by Anne Bishop
Liam reined in impatience while Nolan studied him for too long.
“I have nothing,” Nolan finally said. “I— I already packed the copies and sent them away.”
“Where—?”
The bell above the shop door tinkled.
Liam looked over his shoulder at the blond-haired, blue-eyed man who stepped into the shop. A cold uneasiness settled over him as the man met his eyes for a moment before turning to scan the shelves.
He’s looking to make sure nothing is here that shouldn’t be. Liam glanced at Nolan, noticed how pale the man had become. How would someone else, someone suspicious, view this close conversation?
Pushing back from the counter, Liam said, “Since that book isn’t in stock, perhaps you could suggest another? Reading before I retire is a habit of long-standing.”
“Of course,” Nolan said, bustling over to one of the shelves.
Liam followed, aware that the blue-eyed stranger had turned to watch them.
“This one is excellent,” Nolan said, pulling a book off the shelf.
His back to the stranger, Liam made a face. He recognized the author, had tried to get through one of the man’s books once before. Prosy old bore. Well, it wouldn’t keep him up late. He’d be asleep ten minutes after he opened the book.
“And this one,” Nolan said, going over to the far-too-empty shelves and selecting another book. “This one has been recently published. A book of instructional essays. Very popular. I’m told that it’s one of the few books most heads of families consider suitable material for the females in their families and have consented to permit the ladies to read.”
Consented to permit the ladies to read? Liam could imagine what Elinore—or even Brooke—would say if he tried to dictate what they could or couldn’t read.
Which made him wonder what happened to women in the eastern part of Sylvalan who did express such opinions.
Feeling numb, Liam paid for the books and waited while Nolan carefully wrapped them in brown paper and string.
As he turned to leave the store, he noticed the stranger was still watching him.
There was no reason for the animosity he felt toward a man he didn’t know and hadn’t even seen before. But the feeling was there, and he wasn’t going to dismiss it.
He spent the rest of the day wandering, feeling oddly off balance. The streets of Durham were familiar, and he recognized the buildings. But it felt as if he kept turning down familiar streets and finding himself in a strange place. The women in the shopping district were all dressed in plain gowns with high necks and long sleeves. Drab clothing— grays, browns, dark greens and blues. Not the kind of garment worn to catch a man’s eye. They wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t even acknowledge his “good day” when he passed them.
He stopped at a shop where he’d often picked up a new shawl for his mother. The woman who owned the shop stood behind her counter. When he asked about shawls, she laid out a selection on the counter, offering none of the assistance she used to give him in order to make the right choice. Every move said plainly she no longer cared if anyone bought anything at her shop, which made him wonder how she expected to remain in business.
His last stop in the afternoon was an art gallery. By then, his mind was prepared for what he’d find. His heart wasn’t.
The empty places on the walls seemed like a terrible accusation. All the paintings by female artists were gone. When he asked the owner, he was told that women were capable of creating pleasing little sketches for the amusement of their families, but they weren’t capable of creating art. Never mind that the women whose work no longer hung on the walls had been hailed, just a few months ago, as some of the finest artists of their generation.
Feeling unsettled and a little sick, Liam passed a group of men his age standing before a painting, loudly proclaiming its brilliance. He stopped for a moment to look at the painting, then shook his head and left the gallery. If his stable hands had slung soiled straw at a white sheet and then framed the result, it wouldn’t have looked much different from the “brilliant” painting.
When he returned to the family town house, he ate the evening meal because his body needed food, and because he couldn’t afford any physical weakness when he sat at his place in the barons’ council tomorrow.
Maybe there was an explanation for all of this. Maybe.
And maybe there was another explanation for the straight bruises on the shop owner’s cheeks. Faint bruises. Faint enough that, at first, he’d thought it was a trick of the light. But when he closed his eyes, he could see the straps of the scold’s bridle that Elinore had flung between them when she’d given him the ultimatum of accepting the witches as her kin or losing his family. Straight straps that could bruise tender skin if they were cinched too tight.
