power in that chamber. Beneath that layer of old magic were the tomes of ancient magics.

The stranger would not recognize that power, but he would be aware, like a man stepping to off the edge of a chasm into greater darkness. The magic of centuries could be separated from newer magic as easily as stepping up the colum of stares. No one could get lost and a little effort could get a body up without having to think. The stranger could find the magic without knowing the history but he would never take such a chance. He would not risk the treasure he came for.

Rhys waited for his query in the highest library room in the chamber.

Reading an ancient book of magic had two purposes: hiding the book and Rhys himself in plain sight. So Rhys sat reading at one of the long cracked tables while the stranger looked through him as if he had found a memory. Rhys ignored him, gazing down at a page with rapt attention. The page he had turned to was merely a list of ingrediants but the stranger did not need to know that and the devil-may-care attitude gave Rhys an edge. The stranger’s mind was focused on whatever he had come for and Rhys’s still form was lost in the room.

The stone shelves held the oldest of the artifacts. Some of them were littered with thousand-year-old oddments of the ancient mage’s that had somehow survived theives, natural disasters, and debts. Rhys had no idea what most of them were supossed to do. They were unpredictable and viotaile.

The stranger purused them breifly before looking at those old stone shelves to take what he had really come for. Will stood in the middle of the room and raised his hands above his head. No magic words were spoken but something magical did happen. Shadows swirled out of the corners of the room and wrapped around this and that, looking for something unnameble. Rhys asked before he found it,

“What in the world do you think you can find in there?”

The jump Will made was so drastic that it broke the spell he had cast. Anyone walking past could see Will now and the mage could not escape through the walls! Sections of his clothing seemed to change without his thought or knowing. Rhys raised and eyebrow at the mage until his spells and temper could calm.

He looked at the emblem on the stranger’s chest to focus his thoughts. He saw it in the book before him. It was so old that no one in Gwenydd even remembered it. The symbol had been forgotten it in Gwenydd. The stranger’s face went pale as he looked at Rhys. He seemed to remmeber the face.

He said abruptly, “You were there with the girl guard. I saw you. How could I forget your eyes?”

He lifted a brow, “Most people don’t see me watching them.”

“No. I could see the magic in you and in your eyes. I forget their color as soon as the wind changes but the magic behind your eyes is unforgettable.”

“No one in the house of Gwenydd could forget me and they would have no need of remembering my magic.” He rested his chin on his palm, contemplating the stranger. “You are a thief. You are not from Gwenydd, or I would know you by now; your remarkable power would have caught my interest.”

“My powers aren’t as surprising as your friend’s. No one has ever cut through my spells like that! Did you teach her? I feel power coming off of you as well.”

“I know a few things,” Rhys said with a shrug.

“You don’t know what’s hidden in this library. No one sees what’s hidden in plane sight. I am the only one who can name it so it should be mine.”

“Fine,” he said drily. “You have my permission to keep the name. What do you think you’re doing coming in here and threatening this house? Ensorcelling the entire council? Take yourself out of this tower! How dare you bewitch the entire house only to pilfer through our things? What kind of barbaric place taught you to steal?”

“You act like I came to rob your family into destituation! I only need to take one thing,” he pointed out. “One small thing that everyone else has forgotten. That’s all I need. Something that no one needs. If you let me thake it and go I’ll never return to Gwenydd again.”

“Theft will be the leaste of your crimes! You already disturbed Sioned and everyone else here in this chamber. From what I’ve seen in memory and shadow alike you’re only good at threats and tricks.” He opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out.

Rhys did not really notice. He pulled absently at this or that and ruined a pen or two. “She does not hold grudges. Sioned would forgive you for moving against her but I do not think I can forgive you for what you’ve done.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not mean anything personal. I was only curious.”

“You were cruel. There was no reason to do what you did.”

He drew breath, his eyes flicking away from her; she saw the blush appear beneath his sandy skin. “No one showed me how,” he said finally, “to care about the difference. Where I come from ignoreance is a danger. Curiousity is reckless by neccessity. But I would never have harmed your friend. I only wanted to know the truth.”

“I am intemately aware of secrets that you want to know. You don’t seem the type to abide secrets well.” He paused, his own eyes falling briefly. He took the pen and laid it carefully down. He folded his hands in front of his mouth and looked at the stranger again. “You always want to know but Gwenydd is none of your business. Now leave this house in peace.”

The stranger’s eyes narrowed slightly as if they could find what was hidden in a glance. “The two of us are alike. You’re curious, too,” he said slowly. “You only want what I’m looking for because you don’t know what it is.”

Rhys nodded, unruffled and unsurprised. For a moment their eyes met, apraising the other, and then, abruptly they broke away. Will threw up a hand. “I never even thought this place would be guarded. And now I have run out of time...”

And he was gone, to Rhys’s surprise, as easily and noiselessly as the fading light of twilight. Distant sounds echoed and wove into the air around him: children laughing, birds singing as they flickered back and forth through the air. The Holder, he remembered suddenly, would be worried about the sorcerer who had suddenly disappeared to follow a renegade mage through the house. Sioned would do her best to keep her father calm but there was no need to worry them.

Rhys went to the mantle and touched the stone. He waited for the stone to give him some hint of what the strange mage had been looking for. He did not hear anything. Sioned’s magic may be of more use in talking. She claimed to have no magic of her own and the things Rhys had learned about power agreed with her.

He studied it and looked into the stone with that magic eye he had been training. Tentrals of power moved into it. He saw something then. The mage had not been staring at one thing... He was watching the place between objects.

