The House of Gaian

by Anne Bishop

  Aiden wandered among the people still gathered on the back lawn, making a point to talk to the villagers and farmers who hadn’t had any contact with the Fae yet. As he was making his way back to the house, a voice asked, “Bard?”

  “Yes?” Aiden answered, turning toward an exhausted Fae male.

  “Lord Aiden?”

  “Yes.”

  The Fae pulled two pieces of wax-sealed paper out of his inner vest pocket. “I’ve a message for you from one of the northern bards. And a message for Baron Liam, but I don’t know where to find him.”

  “I’ll take it to him.” Aiden held out his hand for the letters. “Why don’t you get something to eat? I’ll talk to Lord Varden. He’ll make sure you have a place to stay tonight.”

  Impatience mingled with dread as Aiden hurried over to the group of barons talking to Liam and Donovan.

  “A message for you,” Aiden said abruptly, handing over the paper addressed to Liam.

  He hesitated before breaking the seal on his message. Noticed Liam did the same.

  Then he read the message. “Mother’s mercy.”

  “What is it?” Donovan asked sharply, looking from Aiden to Liam.

  “Wait,” Aiden said, looking around. “Hunter! Huntress!” When Ashk and Selena turned in response to his call, he signaled them to come over. Lyrra, catching the signal, said something to Fiona before hurrying to join them.

  Liam looked at him. Aiden nodded.

  “It’s a message from one of the northern barons,” Liam said. He cleared his throat quietly. “The Arktos and Sylvalan barons we were fighting in the north have surrendered. Or more to the point, the men they were leading put down their weapons and surrendered, leaving them no choice. The elders of the House of Gaian who were from the northern end of the Mother’s Hills drafted the terms of surrender, which our barons seconded. The men are being allowed to return home. The Arktos barons and the Sylvalan barons who sided with the Inquisitors will be held until the army has disbursed. Then they’ll be permitted to go home.” Liam closed his eyes. His hand fell limply to his side. “That part of the fight is over. We’ve won that much.”

  “Did the baron say anything about captured Inquisitors?” Donovan asked.

  “There were no captured Inquisitors,” Ashk said softly. “Were there, Bard?”

  Reluctantly, Aiden looked up from his own letter. “No, Hunter, there were not.”

  The barons around Liam muttered, but it was Donovan who expressed the outrage. “They escaped?”

  Aiden shook his head. He glanced at Ashk—and remembered the chill that had gone through him after the dance the Bretonwood Fae had performed at the Summer Solstice, when those masked faces had stared at him. When her masked face stared at him. And Morag’s words: They’re the Fae.

  “The Wild Hunt?” Ashk said, her voice still soft.

  Aiden swallowed hard. “The Inquisitors who were caught were released in a woods, where the Lords of the Woods and the Ladies of the Moon were waiting for them…with packs of shadow hounds.”

  “Justice,” Ashk said. “And vengeance. There is nothing quite so terrifying as trying to flee a shadow hound—or the Wild Hunt. The Fae were absent for too long, even when they were present. Now they have returned.”

  The barons shifted uncomfortably.

  “Was there anything else in your message?” Liam asked after an awkward silence.

  “Just something a minstrel reported overhearing,” Aiden said, hoping Liam would understand the dismissive tone and let it go.

  “Well?” Liam demanded.

  “When the Arktos men were told their barons would be released once their army had gone back through the mountain pass between Sylvalan and Arktos, one of the men said ‘we’ll be waiting for them.’ The barons assumed it was a sign of loyalty. The minstrel heard something different in the words.”

  “They hate their own rulers,” Selena said. “Hate them enough to kill them.”

  Aiden nodded. “The minstrel’s opinion was that the barons might reach the mountain pass, but he doubted any of them would reach home.”

  “I wonder how long the Inquisitors still in Arktos will survive once the army returns home,” Ashk said.

  “Not long.” Aiden carefully folded the letter. He might as well say the rest. “The bard who wrote the message to me witnessed the terms of surrender and said they were fair. But the elders from the House of Gaian told the Arktos men that if another witch in Arktos was harmed simply because she was a witch, they would bring down the mountains and bring in the sea.”