Alone in his room, too uneasy to even try to sleep, he unwrapped the books he’d bought. He set the prosy old bore aside, then opened the other book. Perhaps having some knowledge of what was now considered suitable reading material for females would prepare him for whatever he was going to face in the barons’ council in the morning.
Chapter Ten
Aiden’s hand hovered over the case that held his small harp. He shook his head, let his hand fall to his side. Under normal circumstances, he would have met with any bards who lived in the Clan or were there visiting. He would have listened to any new songs they had created and shared his own. But these weren’t normal circumstances, and he wasn’t in the mood to bring his harp to play idly in one of the common rooms.
Crossing to the window, he looked out at the garden that made up part of this courtyard. Beautiful. Perfect. No tangles of weeds, no blighted flowers. Nothing out of place. That was Tir Alainn. The rain was always soft, gently soaking into the ground. No storms here to turn roads into mud. No lack of food, so the belly never tightened with hunger. Beautiful rooms, beautiful clothes, sprawling Clan houses that could rival the finest estates in the human world. And all of it required so little labor from the people who lived here.
A sanctuary. A place to rest from the toil of the human world. But the Fae weren’t the ones who toiled in the human world. What had they ever done to earn the right to be here?
Sighing, Aiden left the room that had been granted him and Lyrra for their stay, although he doubted either of them wanted to stay very long. A cold welcome didn’t encourage a person to linger in a place.
No matter. There was work to do here. Witches were still dying. Pieces of Tir Alainn, and the Clans who lived there, were still being lost. But here... If the Clan ignored the warnings here, it would be Breanna and Nuala and Keely who would die.
He entered one of the common rooms in the Clan house. Lyrra stood at the other end of the room, her lips set in a tight, grim line as she listened to several older women.
No doubt haranguing her for turning her back on the Lady of the Moon and leaving Dianna to shoulder the burden of keeping the shining road open so that her Clan’s territory in Tir Alainn remained in existence.
If they knew we weren’t just lovers but had made a vow of loyalty in the human fashion, they’d probably exile us on the spot, Aiden thought sourly. He started to scan the room—and was surprised to see a familiar face this far north. Smiling, he walked over to the brown-haired man whose attention was fixed on the group of women with Lyrra.
“Falco! Well met,” Aiden said.
“Aiden.”
There was just enough tension, just enough hesitation in Falco’s voice to stop Aiden from taking another step forward.
“What brings you here?” Falco asked, his brown eyes now scanning the room.
Aiden studied the Lord of the Hawks. There was too much anxiety in Falco’s eyes. “We’re here to rest—and catch up on any news that has been passed along through the Clans.”
“Aiden ... maybe this isn’t a good time for you—”
“So,” a male voice said loudly from another part of the room. “The Bard has decided to grace us with his presence. Where�
��s your harp, Aiden? Aren’t you going to subject us to another mewling song about witches?”
Recognizing the voice, and seeing the way Falco’s face paled, Aiden turned slowly to face the man who now stood in the center of the room.
“Lucian,” Aiden said politely. “Well met.”
Lucian, the Lord of the Sun, the Lord of Fire, said coldly, “We aren’t ‘well met,’ Bard. You saw to that. No, we are not ‘well met.’ I doubt we ever will be.”
“I regret the loss of your esteem, but I don’t regret the reason for it. I can’t. Not after the things I’ve seen. And, yes, Lucian,” Aiden said, his voice rising, “I will sing my mewling songs about witches, and I will say the words that need to be said, and I will keep saying those words until the Fae start listening, start heeding, start doing instead of standing back and watching witches die and then wailing because there’s a cost to not listening, not heeding, not doing. How many of them have to be tortured to death before you’ll listen?”
“We are doing what is necessary to make sure the witches don’t leave the Old Places,” Lucian said.
