Cymru - Chapter 34

GWILYM

"But why the Alpha Wingleaders?" Gwilym pressed. He was aware that his previous bemusement was starting to give way to a tone that might by some have been considered whinging and unprofessional, but the situation was weird. "I mean... everyone's here now, it only mattered to the Union anyway, why can't I just give it to the Sovereigns themselves as hand-outs? I don't mind just writing everyone's names in the corner."

"Because it is traditional, sire," Watkins intoned patiently. "Since all proposals go through the Alpha Wings normally, this one must also in order to be officially endorsed."

"The High Council said yes," Gwilym said flatly, glaring at the mirror. It glared back. It used his own face to do it, too, which was a vicious and unfair tactic. "It's already officially endorsed. This is pointless bureacracy. I hate this cloak."

"Also traditional, sire," Watkins said, draping it over Gwilym's shoulders apparently to find the optimum position in which he looked like a tit. "If it helps, consider this meeting... symbolic. The proposals are filtered through the Union to the Sovereigns. This meeting is the filter."

"Lovely symbolism, appalling waste of time," Gwilym said. He sighed. He liked Riders, he really did, and one perhaps more than he should, but they were bloody intimidating at the best of times. Alpha Wingleaders were worse. Every Alpha Wingleader in the country packed into one room...

"How many will there be?" he asked, dreading the answer. The cloak was inhibiting arm movement with its many folds. Was he meant to look winged?

"Twenty-seven, including Leader Alaw," Watkins said. "Although if you are apprehensive at the large number, my lord, I can stand her down, since her presense is unrequired."

Gwilym's mouth twitched.

"That," he said proudly, "was a joke, wasn't it? Admit it. You've been working on the humour, like I said."

"Just so, sire," Watkins said serenely, although Gwilym saw the briefest look on the clerk's face in the mirror that conveyed quite clearly how tricky he was finding it. "It is a challenging experience. There. You are ready."

"Yes." There was a pause as they both regarded Gwilym's reflection steadily. He'd looked better. He looked as though someone had tried to mummify him with brocade. "You know, I'm positive I've never seen any other Sovereigns wearing these."

"No," Watkins said, outright disapproval marching across his face for once. "It is traditional, my lord, but it seems that many consider it old-fashioned these days."

"You should sniff at the end of sentences like that," Gwilym told him sagaciously. "It emphasises your horror at the youth of today. I don't seem to be able to move my arms, Watkins."

"Traditionally you shouldn't need to, sire," Watkins said, mildly puzzled. "You have a staff for all physical needs."

"Good gods, I hope not," Gwilym said, mildly alarmed. "No. A nice idea, Watkins, but I don't think it's me. Besides which it's a warm day and I fear I shall melt."

"Very well, sire," Watkins said blandly, helping him take it off. "Should I opt for a lighter cloak-?"

"No cloak," Gwilym said, struggling out of the fabric. "It's a delightful tunic you've picked, if slightly overly endowed of gold trimming to be anything other than indecent. There's no point to that trimming if people can't see it."

"A fair point of course, sire," Watkins said, straightening the torque around Gwilym's neck. "Very well. Then you are ready."

The conference room was only a few corridors away, happily enough, although the distance was less of a concern now that Gwilym wasn't being swaddled and didn't have to lurk from one pillar to the next to avoid being seen like some oversided laundry-ridden stalker. The late morning sun outside was beating strongly through the windows, luxuriously warm on his bare forearms as he passed and reminding him of what he was missing in order to attend a pointless conference. There should, he felt petulantly, be a law against working on Nice Days. Maybe he could sneakily add it to the proposal sheet in his hand. Probably not; if it was so crazy even Marged didn't have it, odds were it was Too Far. A flash of gold-on-russet caught his eye, and he looked up.

She looked incredible. His first thought was entirely swept away by it. Awen was stepping out of a side corridor, Councillor Rhydian beside her, the sunlight gilding her hair. It was looser than it had been, Gwilym noted with dreamy attention. The two braids still hung from her temples, holding the autumn-coloured beads on display, but the style had otherwise changed from a few days ago. The top part had been woven back into two Gaulish plaits that ran along the top of her head and down her back, the rest falling loose to her elbows and framing her elfin face. Her uniform was different, too. The jacket he'd seen was gone, replaced by a pair of greaves from wrist to elbow and a sleeveless jerkin with the high, ornate collar that Riders wore in place of torques, hugging her slenderly athletic frame and revealing her upper arms. A spider web of scars, thin and silver, spun over her skin elegantly like the cracks in a mirror, exotically beautiful-

Her eyes were wrong. His second thought was of vague alarm as he approached and she looked up. When he'd met her, only a few days ago still, Gwilym had been instantly struck by Awen's gaze, watching rather than looking, analysing the world. It had hardened after Owain had cut her throat. Now...

