Hello friends, it’s been a minute or ten thousand, hasn’t it? When I started publishing, I focused on blogging more than sending newsletters, social media, or even ads. Since having my second kid and moving into a new home, it’s been more difficult to make time for blogging on top of work and writing. But with the new year I’m back again, hoping to dive back fully into my first online social love. Meanwhile, enjoy a peek into (and maybe even pre-order…) Bound Beauty today. Please keep in mind, this teaser will be most appreciated if you’ve read Craving and Scarred (or don’t mind spoilers). Now that you’ve been duly warned, let’s return to Wylderland…
In a hidden cabin in Wylderland…
“Aunty,” Wyll began, “Hugyn and Munyn have been asking me the ending to Queen Eirwen’s tale, but I told them we should wait for you to tell it since you tell the best stories!”
Wyll was not necessarily brighter than most children, but his hardships had given him insight many adults lacked. And Ceddrych’s fears abated in the face of this obvious kindness.
“Haven’t you already heard me speak of Queen Eirwen enough?” Vynasha teased with a serious mask and dancing eyes.
“No!” Munyn blurted, then gasped, covering her mouth with avian fingers.
Vynasha sighed. “I suppose, if Asa doesn’t mind…”
“Of course not!” Asa was quick to agree, and the room itself breathed with something like relief as the children settled closer to Vynasha as she began.
“Before Eirwen was queen, she was the eldest of four princesses, and as the king had no sons, she was raised as heir to the her father’s throne…”
“But the evil warlord invaded her home and locked Eirwen and her sisters in a tower!” Asa added with a shaky grin.
“Are you telling this story, or am I?” Vynasha chided with an indulgent smile.
Ceddrych rcouldn’t help echoing her smile and her secret joy as she wove the very same tale he had once told her. The tale Grandmother Mayve had whispered to them all by the hearth in her tavern during the coldest winters when town was safer than their cabin. And Wynyth had still been alive to hold Vynasha safely in her arms.
His smile dimmed with familiar grief. Vynasha’s mother had filled a gap he hadn’t known was missing when his father brought the hedge witch back to Whistleande Valley with him. Old Cedd claimed both Wynyth and her newborn child as his. And for a time, they had been a family so mired in happiness the memories of that time felt like a distant dream. To see Vynasha grown into a woman and sheltering motherless children as he had been, Ceddrych wondered if Wynyth would have been as proud as he felt.
Or would she have felt horror knowing what this curse has made us?
Ceddrych closed his eyes and let Vynasha’s faintly rasping cadence wash over him.
“Eirwen saw an opportunity to protect her sisters, by allowing the warlord to parade her before his court at every feast. She wore her finest gowns and jewels and wore her bruises like armor, and bided her time until the warlord believed he had broken the heir to the throne. She waited until the dead of night, when the warlord had dragged Eirwen to his bedroom, until he was fast asleep.
And as he slept, she carefully pulled free the poisoned pin binding her raven braids…” Hugyn gasped as Vynasha mimicked the motion with a scarred, clawed hand. “And she stabbed the warlord through his remaining eye with all her might. The poison worked as quickly as her old tutor had claimed. The warlord choked on his own blood, and Eirwen wasted no time in inflicting every bruise he and his men had done to her sisters.”
Wyll lay his head in Vynasha’s lap with half a smile. “Good.”
Vynasha arched an eyebrow at their nephew. “Was it good?”
Wyll’s gleaming blue eye betrayed this was something they had debated before. “The warlord was evil, so he deserved a cruel death.”
“Perhaps he did…” Vynasha pretended to muse aloud, but then her gaze snapped to Ceddrych’s dark corner and her tone deepened. “Or perhaps she had become wicked because of the wickedness done to her.”
The twins and younger children argued passionately and loudly, their voices overlapping and breaking the otherworldly hush that had fallen during Vynasha’s tale.
“No!”
“That is bloody ridiculous!”
“An eye for an eye, that is what Uncle Galtis says.”
“Uncle Galtis is wrong, we should never choose vengeance over survival, my father said so.”
Ceddrych held Vynasha’s gaze and struggled against the urge to wrap her up in his arms returning with painful force.
You are not wicked!
But the darker corners of his mind, the place that haunted him with Onya’s death and all the others that had come and gone before, whispered otherwise.
Magick has only ever caused suffering and heartache to this realm.
“She was not wicked,” he said, his voice deeper and gruff with remnants of the wolf. The room fell silent, all eyes turning to him. Ceddrych held his loose position, refusing to betray the conflict within, adding with perfect nonchalance, “She ruled the land so well after reclaiming her father’s throne, the mountains surrounding our home carry her name to this day.”
His commanding officer once told Ceddrych that the side that won the war would tell tales of their glory. They had lost the war. How long before Whistleande Valley was finally swallowed up by the rivaling kingdom? How long before their struggle was forgotten like the people of Wylderland had already forgotten their past?
“What do you say, Aunty Asha?” Wyll’s question dragged their attention from Ceddrych and some of the tension eased from his limbs. “Is Uncle Ceddrych right?”
Vynasha shrugged and smiled. “Your uncle knows all the old stories far better than I. He taught me everything I know.” Her eyes darted back to his and Ceddrych turned away, unable to bear the weight of her admiration.
I am no one’s hero, he thought as he tore himself away before he ruined her moment with the children. He could bear it all so long as he buried everything deeply enough, until it was over one way or another.
to be continued…
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Jennifer Silverwood 