by Anne Bishop
Ari shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t think she wants to wed at the Midsummer Feast.”
Lucian frowned. “So she doesn’t want to wed.” And what man would want her? “What does that have to do with her coming here?”
“Her family would expect her to wed at Midsummer if she’s carrying a Summer Moon child.”
“There’s not much time between one and the other to be certain about such things.”
“Certain, no. But enough time to suspect that it may be so. That’s been sufficient for a good many marriages, especially when couples use it as the final persuasion to convince their families to accept their choice of life partners.”
Partners for life. Lucian suppressed a shudder, finally beginning to understand some of the jests about shackles and being harnessed to the marriage plow that Aiden had told him human males often make when safely out of female hearing. That a man would have to stay with one female, enduring all of her moods, simply because he had sired a child on her was unthinkable. Not that the moods of female kin didn’t have to be endured, but that was different than a lover. Lovers could be vindictive.
“Could you have helped her?” Lucian asked.
Ari shook her head. “I truly don’t know anything that would have helped her.”
“Then why are you worried?”
She hesitated. “Her family is very influential. They could make things . . . difficult.”
Lucian drew her closer and wrapped his arms around her to offer comfort. As she relaxed against him, he looked around—and found no comfort for himself in what he saw.
He’d appreciated the cottage’s isolation while he’d been visiting each evening. Now he saw just how alone she was out there, and he didn’t like it. If someone did choose to cause trouble for her, there was no one close by who would notice, no one who might help her. That was something he would have to think about.
He eased back. “I should let you get on with your work.”
“Thank you for stopping by, Lucian.” She sounded distracted—too distracted to realize she had just dismissed him with no more thought than she would have had for an insignificant human male.
He kissed her cheek and walked around the side of the cottage. Shifting to his other form, he galloped over the meadow toward the forest trail that would take him to the road through the Veil. At the edge of the meadow, he stopped, looked back. He couldn’t see her. Was she watching him? Or had she even noticed he was gone?
He trotted along the forest trail until he saw the shining road that led to Tir Alainn.
Nothing was as simple as it should have been where she was concerned. This wasn’t even the challenge of seduction, which at least would have given spice to the frustration.
It stung that she would refuse him to spare a human male’s feelings.
It also troubled him that he cared enough that he was getting tangled up in aspects of her life that had nothing to do with their pleasuring each other. Such things were dangerous for a Fae male when he indulged himself in the human world.
But even if he kept his distance, he could still find out what was happening at Brightwood.
He’d just send Falco out to catch another rabbit.
Ari fetched the buckets she’d left outside the cow shed, then filled them at the well. The garden needed watering, and after that there was plenty of work to do.
There was always work to do. And with every day that passed, it gave her less pleasure.
Already tired, she looked around, studying the cottage, the meadow, the woods.
She’d been born here, had grown up here, as had her mother and grandmother and generations of witches before her. Why had her family stayed at Brightwood? To provide a home for the Small Folk? To look after and cherish an Old Place? Were witches as much gentry as the other landowners, or were they nothing more than unpaid groundskeepers? And if that was so, who really had claim to the Old Places?
Neall was right. She had no chance of a life here. She couldn’t sell her weaving in Ridgeley for anything near what it was worth. The last time she’d gone into the village for a few supplies, the only shopkeeper who would sell anything to her was Granny Gwynn, and Granny had tried to charge so much over the usual price, she had left the supplies on the counter and walked out—which is why her larder had been so empty of things like sugar and flour before Neall had bartered the salmon to Ahern.
The land was rich because it had always been cared for. Even so, she felt as if she were doing little more than surviving. When Neall left, it would be harder to do even that.
Neall.
She would have to give him an answer soon. After the Solstice. That would be enough time to hear what her heart had to tell her.
That decision made, she picked up the buckets and went to water the garden.
“Blessings of the day to you, Ari,” Dianna said.
Ari looked up from the flower bed she was weeding. “If visitors are the blessings for the day, I could use fewer blessings.”
Taken aback by the words, and the temper behind them, Dianna wasn’t sure how to respond—and regretted her impatience. She should have waited a couple more days before coming back to the cottage.
“I—I just wanted to see how you and the pup were getting along.”
Ari sat back on her heels and sighed. “I’m being rude. I’m sorry, Dianna. Merle is doing fine.”
Dismounting but still uncertain of her welcome, Dianna said, “That sounds like a good name for a puppy.”
At that moment, the puppy trotted around the cottage, saw Dianna, and started yapping.
“Hush, Merle,” Ari said. The smile she gave Dianna was considerably warmer than the initial greeting. “He’s my protector. He protects me from butterflies, bugs, twigs, leaves, and anything else that moves—as long as it’s smaller than he is. Or close enough in size.”
“And if it’s bigger?” Dianna asked.
Laughing, Ari got to her feet and brushed dirt off her trousers. “Then he bravely stands behind me and tries to warn off the intruder.”
In a few months, he won’t stand behind you, Dianna thought, studying the puppy. And any intruders will find out how savage an animal who’s even part shadow hound can be.