Now something was wrong. Something else was watching the world from behind Awen's eyes. That alert gaze was weighed down, haunted by something, and yet covered over with a neutral mask that didn't entirely filter what it hid. And then she smiled for him, and her expression settled into its mild, warm greeting, the wrong edge vanishing without trace, and she bowed. Gwilym sighed.

"Councillor!" he said, bowing. He took great relish in the bowing, it felt better. "And Rider! Or is it Leader here? I never know."

"Either option works, Sovereign," Awen said, her smile emphasising her delicate cheekbones. "Or 'Hey, you' in a pinch, I'm well-trained."

"But mostly just keep a metre away from her," Councillor Rhydian said, and inside Gwilym's head an adorable baby hare froze under the gaze of an eagle. "She's jumpy and dangerous if touched. Hey, everyone!"

He pushed open the door to the conference room and leaned around it. Awen sighed, rubbing the back of her neck in a slightly abashed motion. Gwilym grinned.

"No one is to touch Awen, understand? Not unless you fancy an impromptu sparring session."

He pulled back again and gave them both a cheery smile.

"Enjoy your politics! Sovereign." Rhydian bowed. Gwilym returned it, which earned him a chuckle, and then Rhydian swept away down the corridor, leaving Gwilym and Awen alone.

"So, popular rumour is that you and Madog stopped an entire raid yesterday by yourselves," he said, and laughed at her grimace. "I'm impressed! I'm usually tired after one Saxon. Which someone else has killed for me."

"While you were sleeping, and in a different City," Awen finished with a grin. "You see? You're a natural Sovereign. And there you were worrying."

"I know!" Gwilym said happily. "I've survived my first assassination attempt too, you know. I've got this whole thing worked out."

"Did you bring the arrow?"

"Of course!" Realising Watkins was still hovering silently like he was part of the furniture, a small kitchen appliance specifically, Gwilym waved him on into the conference room. "It has a strange fascination for me. Like a hideous disfiguration. Is that wrong?"

"Well, the analogy is," Awen chuckled. "I sincerely hope you don't keep a harem of disfigured people for dinner parties. For the record, that's what we call Irresponsible Sovereigning."

"I think I may have Irresponsibly Sovereigned the other day, by the way," Gwilym said, slightly nervously. He was feeling a strange need to keep telling people. "I threatened to punch Watkins over the budget revisions. Was that wrong?"

Well, evidently not, given that she actually burst out laughing. That was probably a good sign. Hopefully a good sign. Unless it was sadistic pre-torture glee.

"It wasn't quite what I meant in my informal management seminar," Awen said, her eyes dancing. "Did you actually punch him? Threaten to have him killed? His family killed, anything like that?"

"No," Gwilym said confidently. "I was a bit supercilious, though."

"Which you do excellently well, Sovereign, if memory serves," Awen said, her smile mischievous. Clearly, she was thinking of Lady Blodwen. "No, you're good. Does Alaw know?"

"Yes," Gwilym said. Awen shrugged, the movement stiff.

"You're fine, then," she said. "Her call. Well done, though, he was much more subservient just now than when I last saw him. You still don't want me to smack him upside the head? I'm officially more dangerous than a flood right now, it's the perfect cover."

He could believe it. How utterly normal Awen suddenly seemed was almost creepier than her eyes had been moments before. Almost.

"You're generosity itself," Gwilym said. "But no thank you. We get on now, we're like brothers or something. You watch. We'll go in there now and he'll actually hug me, right in front of everyone."

What actually happened, of course, was that he sat down and Watkins was as warm as an icicle, handing him a copy of the budget with the familial warmth of a fratricide. Inside, the conference room boasted a long table currently surrounded by twenty-six Riders, all of whom seemed to either have been groomed within an inch of their lives or naturally just looked completely spectacular owing to strange Rider retro-genetics. Somewhat hopefully, none of them looked too annoyed at being dragged into a pointless meeting when they could have been enjoying the only holiday they ever got in two years, although a few seemed to be nursing hangovers. Llywelyn, Leader in Trallwng, had his head down on the table between his arms, apparently doing his best to ignore Emrys from Llangefni telling him an enthusiastic story that seemed to involve a lot of wild gesturing. Periodically his arm swung through the space the Leader of Caerleuad, Mair, was sitting in, meaning she was occasionally forced to flatten herself against the table. Although she didn't seem too bothered. Perhaps Marged did this a lot, too.

