The Pendragon's Challenge (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 7) by Sarah Woodbury

this was exactly what he’d been expecting. Likely, it was, and even though it was Mabon who’d spoken, his serenity helped her to relax.
    “Do you experience something like this each time you move between worlds?”
    “Yes.”
    Catrin couldn’t believe she was really having a conversation with Mabon, but it was he who’d answered, and he who had the answers. She still didn’t trust him at all, but in this, she believed that he knew what he was doing, maybe more than Taliesin did.
    Goronwy continued to keep her pressed close against his side and, for once, his sense of humor had deserted him. He gave her waist a quick squeeze—in moral support she thought—and they continued walking. And walking. Finally, he asked. “Are you sure this is right, Taliesin? We’ve come at least a mile.”
    “It only seems so.” Like Mabon’s, Taliesin’s tone was perfectly calm, and again Catrin took comfort in another’s certainty. “Almost there.”
    “Almost where?” Goronwy muttered in Catrin’s ear, which drew a smile, as he meant it to.
    And then the blackness was wiped away, like a blindfold suddenly pulled from a captive’s eyes. Catrin stopped, shocked by the sudden brightness that assaulted her senses. She blinked and then blinked again, trying to master the stars that popped and sparkled across her vision.
    Goronwy had stopped with her, and he put a hand to his eyes and bent his head. “Give it a moment.”
    Taliesin let go of Goronwy and Mabon and strode a few paces forward. When Catrin looked up, finally able to see, the bard was grinning from ear to ear. As Catrin’s vision cleared, she saw why: the Otherworld was beautiful. And oddly familiar. She spun on one heel; the countryside was one she recognized. They had come out to the west of Valle Crucis Abbey.
    Except the abbey was gone. They were standing on a grass-covered hill, but one without the sheep droppings that would normally have marred it. There were no stone walls, no fences—no human constructions of any kind except Dinas Bran, whose mountain she would have recognized in her sleep. She shielded her eyes against the sun in order to see it better, and was about to tell Goronwy to look with her, when she realized that it wasn’t as they’d left it. At home, it was a bastion of Cade’s power, but in this world, it was a ruin. Pieces of wall and tower stuck up here and there, but the majority of the castle had come down.
    Beside her, Goronwy growled his dismay. He’d let go of her upper arm, but he hadn’t taken his right arm from her waist, and now Catrin’s hand went to where his hand rested. She gripped it for a moment and, though he hesitated initially, after a heartbeat he interlaced his fingers with hers.
    They both turned at the same time to speak of their concerns to Taliesin, but he was looking the other way and face-to-face with Mabon.
    “What have you done? Why are we here? ” Mabon was apoplectic.
    “What’s wrong with here?” Taliesin said in that sunny way of his.
    “It’s—it’s—” Mabon couldn’t get the words out, rendered speechless by whatever atrocity Taliesin had subjected them to.
    “It’s where we needed to be. I’m sorry if you thought we were going to the High Court,” Taliesin said. “Surely you must realize that I could not take these two on such a road?”
    “Gah!” Sounding as human as any of them, Mabon spun around and stomped away. Unfortunately for him, the grass was wet—from dew or recent rain, though the day was bright and the sky cloud-free—and on his third stomp his foot slipped out from under him. With a squish, he fell on his rear, leaving a long, muddy skid in the grass.
    Catrin looked away, deciding that laughter would be inappropriate.
    Goronwy showed self-restraint too, though his desire to mock the child-god must have been nearly overwhelming. But then he frowned, and there was no humor in his voice at all. “Taliesin, tell us truly. Where are we?”
    Leaving Mabon to get to his