by Anne Bishop
Sensing movement on her left, she started to draw the bow and turn when she realized it was Falco. He had changed from hawk to man, but he'd forgotten to use the glamour to hide the pointed ears and feral quality of the Fae behind the mask of a human face. Or else he had a reason for not hiding what he was.
"Black Coat?" Breanna asked softly.
Falco shook his head.
That would have been reassuring if Falco hadn't looked uneasy, even nervous. Whoever was in the woods wasn't an Inquisitor, but also wasn't a friend.
She'd just turned back toward the trail when Jean ran out of the woods. The girl looked flustered, exhilarated. But not frightened.
When she was a few feet away from Breanna, Jean stopped running. She shook out her skirt, ran her hands over her hair to smooth it, licked her lips to wet them, and pinched her cheeks to bring more color to her face. "How do I look?"
Breanna stared at her. "Get in the house. There's an intruder in the woods. Possibly an Inquisitor."
"Is that what he told you?" Jean said, giving Falco a look that was equal parts pouty and scalding.
Any reservations Breanna had about Fiona's suspicions and feelings were destroyed by that look.
"It isn't an Inquisitor," Jean said. "It's a Fae Lord, and he's so handsome."
Breanna saw something cold and mean in Jean's eyes when she realized Falco didn't notice she now considered him an inferior specimen of a man.
"Breanna," Falco said quietly.
Looking at the trail, Breanna saw the man coming out of the woods. He was handsome, with his black hair and fair skin. He was too far away to see the color of his eyes.
"Jean, get in the house," she said quietly.
"So you can impress him?" Jean replied nastily. She gave the man a sweet smile of welcome.
The man stopped and gave Jean a long, considering look. When he resumed walking toward them, the look he gave Falco was as scalding as Jean's had been.
"So this is where you've hidden yourself," the man said harshly, stopping a few lengths away from them.
"This is where I live now," Falco replied.
"Where you live? Have you forgotten what you are? Have you forgotten your duty to your Clan?"
"I'm needed here."
"To do what? To be what? A witch's pet?" The man looked angry, disgusted. "When they told me you were down here, playing the tame Fae, I told them they were wrong. I told them Falco knew his duty to his Clan, and if he was cozying up to a witch here, it was only to seduce her into trusting him. Then he would persuade her to go back to Brightwood with him, and we would have a witch again to anchor the magic, to hold the shining road open. We would have a witch again who would perform the duty to the Fae she was meant to perform and free my sister from the burden. That's what I told them. Now I see they were right. You've abandoned your Clan, abandoned your own kind. For what? Does she even spread her legs for you, or are you so pale a man that you don't even demand that much for whatever favors you bestow here?"
Incensed, Breanna raised her bow, drew back the bowstring, and took aim at the center of the man's chest. "Who do you think you are?"
"Tell her," the man commanded, pointing a finger at Falco.
Falco hesitated. Then he said, "This is Lucian. The Lord of the Sun, the Lord of Fire. The Lightbringer."
Perhaps it was because the two men expected her to be intimidated, awed, maybe even frightened about confronting the male leader of the Fae that power rose in her as sharp, sizzling temper.
"Well, good for him," Breanna said. "You may see the Lord of Fire, but all I see is an intruder I'm going to shoot if he doesn't get off our land."
"Breanna." Falco sounded shocked, almost breathless.
"Breanna!" Jean said, sounding equally shocked. "How can you say such a thing to our guest?"
Mother's tits! She'd forgotten about Jean. "I told you to get back to the house," she said sternly. She didn't like the calculating look on Lucian's face, as if he were considering a filly he wanted to add to his stables.
"I'm not a child, Breanna," Jean snapped. "You can't—"
Breanna let power follow the path of temper. A wind suddenly whipped around Jean, turning the girl's hair into a tangled mess and blowing her skirt up. Shrieking in dismay, Jean grabbed the front of the skirt, holding her arms down to prevent the men from seeing everything she wore—or didn't wear—beneath her skirt.
Breanna drew the power back into herself. The wind died as quickly as it had appeared. "Get back to the house, Jean. Now."
