The magic in this Old Place was swiftly dying. Which meant the witches who had lived here were already dead. When the Daughters of the House of Gaian fled from an Old Place to escape whoever meant them harm, the magic faded slowly. Being Fae, she could feel the difference.
Aiden had been reluctant to travel farther into the Old Place once they’d gone in far enough to feel the change. But she’d insisted that they needed to find out if any of the Fae whose Clan territory was anchored to this Old Place had managed to escape from Tir Alainn before the shining road through the Veil closed, trapping them beyond the reach of the human world . or even their own kind.
The wind shifted slightly, bringing the smell of decay and rotting flesh.
Aiden reined in suddenly, his attention on a cluster of dead trees they’d have to pass between in order to continue on this trail.
Lyrra studied the trees neighboring the dead ones. What were those dark clumps in the branches?
“Lyrra,” Aiden said in a quiet, strained voice. “Turn the mare. Go back up the trail as fast as you can. We need to get back to the road or find a meadow, a field. Anything with sunlight.”
“Aiden _”
Pieces of the dark clumps on the trees fell off, spread batlike wings, and flew straight for them.
Nighthunters!
Lyrra wheeled the mare. The horse needed no urging to gallop recklessly back the way they’d come. Fae horses had silent hooves, so she couldn’t hear Aiden’s gelding and the packhorse behind her — but she heard the hungry, angry squeaking of the creatures the black-coated Inquisitors created by twisting the magic in an Old Place. The nighthunters were flesh eaters — and they were soul eaters.
Sunlight, sunlight, Lyrra chanted silently. They had to get out of the shadows of the woods. The nighthunters didn’t like sunlight. Why hadn’t she yielded to Aiden’s reluctance to enter this Old Place? He’d spent close to a year on the road and would have seen far more Old Places that had been stripped of their magic than she had in the few weeks she’d been traveling with him.
He was behind her, closer to the danger that flew in pursuit. If something happened to him because she’d insisted …
Her mare suddenly veered left, almost throwing Lyrra out of the saddle. She hung on grimly, letting the animal choose the way and hoping the mare’s instinct would get them to safety in time.
It felt like they’d been fleeing for hours when the mare slid down a bank, splashed through the shallow stream, then scrambled up the other bank.
A few heartbeats later, they galloped out of the trees into a sunlit meadow.
Thank you, Mother, Lyrra thought as she slowed the mare. Thank you.
Then she looked back, expecting to see Aiden. And saw nothing but the trees.
She reined the mare to a stop. Slid out of the saddle. Stared at the trees.
Behind her a horse neighed a greeting.
Spinning around, Lyrra saw the black-haired woman riding toward her.
No, Lyrra thought, sinking to the ground. Not Morag. Not the Gatherer. Go away! He doesn’t need you! It’s not his time! Aiden!
“Lyrra?” the woman said, dismounting so quickly she stumbled before catching her balance and running the rest of the way to where Lyrra sat on the ground. “Lyrra? Are you hurt?”
Lyrra looked at the woman who now knelt beside her. She pressed her hand against her mouth to hold back the weeping. If she started, she wasn’t sure she would stop.
Not Morag. This was Morphia, Morag’s sister. The one who was called the Sleep Sister and the Lady of Dreams.
“Are you hurt?” Morphia asked again.
Lyrra shook her head.
“Are you alone?”
“I —”I don’t know. “Aiden …”
Morphia looked around. “He must have followed a different trail through the woods. That’s him, isn’t it?”
Lyrra twisted around, saw Aiden and the horses cantering toward her.
“Aiden!” she cried, scrambling to her feet. She ran to meet him.
He barely waited for his gelding to stop before he was out of the saddle, rushing toward her. He pulled her into his arms. Held on tight.
“Are you all right?” he asked hoarsely, kissing her cheek, her neck, anything he could reach without letting go of her.
“I’m fine. I’m fine. And you?”
“I’m fine.”