“What?” Aiden demanded. “Hemming them in? Taking away whatever means they might have to flee before the Black Coats kill them? If the Fae are doing what is necessary, where were they when the Inquisitors destroyed the witches in the villages south of here? Where were they, Lucian? Where were they when the Mother’s Daughters were dying in agony?”
“The witches are not the Mother’s Daughters,” Lucian said, his voice rising to meet Aiden’s. “They are witches. They’ve somehow bound their small earth magic to the Old Places, making their presence there necessary for the Fae to have what is rightfully ours.”
Aiden stared at the man who had been a friend as well as kin through their fathers. “Rightfully ours?” he asked, his voice becoming quieter as pain lanced through him. “Rightfully ours. What have we ever done to deserve Tir Alainn? The witches created the Fair Land. It’s been their power that has kept it in existence. What have we ever done to earn the right to be here?”
“We don’t have to do anything,” Lucian said fiercely. “We. Are. The. Fae.”
“Has ‘Fae’ become another word for parasite?” Aiden asked bitterly, his temper pushing aside all prudence as his mind’s eye put before him images of hovels, of broken-down cottages, of broken bodies. “We feed off the labor of others, giving nothing in return.”
“If there are any parasites, it’s the witches, who have sunk their claws into the Old Places so that we have to keep watch over them in order to protect what is ours.”
“They’re the Mother’s Daughters,” Aiden cried passionately. “They’re the House of Gaian. When are you going to accept that?”
“Never!” Lucian shouted. “And I insist that you stop spreading those lies. The House of Gaian disappeared a long time ago.”
Aiden shook his head. “They are the House of Gaian. They are the Pillars of the World, the ones who created Tir Alainn. Mother’s mercy, Lucian, we have written proof of—”
“We have nothing!”
“We have the journals written by a family of witches, which are the record of their history and the Old Place in their keeping.”
“We have the scrawlings of women who wanted to be more than what they were,” Lucian said. “Where is your proof that there’s any truth to what was written? A passing bard could have told a tale about the House of Gaian generations ago, and the woman who heard it took it for herself, claiming to be something she was not, something she never could be. One family, trying to assuage their own inadequacies by pretending to be something they’re weren’t. Have you come across any other mention of it, Bard? Have you?”
I’ve lost them, Aiden thought, knowing none of the Fae in this room had missed his moment of hesitation. “No,” he said quietly. “I have not found any other record that the witches are the House of Gaian.”
“Then, by my command, there will be no more talk of this. Not here. Not in the other Clans. Is that understood?”
The Lord of the Sun. The Lord of Fire. The male leader of the Fae.
Lucian, you’ve condemned us all. “I understand, Lightbringer,” Aiden said softly.
He couldn’t look at Lyrra. Maybe it would be better if she severed her ties with him, went back to her home Clan, or any Clan instead of traveling roads that were getting more and more dangerous.
The Lightbringer had commanded, and he would obey— up to a point. He would be exiled for what he intended to do—assuming that he could do it—but he couldn’t see any other road left open to him.
Bowing formally to Lucian, he left the common room and retreated to the room he shared with Lyrra, knowing she would follow him there in a little while. The things he needed to tell her were best said in private.
Lyrra watched Aiden leave the room, her heart aching for him.
One of the older women next to her harrumphed in satisfaction. “It’s about time the Lightbringer put the Bard in his place and put a stop to these ... tales.” Her eyes slid to look at Lyrra. “And you would do well to take another lover, a man who will bring no shame to you or your Clan.”
Lyrra gave the woman her coldest stare. “If my Clan thinks my being with the Bard shames them, then I have nothing to say to them, nor they to me.”
She walked away before she could say anything else that would cause trouble. She knew, without doubt, that her words would find their way to her Clan within a handful of days—and she knew, without doubt, that if she went back to her Clan while she was still with Aiden, they wouldn’t have anything to say to her.
She moved from one end of the long room to the other, paying no attention to what was around her until a hand firmly grasped her elbow. She tried to pull away. When she couldn’t, she turned toward the person who held her.