"You'll pay for that, Breanna," Jean said before running to the house.
Breanna's arms were getting tired from keeping the bowstring drawn back for so long. But she didn't dare ease back, didn't dare give a moment's appearance of yielding in any way. Not when Lucian was watching Jean run back to the house.
If the girl had stopped and talked with him in the woods, it would have taken so little effort on his part to convince Jean to go with him. A promised visit to Tir Alainn? Oh, Jean would have loved that. And then what? If he got her to Brightwood and then abandoned her, what would happen to her? What would happen to anyone living near that Old Place who had to deal with her? No matter how you turned that stone, there was a sharp edge that would cut someone. So she had to get him to leave and not come back.
But how?
"Listen to me, Fae Lord, and listen well," Breanna said. "You aren't welcome here. If you ever come back and try to persuade any of my kin to go with you—"
"What will you do?" Lucian snapped. "Shoot me?"
She heard a horse galloping toward her. A muffled sound. There was only one horse she knew that sounded like his hooves barely touched the ground, and that was Oakdancer. Which meant Liam was riding toward her. Fast.
"You won't shoot me," Lucian said sneeringly. "Do no harm. Isn't that your creed?"
"That is our creed," Breanna agreed. "But we make exceptions."
That startled him. Unnerved him. He regained control quickly when he saw Liam rein in and dismount.
"This is no business of yours, human," Lucian said.
Liam strode toward Breanna, stopping beside her. "I may be gentry, and I may be a baron, but"—as he yanked one of the arrows out of the ground and held it up, the top half of it burst into flames—"I'm also a Son of the House of Gaian, so any intruder on my sister's land is my business."
"You threaten me, the Lord of Fire, with fire?" Lucian laughed nastily.
The man had a point. Liam's gift, which had come down to him through his mother, had awakened just recently. He could draw power from the branch of fire easily enough, but he still wasn't adept at controlling it or extinguishing what he'd created.
Before this could turn into a pissing contest that would, most likely, burn down part of the Old Place if it didn't kill someone outright, she lowered the bow, chose a new target, and released the arrow. Having an arrow go to ground between his feet startled Lucian.
Breanna took that moment to snatch the burning arrow out of Liam's hand. Using her own connection to the branch of fire, she banked the flames as she drove the arrow into the earth, doing it so smoothly that not so much as a blade of grass caught fire.
When she straightened up, she noticed how warily Lucian watched her.
Not so sure of yourself now, are you? she thought. Well, she'd give him more reason to think twice about her.
"The House of Gaian created Tir Alainn out of dreams and will. We created the shining roads that anchor that land to the human world. If you, or any other Fae, try to force or seduce or remove any of my kin from Willowsbrook, I will gather the rest of my kin, both here and in the Mother's Hills, and we will turn Tir Alainn into a wasteland. And then we will close the shining roads and leave you there."
Lucian paled, staggered back a step. There was fear in his eyes now. "You couldn't."
"Oh, but we could. As I will. . ." Breanna let the words hang in the air. "I suggest you go back to your own world, Fae Lord, and let us be."
"I'
ll make sure he gets there," Liam said quietly. Turning away, he mounted Oakdancer and waited.
Lucian stared at Falco, his expression cold and bitter. "You've made your choice, Falco. Don't come crawling back to us when she turns on you. Her kind will always turn on you."
He walked back into the woods, Liam following on Oakdancer.
Breanna watched them disappear into the trees. If the Lightbringer turned on Liam, would her brother be able to protect himself? Had she been a fool to make an enemy of so powerful a Fae Lord?
"Breanna?" Falco said softly. "Breanna, you're shaking."
"It's not every day I threaten the Lightbringer," Breanna snapped. "I'm entitled to shake." But facing down the Lord of Fire wasn't the reason she was shaking. If something happened to Liam because of it, how could she expect Elinore to understand and forgive her? How would she be able to forgive herself?
Falco cautiously reached over and tugged the bow from her hand. "Come sit down on the bench under the tree. Can you walk that far?"
