Free The Awakening by Bevan McGuiness Page B

but she quickly took it in both of her own and pressed it to her cheek. The warmth of his touch spread through her entire body, filling her with strange, unfamiliar sensations.
    ‘I must go, dear Hwenfayre.’
    He pulled his hand slowly away. As he turned to leave, she grasped hold of it again. He stopped and turned back. Their eyes locked, and suddenly she was in his arms. He held her tight as she pressed herself against his body. She felt a new warmth suffuse her.
    As though he felt it too, Niall released her and stepped back. ‘This cannot be, Hwenfayre. It is not right.’ He held her at arm’s length. ‘I must go. It’s late, and I have dawn duty again tomorrow.’ Hetouched her again briefly, gently, on the cheek, and was gone.
    Hwenfayre slept badly that night, awash with conflicting emotions.
    She slept so badly, in fact, that she was up, dressed and on the wall even earlier than normal. She stood in the usual place, hidden in a dark niche, watching, waiting for the sun to rise. As always, she was silent, motionless. Even her breathing was slow and shallow; nothing would disturb the perfection of the sunrise.
    She was so still that when Wyn walked by he seemed unaware of her presence. His eyes were hidden by the dark, but she still felt their strength as they swept over the niche where she hid. He did not pause as he walked past, but a few paces on he stopped and turned to face the sea. He stood perfectly still for a moment, then started to sing.
    He sang softly, in a deep, resonant voice. As he sang, Hwenfayre’s skin went cold. Her fingers trembled and her heart started to pound within her breast. The words he sang were powerful, strange, compelling. They spoke of a fierce love for the sea, for her many moods and for the myriad creatures she covered.
    He sang with a passion that gave the lie to his impassive demeanour and brutish appearance.
    He sang from a soul that knew and loved not only the words that he sang, but also the Sea of whom he sang.
    He sang of things that Hwenfayre had hardly dared believe could be true as though he knew them to be so.
    He sang the words to the song that Hwenfayre had written for herself, those many years before.
    As she listened to the song, she knew that these words were the ones she would have written herself, were she but able. The words filled her with a deep longing to see and to experience in every way possible the joys and wonders that they described. She was transported in a way that she never believed possible. She gave herself over totally to the soulful sweep, the gentle flow of Wyn’s singing, and lost herself in a world she hungered for.
    Just as she felt she could take no more, as if she would lose herself utterly and never be able to return, Wyn stopped. He stood for a moment, looking at the eastern horizon, where the first rays of the sun were beginning to show, then turned to walk away.
    As he did so, he murmured, ‘You do not belong here, Hwenfayre.’
    She fled without welcoming the dawn. When she arrived home she slammed the door behind her, bolted it and ran into her bedroom. She threw herself down onto her bed and lay there, still and silent, lost in her thoughts until dusk.
    She pondered what she’d felt when Niall had held her, and how she had reacted to Wyn’s quiet words. She had never known such a tangle of emotions. She went through the events of the past two days over and over again in her mind, yet she could not make any sense of what was happening to her.
    It was finally hunger that made her move. She roused herself to prepare a meal. It was a simple meal of fruits and raw vegetables. As she picked at herfood, a sudden feeling of unease swept through her. It was the same feeling she had had at the Wall with Niall, the last time the Southern Raiders had attacked. She waited, expecting the feeling to subside, but it did not. Instead it built up alarmingly. There came with it the feeling of wrongness, the feeling that something, somewhere, was