Madog was sitting with his eyes closed, one arm wrapped loosely around his ribs and yet looking oddly suave. As Awen slipped into the empty chair next to him he put one hand onto the table in front of her, a non-tactile gesture of support. Awen touched the back of it lightly and Madog smiled softly before withdrawing it.

"Meeting is now in session," Watkins intoned from the corner, and everyone fell quiet. Gwilym sighed.

"Yes," he said. "Thank you everyone for coming. I agree with your unspoken feeling that you have infinitely better things to do, and that this meeting is purely for purposeless symbolism. I sincerely apologise. I didn't realise I had this much terrible power."

They actually laughed. Emrys even clapped Mair on the back, pitching her face first onto the table. It was a good start, Gwilym thought cheerfully, although perhaps not for Mair.

"It is terrible!" Emrys boomed to Llywelyn's wince. "Sovereigns, eh?"

"Aren't you supposed to stop him from doing these things, Alaw?" Awen asked mildly to Madog's snort. Alaw actually smiled, her bland expression slightly less disapproving than normal. She must have liked Awen.

"Sorry," she offered. "He's more devious than he looks."

"I work on it," Gwilym nodded, picking up his copy of the document in front of him. "Okay, absolutely everyone wants to go and do something else, so let's start. It's basically a reworking of the budget..."

Internal Rider politics became clear within about five minutes. The standard procedure was for Riders to ask for clarification on each point, but only Awen, Madog or Llywelyn actually asked anything, everyone else apparently deferring to them as being in charge. Which sort of made sense, Gwilym supposed. Of them all, they were the three who lived and fought on the border. It gave them a sort of authority, it seemed.

Which was fair. Gwilym wouldn't have wrested power from someone who could go toe to toe with ten bears, either.

"So the Court's luxury budget is down to twenty per cent of what it was," Llywelyn was saying, his head propped up on one hand as he scanned a page. "What do you spend it on, then?"

"There's a micro-budget for it halfway down page three," Awen said absently. She seemed to be fully absorbing every detail. "Carthaginian raisin wine, Egyptian cotton bedding and clothing are the main ones."

"You seem to have written the words 'No monkey meat' at three separate points," Madog said, one eyebrow raised.

"Oh, did I?" Gwilym said. "Sorry, you may have my copy. I was feeling rather emphatic."

"Can I ask why, Sovereign?" Llywelyn asked. "Not the monkey meat. Why cut the luxury budget?"

"I want to know about the monkey meat," Awen muttered, looking interestedly at Madog's papers.

"It's a luxury," Gwilym told Llywelyn, and paused. "I'm so sorry. That was what we call a non-answer. Well, it rather struck me that the whole point of Aberystwyth's economic wealth was that it was, in fact, Aberystwyth's and not, in fact, mine."

"You've also boosted it," Awen said, returning to her report and turning a page. "Or you will do once it's implemented. I notice your food sourcing is now eighty-seven per cent local. I think it was about nine, last time I looked at Aberystwyth's infrastructure."

"How on earth do you remember things like that?" Madog asked, shaking his head. "I can barely remember Wrecsam's."

"It's a talent," Awen said. "But why the monkey meat?"

"Your commerce will sky-rocket, then," Llywelyn said over her, scribbling a note on the papers. "That's only from the standard Court budget, though. Are you still murex trading? How much extra money do you have now?"

"Yes, and quite a bit," Gwilym said, and twiddled his thumbs. He was really getting to like doing that. "We're going to do other colours and things, too."

"And textiles," Awen nodded. "Including silk. Do blue silk and the Phoenicians will block your harbour mouth with the wreckage of their ships where they collided with each other to fight for your attention."

"Did your Phoenician fight for your attention, Madog?" Emrys broke in happily, offering a whole back story that Gwilym hadn't heard yet. Madog smirked.

"Totally," he said smugly. "And I wasn't even wearing blue silk."

"A company offered me lots of money for blue silk if I only use them," Gwilym nodded sagaciously. "But I told them I'd think about it, and then they wanted me to sell them Riders, so I think I shan't be using them."

"What?"

