as he walked behind his companions, his thoughts splintered with rage, the reality of what had been done to him threatening his composure.
Myrddin Emrys had tricked him—again.
Even thinking the words sent fresh ire through his blood. He was now the Heliwr. The Unfettered Knight. It was his duty and his alone to patrol the two worlds and keep them both separate. If the two worlds blurred when a fey creature crossed over or someone from his world broke into Annwn, it was now his responsibility to track them down, return them—or kill them. No longer chained to the portal in Seattle, he could venture where he wished as long as he had access to Annwn and its seven gateways.
The freedom gave him no solace. Richard had not been given a choice, and that betrayal gnawed at him like a splinter in his soul.
Merle had seen this. The wizard had known.
And he had not told Richard.
After the gwyddbwyll match between Bran and Lord Fafnir the previous evening, the leader of the coblynau had offered warm beds and meals. The group from Arendig Fawr took the offer with pleasure. The deaths of Connal and the two hellyll lay heavy on their hearts.
Not so with Richard. The duplicity that had knighted him Heliwr would not allow it. Deirdre had tried to prompt the knight into conversation. He had ignored the redhead as if she had played a part in the travesty. The way she looked at him made him angrier than he had a right to be, the pain from his past mingling with the present to form a self-loathing that boiled.
Before he had finished his meal, Richard left the throne room to wander the halls of Caer Glain and think on what had happened. No one stopped him. Coming to a small waterfall, and in the dark, alone, he thought back on the events that led to his melding to the Dark Thorn. Merle had told him knighthood would not pass from father to son. He had been right. Govannon could not give Bran a weapon. The boy now carried Arondight. The Lady in the glen asked if he would protect the office of Heliwr with his life. Richard had accepted. It was the reason Bran hadn’t been able to call the Dark Thorn when they awoke under the hawthorn tree; it was the reason events had played out the way they had.
There was nothing Richard could do to change it.
And it pissed him off.
Merle had played his chess game and won a major battle in the war. Richard had been used as a pawn once more. So had Bran. When Richard had returned to his quarters, the boy had been there with questions more numerous than flies. Richard answered them, if barely. The boy’s newfound authority was exciting to Bran; the new Seattle portal knight did not care how Merle had set him up. It made Richard want to rage against everything.
Even now, watching the boy as he strode ahead and his exuberance in learning all he could about the coblynau, Richard wanted nothing more than to drag him out of Annwn by the nape of his neck and be done with this business entirely.
“And which Ser is Merrick?” Bran asked Hollick.
The guard grimaced. “Ye really do not know the ways.”
“No, not at all.”
“Ser Merrick is the governing Ser of Pathways,” the young coblynau said. “He keeps our way safe from the shadows of the Unseelie and protects all those who walk alongside him.”
“I’ll never remember all of this,” Bran said.
An overwhelming rush of hatred spread through Richard. Not for Bran, but for what the boy represented—a willing apprentice of Merle.
Along with Henrick, Hollick, and two coblynau guards named Charl and Gat, the Arendig Fawr delegation made their way through the bustle and out of Caer Glain. Fafnir kept good on his promise; hundreds of coblynau mobilized for war, and carts of iron ingots already made their way down the mountain for Govannon. The grandsons of Fafnir would also lead a contingent of coblynau warriors down the slopes to Arendig Fawr, giving their aid as best they could. While a part of Richard wished he and the others could stay a few days to recover from the attack of the bodach, he also knew time was of the essence.
The sooner he finished with Tal Ebolyon, the sooner he could confront Merle.
Thinking about how to convince Lord Latobius to rejoin the Seelie Court, Richard almost ran over Gat. In front of him