Water Sight
Water Sight
The feathers of his long wings poked Hyw like a thousand quills into his flesh. No! His eyes flew open as he tried to fight the change that would leave them both plummeting toward the hard earth far below. No! He spread his wings wide and tried to push against the air currents, but he felt himself falter. No! He shuddered once and tried to take charge of his wings again. The prince, his sister Cat, his family. They were counting on him. He must get back to give them the news of what he had found at Dollbadarn.
For Cymru! He thought desperately. But it was too late. Looking down, he saw long pale feet where his talons should be. With a grinding crunch, his bones twisted and reshaped. The hawk’s shriek became his own scream as he plummeted into the mass grave.
In Water Sight, the second book of the “Last of the Gifted” series, we return to Wales in the year 1285AD and a land at war. The English king, Edward the First, is determined to finally put an end to Welsh independence and the wars between that mountainous hard-pressed land and England. This fantasy tale is told through the eyes of two siblings, the young girl Cat, who can sometimes peer into the future within a drop of water, and her brother Hyw, who can take the shape of any bird or animal. The last Welsh ruler, Prince Llywelyn, slain during an ambush, his spirt trapped within Hyw, is desperate to rally the remaining Welsh forces. He believes their only chance to do this is to recover three magical relics: the Crown of King Arthur that marked his heritage, the Cross of Neith that marked him as their leader in the eyes of the Church, and the Coronet of Wales given to him by the English king to mark him as Prince of Wales. But these relics are held in secret at an abbey and the land between is swarming with English troops and knights. There is a bounty on the heads of all Welsh who have not pledged to the English Crown.
Cat has the task of recovering the relics and delivering them to Prince Dafydd, Llywelyn’s brother, who, while pursued by the English, is making a desperate attempt to rally the Welsh forces. Hyw’s duty is to attempt to protect Dafydd from being taken. He fails. Cat recovers the relics but, along with her betrothed Rhys, is also captured. She cannot control her visions while Hyw eventually struggles to control his gift of shape-changing and fails becoming trapped within his form as a hawk.
In the end, Cat and her betrothed escape but are unable to free Dafydd, ending the serious Welsh resistance. Hyw is brought back to human form again, and they manage to recover one relic that has been melted down into a chalice. In a moving ceremony, Llywelyn is rejoined in the afterlife with his love, the Princess Elinor, who died giving childbirth, and they are attended by those who have fallen. Cat and Rhys plan their wedding, Hyw has finally connected with a half-Welsh childhood friend, James, and they all sit down to dinner with one of their company, a bard, while discussing how they might compose a song to tell of their adventures they suspect no one would ever believe.
Well-written, moving slightly slower than the first book, Spirit Sight, Water Sight touches on historical events with the added taste of fantasy elements. The book includes an opening two-page character guide and a one-page black & white map of the area in which the book’s action occurs, and it closes with a four-page historical note, a six-page glossary, and a brief one-page author biography.
Ronald Hore, involved with writer’s groups for several years, dabbles in writing fantasy and science-fiction in Winnipeg, MB under the pen name R.J. Hore.