  Another awkward silence as everyone except Ashk avoided looking at Selena.

  “It’s not a bluff,” Selena finally said. “If the Grandmothers gather and bend their will to it, they can do exactly what they said. And Arktos would be no more than a memory of a place.” She looked around. “Would you have me lie to you? We are the House of Gaian. We are the Great Mother’s Sons and Daughters. We are the Pillars of the World. It is not just Tir Alainn that answers to our will. This world answers as well. It has always been so. It will always be so. You cannot defeat air or water or earth or fire. As long as they exist, we will exist. And as long as we exist, as we will, so mote it be.”

  Quiet and troubled, the barons said good night. Aiden wondered how easily the barons staying with Liam would sleep, knowing the Huntress was also a guest in his house. He wasn’t surprised that Ashk slipped her arm through Selena’s as the two of them walked away.

  “I’ll say our good-byes to Breanna and find Gwenn,” Lyrra said.

  Donovan’s smile looked a little brittle. Aiden almost asked him what was wrong—then remembered that Donovan was married to a witch.

  “She’s the same woman she was yesterday,” Aiden said.

  “I know,” Donovan replied. “My darling Gwenn.”

  “We don’t own the land,” Liam said quietly. “We’re just its stewards. It’s humbling to be reminded of that.”

  “And it’s troubling to be reminded that they’re different from us,” Donovan said.

  Pricked by anger, Aiden tucked the letter into his sash, next to his pipe. “Are they really so different, Baron Donovan? You’ve never sat beside the bed of a witch whose body was so broken by torture there was no hope of healing. You’ve never listened to her plead with you to let her die. You’ve never buried the rest of her family and then listened to the screams of the ghosts when the nighthunters attacked. They have the power to shatter the world yet they still live by a creed to do no harm.” He paused. “And maybe that does make them different from the rest of us.”

  “Are you saying that message didn’t frighten you?” Donovan asked.

  “Which part? Mother’s tits, man. Do you understand what the Wild Hunt means? Do you understand what happened in that woods? My people did that. And it’s only because I met Ashk and saw the Fae in the west that I’ve come to realize my people are meant to do that. But it still frightens me. And it comforts me, that that can be awakened inside the Fae. Your people have suffered, too, and I’ll not deny that. But your kind wasn’t slaughtered first, and none of your counties—and all the people who lived in them—disappeared when the witches died. You still have the land, and your people have a chance to rebuild their lives. We may never regain the pieces of Tir Alainn that were lost, and no one can bring back the dead. So if it comes to a choice, I would rather face the House of Gaian than the Black Coats.”

  He started to walk away when Liam placed a hand on his arm.

  “You’re forgetting something, Bard,” Liam said. “I’m not just a baron. I’m also a Son of the House of Gaian. I’m still a stranger to myself, still learning to accept this part of me that awakened a few weeks ago. Yes, we’re frightened. Things that have been hidden, or barely glimpsed, are suddenly being revealed, and we can no longer pretend those things don’t exist. In some ways, we’ve all been children. We can’t be children anymore.”

  Donovan scrubbed his hands over his face. “Well, if the two of you are done
with these delightful bedtime stories, I’d like to take my wife back to our room and get some sleep.”

  “Would you mind seeing Lyrra back to the house as well?” Aiden asked.

  Liam gave him a curious look. “You’re not going back?”

  Aiden shook his head. “My night vision is good, so I’ve agreed to take a watch tonight.” He smiled ruefully. “My other form is an owl.”

  “You can’t go fluttering around in the dark,” Liam said. “You’ll get stepped on.” He shrugged. “You can perch on my shoulder.”

  Donovan looked at his friend. “You’re staying, too?”

  “I have the gift of fire.”

  Donovan shook his head. “You two get to stand out in the dark while I escort two beautiful ladies home. I guess there are compensations to being just human.”

  Gwenn and Lyrra joined them, both women sensing something and searching faces to try to discover the answer.

  “I’ll see you later,” Aiden said after kissing Lyrra. He handed her the pipe and message. “Take these for me.”

