Anne Bishop - Shadows and Light

“Yes,” Aiden agreed, “that’s all she ever said.”

Lyrra thought a moment, then shook her head. “She did take two spirits up to the Shadowed Veil.”

“Yes, she did.”

“Then—” Lyrra paused. Ahern, the Lord of the Horse, had been killed in the confrontation with the Inquisitors when they came to Ridgeley—and Brightwood—last summer. Had there been someone else at Brightwood? Someone none of the Fae but Morag had known about? “What happened to the young man Ari was going to wed? What was his name? Neall. Yes, Neall. Morag ... said he was gone.”

“He gave her kindness, courtesy, respect, and loyalty,” Aiden sang softly.

Unable to sit still, Lyrra scrambled off the bed to pace the width of the small room.

You’re the Muse. He’s the Bard. He expects you to be able to hear what isn’t being said. Just as Morag had expected him to understand what she hadn’t said.

He’d gone to see Morag one last time before she left Ahern’s farm. Why would she have told him anything? Because he had grieved Ari’s death—and the loss of a Daughter of the House of Gaian.

“He got her away from them,” Lyrra said, more to hear the words spoken than to speak to Aiden. “Somehow, Neall got Ari away from the Inquisitors. And then took her away from Brightwood, as well.” She pressed her hands against her face. “If the Lightbringer and the Huntress ever learn that the last witch from Brightwood still lives ...”

“They would search for her until they found her, and they would bring her back to Brightwood, regardless of what Ari wants,” Aiden replied. “Dianna would bring her back so that she wouldn’t have to stay in the human world and be the anchor that keeps the shining road open and her Clan’s piece of Tir Alainn intact. And Lucian would bring her back to have Ari as his mistress because he lost her before he tired of her—and because his pride wouldn’t tolerate the truth that she’d chosen a human male over him.” He paused. “But that is merely speculation. Morag said Ari is gone, and the Gatherer would know that better than the rest of us.”

“Mother’s mercy, Aiden.” Lyrra sank down on the end of the bed. “Let’s hope they never realize that what Morag said wasn’t what they assumed she meant.” Then she turned and gave him a brilliant smile. “Ari is gone. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Answering her smile with his own, he held out a hand. When she took it, he tugged her toward him, lying back so that she was stretched out on top of him.

He played with her hair and said, “When humans wed, there are speeches and customs that are observed to seal the bargain. We’ve spoken words to pledge ourselves to each other, so there’s just one other thing to do to seal the bargain.”

He looked at her with eyes full of lust and laughter.

She gave him a soft kiss, then wiggled her body just enough to get a hard response from his.

“Vixen,” he said, wrapping his arms around her.

“I am not!” She paused. “Well, yes, I am. Some of the time.”

Laughing, he rolled until she was under him. “Come, wife. Let’s seal the bargain.”

This time, when they gave each other their bodies, they also gave much more.

Aiden stared at the ceiling. Lyrra slept peacefully beside him.

Yes, husbands and wives kept secrets, but there were some secrets he had to tell her now, for her own protection. If something happened to him, she had to know where to run—and what places to avoid at any cost. It wasn’t safe for a woman to travel alone anymore along the eastern border. In some places, it wasn’t safe to be a woman, now that the Inquisitors had come to Sylvalan and somehow convinced the eastern barons—and through them, other men—that women were lesser creatures who had no purpose, and no value, except to provide men with comfortable homes, sex, and offspring.

Aiden rolled over and tucked himself around Lyrra, needing the closeness.

He’d missed her over the past year with a fierceness that had made him ache. And even though he’d worried at times that the Inquisitors might come back to Brightwood, he’d been grateful she’d stayed there—until he’d returned to see her and discovered Lyrra hadn’t stayed by her own choice. Then the anger and frustration he’d been feeling toward his own kind had turned on Dianna, who was the Lady of the Moon, the Huntress, the female leader of the Fae. She and Lyrra were the only Fae at Brightwood who had some aspect of power in them that made it possible for them to anchor the magic in the Old Place and, with enough other Fae present, keep the shining road to Tir Alainn open.

Last summer, after part of the Clan had come down to the human world, Dianna had asked Lyrra to remain at Brightwood a few more days while she went to Tir Alainn and took care of a few things before coming back to live in the cottage that had belonged to Ari’s family. Dianna returned to Tir Alainn—and stayed there, leaving Lyrra with the choice of remaining to anchor the shining road or putting an entire Clan at risk if she left.

It was only when he’d returned that Lyrra had sent a warning through another of the Fae that she was leaving. That brought Dianna back to Brightwood. Lyrra refused to tell him what had been said before she left, but he imagined it hadn’t been a pleasant leave-taking. And the cold courtesy with which they were greeted whenever they went up a shining road to a Clan house in Tir Alainn told him that Dianna had been spewing her bitterness over having to remain in the human world to anyone who would listen. He and Lyrra were being blamed for putting Dianna’s Clan at risk and leaving her “exiled” at Brightwood.

The fact that no Lady of the Moon from another Clan had offered to come to Brightwood and try to be the anchor for the magic in the Old Place was telling. Perhaps that was just the self-interest that came naturally to most of the Fae—or perhaps, despite being willing to condemn Lyrra for her decision, no one trusted Dianna enough to offer, not after she’d broken her promise to the Muse.

He could fight the Clans’ cold courtesy with sharp words, but he couldn’t fight what was happening in Sylvalan. What he’d seen in some of the villages he’d passed through last summer and autumn had chilled him. Women wearing something called a scold’s bridle that deprived them of the ability to speak. A woman being strapped in the public square, while the men witnessing the punishment hadn’t been able to tell him what she’d done to be treated so badly, only that it was necessary to teach a woman modesty and pleasing behavior.

Those things had been bad enough. But something else had come across the river from Wolfram over the winter, something that made the men so uneasy they wouldn’t talk about it. Something that the eastern barons were ordering done to make sure women remained in what was now considered their proper place in society. A “procedure,” the men had muttered, to rid a woman of unhealthy feelings.

Shivering, Aiden snuggled closer to Lyrra.

He hadn’t been able to find out what this new danger was, but the fear of it was one of the things that had sent him galloping back to Brightwood.

Whatever was wrong in the human villages in Sylvalan was spreading. Even a village like this one, where nothing seemed out of place, made him uneasy. More so now, when the desire to protect Lyrra was stronger than his desire to survive.

Tomorrow they would head for villages closer to the Mother’s Hills, places farther away from the eastern border of Sylvalan. Maybe they would come to an Old Place and take the shining road back to Tir Alainn and rest for a few days. And try, once again, to convince the Fae that the human world was no longer a place where they could amuse themselves when they chose and ignore it the rest of the time.