“This is an open-air room,” Falco said. “Another few steps and you’ll go right over the balcony. Since you can’t sprout wings, it would be a hard fall.” He smiled shyly, hesitantly. “Blessings of the day to you, Lyrra.”
A witch’s greeting. The same greeting he’d offered every morning when she’d lived at the cottage that had belonged to Ari’s family, as if to remind himself of the young witch he’d been acquainted with briefly. Or to take to himself one small custom that belonged to the Mother’s Daughters.
“Blessings of the day to you, Falco,” Lyrra replied softly. Dear Falco. A year ago, he’d been an impetuous young man, too quick to speak without thinking, so sure that the Fae, who called themselves the Mother’s Children, were superior to anything else that lived in the world. Then he went down to the Old Place with Dianna, Aiden, and her to celebrate the Summer Solstice with Ari, and, that night, saw the power a witch could command. The past year had been a hard one for everyone in the Clan whose piece of Tir Alainn was anchored to the Old Place near Ridgeley, but Falco had surprised her. He’d accepted the need for so many of the Fae to remain in the human world in order to keep the shining road open with more grace than she’d thought he had in him. And he’d been a friend to her during all the months she’d stayed at the Old Place to be the anchor the others needed to keep the magic alive.
“What brings you so far north?” she asked.
“I’m ... visiting.” He released her arm and walked the few remaining steps to the balcony.
Lyrra followed him, trying to sort out all the nuances in his voice. “Did you come with ...” Lucian’s name stuck in her throat. She wondered if it always would after today.
“No,” Falco said, staring at nothing. “It was unfortunate timing that he arrived here the day after I did. He ... wasn’t pleased.”
“You’re entitled to some time away from the home Clan to ... visit,” Lyrra said, still trying to decipher the underlying meaning to his words. For a Fae male, “visiting” meant enjoying the bed of one, or more, ladies in the Clan where he was guesting. If Falco had become restless for that kind of “visit,” there were other Clans closer to his home Clan where he could have found a lover f
or a few days.
“You’re not going back,” Lyrra said, suddenly understanding. “That’s why you’ve come this far north. You’re not going back to your home Clan.”
“No,” Falco said, his voice holding a deep-rooted unhap-piness. “It’s not like it was when you were there, Lyrra. Dianna left you there to do what she had promised to do, but you never took it out on the rest of us. You never—” He bit off the rest of the words.
Lyrra rested a hand on his arm. “Darling, I know Dianna can be difficult, but—”
“Difficult?” There was more than unhappiness in his eyes. There was anger, too. “She resents all of us. Her kin. Her Clan. Nothing we do is good enough. Ever. She’ll jump her pale mare over the wall enclosing the kitchen garden and trample the young plants past saving, then complain about the sparsity of the food set before her. We give her more than her share of the food grown in the human world because it does taste better than what we grow in Tir Alainn, and she takes even more than that. She has two rooms of her own while the rest of us sleep wherever we can, and it’s not enough. If she walks into a room, she gets the chair. If she walks into the kitchen, she expects to be served food, no matter the hour. And she reminds us, constantly, that her sacrifice is the reason the rest of us can still ride up the shining road and enjoy Tir Alainn.”
“Hush, Falco, hush,” Lyrra said, glancing over her shoulder to see too many of the Fae starting to pay attention to them. “Don’t call attention to yourself.” Think before you speak, she pleaded silently, knowing it was useless. He may have matured in many ways, but he was still Falco.
Surprisingly, he paused, then continued speaking quietly. “She resents me most of all.”
Lyrra frowned. “But... why? You did everything you could to help the others get settled in the human world. And I’m sure it would have been harder on all of us if you hadn’t hunted to provide some meat for the table.”
“That’s just it, don’t you see? I hunted, at Dianna’s command, to provide Ari with some meat after Dianna gave her that puppy. And I hunted for you.”
