Gwydion and Mordred soon made their will known; Dawn would not be raising any of the children she bore them. Any offspring would immediately become the property of the council, while Dawn would keep breeding until her parts ran dry, so her husbands told her the morning after the wedding.
Dawn had endured a horrific night at their hands, and her misery was compounded by the fact that her wedding night would soon bear fruit. Now she was being told she'd be a breeding factory, just like her aunts Nimue and Saffron, chained to the will of the council until the beginnings of their army were well and truly underway. "If you think for a minute I'm going to let any of my children start an invasion," she said through swollen lips, "then you can think again. I didn't marry you to breed more talented children for your council to snap up and breed to other helpless innocents. I married you to bring you and your council down."
Gwydion chuckled. "Such fire," he commented. "Mordred and I have never broken a woman before; I imagine the experience is going to be very enlightening. Very well, my dear, since you wish to play it that way."
He snapped his fingers, and Dawn's eyes widened at the sudden silence that surrounded her. She opened her mouth to speak, but froze when even the sound of her own breathing grated loudly in her ears. The silence wasn't so much the absence of sound as the absence of all sound; Dawn could actually hear her internal organs working, and she suddenly felt like throwing up. Gwydion watched her with no expression whatsoever, as if he was curbing the ill-temper of a misbehaving child, and Dawn felt even more ill as she realised he simply did not care. He and Mordred had married her as a means to an end, and they didn't care she had gone along with it as a means to put the brakes on the council's ill-treatment of women and children. They only cared about the children she'd be giving birth to, and Dawn hugged herself, shivering as she realised the stakes had just soared to new heights. No matter what she did, no matter what she said, Gwydion and Mordred did not care. They would never be angry, or malicious with her; all their dealings would be as emotionless as the men themselves, brainwashed as they were to follow the council's bidding until there were enough children in the genepool to begin the workings of their eventual army.
Dawn took a deep breath, trying not to throw up at how loud it sounded in the wall of silence surrounding her. Submitting would not make her lot any easier, but she reasoned that it surely couldn't make things any worse. And, she reminded herself, she could still influence her unborn children while they were still in the womb. Forest elves weren't the masters of magic sun elves were, but they had a few tricks up her sleeve, and Dawn used the knowledge to bolster failing reserves. If she had to play along and be meek, then she'd be the meekest and most submissive wife any man could desire. 108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEEms5xWLsu
Resigned to her fate, she bowed her head in submission, but to her shock, Gwydion ignored her and left the room, followed by Mordred, who shook his head before following his brother. Dawn's jaw dropped in horror, and she almost drew breath to call out to them, only to remember she'd probably deafen herself. Heart sinking to her toes, she closed her eyes, realising her new husbands were on to her, and the tears slid down her cheeks for a very long time after that.
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Several agonising days passed before Gwydion finally lifted the silence spell. During that time, he and Mordred had totally ignored their wife, and while Dawn was grateful for the reprieve, she knew it was only delaying the inevitable. Gwydion's face showed this to be true as he regarded his wife, hands clasped at his back as his eyes raked her from head to toe. "We don't like lies," he said. "I thought forest elves could not lie, but clearly, even that is a lie. We know you are submitting only to avoid further punishment, and, quite frankly, we are disgusted you'd resort to such cheap tricks."
Dawn kept her mouth shut, and Gwydion's mouth tightened momentarily before calm came over his features once more. "We know you hate us, and that you're only in this marriage to bring us down," he said, his voice tight with a simmering anger that sent a shiver down Dawn's spine. "We would rather you treated with us fairly, and then we can all drop the pretence and be our true selves around one another. If you are not prepared to drop the facade of false meekness, Mordred and I will have no choice but to dissolve this marriage and return to Isonor. Your aunt Nimue will make a suitable wife, and her children will do just as well as yours."
"You know you'll never be allowed to leave the forest," Dawn said firmly, casting caution to the wind. If Gwydion wanted the real her, he was going to get it in spades. "You've seen too much to be allowed to return to Isonor, and if you dissolve this marriage, you'll be forced to remain here for the rest of your days. You will never be allowed to look at or touch any of the other young women, and you'll both go to your graves as childless men. Good luck on getting a talented gene pool then!"
The silence stretched out to an almost unbearable tension, but Gwydion finally shrugged. "I did say I wanted to see the real you," he said. "I've seen it. Good. Keep that up, and we may allow you to lie with us. If you fall back on falsehood again, however, your children will be removed from your womb by magic and implanted in another woman, and you'll be forced to watch as that woman grows your own children inside you. You'll then be forced to watch her birth those children, nurse them and call them her own, all the while locked in a shield of silence that will slowly drive you insane. Do I make myself clear?"108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmxV4y4Bwhu
"Crystal," Dawn said with gritted teeth. "I'll be so real you and your brother will get headaches from it, and I hope the pair of you suffer from nightmares!" She turned and stalked from the room, bristling with anger from head to toe, muttering some of her aunt Nyneve's randiest oaths. By baiting her into open aggression, Gwydion had just handed her the keys by which she would one day earn her freedom; a troublesome wife was a liability, no matter how many talented children she birthed. Either the council would have to silence her by turning her into a mindless slave, or kill her, and Dawn was determined for neither of these things to happen.
Instead, she turned her anger inward and forged it into stern discipline. From now on, she had to be as cold and calculating as her husbands, and though it galled her to be so vicious, Gwydion had, after all, commanded her to be fair with them. Oh, I'll be fair with them, she thought furiously, as she left the clan encampent and headed for the deeper recesses of the forest. They're going to regret it soon enough, but by then, it's going to be too bloody late!
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