She pulled back far enough to really kiss him, looked at his face, then gave him a shove that startled him enough to break his hold and make him step back a couple of paces. Anger burned through her, sweet and hot.
“You did it deliberately, didn’t you?” she shouted. “You kept going along the forest trail so the nighthunters would follow you instead of me. Didn’t you?”
“Of course I didn’t,” he replied sharply. He raked his hand through his black hair. “Mother’s tits, Lyrra, you disappeared down that game trail so fast, there was no chance to follow you. So I followed the trail I was on until I could head in the same direction you did.”
“With those nighthunters chasing you every step of the way!”
Anger flashed in his blue eyes. “They weren’t behind me once you disappeared. I thought they’d gone after you!”
He was the Bard. He could be a facile liar when he wanted to be. And he was lying to her now. If he’d truly thought the nighthunters had gone after her, he would have abandoned the packhorse and followed the game trail she’d taken. But a man and two horses offered more prey than a woman and a horse — especially when he’d been behind her.
Lyrra’s temper, goaded by fear and relief, soared. “You can keep your lies and your self-sacrificing —”
“Stop it!” Morphia hurried toward them. “Stop it!”
Hearing pain beneath the anger, Lyrra bit her tongue to prevent herself from telling the other woman to stay out of a private quarrel.
“What’s wrong with you?” Morphia demanded. Her voice trembled. Broke. “You stand before the person who is dearest to you, knowing that person is alive and well and safe, and all you can do is quarrel?” She pressed a hand against her mouth and turned away from them.
Lyrra looked at Aiden. Together, they went to Morphia. Aiden put his arms around her while Lyrra stroked her hair.
“You’ve had no word from Morag?” Aiden asked quietly.
“None. Lucian and Dianna made good on their threat. She’s been shunned by all the Clans. No one will say if she’d visited their Clan. No one will acknowledge seeing her. She said she had a task to do, so we parted ways a few days after we left Ahern’s farm. I went back to our home Clan. I haven’t seen her since. I knew she wouldn’t go to any of the southern Clans, since they would be too close to Dianna and Lucian’s Clan. I’ve looked for her in the midlands and the north. I thought she might have come back to the eastern part of Sylvalan since the trouble is here, so I —”
“It isn’t safe for a woman to travel in the east, especially a woman traveling alone,” Aiden said sharply.
“And well I know it,” Morphia replied bitterly. “There was a place,” she continued softly. “I was called there by need so great I couldn’t deny it. So many human women crying out. So much pain, so much fear. I felt their dream, helped them shape it, saw it as if I was standing just beyond reach. I stayed as long as I dared to feed the magic that would let them dream together because it would fade once I was gone, but I knew I had to get away from the east and whatever it is the humans have done there.” Giving Aiden a wobbly smile, she stepped back from his embrace.
“Where will you go now?” Lyrra asked. “Back to your home Clan?”
Morphia shook her head. “I’m going to find Morag. I’m going to the western Clans.”
Lyrra glanced at Aiden, relieved that he looked as startled as she felt.
“But . Morphia,” Lyrra said. “They’re the western Clans.” Clans the rest of the Fae avoided whenever possible because there was something about those Fae that made them all uncomfortable.
Determinati
on filled Morphia’s eyes. “I know they’re . different . from the rest of us. Maybe different enough not to dance to the Lightbringer’s tune and shun Morag for doing what she had to do. Besides, that’s the only place left to search, so that’s where I’ll go.”
“Why don’t you ride with us for a while,” Aiden said.
“You’re heading south?”
He shook his head. “North.”
“Then I thank you, but no. I’ll keep riding south until I find a shining road through the Veil. I’ll be able to travel faster through Tir Alainn.” She turned away, started walking toward her horse, then turned back to look at them. “I will find her. I won’t turn away from her simply because Lucian and Dianna want to punish her for doing what was right.”