  When Donovan, Gwenn, and Lyrra were gone, Liam said, “Come on, then.”

  Aiden hesitated a moment before changing to his other form and fluttering up to the arm Liam held out.

  Liam studied him for a moment. “The feathers look good on you, Bard.”

  Aiden climbed up Liam’s arm to his shoulder, then nipped his ear.

  “Do that again and you’ll have to find another perch,” Liam growled.

  “Whoooo?”

  Since Liam didn’t say anything, Aiden fluffed his feathers, pleased to have gotten in the last word.

  “I wonder if I can persuade Morphia to send the barons quiet dreams,” Ashk said as she walked around Breanna’s house, her arm still tucked through Selena’s.

  “Why would they need them?” Selena asked.

  “Because, Huntress, between the two of us, we’ve given them the stuff of nightmares. How many of them will dream of being pursued by the Wild Hunt while the ground drops out from under their feet and stones suddenly grow mouths filled with fangs?”

  “Stones don’t have mouths. Or fangs.”

  Ashk smiled. “But dreams don’t always show you the true form of what you fear, do they?” Her smile faded as she thought of Morag and wondered if the Gatherer was still plagued by dreams.

  “I hope not,” Selena said, her voice quivering with some strong feeling.

  Ashk let it go, suddenly too tired to explore strong emotions. They’d already been through enough for one day. “Let’s check on Breanna and the men standing watch and call it a day. We could both use some sleep.”

  Selena nodded. “I need to saddle Mistrunner.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s a bit too far to walk back to Liam’s.” Selena’s eyes widened. “Oh. Oh. No, we couldn’t. Not after telling them about shadow hound packs.”

  “But the barons who heard that are already back at whatever houses they’re guesting at,” Ashk said, then added, “Besides, wouldn’t you like to know if Liam’s any good at petting?”

  Selena choked on a gasped laugh. “Ashk! That would be…Well, it would be—”

  “Pleasant?” Ashk suggested.

  “You really expect him to pet a shadow hound? What if he realized who he was petting and got—”

  “Excited?”

  “Intimidated,” Selena said with a different kind of quiver in her voice. “I was going to say intimidated.”

  “Of course you were. Because there he would be, running his hands through all that lovely fur, and when he realized who it was, he’d think, ‘Oh, my. I’m touching Selena. I’m intimidated.’ Phah. On the other hand, if you change back while he’s got his hands all over you, it might be more of a thrill than he’s ready for, depending on where his hands are at that moment.”

  Selena just gaped at her.

  There, Ashk thought, satisfied, that’s got your mind off thoughts of troubling dreams. “Trust a woman married to a baron. They like fur.”

  Selena shoved her hands through her hair. “It wouldn’t be fair, just trotting up to him and wagging my tail. Besides, he gets so gentry prim whenever he thinks about Breanna and Falco being lovers—”

  “He’s not his sister. And you’re not his sister. And if you’d ever noticed the way he looks at you, you’d know he’d jump through a couple of hoops for the chance to pet you.”

  Selena sputtered. Muttered. “It’s out of the question. I’m sharing a room with my sister.”

  “He’s not sharing a room with anyone.”

  “This is none of your business.”

  “I know. It wouldn’t be half as entertaining if it was any of my business.”

  Selena lowered her hands. “Bitch.”

  Ashk just smiled.

  “All right. Let’s check on Breanna and Keely first. Then I’ll decide what to do about Baron Liam.”

  As soon as they walked through the kitchen door and saw Fiona, their humor fled.

  “Breanna?” Ashk asked.

  Fiona shook her head. “She’s asleep, thanks to Morphia. So is Keely. It’s Jean.”

  Selena’s sigh sounded more like a growl. “Now what?”

  “I can’t find her anywhere.”

  Two shadow hounds ran through the moonlight. They didn’t pause when the men standing guard over Nuala’s grave turned to watch them race past.