Twenty-six people stared at him, mildly alarmed. Madog snorted and leaned back, his arm straying to his ribs again.

"They like doing that, I'm told," he said dismissively. "I use it as a threat to keep my Deputy in line now."

"I should have," Awen said reflectively. "Does it work?"

"No," Madog sniffed. "Dylan's an ingrate."

"Oh," Awen said. "Well, so was Owain. Never mind, then."

"That's a lot of extra money, anyway," Llywelyn said slowly. "Okay. So what are you spending that on, now?"

"Well," Gwilym began happily. "There's a list! We're setting up a free healthcare scheme for the poor-"

Awen laughed, and he gave her a look.

"Yes, alright, I'm horribly predictable," he said, and tried to ignore the slightly bewildered looks half the table were suddenly giving each other. "Free healthcare for the poor, some sort of basic free schooling for every child under twelve, a theatre, apprenticeship schemes, expansion of several industries - including tourism, and there's a list somewhere - and a university, since we already have the Great Library. Might as well make use of it."

"Tourism?" Madog asked, looking up. "How are you expanding that?"

"Hotels and such," Gwilym said confidently. "And possibly arranging some sort of deal with a Phoenician company who will sail people to us and back home again without charging too much. Things like that. It's all wildly hypothetical still at the moment, I really shouldn't be boring you all with the details."

"I think this is the most fun I've ever had listening to a budget revision," Llywelyn commented, reading another list. "This - Sovereign, this is all serious, isn't it? You're genuinely trying to implement this?"

"Er..." Gwilym said, non-plussed. "Yes?"

"It's astonishingly... not self-serving," Llywelyn said. "Very few Sovereigns make infrastructures like this."

"Oh, well," Gwilym shrugged. "I don't want to be Sovereign. Maybe that makes a difference."

"All the difference," Awen said thoughtfully, her eyes running over another list. "The nature of the world, there. Power most belongs in the hands of the unwilling. Schooling of arts, sciences and histories?"

"Oh, yes."

"Casnewydd accepts," Awen said, looking up at last and smiling as she dropped the papers back onto the table. "For a given value, obviously."

"Ha! Wrecsam." Madog leaned back, his hand ghosting across his ribs. "Lord Flyn will hate it. I regret that I can't be in the room when you present it to him."

"More specifically, though," Awen said, leaning forward, "what's this about monkey meat?"

***********

"How would you like to go on a short adventure?"

The fluid voice came from behind him in the corridor, and Gwilym smiled.

"Go away, Watkins," he told the clerk. "Adventure calls in my exciting life."

"As you wish, sire," Watkins murmured blandly, and vanished. Gwilym turned.

Gods, she really did look beautiful. Who knew scars could be that sexy? It looked almost natural, as though Awen genetically came in tabby form.

"Now, when you say a short adventure, do you mean I'm about to be quietly assassinated?" Gwilym asked to her grin. "It'll be fun until you push me off a runway, sort of thing?"

"Exactly right," she said, her eyes sparkling. The sunlight made them seem greener than ever. "It's your budget revisions. Clearly you're a derranged lunatic a step away from making your cat an advisor. I'm here to do what's necessary, but you have my word I'll feel sad about it for at least ten minutes."

"Ten?" Gwilym said, disappointed. "Can't we make it twenty? Then there's time for you to write me a short eulogy of what a great person I was before I went crazy."

"Oh, fine," Awen said, rolling her eyes. "Gods, if I'd known you were this demanding I'd have gotten Madog to do it. Fifteen and a verse with a three-chord harp accompaniment, deal?"

"Deal," Gwilym said firmly. "Tell Watkins I loved him, and I hearby leave all of my earthly possessions to my advisor cat. Where are we going?"

"A runway," Awen shrugged with a grin. "Come on."

She wasn't joking, either, or not about the runway at least. She led him into a stable block that was strangely bereft of any stable hands, the merod dozing happily in their stalls or chewing contentedly at hay-nets. The scents of hay and leather mingled pleasantly while the midday sun beamed in from the runway, lighting up the serene dance of dust motes on the warm air. It was remarkably peaceful in there.

"Well, it's a lovely place to die, anyway," Gwilym said, wandering over to the enormous meraden that pushed his head over his stable door and must have been Brân. Or a mutant. "Do you know, he's even bigger than I remembered?"

"It takes people a while to get used to him," Awen said, her voice echoing slightly. Gwilym looked up to find she was stepping out of the tack room, a bridle over one shoulder, harness over the other. "So anyway, adventuring. Ever wanted to fly?"

