"Mistress? Please do not cry, M'Lady."
Tranorva looked down at the distressed face of the small creature who reached for her hand. "I am not crying. I am only angry. Forgive me, Dahlai. I did not mean to frighten ye with my outburst. It is just that I waited so long to find love, and now I feel it slipping away. I must take the body of Élandine home to the Faerie King, or he will truly die. I have not much time left."
Dahlai leaned far out over the banister, seemingly directing her attention to the ships rather than to the men. "I can help, but they are too far away. I must touch them."
Evalayna frowned at the diminutive sprite. "What do you mean, child?"
The faerie spawn stamped her foot angrily, her mood as volatile as the weather. "I am not a child! Why do all of you insist on calling me child? I am nearly forty!"
Evalayna smiled at the small temper tantrum. "Because ye look like a child, dear heart, and were ye in Faerie ye would still be considered a child. Shammall told me once that he was not considered a man and allowed to leave his father's house until he reached his fiftieth year. We seek not to offend thee. Among my people, the cubs are precious, and we strive to protect and nurture them. Please forgive me. I shall endeavor to remember thy age. Now tell me, why do ye wish to touch the ships?"
Apparently mollified, Dahlai looked back out over the water. "The Fey are everywhere, Mother told me. She said I would know them if we brushed in passing. I would be able to feel them speak to me. 'Tis so. I felt the light within the one you call Élandine from the first. I felt his presence as if he had changed before me, as my mother would when we were alone. If I touch the ships, I believe I can find one that has been to Faerie."
A small muscle twitched around the corner of Tranorva's eye. "'Tis no safe for a woman to wander these docks alone."
"I will take her," Balthain offered.
"We will all go," Ayailla announced firmly. "I too am tired of waiting, hiding here as if we are no more than ornaments. We are Clan of the Wolf. Let those who watch know us and fear us. Lead on, Child."
And because it was the old woman who spoke, the child-sprite grinned widely this time, rather than taking offense. She held out her arms to Balthain, who scooped her up to set her upon his wide shoulders as the Shamen swarmed toward the dock. The Warriors saw them coming and said naught, but moved to their sides, hands resting upon the hilts of their weapons. Dahlai whispered something to Balthain and he strode down the longest pier, stopping when she told him to move closer to one ship or another.
Spirits began to sag again as she rejected all the ships they passed, turning away from most before she even laid hands upon them. They neared the end of the pier before her small voice hissed out a sharp word of command.
"Put me down."
Murmurs of approval spread through the party. The ship was bright with fresh paint and outfitted with new sails, and the crew that watched them approach wore crisply pressed matching uniforms, almost like a military crew. "A racing yacht," Balthain observed in a subdued voice.
But it was not the yacht that drew Dahlai's attention. It was to an older, less elaborate ship, partially hidden behind the large yacht and looking far from seaworthy that she ventured.
The captain stood at the top of the gang plank, his arms crossed over his chest, frowning eyes and dark presence enough to intimidate lesser men, yet Dahlai walked calmly up the plank to him, as if she had done so every day of her life. At the top of the plank she reached out to lay her small hand over his arm, and the small child-like creature they had known disappeared. In her place stood a tall, slender beauty, her dark honey-colored skin shining with a light that glowed from within, her long ebony hair floating past her knees as the breeze lifted it gently.
The Captain stared mesmerized at the beauty before him, forgetting to blink.
"You have been to Faerie."
The Captain merely nodded.
"I want to go home," the Fey creature explained, her hand still laid over his arm. "Will you please take me home?"
"Aye," he managed, pausing to clear his throat. "Aye. That I will, M'Lady."
* * * * *
The ship rolled gently on the waves, the City of Port but a distant memory. Roahr moved to stand beside her, his arm warm and comforting as he pulled her against his side. Evalayna laid her head against his shoulder, watching the setting sun painting a picture of great beauty across the distant horizon.
"What troubles you, my love? You have accomplished your mission. On the morrow we shall land at the Faerie King's docks. The rest is in the hands of the gods."
"I feel guilty, Roahr, to be so blessed, so fulfilled, when our daughter is in such pain."