  Selena wanted to howl with frustration. Fiona was certain the girl wasn’t sulking in the house somewhere, but they still spent time searching the more unlikely places—pantry, cold cellar, wine cellar. They would have searched the attic, but that was pointless. The boys were sleeping up there on beds made of straw and blankets. She wasn’t in the stables or any of the other out-buildings. It was possible that she’d run off into the woods and couldn’t find her way back to the house after dark, but there were Fae keeping watch around the shining road and at least half of them were in their other form so that their sharpened senses would warn them of any kind of enemy approaching. If she was out there, they’d have seen her and brought her back to the house.

  If the girl had gone in any other direction in the Old Place, she would have ended up at one of the camps—and they would have brought her back to the house. So that left the bridge that crossed over to the lane on Liam’s estate.

  Once they were over the bridge, Selena went right, toward Liam’s house, while Ashk moved off to the left.

  Too many people. Too many scents. For a moment, Selena thought she’d found Jean’s scent at the edge of the bridge, but there were too many fresher scents over it for her to be certain.

  Then Ashk growled, and Selena turned back to follow the other shadow hound.

  They had followed the scent over one field when another scent drifted on the air. With no warning, Ashk spun around and trotted back the way they’d come. Recognizing that scent, Selena ran to catch up with the Hunter.

  When they got close to the bridge, Ashk paused long enough to change form.

  “Why are we walking the rest of the way on two legs?” Selena asked.

  “Because I want to warn the men on watch. I’m almost certain the nighthunters are nesting in that stand of trees on Liam’s land. It makes sense. The Fae patrolling haven’t seen them. Probably too many people around. Too much fire at night. We’ll hunt in the morning, and bring Morphia with us.”

  “Morphia? She’s not a hunter.”

  “No, but her gift is the best defense against nighthunters,” Ashk replied as they crossed the bridge. “She can put everything in that stand of trees to sleep. We can search for the nest and destroy those creatures without being attacked.”

  “You still won’t be certain you’ll have found all of them.”

  “No, but we’ll burn the ones we find and the carcasses of their prey. Then if we catch the scent again, we’ll know it’s fresh.”

  “What about Jean?”

  Ashk stopped at the end of the bridge. “There are a dozen farms and estates in that ge
neral direction, not to mention camps. Or she could have easily circled around and reached the village.” She sighed. “She’s not my kin. I can’t make the choice.” She looked toward the men standing near the grave still glowing with moonlight, then shook her head. “I’ll talk to them on the way back.” After changing back into her shadow hound form, she trotted off toward the house.

  Selena watched Liam, who had been walking toward them, check his stride when he saw Ashk change. Would any man really be comfortable around a woman who could change into a shadow hound?

  Memories of her father sitting in his rocking chair by the fire, cuddling her as a puppy. Memories of him walking through the woods with her trotting ahead of him, growling happily when she caught a scent.

  Not the same. Not the same at all.

  With a pang of regret, she shook her head, changed, and raced after Ashk.

  Ashk found Fiona sitting at the small work table in the kitchen. A cup of cold tea was pushed to one side. Her hands cupped a glass of whiskey.

  “I made myself a cup of tea,” Fiona said, “but I was afraid to drink it.”

  Ashk sat across from her. “That’s understandable.” She reached for Fiona’s hand. “I’m sorry to force something else on you, but it’s a decision I can’t make. We found a scent in one of the fields on Liam’s estate. I also picked up the scent of nighthunters. I won’t send men into those fields in the dark, Fiona. That I won’t do. But I’ll send pairs of riders out on the roads to the neighboring farms and estates and to the village to find out if anyone has seen her.”

  “You’d send men out on dark roads for Jean?”

  “No. I’d do it for you. For Breanna.”

  The kitchen door opened. Selena walked in, closed the door, and came to stand near the table.

  Fiona took a long swallow of whiskey. Then she pulled a bundled handkerchief out of her pocket. “After you left, I searched the drawers Jean was given for her clothes. I found this, tucked in the back of one drawer under the camisoles. I can’t identify everything she collected during her forays in the woods and through the gardens, but I do recognize foxglove. So, no, Ashk, I don’t want you to send your men out on dark roads to search for Jean. Because Breanna was right. If this is what was in the tea, then Jean did kill Nuala.”