Gwilym stared at her.

"When I was about eight," he said after a second. "Aren't I meant to be the insane one, though?"

"Actually, no," Awen said, and as she slipped past him into the stable her eyes flashed briefly wrong again. "Not anymore. It's safe though, you know. There's a reason Riders do it."

"Yes," Gwilym agreed. "And that reason is that they've been trained to do it over a decade or so. It's a good reason."

She laughed her fluid laugh, doing up the straps of the bridle.

"I'm not putting you on your own meraden, Sovereign, don't worry," she said, amused. "You're on him, with me. Which may well be tricky to arrange because I can't touch people that successfully right now, but it seems to be fine if I have a bit of a run up. And I promise you, I've had about two decades or so of training. I can fly."

Well, that wasn't so bad. Gwilym watched her as she slipped the collar of the harness over Brân's head, starting to arrange the straps around his wings and under his belly. Like some kind of horrifying sociopath her expression had settled back into a mild smile as she worked, looking for all the world as though she was simply contented, but something was definitely wrong.

"Why can't you touch people?" he asked quietly. "You could before."

"It happens to Riders sometimes," she said easily. "If you're fighting a lot, and you don't get purified in between. It wears you down after a while. You get used to living on nerves and instincts. Everything activates your fight-or-flight response."

So why on earth hadn't she been purified? Although Casnewydd had only arrived about two hours ago, so she'd probably been kept too busy.

"You'll go and get purified after this, won't you?" Gwilym said seriously. "It can't be good for you, living like that."

"I'll try," Awen said neutrally, a small smile twisting her lip. "It's okay, I'm not so bad I'm liable to stab you or something. I can still control it at this stage."

"What?" Gwilym stared at her again. He seemed to be doing that a lot. "Not what I meant! I mean it can't be good for you, personally. You people are tactile. If you can't touch people you might as well be blind."

She flashed him a brief look of surprise before tightening the final girth.

"I suppose," she said, non-commitally, and led Brân out. He raised his wings like a cormorant as the sunlight hit him, whickering contentedly, and Awen led him over to a mounting block, hitching the reins to the post beside it before disappearing back into the tack room. Gwilym followed her.

"It hadn't occured to you, had it," he said, leaning against the doorframe as Awen dug in a box. He shouldn't have been surprised. "You were only thinking of the effect on other people."

"I'll cope," Awen shrugged, pulling something leather out. "Other people won't if they're dead. That's a more pressing concern. Anyway; here."

She straightened up, and passed him one of the leather things. On closer inspection it was a hood, one of the close-fitting ones that Riders wore to fly, sheepskin lined and shaped into a widow's peak over the forehead, the goggles attached at the temples. Awen pulled on one of her own with the ease of long practice, leaving the goggles up for now. She looked stylish in it. Gwilym just knew he was going to look like a tit. Maybe Watkins would be pleased, anyway.

"The wind chill is stronger than you think in the sky," Awen said, walking back out to Brân. Gwilym tried his on. It was surprisingly comfortable. "Keep your head warm and you're mostly fine, though. And unless you have the goggles your eyes will water so much you'll dehydrate in seconds, and all we'll have left will be a withered husk."

"Oh, Awen," Gwilym said. "Your bardic way with words is quite beautiful, and very good at encouraging the unwilling."

"Yes, I'm a trained leader of people, you know," Awen grinned. "Step this way."

She guided him onto Brân's back from the mounting block quickly and competently, sitting him further back than he'd expected in order to give herself room to sit. The harness she buckled onto him allayed Gwilym's fears beautifully, however, as strap after strap was added and tightened. By the time Awen was finished Gwilym was relatively certain he'd been fused to the meraden beneath him. Awen admired her handiwork for a second, then unhooked the reins.

"Right," she said quietly, her voice eerily calm. "Now. This is the difficult bit. You need to stay as still as you can. Try not to touch me before I touch you."

"Okay." Warily, Gwilym leaned back as Awen sprang onto Brân's back with the sort of agility usually only seen in squirrels, the lines of her body gracefully elegant. Cautiously, she sat herself in front of Gwilym, just behind the wing joint, barely half an inch separating them. Gwilym tried not to breathe.

"So far so good," Awen muttered. Her hair smelled of heather and geranium and beeswax, probably the soap she used on it. She leaned forward to clip the harness onto herself, an easier job for her with a uniform designed with compatibility in mind. This close Gwilym could feel the warmth radiating off her, tantalisingly close. She sat up and held a hand behind her.

