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Achren is extremely aware of the fact that Gwydion does not leave her unattended on the way to Caer Dallben. Perhaps he is afraid of what she might do -- to herself, though that madness has changed itself into a determination to wreak revenge on Arawn, if it is the last thing she does; to the Companions, though she bears them no ill on a personal level.
True, the instinct is strong to go to ground like a wounded fox, to lick her wounds in private; but she is no fool. Arawn may not be actively hunting her, but he wants her dead, and the Deathlord has many allies. Without magic, without riches, without the beauty of youth, Achren is... weak.
She would hate it, if she had more energy to spare.
#
She doesn't let herself dwell on might-have-beens, that being the surest road to the marshes of self-doubt, but in the monotony of walking she lets herself daydream.
She dreams of Gwydion serving as her warlord -- sometimes willingly, as a way to defeat Arawn; sometimes in response to her offers at Oeth-Anoth; sometimes unwillingly, by enchantment -- always by her side and helping her to secure Prydain for herself once again.
Dreams of Arawn groveling at her feet, begging for mercy he would not get. He had once loved her, she knew, but his greed had been stronger.
Dreams of Eilonwy thanking her for her generosity and pledging all the power of the House of Llyr to Achren's service.
Ah, Eilonwy. The girl ought to have been like a daughter to her. With the amount of power in her veins, she should have been begging Achren for knowledge and advice. Instead, somehow the brat had not only resisted Achren's guidance at every turn, but had stolen the ancient sword Drnwyn and, in doing so, utterly destroyed Spiral Castle.
Achren was not stupid, and she never repeated mistakes. So the next time she didn't approach Eilonwy herself, but worked through Magg -- power-hungry, maniacal, neither as clever nor as subtle as he thought himself to be, easily swayed with promises of power. That Achren had no plans to follow through with those promises is irrelevant since she knew that Magg had no intention of serving her.
But he had been a poor ally. Achren had told him to lure Eilonwy away with rumors of a newly-discovered treasure belonging to the House of Llyr, with a fine silver necklace as proof. The necklace did belong to the House of Llyr, but Achren had patiently woven in subtle enchantments; once the girl got close to Caer Colur it would bind her life and her mind to Achren. But Magg, thinking his own plan better, had simply used brute force to kidnap Eilonwy, gagging and binding her. This idiocy had lost them the Golden Pelydryn.
But even the choice of Magg, poor as it was, had not been her ultimate downfall. No, her biggest error this time had been assuming Eilonwy had no friends here.
Of course she had known the Prince of Mona would go looking, but he was daft and incompetent and had no chance of even finding them, let alone besting Achren. But Gwydion and the others -- the Pig-keeper, the failure of a bard, the shaggy whateveritwas that followed the others like a lost puppy -- those she hadn't accounted for. Their very presence, familiar to Eilonwy, helped her fight against Achren's enchantments and the siren song of the spells of Llyr.
And then the spells burning--
She must have made a noise, for Gwydion looks sharply at her. She meets his gaze, hoping he cannot read her.
"You have been brooding," he says. It is not quite snideness, but Achren can't quite place the underlying quality. She would almost call it teasing, if they had been friends.
"I," she informs him firmly, "do not brood."
His mouth quirks up on one side, but he doesn't say more.
#
All of the companions aside from Gwydion still regard her with fear and deference, as they should. They give her as much space as they can. When they camp for the night, she eats alone, her portion having been handed over with reluctance, and sleeps alone, not speaking to any of them.
It is as she prefers. She is not their friend, and does not want that. Early in life she learned that love is fickle, and that she could only trust herself. Allies can be useful, lovers can bring pleasure, but friends bring nothing but weakness.
The fact that she is still with them proves that. They do not want her here, and allow it only because Gwydion has said she may come.
And Gwydion, she suspects, only did so because of some damnable morality.
Once he hated her, feared her, sought to destroy her; she remembers the fire in his eyes as he rejected her offer to ally himself. Even as she would have preferred his submission, his rage delighted her.
Now he looks at her, gently and with pity, as though he could see through her. As though she were a child and he the parent.
"We are not friends," she tells him, one evening. "You and I."
"No," he says quietly. "Not the word I would use." His voice is mellow, as though they discussed the weather.
"Then why this?" Her gesture includes more than the campsite, the fire shared (with the other companions on the far side); it includes everything from the moment he pulled her from the sea, the moment he stayed her hand, the moment he invited her to come with them -- all these moments slipping through her fingers like glittering sand.
Gwydion tilts his head, his expression thoughtful. She waits, letting the silence stretch; from across the fire comes Eilonwy's laugh at something the bard had said. After a time, he says, "Mercy is a concept I think you know."
"Hardly mercy," Achren retorts. "When one has nothing left, death is a mercy. Yet you deny me that."
"There is more to you than death," he says softly.
"Is there?"
Gwydion just smiles. "Good night," he says quietly, before disappearing into the darkness.
Her fingers twitch for the enchantments she can no longer perform.
#
The Sons of Don infuriate her, Gwydion included. They think themselves beacons of valor, but they have a child's definition of good and evil. They were on the side of Good, their enemies on the side of Evil, and that was that. Such was the morality of Men.
And it was particularly men that did this, that were remembered. Everyone knew of the Sons of Don, but never the Daughters: did they lack mothers and sisters and wives, or just consider them unimportant? Or were they too complicated, too nuanced for a simple good--or-evil split?
#
For a time she considers adopting a new name for this stage of her life. Wren, perhaps: similar enough in sound that it's not wholly wrong to her ears, yet drab and unassuming, suited to her new life as she saw it.
Her enemies have seen that Achren is remembered as a cruel queen, hungry for power and fear in equal measure. This is not how she reigned. True, she punished betrayal and weakness with no mercy -- for mercy itself was a weakness, and those in power could not permit themselves that luxury -- but she equally rewarded loyalty and support. True, her enchantments were dark, laced with blood and death; but all of magic is about balance, and the vitality of life fuels the more powerful spells.
Such, too, is the nature of men: love is hard to win, ill-rewarded, and easy to lose; fear is the opposite. It is stronger to rule by the greater force. A "good" king who brings comfort and prosperity to his kingdom may be destroyed by the fickle demands of his people, when they grow accustomed to softness and demand more than he can give. An "evil" queen does not let her people become lazy or indolent, and they appreciate her mercies far better with context.
But she is no longer a queen, no longer an enchantress, no longer anything worth remembering.
She can, if she chooses, shed Achren like an old cloak. Let Achren have perished in the waves that consumed Caer Colur; let her legacy be a Queen, not the nobody she is now.
I am Wren, she practices in her head. A simple woman; a bird hiding from gwythaints, no more.
But no, she has lost too much as it is; she will not surrender more than is required. So when they arrive at Caer Dallben, and the old enchanter asks who she is, she says "I am Achren" in a clear defiant voice.