Shadows and Light (18 page)

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“We’ve been forbidden to do anything useful in Tir Alainn, and nothing we’ve done in the human world has made any difference.”

“You’re backing down because Lu—the Lightbringer demands it? You’re giving up?” She couldn’t believe that
of him.
Wouldn’t
believe that. But when he turned his head and stared up at the ceiling instead of continuing to look at her, she felt a ball of sickness grow inside her.

“The Lightbringer has managed to silence the Bard,” Aiden said. “There’s no point in wasting time or words here, so I’m not going to waste either of them.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

He took a deep breath. Let it out slowly. “How did the Lord of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon become the leaders of the Fae? He doesn’t command the sun; she doesn’t command the moon. How did they become the ones to whom the rest of us yield?”

Lyrra frowned, wondering where he was going with this. “The Lord of the Sun is also the Lord of Fire, which is a powerful thing to command.”

“An elemental thing, you could say.”

“And the Lady of the Moon commands the Wild Hunt.”

“Which must have had more of a purpose at one time than simply riding over the countryside with a pack of shadow hounds.”

She sighed in frustration, still unable to follow his thinking.

“Fire is a branch of the Great Mother. If it burns long enough and hot enough, it can sweep away anything on land, which is good reason to yield to the one who wields that power. And no living creature can stand against the Wild Hunt if it’s the chosen prey.”

“Which brings us where?” Lyrra asked, frustration making her voice sharp.

“Which brings us to finding the only one among the Fae who commands enough power to defy the Lightbringer and the Huntress and walk away from the encounter intact.”

Lyrra stared at him for several seconds. An odd chill went through her, a shiver of fear that she had no rational reason to feel. “You want to find the Lord of the Woods?
The
Lord of the Woods?”

“The Hunter,” Aiden said quietly. “Yes.”

“But … Aiden … no one has seen the Hunter in years. No one’s even
heard
anything about him in years.”

“I know.”

“Then why do you think he would help us protect the witches, even if we
can
find him?”

Aiden said nothing for a long moment. Then, “The day came when the old Lord of the Woods felt his power waning and knew the time had come for another to ascend to the full power of the gift and become the Green Lord and the Hunter. And so it was, at the full moon nearest Harvest’s Eve, that he went to a clearing in an old woods and waited for the young Lords to test their strength against him to see who would ascend and become the new Lord of the Woods.”

“And the young Lords came,” Lyrra said, taking up the story both of them knew so well, “but none of them were strong enough. None of them could match the waning strength of the one who commanded all of them.”

“Then another Lord stepped into the clearing, a stranger the others had never seen before. The stranger walked to the center of the clearing and faced the old Lord of the Woods, and all those who had gathered there felt the power rising — a fierce, joyful power that burned like a hot sun compared to a waning moon — and they knew this stranger was the new Lord of the Woods. The old Lord changed into the mighty stag that was his other form, and waited for the young Hunter to shape an arrow of magic, fit it to the bow, and send it into his heart, stripping him of his magic as was the custom.”

“And the stranger did shape an arrow of magic and fit it to the bow. Then the new Lord of the Woods shot the arrow into the ground in front of the old Lord’s feet, and said, ‘I will take the burden of your duties with a glad heart, but I will not take from you the power that made you what you are. For you have walked in the shadows and the light for all these long years, and your strength, your experience,
your wisdom are still needed in the world. Go in peace. Merry meet, and merry part, and merry meet again.”

“The stag lowered his head, then turned and walked away from the clearing. When he was gone, the other Lords of the Woods came, one by one, to kneel before the Hunter and offer their loyalty, swearing to obey the commands of the new Lord of the Woods. And so it was, that night near Harvest’s Eve, and he who came into power that night still rules the shadows and light of the woods and all things in it.”

Lyrra said nothing, feeling the echo of Aiden’s last words whispering through her.