"Alright," she said. "Carefully, give me your hand."

Gwilym reached out and took it. He felt the familiar jolt run through him from heart to stomach to groin, forcing him to take a deeper breath to steady his heart beat -

Awen froze.

He'd been expecting her to jump. She sort of did, too, her fingers tightening briefly and convulsively on his, telling of the hidden strength in them, but otherwise she locked in place, her breath stopping, as immobile as stone. Brân tossed his head and rustled his wings, and Awen looked down abruptly, presumably doing something. He subsided.

"Not bad," Awen said calmly, gently moving Gwilym's hand to her stomach. His fingers met leather over muscle, warm and tense. "Other hand."

She barely reacted this time, the tiny twitch in her hand the only sign something was wrong, although she kept her movements slow as she repeated the movement, putting his second hand with the first. That done, she put both hands on the reins and took a deep breath.

"And lean forward," she said quietly. Gwilym complied.

His senses were working overtime, cheerfully reporting every nuance of her. She was now in his arms, her back pressed against his chest; he could feel the muscles on her, as toned as a cat, moving under the leather smoothly as she pushed Brân into a walk. The movement of her hips was fluid, an extension of the meraden's movement as he eagerly stepped forward, her legs naturally shifting back and fitting against Gwilym's. She smelled of leather and soap and honey, for some reason, her hair flaring red to gold under the sunlight as they met the runway, her -

"Goggles down," Awen said, her voice still the kind of calm that was so forceful it could bend steel. "Are you ready?"

"No," he said, disengaging one hand with as much care as he could muster to lower the goggles before replacing it with even more caution. "Can I go home?"

"And miss this unique opportunity?" Awen grinned, and Brân leaped off the runway.

He didn't scream. It was terrifying, but he didn't scream. His throat wouldn't let him. As the ground appeared about three hundred feet below them the wind roared past, gravity surging up to claim them angrily at the idea that he could stray off a runway and not plummet, and then the enormous wings unfurled fully to either side, the twenty-foot drop becoming a glide that pulled up sharply enough to leave Gwilym's stomach behind. Brân angled upwards, Awen leaning forward and thus pulling Gwilym with her; belatedly, he realised he was clinging to her like a limpet, and then a second later realised he wasn't going to be stopping without a crowbar. They shot upwards impossibly fast through the air, the floors of the Union zipping by, the coloured glass roof swirling past -

And then everything was below them, Cymru unfolding around him as Brân settled into a glide, curving around and heading south east. In one direction the sea shone, the Archipelago dark spots in the glow; the arm of the Lleyn stretched away from them in another; and the mountains reared beneath them, forested and bare, green and russet and purple, undulating away. A cloud - a cloud - drifted below them, a wisp of no colour against the landscape.

It was exhilarating.

They flew for barely three minutes before Awen dipped down into a valley between two mountains, a lake filling the base, and flew along it. Gwilym thought she was going to land, but she left the valley and joined the next, keeping their altitude below the mountain tops.

"I take it," he managed after his third attempt at speech, " that we're trying to avoid being seen by anyone in the Union?"

"Yes," she called back. "How are you finding it?"

"Terrifying!"

She grinned, guiding them into a path around another mountain.

"Good job it's a nice, straight-forward flight, then," she said. "Do you fancy flying upside down? That's fun."

"No!"

"Diving? Brân likes diving at the ground, he thinks it's fun!"

"No, you nutter!"

Finally, Awen dropped into a valley so narrow and steep 'ravine' might have been a better word, one side covered with trees. Or so it appeared. As they flew down Gwilym saw the underhang beneath the trees, hidden from above. He grinned as they finally touched down onto an almost flat grassy expanse, only about fifty metres wide, a small stream to one side that reached the edge of the grassland and tumbled away in a waterfall to the valley floor below. Brân tossed his head as they landed and Awen moved them to the stream.

"It was fun, though, be honest," Awen said blandly, sliding the goggles back up, and Gwilym laughed helplessly.

"It was horrific!" he giggled. "I loved and hated it concurrently. Oh gods. I'm almost crushing your ribs, I realise, I can't quite make myself let go."

He was, too. What had started as both hands on her stomach had become both arms wrapped tightly around her rib cage, his fingers digging into her sides as he clutched vainly at her, almost enveloping her. It was possibly a miracle she could breathe.

