by Anne Bishop
“Come along, then,” Morag said briskly. She headed for the large table, sure that Aiden and Lyrra would follow, if for no other reason than because Ari, Neall, and Morphia were familiar faces in a world that had turned strange.
“There was no reason for you to be bringing back all that food,” Beitris scolded. “You should have kept it so that you could have a rest day after the dance.” She set clean cups on the table while another woman brought over a pot of tea.
“We kept plenty,” Ari said. “The cold cellar is stuffed, isn’t it?” She turned to Neall as she said it.
“Stuffed,” Neall agreed, grinning.
Morag glanced at Morphia, then quickly looked away, biting her lower lip to keep from laughing. Watching Ari deal with this Clan’s Lady of the Hearth was always entertaining.
Beitris sniffed. “And I suppose the young Lord bundled you up and had you out the door this morning before you could have so much as a sip of tea.”
“No, he didn’t,” Ari huffed. “I had — Oh. What kind of bread is that?”
“Apple nut,” Beitris said. “Would you like to try a piece?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Well,” Neall said. “So much for ‘I’m too full from last night’s meal to finish my porridge.’”
Ari scowled at him. “That was porridge. This isn’t.”
Nothing has changed, Morag thought fondly, watching Neall pull out the bench to accommodate Ari’s belly. And everything has changed. Looking at the contentment on Sheridan’s face and Morphia’s heavy eyes, she didn’t think her sister had gotten much sleep last night either — and didn’t regret it.
If anyone else noticed that the Bard and the Muse remained strangely silent throughout the meal, no one mentioned it. It couldn’t be easy for either of them to be afraid of the person they had searched so hard to find.
Then Morphia said, “Oh, my.”
Turning on the bench to see what had caught Morphia’s attention, Morag watched Padrick and a slender man walk toward them. The stranger had short, ash-brown hair and woodland eyes, and looked so much like —
“Ashk?” Morag said hesitantly.
The man smiled. “Blessings of the day to you.” The timbre was a little lower, but it was still Ashk’s voice.
“Mother’s mercy,” Aiden said. “That’s how you did it. That’s why no one ever suspected the Hunter was a woman.”
“One can use the glamour for other things besides creating a human mask,” Ashk said.
“Did the old Lord of the Woods suspect you were a woman?” Lyrra asked.
Ashk’s smile turned feral, but Morag saw the slash of grief in her eyes.
“He was the one who taught me this mask,” Ashk said. “He said when the time came for me to take his place, the western Clans would accept me as the Green Lady but the Clans beyond the west never would. He believed the Lords who held the gift of the woods would feel compelled to challenge me over and over because the Hunter had always been the Lord of the Woods. Out of respect for him and kindness to me, the Clans here have kept my secret from the rest of the Fae. Now …” She shrugged. “That I’m a woman isn’t important. The power that I can wield is.” She looked at Aiden, who slowly rose to his feet to face her. “Do you still want the Hunter to go with you?”
Aiden swallowed hard. “Yes, I do.”
“Then I’ll go, and we’ll see what can be done about cleansing the Inquisitors from Sylvalan.”
“It won’t just be the Inquisitors you have to deal with, Ashk,” Morag said quietly. “Even if you use the glamour to look like a Lord, the Fae will resist you too, and the humans outside of the west may not be willing to accept the Fae’s presence.”
“If the barons command it, the people will accept it,” Padrick said. “I can be of some help with that.”
“We won’t be taking land away from the humans,” Ashk said. “We’ll simply be taking back the Old Places.”
Last summer, I told the Master Inquisitor that the Fae were reclaiming the Old Places, but it never happened, and the slaughter of witches continued, Morag thought. If Ashk can really bring the Fae back to the world, then maybe we will be able to stop this.
“It won’t be easy,” Morag said.
“No,” Ashk agreed, “it won’t be easy.”
Aiden was looking at her, his expression uneasy. She wasn’t even sure why she was resisting, except that Ashk was leaving her home and family without truly knowing how difficult the task ahead of her would be.
“How will you explain to the Small Folk and the witches and all the humans for whom the Fae mean nothing more than a seduction or taking their amusement at another person’s expense?” Morag asked. “What words can you say that will keep us from fighting among ourselves instead of fighting the enemy that wants to destroy us?”
“The words aren’t difficult.” Ashk turned and stared toward the east for a long time, as if she could see beyond the woods, beyond the rolling land, even beyond the Mother’s Hills. When she turned back, Morag was glad she had come to know the woman before meeting Ashk as the Hunter.
“This is what we will tell the Small Folk and the humans and the witches,” Ashk said softly. “Too long have we been absent. Now we have returned.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks to Blair Boone for continuing to be my first reader, to Jenny Wegrzyn for telling me all the things hawks don’t do so that I could justify why mine did them, to Kandra for her continued work on the Web site, and to Pat and Bill Feidner, just because.
Praise for Anne Bishop
THE TIR ALAINN TRILOGY
The Pillars of the World — Book One
“Bishop only adds luster to her reputation for fine fantasy.”
— Booklist
“Reads like a beautiful ballad …Fans of romance and fantasy will delight in this engaging tale.”
— BookBrowser
“Provides plenty of thrills, faerie magic, human nastiness, and romance.”
— Locus
THE BLACK JEWELS TRILOGY
Daughter of the Blood — Book One
“A fabulous new talent …a uniquely realized fantasy filled with vibrant colors and rich textures. A wonderful new voice, Ms. Bishop holds us spellbound from the very first page.”
— Romantic Times (4½ stars)
“Lavishly sensual …a richly detailed world based on a reversal of standard genre clichés.”
— Library Journal
“Mystical, sensual, glittering with dark magic, Anne Bishop’s debut novel brings a strong new voice to the fantasy field.”
— Terri Windling, coeditor of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror
Heir to the Shadows — Book Two
“A rich and fascinatingly different dark fantasy, a series definitely worth checking out.”
—Locus
“Features a fascinating world consisting of three realms amply peopled with interesting … characters. Events are set in motion that will be resolved in one of the most eagerly awaited conclusions to a trilogy.”
— The Romance Reader
Queen of the Darkness — Book Three
“As engaging, as strongly characterized, and as fully conceived as its predecessors …a perfect — and very moving — conclusion.”
— The SF Site
“A storyteller of stunning intensity, Ms. Bishop has a knack for appealing but complex characterization realized in a richly drawn, imaginative ambiance.”
— Romance Times
“A powerful finale for this fascinating uniquely dark trilogy.”
— Locus
Books by Anne Bishop
THE BLACK JEWELS TRILOGY
Daughter of the Blood (Book One)
Heir to the Shadows (Book Two)
Queen of the Darkness (Book Three)
The Invisible Ring
THE TIR ALAINN TRILOGY
The Pillars of the World (Book One)
Shadows and Light (Book Two)
The House
of Gaian (Book Three)
Copyright
Voyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in the USA in 2002
by Roc, an imprint of Dutton Signet,
a member of Penguin Putnam, Inc., New York.
First published in Australia in 2001
This edition published in 2010
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Ltd
ABN 36 009 913 517
Copyright © Anne Bishop 2002
The right of Anne Bishop to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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31 View Road, Glenfield, Auckland 0627, New Zealand
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77–85 Fulham Palace Road, London, W6 8JB, United Kingdom
2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada
10 East 53rd Street, New York NY 10022, USA
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Bishop, Anne
Shadows and light / Anne Bishop.
ISBN: 978 0 7322 7987 5 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978 0 7304 9233 7 (ePub)
I. Title. (Series : Bishop, Anne. Tir Alainn trilogy ; bk. 2.)
813.54
About the Publisher
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