“It doesn’t matter that she was right,” Aiden said. “The Fae who have shunned her still sleep easy at night.”
Morphia gave him a strange look. “Some of them no longer sleep easy.” She raised her hand. “May your dreams be gentle ones.”
Lyrra felt a little tremor go through her body. It hadn’t occurred to her that the Sleep Sister could have a darker side to her nature. “And if the dreams are not gentle?”
“Then, if I were you, I would try to understand whatever they’re trying to tell you.”
Aiden slipped his arm around Lyrra’s waist. She leaned against him as they watched Morphia mount her horse and ride away.
“Let’s get away from this place,” Aiden said.
Lyrra didn’t argue, didn’t remind him that they hadn’t tried to find out if any Fae had made it to the human world before the shining road closed.
As she mounted her mare, she suddenly realized why Aiden was less generous in his concern. He would have ridden this way last summer, when he’d left Ridgeley — and Brightwood. He would have warned the Clan whose piece of Tir Alainn was anchored to this Old Place. He would have told them about the Black Coats. He would have told them who the witches are and why they needed to be protected.
And still the witches here had died. Despite everything he had said or tried to do, the witches had died. Was it any wonder that he probably felt the Clan deserved whatever had happened to them?
Trying not to take more than his share of the narrow bed, Aiden stared at the ceiling of the tiny room. With the window open, he could hear the men in the tavern below. He should have been down there, playing his harp, singing his songs, listening to the news and rumors about what was happening in other villages. He didn’t have the heart for it tonight, so he’d paid for the room, the meal, and stabling for the horses out of the rapidly diminishing coins he and Lyrra had left. No chance of filling his purse from the Clan chests. If the Clan chests still existed in those lost pieces of Tir Alainn, they might as well be sitting on the moon or at the bottom of the sea for all he could reach them.
The witches had died. More Daughters of the House of Gaian lost. And the presence of the nighthunters meant that the Black Coats hadn’t been driven out of Sylvalan as he’d hoped when he’d seen no further sign of them over the winter months. Or else they’d come back. If that were true, what could he say that he hadn’t already said to make the Fae listen and heed his warnings? If they wouldn’t listen to him, the Bard, was there anyone besides the Lightbringer and the Huntress whom the Fae wouldn’t dare ignore?
There was one. He’d have to think about that. Think hard about it. But right now .
He turned his head and looked at Lyrra, who lay with her back to him. As a Fae lover, he could simply have left, offering to return when and if she was ready to welcome him back to her bed. As the Bard, he could have had a heated argument with the Muse about who was right and who was wrong back at the Old Place. As a husband, he had the bad feeling that he should apologize — except he couldn’t figure out what he should be apologizing for.
“I would have stayed behind you if I could have,” he said quietly. “I truly wasn’t sure where you’d gone, and I was past the game trail so fast it wasn’t safe to turn back.”
“Stayed behind me,” Lyrra muttered.
Aiden winced at the anger in her voice.
She rolled over and propped herself on one elbow to look down at him. “Stayed behind so that if those creatures caught up to us they would have swarmed over you instead of me.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” he protested. Not consciously, anyway.
“We can’t afford to lose the Bard.”
He focused on the ceiling again, not quite sure why her words stung so much. “There would be another to take my place.”
“Not for me,” she said quietly. She raised one hand, rested it on his chest just over his heart. “One day I’ll have the words to tell you how it felt to reach the safety of sunlight and realize you weren’t there. One day I’ll tell you how it pained my heart to stand alone for those moments, not knowing if you were coming back to me. One day. But not tonight.”
She kissed him in a way that made him forget every song he ever knew. He reached for her, then hesitated. Pulled away enough to catch his breath. “Lyrra …”
She smiled at him; then she released the glamour magic to reveal her true face, the feral beauty of the Fae. Suddenly, she seemed wild and strange, something that frightened him a little and excited him even more.
“‘Tis a custom between husbands and wives,’” she said, stretching out over him. “We quarreled today, did we not?”