"Hmm," Awen said thoughtfully, shifting experimentally in his grip. The friction did things to parts of Gwilym his nerves could have done without. The electricity even jolted his teeth. "You're stronger than your very pretty tunic would have me believe. How much manual labour did you do in your pre-Sovereign years?"

"I helped out on the fishing boats sometimes, okay?" Gwilym said, mock-irritably. "I know, I'm a farce. Oh, and I spent quite a bit of time in Erinn, and Mental Uncle Dara likes arm-wrestling people."

"Did you ever beat him?" Awen asked interestedly. Gwilym sighed.

"No," he said, morosely. "Mental Uncle Dara is also the size of a bear. You know that incredibly large fellow in your Wing?"

"Caradog?" Awen twisted in his arms to look at him, which definitely brought their lips far closer together than Gwilym's nerves could take. "Really? Caradog's huge."

"Well, imagine that size, but less muscle," Gwilym said. Her movement had loosened his grip at last, so he stiffly unlocked his fingers. "That size in bulk. And insanity. Sorry, did that hurt?"

Her look was frankly amused.

"No," Awen smiled as he finally managed to withdraw his arms. "No, you're alright. I'm fairly hard to hurt."

She got them both down in a surprisingly short time and tied Brân's reins to a tree branch, leaving him to graze. Gwilym made himself comfortable on a sunny rock. Flying, partial sexual tension and probable politics aside, he was certainly having a more enjoyable time than he had been at the Union.

"Watkins tried to make me wear a horrible cloak today," he said conversationally. "I told him no."

"I'm proud of you," Awen grinned. "You've come a long way. Only four days ago you were saying yes and then covertly dumping your cloak into a corner once he'd left the room."

"I'm progressive and forward-thinking," Gwilym said. He looked at her, and sighed. "So? Dare I ask why we're here?"

Awen looked away across the valley, her eyes hardening.

"I'm sorry," she said wearily. "It can't all get back to Flyn, obviously. Fancy a progress report?"

"I'm all ears and attentiveness," Gwilym told her.

He wished he wasn't. Apparently Flyn was a horrific rapist and would-be conqueror of the world these days while a band of Saxon social revolutionaries had a small-holding in Cwmbrân while hiding from the rest of their countrymen who were uniting for what would be an all-out war. Some days, the world was more mental than Uncle Dara.

"So it all boils down to a choice between Flyn or Breguswid, who is of course Saxon," Awen finished, rubbing one eye with the heel of her hand. "And who the Council are vastly unlikely to go for, therefore. So odds are, Flyn will be staying around."

"That is awful news, yes," Gwilym said thougtfully. "Awen, are you okay?"

"Me?" She looked at him, surprised again. "I'm just tired. It's been a long week."

"Yes," Gwilym said patiently. "But are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Awen told him with a slight smile. "It's just... this, and Owain as well... you know."

"I do," Gwilym nodded. "Which is why I don't think you're okay."

"I'm functioning," she said bluntly. "It's fine."

"No, you're not," Gwilym said. "You can't touch anyone. Does that include your Wing? Can you touch them?"

Awen looked away, that haunted look coming back into her eyes, and Gwilym nodded.

"I didn't think so," he said. "That's not functioning, then. You're meant to be a human being too, you know. That means that when you start to break down you don't have to just ignore it."

"Shut up," Awen said wearily, without rancour. "I can only -"

She broke off, running her hands through her hair, eyes closed.

"I don't have much of me left, now," she said quietly. "I told you I haven't been purified, Sovereign. It's because I can't be anymore."

The icy feeling of dread settled around Gwilym's heart. He sat up straighter, but she carried on.

"I'm on borrowed time now," Awen said. "I'm only twitching at the moment, but it'll get worse. Particularly after a few nights. And they won't let me get too far."

"You'll be killed?" Gwilym asked hollowly. Awen nodded.

"Before I get too bad, yes," she said. "Sooner if I try and knife a Sovereign. So it doesn't matter now, see?"

She gave him a resigned smile, and it was possibly the saddest thing Gwilym had ever seen.

"I can't make myself feel better now," she said. "All I can do is try to stay useful for as long as possible."

"Why can't you be purified?" Gwilym asked, his mind racing. What kind of person thought like that? And he thought Mental Uncle Dara was mental. Awen shrugged, looking back out over the valley.

