Anne Bishop - The House of Gaian

For Jennifer Jackson

and Laura Anne Gilman

My thanks to Blair Boone for continuing to be my first reader; Kandra and Debra Dixon for being beta readers; Nadine Fallacaro for information about things medical; Kristen Britain, Pat York, Paul Butler, Jim Hetley, Katherine Lawrence, Uriel, and Lisa Spangenberg for their thoughts and suggestions about weapons; and Pat and Bill Feidner for their continued support and encouragement.

Ashk, Bretonwood's Lady of the Woods, wandered the familiar woodland trails of her Clan's Old Place. Neall, distant kin to her despite his human face, walked beside her. She saw questions in his blue eyes, but he kept the silence she'd held since she came to his cottage early that morning and asked him to accompany her.

These trails knew her tread, both her human feet and the pads of the shadow hound that was her other form. And she knew the trails. She didn't want to leave Bretonwood, but she had to, had to keep her heart and mind on the task ahead. Whether or not she could do that depended on the young man who walked beside her.

At the end of the trail, she hesitated a moment before walking into the sunlit meadow. A favorite place. A special place where her grandfather had taken her to play and to learn to be a Lady of the Woods—and, later, although she wasn't aware of it at the time, to be the Green Lord. . . and the Hunter. He was buried in that meadow, right where he'd fallen after her arrow pierced his heart. A swift death that honored the old Lord of the Woods rather than the lingering, soul-wasting death that the nighthunter bites would have caused him. The Fae put up no markers like humans did, and Ari, Neall's wife and Bretonwood's witch, had worked her magic with care, so there was no mound of dirt, no disturbance in the grass and wildflowers. And yet, she could feel a lingering something when she was close to the spot, something she recognized as Kernos even though the Gatherer had taken his spirit to the Shadowed Veil so that he could go on to the Summerland.

What needs to be said and done today. . . it's fitting that it's done here , Ashk thought. I miss you, Kernos. I miss your laughter and your wisdom. . . . And I hope with all that's in me that I have the strength and courage you believed me to have .

She walked to the center of the meadow before she set her bow, canteen, and quiver of arrows on the ground. Her woodland eyes, a brown-flecked green, scanned the trees as she ruffled her ash-brown hair with her fingers. The cropped hair felt strange after letting it flow down her back for so many years, but she couldn't afford to have anything interfere with the smooth, swift movement of drawing an arrow from the quiver and nocking it to the bow. Not where she was going. Not with the enemy she was heading out to meet. It would be better to die a swift death than to fall into the Inquisitors' hands.

Neall set his things beside hers as he, too, scanned the trees. "I don't see any sign of the nighthunters."

"There are a few left, but not many," Ashk replied. "There's still a feeling of wrongness in the woods, but it's fainter now." She looked at Neall, who was still crouched beside their weapons. "You feel it, too."

"Yes."

Ashk nodded. He didn't understand yet what his being so attuned to the subtleties of the woods meant, but soon he would.

"Ashk." Neall rose to his feet. He took a deep breath, puffing his cheeks as he exhaled. "With everything that needs to be done, do you really think we should take the time for a lesson?"

For this one , Ashk thought, stepping away from the weapons. Because of what needs to be done, it's time for this one .

Neall followed a few steps behind her, his eyes and attention still on the trees. The nighthunters didn't like sunlight, and she and Neall were in the center of the large, sunlit meadow; but even during the daylight hours, the creatures the Inquisitors had created by twisting magic were a threat in the shadows of the woods.

He wasn't paying attention to her because he trusted her.

She turned, said, "Change," immediately shifted into her other form, and sprang at him, her fangs bared.

Even a month ago, he would have hesitated for that fatal moment that would have given her the advantage. Now he shifted in an instant, and the young stag leaped aside, pivoting as soon as he touched the ground, his head lowered, the tines of his antlers a weapon against her fangs.

She charged him again and again—and he met her, again and again, never giving her the opening to leap in and nip him in a place that, in a real attack, could disable him. He thought like a man, but he'd learned how to use that stag body that was his other form. Because he thought like a man, he didn't do the one thing a real stag would have done—he didn't run. There were times when she'd chased him around the meadow to build his endurance, to help him learn the stag body, but this lesson was a battle to confirm something for herself and to prove something to him.

Panting from the effort, she finally leaped away, putting some distance between them. Then she changed back to her human form.

"Enough," she said, walking slowly toward their gear.

He remained in stag form, pivoting to watch her.

She bent to pick up her canteen, winced a little as her muscles protested. It had been awhile since she'd worked that hard in her shadow hound form. She glanced at him, could feel his confusion and anger pulsing over the meadow. "Enough, Neall."

He hesitated a moment longer, then changed back to human form and strode toward her, his hands curled into fists.

"Mother's tits, Ashk! What was that about?"

"A lesson," she replied quietly. She opened the canteen and filled her mouth with water, savoring the cool wetness before she swallowed. "Kernos did it differently with me, but the lesson was the same."

He stared at her. As understanding filled his blue eyes, he shook his head in denial. "I'm not."

"You are."

"I can't become the Lord of the Woods. I'm not pure Fae. They would never accept it. Besides," he added, sounding a bit desperate, " you're the Hunter now, and I'm not about to challenge you ."

Ashk took another sip of water before answering. "Do you accept that you are a Lord of the Woods?"

He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "That's not the same thing."

"Do you accept what you are?"

"Yes," he said reluctantly.

Ashk nodded. "Yes. You're Fae, Neall. Looks alone are not what determines who is and isn't Fae. It's the gift of the other form, and our command of the animals in our world, that separates us from the humans and the wiccanfae. And you, my young stag, cannot deny that you have that gift."

"But. . ."

"Your mother was a witch, but she was born of a witch mother and a Fae father. And your father was born of human and Fae. Those matings made you what you are."

"Ashk. . ."

"As the Hunter, I command you, young Lord. And as the Hunter, I am telling you what I require of you."

Looking troubled, Neall stepped forward and fetched his own canteen.

Ashk took another mouthful of water, closed her canteen, and dropped it on the grass at her feet. She waited until he had slaked his thirst before speaking, keeping her eyes focused on the meadow, knowing intuitively that he'd listen with less protest if she wasn't looking directly at him.

"Padrick and I have talked," she said quietly, "and we've decided some things that concern you. I've told the Clan bard, so he'll stand as witness, but Padrick needs to do things the human way because of his estate and because he's a baron, so he's having his man of business draw up the papers naming you the guardian of Evan and Caitlin."