Five
The last shaded rays of sunlight lingered on as the twins clung to their perch in the spreading oak. One moment the air was filled with the baying of the excited hounds, the next all was still as though the entire world had taken a deep deep breath and now held it.
Out of this immense calm, Seren appeared. Her hounds sat still as stone carvings, lazily arrayed at the base of the tree. The Fair One walked out of the growing gloom wearing a simple white dress with a small wreath of blue summer flowers circling her loose, rippling scarlet locks.
“Come down from there,” she commanded. Her voice was clear and cold as a winter night, her face impassive giving no hint as to her mood or will.
The twins shook their heads, each keeping a tight grip on the shoulder of the other.
Emyr spoke, “Lady, we greet you. We have enjoyed your hospitality, but we must return home.”
“Decided that, then, have you?” She laughed and there was a cruel, mocking note in the clear tone that they’d never marked before.
“Aye,” Idrys and Emyr answered as one.
“Since you are so set on this, I’ll make you a bargain.” She smiled, the mocking expression fading in the light of her iridescent beauty. “One of you may go; the other will stay with me and be my love.”
Her words sounded at once warm and reasonable. A bargain indeed. Emyr and Idrys looked at each other and their promise in the frantic moments before her arrival echoed in the eyes of each.
“And if we refuse this bargain?” Idrys asked. He’d grown wary in a way he’d never have been only days before.
Seren shrugged. “Mayhap I’ll see if my hounds care for further sport then. You gave them a merry chase, and I doubt you’ll make a home of that lovely tree.”
She tried to look disinterested. These young mortals clearly did not know that in truth once they’d refused her she’d lost her power over them. She chose to let them think she could take them against their will, so long as she didn’t have to voice the lie. Centuries of practice let her comfortably couch all statements in the realm of the possible instead of the actual, allowing her to avoid having to tell the truth entire.
The Fair Folk could not lie, but they’d talk circles to avoid the truth.
“No matter what,” Emyr whispered to his brother and Idrys nodded.
“I quite like this tree. Such lovely leaves this time of year,” Idrys called down to the waiting Lady.
“Idrys,” Seren guessed, for she could not tell the one from the other, filthy as each was with soot and ash. “I will make you a prince in truth, my love. I can teach you things no mortal has ever known.”
She walked to the base of the tree and leaned a slender hand upon the bark. Her inner light grew then until it spilled cool and clinging over the lowest branches of the oak.
Desire, hot and unbidden, rose in Idrys. His blood sang with remembered passion, her words arousing sensations along his skin as he lost himself in the memory of the most tender caress he’d ever known.
Emyr’s arms closed more tightly around his brother as he saw the anger fade to rapture in the gleam of the Lady’s power. The air around him was too heavy to breathe and he struggled to draw it into his lungs. Idrys. You promised. Don’t leave me brother. Not like this.
Idrys started to pull away.
Emyr managed a strangled cry and, clinging to his brother, threw them both from the tree.
They hit the ground hard, Idrys slightly under his twin. It worked. The look faded from Idrys’s eyes and he groaned and blinked as though waking from a deep sleep.
“No,” he croaked, eyes on his brother who still held his shoulders.
At the word there was a sound like a harp string snapping, a clear and broken note. The light winked out leaving only Seren standing there in her cold beauty. The hounds were gone, slipping back somewhere into the oncoming night.
“Very well,” she said. All kindness was gone from her features. “So loyal, each to the other. Much like a dog. In fact, I think you shall live as dogs, since you have broken my hospitality like wild curs.”
Idrys and Emyr, their hands still clasped, fingers intertwined, rose slowly to their knees before her. The power of speech had fled them both in the face of cold terror and their iron resolve.
Seren smiled and the twins shivered. “Yes, quite fitting.” She looked to the sky. “By night, you Emyr, shall serve your brother, his faithful mutt. And you, Idrys, I think by day it shall be your fate. As you’ve shared your lives, so shall you split the burden of your fate.” Again the mocking laugh, quick and soft in the gloom.
Emyr doubled over, pain stretching along all his limbs. Horrible screams burst from his lips as his body twisted. Idrys held on, finding his own voice as he screamed as well in horror, screaming for her to stop, to take him, to leave his brother alone.
It was over in the space of a breath, between one scream and another.
There, standing in a puddle of tunic and trouser, Emyr was no longer a man. Instead he bore the form of a tall hunting hound, his coat sleek and black. But his eyes, staring in shock up at his twin, they were Emyr’s eyes still, clear and brown as polished wood in firelight.
Emyr the hound threw back his head and howled. Idrys leapt to his feet and sprang at the Lady with an unintelligible curse. The hound followed on his heels, teeth bared. Rational thought fled in the face of terrified anger.
Seren disappeared. It looked as though she only took one backward step but somehow the oncoming night swallowed her whole, leaving only whispering leaves and an empty wood behind.
Idrys stumbled about, thrashing through the woods, yelling for her to come back and undo her curse. He collapsed, exhausted, his throat closing off with choking anguish.
Emyr crept up along side his brother and licked his face, laying a large paw on his brother’s thigh. Idrys grabbed onto his twin, pulling the hound half into his lap as he let himself sob into the warm, silky fur.
“I’m sorry, Em. Gods I’m sorry. I’ll make it right. This is all my fault. Emyr. All my fault.” They lay curled together on the forest floor until the pervading fatigue of grief claimed them both.