“I’m glad you’re doing well with each other. I won’t keep you from your work.” She turned to mount her pale mare.
“Dianna . . .”
Dianna looked over her shoulder.
“I am sorry I was rude. And I could use a rest if you want to stay for a bit. I could offer you—” She huffed out a breath. “Well, there’s water. Or tea, if you’d like something warm.”
“Some water would be welcome.” Following Ari to the back of the cottage, Dianna stopped long enough to slip off the mare’s bridle to let her graze. She watched Ari fill a bucket and set it beside the well for the mare, then go into the cottage. Bringing out two mugs, Ari filled another bucket, poured water into both mugs, then poured the rest of the water back into the well.
“At this time of year, the water in the well is a bit cooler than what I get from the pump in the kitchen,” Ari explained, handing Dianna a mug.
Dianna sat on the bench. Ari remained standing, staring out at the meadow.
“What’s troubling you?” Dianna asked.
“I’ve had my share of bullies for the day.”
“In that case, who has been troubling you?” Dianna the Huntress asked.
“What makes men think they have the right to use anger to intimidate someone into giving them what they want?” Ari demanded, whirling around. “How can ‘yes’ have any meaning if you’re afraid to say ‘no’?”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted sex. What else could he want?” She was almost shouting now. “And then Odella shows up and wants a spell or potion because she’s afraid she’s with child and obviously doesn’t like whoever she ended up with during the Summer Moon enough to consider wedding him. And when I told her I didn’t know anything that would help her, she threatened me.”
Dianna dismissed Odella as insignificant. But this male . . . What was his name? Ah, yes. “So this . . . Neall . . . threatened you because you wouldn’t give him sex? What right does he have to expect such a thing from you?”
“Not Neall,” Ari snapped. “Lucian.”
Dianna choked. “A F—” She choked again.
“Drink some water,” Ari said, coming over to give Dianna a couple hard thumps on the back.
Dianna drank some water, swallowed wrong, then coughed until her eyes watered and Ari thumped her back again.
“A Fae Lord threatened you because you refused him?”
Ari looked at her warily. “How did you know he was a Fae Lord?”
“Your conversation isn’t sprinkled with male names,” Dianna replied testily. “Since it wasn’t this Neall, it was easy to figure out it was the Fae Lord.”
“Yes, it was him.”
Dianna watched Ari pace in front of the bench. Lucian, you fool, what have you done? “Sometimes men are stupid,” she said, offering it as a sop to a bruised female ego.
“I’ll drink to that.” Ari raised her mug in a salute, not breaking stride.
Worried that Ari hadn’t taken the words as they had been meant and shrugged off her annoyance with a smile of agreement, Dianna sipped the water. This was no girl who could be led. This was a young woman who was steaming mad. “Maybe he misunderstood something you said?”
“He greeted me, I returned the greeting. If that’s all it takes to be misunderstood, I simply won’t speak to him again.”
Groping for something to say, Dianna blurted out the first thing that occurred to her. “I’m surprised you didn’t turn him into a large stone or something.”
“I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to,” Ari said. “My magic doesn’t work that way.” She paused, narrowed her eyes. “Although stuffing him down the privy is an appealing thought.”
Dianna felt her jaw drop. Mother’s mercy. She studied Ari more closely. Oh, there was plenty of anger there that belonged on Lucian’s shoulders, but not all of it was because of him. He simply had become the focus for it. And that wasn’t good.
“Perhaps if you started from the beginning and explained . . .”
Those words seemed to loosen the pebble that was holding up the dam. As all of Ari’s pent-up anger and frustration and doubts about dealing with the villagers of Ridgeley, men in general, and Lucian in particular spilled out, Dianna thought over and over, She isn’t like us. She may not be like other humans, but she also isn’t like us. And not even the Lightbringer can afford to forget that.
Dianna paced her sitting room, waiting for Lyrra and Aiden to answer her summons. Lucian’s blunder wasn’t as bad as it had sounded, but she also knew that, as much as Ari had said, some things had been left out. It was clear that the girl’s reasons for refusing Lucian had something to do with that Neall, but Ari hadn’t said exactly why she’d refused. Still, there had been other things that had been said that had given her an idea of how to ease Ari toward thinking well of the Fae.
A quick rap on the door was the only warning before Lyrra and Aiden slipped into the room.
“Forgive the haste,” Lyrra said, “but Lucian was heading for his suite, and we didn’t think you wanted anyone to know we were meeting with you here.”
“You both have plans for the Solstice,” Dianna said abruptly.
They looked at each other, then at her.
“The Muse and the Bard usually do,” Aiden said, amused. “It is one of our feast days.”
“This year you’re going to be absent from the feast in Tir Alainn. The three of us will be celebrating the Solstice at the cottage.”
“With the witch,” Aiden said, no longer amused.
“With Ari,” Dianna said.
“Who is a witch,” Lyrra said.
Looking at their grim faces, Dianna tried to find a way to explain without really explaining. “The humans also celebrate Midsummer. There’s feasting and music and dancing. But Ari isn’t welcome among them and will be alone. I thought . . .” She trailed off, not sure how to finish.