"I did too much wrong," she said neutrally. "Far too much. My mind won't let it go, apparently. I kept seeing Owain." She looked up at him, her eyes strangely bright. "When they were trying to purify me. Every time, I'd get a flashback about him, and... it was weird. At first they made sense. Clues for things I missed, you know? Things you'd expect me to feel guilty about. But then - then it was just random times. Times we were happy, some of them. And I don't understand it. I don't think I could loathe him more. The things he's done..."

She shivered, hugging herself.

"How could I now miss him?" Awen asked quietly. "What's wrong with me? How could I do that?"

"You don't," Gwilym said softly. This, he reflected, was the trouble with Riders. Awen was a genius at understanding other people and their emotions, but she was a complete child with her own. They just didn't have introspection. "You just miss your life being simpler. You miss not feeling betrayed. You miss not thinking whatever he'd done was your fault. And there's probably even a Wingleader numerical thing in there. You've lost one, now, something I imagine you're constantly afraid of doing. And you miss the person you thought he was. It's going to feel like the Owain you knew has been killed, and replaced with this new guy. You miss the old one. That's perfectly natural."

She sat herself on the rock beside him slowly, pulling her knees up to her chest. She looked tired, Gwilym thought. And strangely young.

"I should have seen it," she said, haunted. "Aerona looked through his records. He went up a mountain when he was fifteen. She thinks that was what did it. Since we were fifteen."

"To be honest," Gwilym shrugged, "I think you being fifteen is really an argument in favour of you being unaccountable."

"Really?" Awen asked tiredly. "That's at least fifteen years I should have known for since. Probably more. I think I'm a bit over thirty."

"Answer this, then," Gwilym said, turning himself to sit cross-legged, facing her. "Adara. Think about what she's like, okay? Now; was she the same when you were teenagers?"

"Ha." Awen grinned wearily. "No. She wasn't."

"Well, quite, then!" Gwilym said, throwing his arms wide. "What were you supposed to notice? He was a clever boy, he knew how to hide himself from you, you were busy being an Alpha Wingleader. Under Flyn, no less. The last people you should be watching for signs of evil are Riders anyway. One of your own Wing? Of course you didn't see it. No one would have."

They fell silent, basking in the sunlight. Awen held her beads, her fingers tracing the wires, round and round, staring into nothing.

"There's something," she said quietly at last, "that I have to ask you."

"What is it?"

Awen sat frozen for a moment, and then stood up, one hand going to her pocket. She pulled a plain, unmarked envelope out and passed it to Gwilym, her eyes grave.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I'm - I want you to take this and look after it. Don't tell anyone about it, don't let anyone find out, don't let it out of your sight. You need to keep it on you at all times, and I mean all times - when you sleep included. It cannot leave you. And if anyone -anyone - asks you for it who isn't me, you deny all knowledge. Do you understand?"

Gwilym looked at the envelope in his hand. It was smooth and completely ordinary looking for something that seemed to be so staggeringly important even the Union couldn't know about it. He nodded.

"I understand," Gwilym said, running his thumb over the seal. "Until when?"

"Until..." Awen scrubbed one hand across her eyes. "Oh gods," she whispered, and then dropped her hand, her voice returning to normal. "I don't know yet. Until I either tell you to open it and read it, or ask you to burn it without looking at it."

"Okay." Carefully, Gwilym inserted the envelope into the inner pocket of his tunic. "Consider it a strange new extension of my body until such time."

Awen turned and stared at him, some strange emotion flickering through her eyes.

"That's it?" she said after a second, her voice odd. "That's all? You're not going to ask what it is, what -?"

"You'd have told me if I was meant to know," Gwilym laughed, and then sighed at her expression. "You're a Rider, Awen. More than that, you're an Alpha Wingleader. Am I supposed to not trust you? If you're asking this, it's clearly important."

"You realise I'm asking you to keep this secret from the Council, yes?" Awen said. "And Alaw. And everyone else in the Union."

"Yes," Gwilym said slowly. "But... you're you. Clearly there is some important reason. And it's only going to help Cymru."

She stared at him for a moment more and shook her head, turning away.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "Whatever happens, it's not going to be fair on you. I'm sorry."

"You'll have your reasons," Gwilym said softly. "And I'm a big boy now, I dress myself and everything and that's in spite of Watkins. Don't start viciously savaging yourself on my account."

Awen smiled, weakly but genuinely. Well, Gwilym felt, it was a start. But really. No one had ever needed a holiday quite as much. And that was a Marged thing to think if ever there was one.