There was something queer and strained in Falco's voice, but she couldn't think about that yet. Her legs didn't feel like she had any bones left, and she really did need to sit down. She didn't argue when he cupped a hand under her elbow to help her walk.
"Do you want some water?" Falco asked once she was sitting on the bench.
Breanna studied him. He'd been nervous when the Lightbringer showed up. He looked terrified now. "What's wrong?"
"Breanna . . ." Falco looked away. A shudder went through him before he regained control and looked at her again. "Breanna, could you really do that?"
Breanna's attention was caught by seeing Clay and Rory. They'd been hurrying toward her before Liam galloped up to stand beside her. They'd probably held back to remain unnoticed while she held the Lightbringer's attention.
Clay lifted a hand and tipped his head toward the woods, turning the gesture into a question.
If she asked Clay or Rory to follow Liam, would she be putting another person she cared about in danger? She shook her head, then watched the two men head for the house to report to Nuala.
"Breanna? Could you do that?"
Confused by the question, she turned back to Falco. "Do what?"
"Could the witches really close the shining roads and leave the Fae trapped there? Could they really destroy Tir Alainn?"
"How should I know?"
Falco sat next to her. Puzzled, he studied her. "You were bluffing?"
"It was a good bluff," Breanna said defensively. "It got him to leave, didn't it?" It was a good bluff only if Lucian doesn't retaliate by harming someone. "Hasn't he ever met a witch before?"
Falco shifted uneasily. "Ari. . . Ari wasn't like you. She was . . . she wasn't like you."
You and Jenny. . . you're . . . different. . .from the rest of us.
"I need to talk to Nuala," Breanna said, pushing herself to her feet. When Falco remained seated, she hesitated, then said, "There isn't anyone here who could do what I told Lucian we could do." But there may be some Mother's Daughters who live in the Mother's Hills who could do exactly that.
He didn't respond, so she walked back to the house. Alone.
Liam followed the Fae Lord through the woods. He hadn't liked the man on sight, and he might have dismissed that feeling as nothing more than a brother's natural reaction to seeing his sister confronted by a stranger. . . except Oakdancer was making it plain that he didn't like the man either. It couldn't be because the stranger was Fae. The bay stallion had been bred and raised by Ahern, who had been the Fae Lord of the Horse before he was killed in a fight with some Inquisitors. So it had to be something about this man the horse was reacting to.
He saw the golden light through the trees and knew they were close to the shining road the Fae used to reach this Old Place. When Falco had shown the road to him, Clay, Rory, and Breanna, he and the other two men had seen nothing more than a wide band of sunlight that looked a little more golden than usual. If he'd ridden past it on his own, he never would have known what it was. Breanna, however, saw it as thick, golden air. Still translucent, but definitely recognizable as something created, in part, with elements of the natural world but not part of the natural world. Then again, she'd already known where to find the shining road.
The Lord of Fire stopped in front of the shining road and turned to face him.
"Your sister is a fool to challenge the Fae."
"My sister is many things, but a fool isn't one of them," Liam replied coldly. "If she drew a weapon against you, she had a reason. If she threatened you and your people, she had a reason. And that is reason enough for me to stand with her and stand against you."
"We are the Fae," the man said angrily. "We are the Mother's Children."
"The Mother's spoiled children," Liam snapped. "Mother's mercy! In the next few weeks, we will all, most likely, be embroiled in a war against the Inquisitors and the eastern barons they control, and many good people will die in the fighting. We don't have time for a race that sits above it all in their lofty world and only comes down to our world to play games and amuse themselves. We don't have time for the temper tantrums of spoiled, useless children. So go back to your world and stay there. And stay out of our way."
The man's expression changed, his face now full of understanding. He raised his hands in an open, giving gesture. "I understand how it feels to care for a sister. I understand how it feels to want her to be safe and happy." His voice was deep, smooth, soothing. "Don't you want your sister to be safe? If she came to Brightwood with me, she would be safe. The Fae would protect her from all harm. She would be cherished . . . and safe."