“He changed things, Lyrra,” Aiden said. “Before that night, every time a Lord or Lady ascended to rule over all the others who had that same gift, the one whose power had waned was stripped of all of it, if not killed outright, in order to ensure that there would be no rivalry between the old and the new. By letting the old Lord walk away, the Hunter changed the waning and waxing of power from a battle between rivals to a ritual where the duties of power were passed on to the one best able to take up the task. When I ascended to become the Bard, I didn’t strip the old Bard of his gift of song. You didn’t strip the old Muse when your time came to command that power. And we would have, because it was the custom, if it hadn’t been for the story of how the Hunter came into his power.”

“Some still strip the power from the old to prevent any rivalry,” Lyrra said.

“And some always will. But many no longer do. If the Hunter could show compassion
that
night, he might be willing to hear what we have to say about the witches and why they need the Fae’s help.”

Hopeful. Doubtful. Lyrra wasn’t sure which was the strongest feeling pulsing through her. “Where would we even begin to look?”

“Where no one has thought to look.”

She puzzled over that for a moment. Then her eyes widened. She sat up on the bed and stared down at him, wondering if he was feverish. “The west? You want to go to the
western
Clans?”

“Think about it, Lyrra.” Aiden sat up to face her. “He hasn’t been seen in years. But we know he’s still the Lord of the Woods because if he
wasn’t
, another would have ascended to become the Hunter. No one knew who he was that night. No one knew what Clan he came from, and I don’t think he
ever
said where he came from, even during the time when he
did
travel to the other Clans so that the other Lords and Ladies of the Woods would have no doubt about who ruled them. Then he disappeared again. Where else could he be?”

“Perhaps … in the human world, living there the same way Ahern did?”

“Even if that’s so, it still has to be in the west. All of us who ruled a gift knew where the Lord of the Horse was, even if few approached him. But no one knows how to locate the Hunter, and maybe that’s because we avoid the western Clans. If we approached one of those Clans and asked for him, I wonder how long it would really take to find him.”

What was it about the Fae from the western Clans that made the rest of them so uneasy?

“There’s another reason why the Hunter might be willing to help us,” Aiden said softly. “Merry meet, and merry part, and merry meet again.”

Lyrra frowned. “I’ve always wondered about that. It’s such an odd saying, and it’s only in that story because the Hunter said it.”

“I wonder if Breanna or Nuala would find it an odd saying.”

Could the Hunter have taken those words to himself the same way she and Falco had taken Ari’s ritual greeting to themselves?

“If that is a witch’s saying…” Lyrra said carefully.

“Then the Hunter might already be acquainted with a witch or two.”

Lyrra didn’t bother to remind him that plenty of Fae males had been acquainted with witches — for as long as it took to bed them and breed them — but they hadn’t actually understood anything about the women they were mating with.

“When do we leave?” Lyrra asked.

“Tomorrow. Early. Even using the bridges between the Clan territories, it will still take a couple of days to reach the north end of the Mother’s Hills and then head west.”

“And what will we do today?”

“We’ll rest.” Aiden brushed a finger gently down her cheek. “Lyrra, this won’t be easy, even going through Tir Alainn as much as we can. Are you sure you —”

“Do you think the Fae in the western Clans have any stories we haven’t heard before?” Lyrra asked, deliberately cutting him off. “Maybe a song or two that even
you
haven’t heard?”

“It’s possible,” he said cautiously.

“And if I stay behind, you would promise to listen to any new stories as carefully as you listen to the songs and tell them to me when you got back.”

“Yes, of course I would.” He smiled at her, looking regretful and relieved.

“Ha!” She rolled off the bed so that she could stand with her hands on her hips. “You’d listen to them well enough to snip them here and nip them there so that they’d fit into a melody that suddenly came into your head, and the only thing
I’d
get is
your
version of the story instead of the story itself.”

“But —”

“Why don’t I go instead, and you stay here? I’ll listen to the songs and bring them back to you.”

His mouth slowly opened, but no sound came out.

