The Pendragon's Challenge (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 7) Read Online Free PDF Page B

price for his ambition. For reasons Taliesin didn’t understand, Efnysien was in another category entirely. Like Mabon, he was Beli’s grandson, though by his daughter Penarddun. Unlike Mabon, however, the council never punished him, no matter how grievous his offenses, murder and betrayal among them.
    Either Arianrhod didn’t notice Taliesin’s horror, didn’t care, or had spent too little time in the human world to read Taliesin’s emotions. He struggled to control his expression so she wouldn’t guess what he was thinking.
    “Furthermore, my father has decreed that the human world must be punished for its lack of faith. No longer do the people look to us, we who have provided for and aided them for so long. No longer do the old ways hold true. None of us are permitted to consort with you until my father deems the time has come to lift his ban.”
    “But—” Taliesin took an involuntary step towards Arianrhod. She didn’t reject him, but her face turned as fixed as iron. Taliesin had been going to say that this was a completely wrong step. Humans craved guidance. If they couldn’t get it from the sidhe , or if the sidhe were deemed capricious or unhelpful, they would turn even more to the Christian God, whom Cade said always listened, even if the answer wasn’t necessarily what the petitioner wanted to hear.
    Taliesin’s eyes went to Gwydion. His patron was gazing straight ahead, but in a single instant, his eyes flicked to Taliesin’s face, and he canted his head a tiny degree to his right. Taliesin tried not to gape at him. What is he trying to tell me?
    Taliesin gritted his teeth and stepped back. “My lady.” But even as he prepared to be dismissed, his eyes were drawn to the wall of the cavern, which Gwydion had indicated a moment before. The stylized images of a queen, a castle, and a rearing horse were drawn on the wall. If the rearing horse was meant to represent a knight, the three images could be chess pieces.
    Then Arianrhod, Gwydion, and the cavern vanished, taking their illusion with them, and leaving Mabon standing alone in the road. The god placed his hands on his hips and grinned. “So, we’re going to be together for a while. I think this sojourn in the human world might turn out to be quite fun!”
    As Mabon smirked at the companions, Taliesin’s stomach twisted yet again. It wasn’t, however, because Arianrhod had foisted her son on them. By comparison to what Gwydion had just shown him, it was a small thing. What had him staring back at Mabon in dismay was the realization that the rearing horse was indeed meant to represent a chess piece, but it was also the personal badge of Efnysien.
     

Chapter Four
    Cade
     
    C ade had suggested to Rhiann that she not make herself a target of Peada’s scorn. Since she had no desire to be in the same room with the feckless Saxon ever again, she had willingly forgone the opportunity and departed for their quarters. Dinner was still a while off, and she could nap beforehand. Because nighttime was Cade’s purview, he tended to keep her up late. Whether because he knew Cade’s habits by now or by pure accident, Peada had arrived with the setting sun.
    Taliesin had told Cade not to allow Penda’s and Peada’s acceptance of Mabon’s authority to color his understanding of the men too much. Mabon had bent far stronger men than they to his will—and had been doing so since the beginning of time. While it was Peada’s fault he was a coward—a fact for which Cade could not forgive him—he was Cade’s cousin, the son of the King of Mercia, and thus someone Cade could neither dismiss nor ignore.
    “Why are you here?” Cade halted at the head of the table near the fire where Peada and his men were sitting. They’d been served food and drink, though not by Rhiann’s hand. Cade was glad that she’d had the courage to defy convention in this. What was the point of being the Queen of Gwynedd if at times you couldn’t do what you