He reached up, touched the blank space where Will had been staring. Nothing happened. The sunlight streamed in through the window. The shifting trees caused the sunlight to move in its dance along the wall. The movement caught Rhys’s eye and made him think. He stood still and watched the flock of birds moving in patterns and he saw that they were not traditional V patterns.

It was a constellation: All the sparkling eyes looked like stars and stood in their places. It was a story that no one outside of Gwenydd knew; a riddle that Rhys and Sioned, but not this stranger, could answer. He felt something he had rarely felt before: caution. He dismissed it almost immediately and let curiousity take over. He reached and touched the places the stars should be in the blank space on the stone mantle.

Rhys barely had time to see what his movements had made when a wind struck him. The force of it flung him into the mantle and the shelves above it. He did not cry out until he was high enough to see eye to eye with the birds that had given him his vision. He was too afraid to look down.

Sioned came to his rescue by slamming the library door and climbing the shelves until she could see him. Their eyes met across the window pains until they could both see the only solution. He used magic to send the glass of the window away while she sent one of the wooden library poles to him.

Calyx used the poles to help her push the books on the highest shelves. Sioned used it now to bring Rhys to her.

Rhys was used to thinking like a mage so he used to shield spell to block the strange mage before he could finish whatever he started. The mage, not even leaving time to think, flung a hand out. His voice rose and fell as if he were singing or chanting. The creature on Will’s crest came to life! It slithered like a snake and attacked with the furousity of a tiger.

Sioned pulled back her elbow until it met the monster’s nose. Her training kicked in and she moved without thinking. Rhys shot small magics through Sioned and into the monster. Rhys and Sioned had worked together and knew how to help each other and when. They moved like a pair of dancers and wove around each other.

Sioned held a dagger in one hand and a sword in the other. Rhys held a staff and a ball of lightning. They made quite the formiddable pair but they did not hold the mge’s attention. Something caught the mage’s attention so quickly that his head snapped away from the pair.

For an instant the rose stunned him. Then he spoke sharply. The animal halted in mid-flight; white embroidery thread snarled in the air. Rhys dropped like a tear out of the crow’s eye, reappeared in front of Sioned.

The air seemed to snarl in his wake as he dragged remnants of the mage’s spell from the air and threw them back at him. The mage began to fray in different directions at once, as if he were spun of fine threads of time, all unravelling. He cried something before he vanished. The cry skipped like a rock across water, snatched the gently falling thread. Cry and thread whirled away into nothing.

Sioned sagged against the open doorway, felt air and brought herself upright. “Goodness’s name,” she whispered. “What did you do to him?”

Rhys, his eyes flooded with color, untangling himself from his sorcery, looked bewitched himself, something only half human. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ve never done that before.”

“Is he still alive?”

“I have no idea.” He drew a deep breath then; his eyes relinquished color, became familiar. He glanced toward the noise that had followed Sioned up the stairs. He touched his friend, who, having fought some ancient and very peculiar sorcery not so long before, seemed oddly shaken by a tidy piece of work. “Stay here. Keep them out. If he comes back, this time not even that rose will stop him. We can’t trick him twice.”

He crossed the room quickly, knelt at the hearth. Sioned, watching the air for a warning of color, was jostled by the first of the guard who, weapons drawn, flung themselves precipitously toward the threat to the house. Several of the more agile councilors were among them. Sioned heard the Holder’s voice farther down the stairwell.

She turned briefly, stilled the guard with a gesture. They quieted, peering over Sioned’s shoulders at Rhys, who was gazing meditatively into a cracked, charred stone adrift from the hearth. The silence spread; subdued whisperings passed it back to the crowd at the top of the stairs, until it reached even the Holder. Sioned felt him coming in eddies of movement as the guard pushed a path clear for her. He joined Sioned, who was guarding yet another threshold, eyed his daughter, and went to speak with Rhys.

“What is it?” he asked. He had evidently flung a trail of ripped cloth down the stairs, his jacket now in shreds. He was frowning deeply; his black eyes were expressionless, wintry, but he kept his voice low, “Was she harmed?”

“No. There was a strange mage, a thief, trying to steal something—she may still be in danger.”

“Goodness sake! Why didn’t you just let him have what he wanted? Gwenydd would not be threatened by one like him.”

“Because he doesn’t know what it is.”

“You think you know everything by now?”

“I’m just trying to be careful.”

The Holder stared at him. “Really. And how did this thief get past the Gatekeeper?”

“He slowed time.”

The Holder’s response caused even Rhys, feeling through the stone for mage-traps, to raise his eyes. The Holder, still furious, lowered his voice mid-sentence, “—in the middle of the Spring Council, wandering among us at will, it’s unthinkable, intolerable. You couldn’t stop him?”

Sioned sighed noiselessly. “I tried. All he wanted was something of Crellyn’s, nothing more serious. I had no power against his magic. Nothing but a sword.”

The Holder was silent, gazing at her quizzically. Her eyes dropped to the rose in Sioned’s hand. Sioned, staring at it, felt the color blaze into her face. She lifted her other hand, pushed it against her eyes, and saw the rose again, lying beside the sword in her shadow.

She dropped the sword as if pricked by thorns. “I was ensorcelled! He couldn’t do it before!”

“I remember your story,” the Holder reminded her. “What could have changed in so short a time?”

A murmuring tingle rippled up Sioned’s spine at her father’s words. Something monumentous had changed. Magic could not touch her one minute and it was changing her life the next. Fear hit her like a bolt when she saw her own helplessness.

She turned to ask Rhys his opinion when she saw the answer in the young sorcerer’s hand: a golden key.