“We did?” He couldn’t remember, not while he was staring into her woodland eyes.
“We did,” she replied. “And when a husband and wife quarrel, they have to make up.”
“They do?”
“They do.” She nipped his chin. “So we’re going to make up, and you’re going to prove you came to no harm.”
He wondered briefly if it was the danger they’d faced in the Old Place or the fact that he still wore the glamour that gave his face the illusion of being human that made her more aggressive and demanding. Then she kissed him and he didn’t care what the reason was.
“Let’s try not to break the bed,” he gasped.
She kissed him again, and he didn’t care about that either.
Chapter Six
Liam hesitated for a moment, then knocked on his mother’s morning room door. Entering the room, he saw her at her small desk, writing in that hurried yet careful way she had.
“A moment, if you please, Liam,” she said distractedly.
“Of course.”
He smiled as he wandered around the room while she finished her letter. His father had always been furiously insulted if Elinore didn’t stop whatever she was doing to give him her total and immediate attention. There’d been some fierce arguments about the value of her work for the village and the estate compared to properly sympathizing with her husband about the inadequate shine of his boots. He knew which his father had considered more important.
Elinore set aside her pen, then turned in her chair to smile at him.
She was more relaxed than he’d seen her in a very long time, and she smiled at him a lot lately — ever since he’d gone to the Old Place to introduce himself to the witches there.
“I met Nuala while I was out riding today.” “Yes?”
“She told me you called at the Old Place yesterday. And she gently suggested that I remain here at the estate. She said anyone who intended to bang heads with Breanna deserved a sympathetic ear waiting for him when he got home.”
He’d mumbled something to the effect that they hadn’t banged heads, but he suspected Nuala, who obviously knew her granddaughter very well, had the right of it. Dealing with Breanna was similar to dealing with a goat — if you weren’t careful, getting knocked off your feet would become a regular occurrence.
“What can I do for you, Liam?” Elinore asked.
It was a simple thing, really, but he suddenly felt awkward. “The council of barons is meeting at the end of the week.”
“I see,” Elinore said in a voice that gave him no clue about her reaction to th
at news. “So you’ll be leaving in a couple of days?”
“Tomorrow. It’ll give me time to take care of some business in Durham before the council meets.” I’m not meeting a mistress, he wanted to shout at her when he saw the way her face seemed to close him out. And even if I was looking to spend time with a woman, I’d be breaking no vows since I’ve made none. “Is there anything I can bring back for you while I’m there?”
“No, thank you.”
“Books?” Liam prodded. Elinore loved books.
She shook her head, then paused. “Well . Perhaps a book of stories suitable for Brooke?”
He walked over to her chair, knelt on one knee beside it, and rested his hand lightly on her arm. Her eyes widened, and he wondered if she were going to scold him for kneeling by her chair now that he was the baron. Oh, she wanted to. He could tell by the way she lightly caught her tongue between her teeth to keep herself from saying anything. He grinned at her.
“Come now,” he coaxed. “It would be a shame for me to be standing in a bookshop and only come away with one book. Just one book for yourself?”
She looked away from him. A bit of color rose in her cheeks. “There was mention a few months back that Moira would be having a new book out soon, and I do enjoy her stories — and not just because she’s my cousin.”
“Done.” He kissed her cheek, then stood. “I’d better see to the rest of my arrangements if I’m going to leave early tomorrow morning.”
He was glad she didn’t ask him what arrangements. He wasn’t sure how to explain the decision he’d reached.
As he left the manor, intending to go to the stables to have Oakdancer saddled, he saw a young man riding toward him and waited.
The young man raised a hand in greeting. “Good day to you, sir.”
“Good day,” Liam replied.
“Could you tell me where I would find Old Willowsbrook? When I inquired in the village, they directed me here, but this isn’t quite the place. It’s been a few years since I’ve been there, and I seem to have forgotten the way.”