Roahr dipped his head to brush warm lips over her mouth. "I had thought to end my days alone on my mountain, drifting off to sleep one winter never to awaken again. You have given me back all that I thought I had lost, my heart, and more. You have given me a family, and a reason to live. Together we are stronger than ever we were alone. Tranorva has our strength to draw upon now, as well as her own. Perhaps this was the real mission the gods charged you with. Whatever happens, whatever the judgment of the Faerie King, Tranorva knows we will stand beside her. We are a family. We face the future together."
"Together," Evalayna agreed. "I like the sound of that."
And as the sun drifted below the water, the last of her fires outlined the lovers standing at the ships rail, two lost souls who had found each other again at last.
Epilogue
Tranorva stood far forward on the upper deck, looking out over the water toward the spot where the island must appear that would decide her fate. She spoke to the night air, averting her eyes from the shadowed man who stood always beside her. "I know Mother says ye are gone in spirit, and this thing is but an empty shell, yet I fear ye are instead trapped within, aware of all around ye and unable to tell me what ye would have me do."
She reached out blindly to find his hand, pulling his arms around her in the darkness where no one could see her foolishness. "I miss ye so. Always ye have been here for me, guiding me, protecting me from myself. I do not understand why ye chose as ye did, to sacrifice thyself rather than trust in my strength, but perhaps I do not need to understand. I wish I was sure ye would wish to attempt this thing, to bring thy spirit back to the body it has deserted. If I have chosen wrong, and ye want not the gift of the Faerie King should he decide to grant it, my spirit shall surely fly away with yours."
Tears that she would never have shed in the daylight tipped her lashes. "I need ye, Élandine. I need ye now more than ever. My heart dies a thousand deaths a day without ye."
The ship lurched slightly as it skipped over a wave, and for one brief moment the arms wrapped around her tightened, holding her steady as her footing shifted on the tilting deck.
It was only the reflexive movement of the thing that he had become, straining to right itself. Wasn't it? Perhaps she had even imagined the gesture. Perhaps…
"I love ye," Tranorva whispered, holding him tightly there in the darkness where there was no one to see her foolishness. "Forever and always, my heart."
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Song of The Bear Book I
An Authorized Excerpt…
Prologue
He had the strangest feeling that he was floating, watching himself from a long way off. Surely that thing, that shell, couldn't really be him. His present form was so much lighter, so much less tied to the Earth.
He would have drifted away, but for the woman.
Her name came unbidden to his lips.
Tranorva.
He knew her, knew her in ways he could not precisely remember, knew the feel of her skin under his hand, the warmth of her breath on his ear, knew the sound of her voice calling
to him.
She stood far forward on the ship's upper deck, looking out across the moonlit ocean toward the land he had once called home. She looked right at him, as if somehow she sensed his presence lingering near, although he knew by now that no one alive could actually see him.
Her words haunted him, stole a piece of his soul and bound it to her.
"I know Mother says ye are gone in spirit, and this thing is but an empty shell, yet I fear ye are instead trapped within, aware of all around ye and unable to tell me what ye would have me do."
'Twas not so far from the truth.
She reached back, pulling the corpse-like thing's arms about her, tears drenching her thick, dark lashes, making her eyes glisten like wet emeralds in the moonlight. "I miss ye so. Always ye have been here for me, guiding me, protecting me from myself. I do not understand why ye chose as ye did, to sacrifice thyself rather than trust in my strength, but perhaps I do not need to understand. I wish I was sure ye would wish to attempt this thing, to bring thy spirit back to the body it has deserted. If I have chosen wrong, and ye want not the gift of the King should he decide to grant it, my spirit shall surely fly away with yours."
Sacrifice…It was so hard to remember life in his mortal body. What had he done to cause this one so much pain? The only thing that felt real was the taste of her skin on his lips as he tried to comfort her. But she could not see him, could not feel his touch.
"I need ye, Élandine. I need ye now more than ever. My heart dies a thousand deaths a day without ye."
Élandine. He had been Élandine.
He had loved her.
That love was the one thing that could not die.
He slid slowly back into the thing that had once been his body, trying it on for size. An uncomfortable fit. Body and soul were not truly united, and it was all he could do to make her feel his presence.
"I love ye," Tranorva whispered, holding him tightly there in the darkness. "Forever and always, my heart."
And because she willed it, he began to remember…
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