Fallen Emrys Read online

  Fallen Emrys

  Niawen’s Story

  Prequel to Chronicles of the Half-Emrys

  A novel by Lisa Rector

  Fallen Emrys

  Copyright © 2016 Lisa Rector

  All rights reserved.

  First edition 2016

  This novel is Reader Rated (RR) for ages 16+ for non-detailed fade-out sensuality, implied sex, and non-graphic discussion of intimacy; also contains mild violence and mild language.

  Cover by Perry Elisabeth Design

  perryelisabethdesign.com

  Images © Can Stock Photo Inc.

  rolffimages, robertprzybysz, yuriyzhuravov

  Also by Lisa Rector:

  Chronicles of the Half-Emrys:

  Master of Lies

  The Two Masters

  Master of Time

  Coming Soon:

  Master of Deception, a novella

  Switching Lives, a novella

  To Ella LaRue

  —“Spin around like a crazy elf,”

  and just let everything go.

  And to Daisy

  —Because without your curiosity,

  Niawen’s story might never have been told.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Part I

  Chapter One

  I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have gazed into Aneirin’s eyes, but I had to know the truth. His rich jade eyes were nothing compared to my bright emerald ones, yet they drew me in.

  We sat in the meadow, hidden in the nodding grasses. The breeze tickled my cheek. Aneirin had leaned in to me, and I to him. I could have kissed him if I wanted. Instead, we were in a fate-determining, life-altering staring contest.

  Peering into the soul through the eyes was entirely normal. Emrys did this when proclaiming their love for each other. Even if the expression had already been declared, saying the words I love you in no way compared to reading the imprint on the heart—love’s imprint on the heart’s center for a loved one.

  Aneirin’s feelings weren’t known to me, or any other emrys, by the gift of discernment, but I had to peek.

  I had to know how he felt.

  I had waited too long to know the truth.

  Following his light’s trail, my inner sight passed his irises, down the pathway leading into his mind and into his emotional core. The mind held many folds and divots and components for feeling and memory. I simply allowed my light to seek them out and touch them.

  Aneirin shouldn’t have let me look. Perhaps he had become frustrated with my dreamy, infatuated manner. Perhaps he wanted to prove that, once and for all, I was wrong. That there was no hope for us.

  I wanted an eternal companion. The time was right. I was ready. The desire itched through me constantly, like a ticking clock of longing. I had chosen Aneirin. In my heart, I was already his.

  He knew this. I didn’t conceal my feelings. I cast no wall around my heart-center. I was an open book. But Aneirin didn’t ask to read my heart-center’s imprint; I asked to read his.

  Images from a lifetime of Aneirin’s memories filled me. We spent years as friends—this result was inevitable once my dragon’s mate chose Aneirin as his rider. He had grown on me with his overly worried, constantly furrowed brows, his more-than-seriously narrowed eyes, and ridiculously thin-pressed lips. His meek spirit rivaled my aggressive, rebellious one. I don’t know why I thought a relationship—a life with him—would work.

  I was a fool.

  By the time my light slipped into his heart-center—to the spiritual core from which our light perpetuated, I knew the truth.

  He loved me…

  Like a sister.

  All those fond adventures together—flying on our dragons, sneaking off into the hills after dusk for yet another campout, skipping class at the university to infuriate our parents, damming up the river to make a pond with the help of Catrin and our dragons—and he never once thought of me as more than a playmate.

  My light retreated. I pulled back…

  Humiliated.

  I blinked at him, turmoil roiling under my skin. My eyes bulged.

  He didn’t blink.

  “By the Light, Aneirin! I hope you’re satisfied. You had to put me in my place. Well, look at my heart! Do you want to stare into my eyes? Do you want to know how my soul feels?” I clenched my fists and pushed myself to my feet, tossing my ashy waves over my shoulder, not waiting for him to answer.

  Aneirin’s sorrow, for the hurt he caused, hit me as he scrambled up.

  I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  I was the one who was crushed. Embarrassed. Disheartened.

  My face flushed as if a dragon’s flame had scorched it.

  I retaliated, dropping all walls around my emotions. My light lashed out and shoved my battered sentiments forward.

  I threw brokenheartedness at Aneirin. I threw despair.

  Feel my heart cleaved in two.

  He flinched as if I’d punched him in the stomach.

  Yes. Feel what being torn apart is like.

  Aneirin hunched over, his long, silver blond hair falling in his face while he clutched his stomach. “Niawen… I’m sorry.”

  Oh, Deian, what did I do?

  He couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe. Hurting him wounded me, and tears brimmed in the corners of my eyes. I restrained myself from going to him and supporting him—from falling into his arms and crying.

  We had cried together. We had laughed together. We enjoyed the fullness life offered… as friends.