“You thought that bringing a couple of musicians and a bit of a feast would take the sting out of not being welcome elsewhere,” Lyrra said.
“Yes.”
Lyrra and Aiden looked at each other.
“Does she know you’re Fae?” Aiden asked.
Dianna shook her head. “But I think I should tell her soon, so she won’t feel that I’ve deceived her.”
“We’re both used to appearing as humans, so holding the glamour for an evening won’t be a problem,” Aiden said. “Slipping away from Tir Alainn unnoticed will be more of a challenge.”
Dianna smiled. “We’ll find a way. Besides, the only one we really have to avoid is Lucian.”
“Aiden.”
Lucian wondered why the Bard tensed so much before turning away from the stairs to speak with him, then dismissed it. He’d spent most of the afternoon prowling the gardens while trying to figure out how to placate Ari enough for her to overlook his blunder that morning. He needed to offer something that would please her more than his other gifts had—and Aiden was his answer.
“I’m going to need you on the Solstice.”
Aiden paled. “Lucian . . . as much as I regret refusing you, I must. The Huntress has already requested my services for a special performance that evening.”
Disappointment weighed heavily on his shoulders. “I see. Perhaps the Muse—”
Aiden shook his head. “She’s also engaged that evening.” He hesitated. “There are a couple of other bards here. Perhaps one of them could—”
“No.” Needing air and open ground, Lucian quickly went down the stairs. Then, remembering courtesy, he turned and looked up at Aiden, who was still looking pale. “I thank you for the suggestion, but I wanted the best.”
“Perhaps another night?” Aiden said faintly.
“Perhaps.”
Lucian prowled the gardens until well after dark. Finally, weary enough to rest, he returned to the Clan house.
He had no voice for songs and no skill with an instrument, so there would be no music. And he didn’t have the Muse’s gift, either, but he could tell a story fairly well. Enough to amuse and provide a little pleasure.
It wouldn’t be the entertainment he had wanted, but at least Ari wouldn’t spend the Solstice alone.
Chapter Twenty-two
Adolfo dipped his pen in the ink pot and made another X on the map spread out on the desk. Two more witches would no longer foul the world with their magic. After glancing at his courier to make sure the young man was still too busy wolfing down the meal that had been ordered for him, Adolfo studied the map and smiled.
His Inquisitors were making good progress in this part of Sylvalan now that they weren’t spending the time needed to convince the common people that witches were evil and simply could get on with the job of eliminating the vile creatures. The barons supported the purge since the witches’ land came to them. For now, their support was enough. The minstrels he had hired to travel through the villages, singing the songs that revealed the witches’ foul deeds, would prepare the ground for the ideas he would plant later, after those who had magic running through their veins—the Small Folk and the Fae—were driven off by the death of magic in the land. After it was safe to linger in one place long enough to teach men how to be the masters of their lives.
His Inquisitors also reported that several Old Places had been abandoned recently, and in each there had been signs that the women who had lived there had fled in haste. They had fled him in Wolfram and Arktos, too. It hadn’t done them any good. He’d found them in the end.
He read the next letter the courier had brought him—and frowned. He hastily read the others, then stared at the courier. The young man, glancing over at that moment, abandoned his meal and hurried to stand beside the desk.
“Why are all of my Inquisitors asking me to replenish their purses?” Adolfo asked softly. “
I gave each of you sufficient coin to cover ordinary expenses.” He continued to stare at the courier, only now considering that the young man’s hunger had been more than a day’s riding would warrant. “Is your purse empty as well?”
The courier licked his dry lips and looked at the desk. “Yes, Master Adolfo,” he whispered.
“What did you do with the money? Were you gambling? Drinking?” He paused, then added with rapier delicacy, “Whoring?”
“N-No, Master,” the courier said, stammering in his haste to get the words out. “It’s just—”
The courier bit his lip so hard Adolfo waited to see if it bled.
“The gentry have refused to pay for the food and lodging,” he blurted out. “They said that since we hadn’t been invited and had done nothing to prove our worth, there was no reason why they should pick up the tab at the inn.”
“Did any of you explain that it was customary—and an honor—to provide for an Inquisitor’s well-being while he is in a village?”
“They said it wasn’t their custom!” The courier sounded outraged and shocked and so very young.
Adolfo sat back in his chair. Yes, most of the men he had brought with him would be shocked by such a lack of respect. They were used to the deference tinged with fear that they received in Wolfram and Arktos. They were too young to remember a time when that had not been so. But he had slept in many barns and had felt the keen edge of hunger many times when he’d first begun his quest to annihilate the witches.
“Master . . .” The courier hesitated. “Could these witches be different from the ones that were in Wolfram and Arktos? Could they be . . . good witches, and that’s why the villagers don’t want them caught?”
So very young, Adolfo thought sadly, and just weak enough to listen to strangers, and wonder. And once one man begins to wonder if what we do is right, that doubt can spread like a plague through the others. Something will have to be done. But not just yet. He has the stamina for the courier work and will be needed for a little while longer.
“There are no witches who are not the vessel of evil,” Adolfo said. “There are only fools who believe they are something else.”