The Shadowed Land by Signe Pike

Author:Signe Pike
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2024-12-03T00:00:00+00:00

He lowered his arms with a smile, turning to Angharad. “Those words belong to the far-famed Wisdom Keeper Amergin, as you know. But the Cailleach. She was the first shape-shifter. She can become a pack of hinds, racing through a thin winter wood. She can change from a giantess to a forest hare in the blink of an eye, or become even an old woman outside a hut, working at a basket.”

The images of the goddess sprang alive as he spoke, and for a moment the deity felt as if she hovered close—as if the simple act of speaking her name were a summoning.

“Throughout all of our lands, we are losing such ways,” he went on. “This, I have been told when I sit with the Gods. The ways of dreaming are stamped out beneath the feet of the Christians, who laugh and say, ‘Show me a Wisdom Keeper who takes the form of a fox!’ Fools. The learning is not for them. This learning is for you. For you are at once a Briton and a Pict. And you, Ton Velen, shall be one who preserves our ways.”

He turned, regarding her, and tapped a finger to his temple. “Shape-shifting occurs in the head. Those who cannot understand that cannot believe it to be real. But you have just told me the head is the seat of the soul. We are born and we die, all within here. So the head is the most real of all.” Briochan gestured in a sweep over the wide, swelling sea. “All of this? It is only a dream.”

After the lesson by the sea, Briochan said he must return to the Hall for a short while and bade Angharad visit the temple for her morning duties.

Deep in the silence of the temple chamber, Angharad’s blood raced like a river, skin prickling with the closeness of the unseen as she filled the lamps with clean oil from a clay jug, tidied the offerings that had been left by the villagers, and carefully swept the wet gray stone. She had only just mounted the top of the stair when she saw the commander making his way toward her, something small and black tucked in his fist. Of the many Cruithni who’d offered their names the eve before, the commander had not.

“Good morning, Angharad Ton Velen,” he said. His deep voice was calm, but his eyes shifted a little, as if he were nervous.

“Good morning.” She nodded, waiting. It seemed he had sought her out, but now he stood stiff, as if uncertain. It was odd. She supposed she and the commander had become comfortable in their silence, and now that there could be words between friends, they only seemed to get in the way.

“Rhainn,” the commander said suddenly. Confused, Angharad frowned, searching the sky.

“I’m sorry. Rain?”

“Nay, nay. Rhainn. That is my name,” he said, tapping two fingers to his breast.

“Ah,” Angharad exclaimed. “ ‘Rhainn,’ ‘rain,’ it sounds just the same,” she rhymed with a smile, tapping her breast.

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