  The best of friends. Aneirin and Niawen, along with his sister Catrin.

  That could be no more.

  I spoiled our friendship with romantic emotion.

  “I can’t… love you… the same way,” he groaned. “Please… tell me you understand.”

  The pleading in his voice raked my spine.

  “Just”—I shook my head—“don’t.” I dismissed him with a hand wave as I turned away from him, as I turned my back on the false hope I’d kept in my heart for many years.

  He would not be my soul mate.

  My heart shrank away with the truth.

  I reached through the mental bond I shared with my dragon and called out. Seren, I want to leave. I can’t be here with him. I can’t look at him ever again.

  Niawen, I’m coming.

  My b
eloved dragon couldn’t fly to me fast enough. Only she knew the intimacy of my feelings. She felt them as her own, and our heartache echoed across the bridge of our bond.

  This should have been the most joyous moment of my life, but I had searched for love’s treasure too soon.

  Chapter Two

  The wind waited as if holding its breath. I waited on the cliff’s ledge, knee-deep in the snowdrift, wondering why the wind did not rage with my feelings.

  The chasm below seemed bottomless. If I fell, my life would be over. Even as an immortal, I could die if my body was compromised beyond my light’s ability to recover it quickly enough.

  Seren protectively stretched her pearlescent wings beside me, spanning the width of the ledge. I’ll fly you away from here if you wish it.

  I ached to leave.

  Standing outside the immortal realm, Gorlassar, I faced a choice—turn around and walk between the two boulders marking the portal to my home or fly from this ledge, farther into the mortal world, never to return.

  My heart had already left. My heart longed to fly away. I knew if I didn’t, I might throw myself from the cliff. My feet shuffled in the snow. I needed only a leg up into Seren’s saddle, and she’d take me wherever I desired.

  I cannot ask you to leave Cephias, I said. I cannot ask you to fly from your mate and your home.

  I’d do it for you, Niawen. I love you.

  I pinched my expression, knowing the sacrifice Seren was willing to make. Our dragon bond wouldn’t allow her to ignore my feelings. She was hard-pressed for relief from my turmoil—from our turmoil.

  It’s your sacrifice. Not mine, Seren said. I have the power to return. You do not.

  My chin dropped to my chest. What was I willing to give up to flee from my shame?

  The treacherous mountain I stood on provided an impassable barrier between the immortal and mortal worlds. No human could climb this high and gain access to my realm, and no immortal dared leave this ledge to descend into the mortal world. The ledge was as far as any emrys was permitted to go. Humans could corrupt immortal souls, so if I left Gorlassar, I’d be exiled.

  But I didn’t fear the mortals; they were a weak, inferior race without pure light. I couldn’t see, and refused to acknowledge, the possibility of corruption from them. Even though I was told that only the dragons had power to move between the worlds and remain untainted.

  I considered my thoughts as I hungered for release from my disgrace.

  I still couldn’t face Aneirin.

  I’m removing my dragon stone. You should give it to another rider. I fumbled with the iridescent stone around my neck.

  I refuse to accept that. I’ll have no other rider, Niawen.

  If I leave, you must move on.

  Don’t ask me to do that.

  “Niawen, stop!”

  I whirled around. Aneirin’s petite sister pushed her way through the snow to me. Catrin had difficulty lifting her thin dress—much too inadequate for the weather—as ice crystals clung to its hem. She just came from where summer reigned supreme in Gorlassar.

  “Don’t leave,” Catrin said. “Please. Forget Aneirin. This grief will subside. Please, come home with me. Don’t forsake the emrys. I couldn’t bear it if you left. You’re my dearest friend. I know you’re hurt, but who’ll hold my hand when I have my first broken heart?” She paused and gave me a wide-eyed, entreating look with her almond-shaped eyes. “Let me hold yours now.”

  Catrin reached me, and I fell into her arms, breathing in her honeyed scent. I murmured against her neck. “You know I’ve felt unrest for some time.”

  “But you’d risk living with the humans!”

  “I’m not afraid of them.”

  Catrin searched my face. “What about Aneirin?”

  “I knew a future with Aneirin was remote, yet I dared hope. I don’t understand how I locked so readily on to him.”

  “He’s so young. Only a baby. We’ll go to a soirée and meet some eligible men our age,” Catrin replied.

  I exhaled sharply and pulled away. Catrin didn’t understand. Age didn’t matter. Who cared if Aneirin was over six hundred years younger than I was? Once we matured in our lights’ abilities, age was insignificant. Besides, something about Aneirin had charmed me. My heart wouldn’t easily give him up.

  Movement at the dragon realm’s portal made me lift my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut when the silver blond haired head emerged. His regret washed over me. I opened my eyes to Aneirin’s tight-lipped grimace.