Liam swayed a little as he stared into the Fae Lord's gray eyes and that voice wrapped around him. Safe. Yes, he wanted Breanna to be safe. There were nights when he had nightmares, when he saw again the things he'd thought were fever dreams during the days when Padrick, the Baron of Breton, had helped him get home after the Inquisitors had tried to kill him. There were nights when the nightmares were the same except that the faces belonged to women he knew—Breanna, Nuala, Fiona. Even his mother, Elinore. Yes, he wanted them to be safe. Wanted. . . With a little help, the Fae Lord could take them someplace safe, someplace . . .
"Don't you want her to be safe?" the Fae Lord said in that so-persuasive voice.
Oakdancer suddenly reared. Thrown off balance, Liam struggled to keep his seat. He felt strange, as if the world had been muffled for a moment and now reappeared with painfully sharp intensity.
That persuasive voice was still talking about safety, still promising to keep Breanna safe.
Persuasive. Persuasion. Wasn't that one of the Fae's gifts, the ability to use persuasion magic to convince people to do what they might not do otherwise? That bastard was using it on him in order to have Breanna, was using his own fear for her safety as a hammer against his will.
Liam's temper flashed. Heat flooded through him beneath his skin. He knew what it was now, knew he was drawing power from the Great Mother's branch of fire. The heat cleared his head, burned clean in his heart. When he looked at the Fae Lord, that voice was no more persuasive than the eastern barons had been at the council meeting when they'd tried to convince the rest of them to follow their example and vote for the decrees that would turn all of Sylvalan into a horror for every woman who lived there.
"What happened to the other ones?" Liam asked, breaking the Fae Lord's repetitious assurance of safety.
The Fae Lord studied Liam's face and didn't seem pleased by what he saw. "The other ones?"
"If Brightwood is an Old Place, what happened to the witches who were there?"
The man hesitated a moment too long.
Liam leaned forward, the power filling him becoming uncomfortably hot. "Where were the Fae when the Inquisitors showed up at Brightwood the last time? Where was this protection in the other Old Places where witches have died? If it didn't inconvenience the precious Fae, you wouldn't give a damn if they died or not. No, Fae Lord, I wouldn't trust
my sister to a man like you. So go back to Tir Alainn and stay away from us."
The man glared at him. Then he disappeared and a black horse, with flickers of fire in its mane and tail, reared, wheeled, and galloped up the shining road.
Liam took a deep breath and blew it out. He gathered the reins carefully, too aware that if he lost control of the power now, he could burn himself and Oakdancer. He didn't dare try to ground the power out here in the woods. He didn't have the skill yet to do it safely. Which meant doing it the only way he knew wouldn't harm anyone.
"Well," he said to Oakdancer as he turned the stallion and headed back to Breanna's house, "there are a lot of people living in the Old Place these days. Someone is bound to need hot water for something."
"What do you think?"
Perched on a stool in the pressing room, Breanna watched her grandmother fold camisoles and pantalettes, finding comfort in the familiar. Nuala always seemed to know when talking required her undivided attention and when giving hands a simple task made it easier to find the words. She'd taken one look at Breanna's face, led her to the pressing room, and shooed the girls who had been folding clothes out the door.
"About what?" Nuala asked, folding another camisole and putting it in the stack. "You've given me a great deal to think about."
Too restless to be idle, Breanna plucked a camisole out of the basket. With so many people living in the house now, there was always laundry to be done—and plenty of hands to do the work. No one was idle in Nuala's house, and even the children had assigned chores. No one resented doing their share of the work.
Breanna's hands curled into tight fists.
Except Jean.
Nuala tugged the camisole out of Breanna's hands. "It's a good thing this one is yours. You can't complain about the creases in it since you made them."
Breanna shrugged. Nuala calmly continued folding clothes.
"Do I think you were wise to threaten a Fae Lord?" Nuala said. "I don't know. Based on what you told me, he looks at us and sees a surplus of witches in one Old Place and sees nothing wrong with selecting one or two to take elsewhere to suit his own purpose and the needs of his own family. While I sympathize with his desire to help his family, thinking of us as servants or tools for the Fae's use is unacceptable."