“Lyrra … You know I love you, and you have a lovely voice, but, darling, you never catch all of a song when you only hear it once. Most of the lyrics, yes, but never the tune.”

“Well, I can turn the song into a story so that I remember all of the words.”

He looked scandalized.

“You don’t approve?” she asked sweetly.

He rolled off the other side of the bed to stand and face her. “No, I don’t approve! A story and a song are
not
the same thing!”

“In that case, Bard, it would seem we have to go together. You to hear the songs, and I to hear the stories. And we’ll find some way to convince the Hunter to help us. Together.”

His breath came out in a huff that turned into a laugh. “Very well, Muse. Together.” He came around the bed and held out his hand. “Shall we stroll through the gardens for a little while? I think my wife could use a little courting.”

Smiling, she slipped her hand into his. “I think my husband could use a little of the same.” A thought occurred to her, and she voiced it before she could change her mind. “What made you think of the west?”

He studied her for a moment in a way that made her sure her guess was correct.

“Morphia,” he said. “She was going to the western Clans to find Morag since there was nowhere else to look. It made me wonder if the Hunter might not be there, too.”

“Do you think Morphia has found Morag?”

“When we reach the western Clans, perhaps we’ll find out.” Aiden kissed her gently. “Let it go now. There are miles between us and any answers. For today, just let it go.”

Lyrra leaned toward him. “When we come back from our stroll through the gardens, will you play for me?”

“On the harp?”

“If you insist.”

He grinned, hesitated, then opened the door. “After our stroll, I’ll play you any tune you care to name.”

“I don’t catch all of a tune with only one hearing. You said so yourself.”

He burst out laughing, and was still laughing when he pulled her through the open door. “Come along, then. I want a bit of romancing before you have your way with me.”

And that, Lyrra decided when they reached the gardens, was one of the reasons she’d fallen in love with him. The Bard would never leave the romance out of passion — which suited the Muse perfectly.

L
iam shifted in his chair as another eastern baron droned on about how about his county’s prosperity had increased since he’d destroyed the vile creatures in the Old Places who had caused his people so much harm and how important it was for
all
the barons to take strong action to protect the people in Sylvalan’s towns and villages from the Evil One’s lures.

None of them actually came right out and said they’d hired men called Inquisitors to murder women who had a gift of magic and owned vast tracts of land that the barons couldn’t touch. None of them actually said it was the women in their communities who were suddenly too weak-willed and weak-minded to avoid this evil that most of the barons beyond the eastern part of Sylvalan had never heard of except in these chambers. But that’s what was being said under what was actually spoken.

Liam shifted again. Ignored the sour look from the old baron sitting in the chair on his right. The man reeked of cologne, adding another stink to the body odor and brandy that had been generously imbibed during the midday break. If this was all the barons’ council did, why make the effort of the journey?

Because you and the people who matter to you have to live with whatever decrees are made here. Why else would the western barons travel so far twice a year?

Gritting his teeth, he sat up straight and forced himself to pay attention. Not that he hadn’t been hearing the same thing all day yesterday as well as this morning. Kill the witches, acquire the Old Places for your own profit, strip
all the other women in your county of the right to be anything but a man’s property, and the
men
in your county will prosper. And since they were all men here, they had everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Nothing except their honor, their sense of what was right and wrong, and the trust of the women who were a part of their lives.

The baron finished his speech and returned to his seat in the council chamber. A smattering of applause came from the part of the chamber where the eastern barons sat. There was nothing but stony silence from the rest of the room.

Liam raised his hand, as he’d done over and over again yesterday afternoon and this morning, indicating he wanted a chance to speak.

The Baron of Durham, who presided over the council meetings, looked straight at him before calling on Baron Hirstun to speak.

Another eastern baron. More verbal puke about the dangers of the Evil One and the need to exterminate
all
the witches in Sylvalan so that the people who look to the barons to keep them safe will not fall prey to the cruel magic these terrible females spawn.