  I turned to Catrin. “You brought him with you? I told you, I didn’t want to see him again.” Catrin had found me as I hastily packed, and I blubbered what happened between Aneirin and me. Although I begged her to tell no one about my plan to leave, my pleas meant nothing to her.

  Catrin frowned. “Let him explain. You owe him that.”

  My voice carried across the crisp air. “What do you have to say, Aneirin? Is my desperation not enough? Is my mortification not enough? Why’d you let me look?”

  Aneirin edged closer, his drooping brows beseeching me. “You had to see, Niawen. You had to know. I couldn’t hide my true feelings from you any longer. I labored to protect you, ever since I knew you loved me. I concealed my emotions to spare you pain.”

  I cursed. The transparency of the emrys—their ability to read each other’s unhindered emotions—wasn’t a blessing in my eyes. “You’re saying this was mercy. Allowing me to glimpse your soul was an act of mercy?”

  Aneirin’s face couldn’t have been more wretched. “Yes. Is my friendship not enough? Isn’t that love worth fighting for—worth staying in Gorlassar for? You’re really leaving because I cannot give you my heart? Because I cannot give you the vows of love you desperately seek?”

  “Aneirin, you know me too well. You know everything about me. That’s why I thought you loved me. I had a vain hope those walls you cast up, the one’s masking your emotions, were hiding your affection for me.”

  “I’m sorry that wasn’t true,” Aneirin said. “But this is one chink in the eternal scheme. You’ll move on. Your heart will heal, and you’ll fall in love with another.”

  Catrin’s classically green emryn eyes shimmered at mine, and she grabbed my hand. “He’s right. This is but a cut in the tapestry of life. One nick that can be mended.”

  I squeezed her slender hand. Closing my eyes, I searched within my heart. Seren didn’t move, although I felt her anxiety across the barrier of my mind. Could I do this to Seren? Take her from her mate? How could I be so headstrong, so obstinate? How could I defy my calling as a dragon guardian and endanger Seren’s life by fleeing to the mortal world? She gave me her stone. She trusted her life to me—bound her fate with mine. How could I even consider?

  Catrin pushed wispy, golden blond strands out of her eyes. She was as good as my sister and thirty-one years older. We were friends before Aneirin was born. I valued her opinion and always heeded her voice. Why didn’t I want to listen to her wisdom? I lapped up the hope swirling around her. She believed I’d stay. She believed I was strong enough to overcome my embarrassment.

  Indeed, I was just upset over a silly broken heart. Aneirin had wounded my pride, and the insult festered like an embedded thorn constantly probing deeper into my very being. Could I pull the thorn? Catrin’s hope was that I’d grasp ahold and yank the offender out.

  Then I would bleed.

  I curled my hands into my tunic’s fabric, over my chest. I squeezed my eyes, pushing at my misery, envisioning it leaping from me. My heart would heal if I allowed humility to fill me.

  But I was the least humble person I knew. Mountains would have to move before my pride crumbled.

  I glanced beyond my heart-center at those around me. Of all the emotions my friends expressed—love for me as a sister, hope I’d stay, faith I could conquer this, sorrow for inflicting agony, fear I might choose an unsound path, among others—I latched on to the wrong one.

  Pity.

  For my dejected circumstances.


  “Pity?” My eyes blurred as they tore into Aneirin’s. “You pity me? My love’s so pathetic you pity me? Isn’t this the worst misfortune you ever beheld, that my suffering causes you to pity me?”

  I suppressed my feelings for him for eleven years, holding them back so they wouldn’t overwhelm him in their full extent, and never once had Aneirin pitied me.

  “I only want to relieve you of this affliction,” he said.

  Catrin spread her fingers over my heart. “I can take this away. I can lessen the burden until you’re ready to face everything.”

  That Catrin could. She studied healing during our years at the university together. She was advanced in the art for her age, able to heal many physical maladies as well as emotional or spiritual ones.

  I laced my fingers over hers and dug them into my chest. With dead calm, I muttered, “I want to feel every single stab. I was fool enough to look and embarrass myself. I deserve to feel this way.”

  “No,” Catrin whispered. “Niawen, forgive yourself.” She bled forgiving into my heart-center, pushing into me, craving my healing while attempting to supersede my will.

  I couldn’t numb myself to forget the hurt.

  I cast a wall around my heart-center as I ripped her hand off and rushed to Seren. Catrin lunged for me, but my tunic slipped through her fingers. Knowing my intent, Seren gave me a lift, and I slid into the saddle above her wings.

  Aneirin trudged through the snow, too far away to intervene. Frenzied anguish slashed through him. He wouldn’t be able to stop me.