Anne Bishop - Shadows and Light

Small candles glowed at the edge of the meadow, catching his attention.

Not candles, Aiden realized, feeling his body jolt from the slight shock. The Small Folk had come to watch the dance. It was the magic in them that glowed. He glanced at the musicians. Saw the same misty glow. Last Solstice, that’s how Ari had known her guests weren’t human. With all the power that came from the Great Mother in motion, the magic inside the Fae and the Small Folk shone like stationary beacons. He hadn’t seen it last summer when Ari had danced alone, but here, with so many dancers helping her funnel all that power into the spiral dance, he saw things with a clarity that was almost blinding.

“There,” Padrick breathed softly. “There. Can you feel it?”

Feel what? Aiden wondered. His head was spinning, as if he’d had too much to drink. But it was the dance that was intoxicating him, the music that was thrumming in his blood now.

As the music faded, he heard Ari giving thanks to the Great Mother for the branches of earth, air, water, and fire.

Saw flames lick the carefully placed wood of the bonfire. And felt himself lifted up as she released the magic back into the Old Place. The ripples of it flowed through him and traveled on. When she finally lowered her arms, the air smelled sweeter, the land beneath his feet pulsed with life, and passion burned hot inside him.

The dance was done, the dancers rippling out of the spiral in a way that echoed the magic just released. He watched Lyrra walk toward him. The look on her face made him wonder how many other lovers would have an intimate celebration tonight.

He met her. Kissed her in a way that was far too intimate while they were standing in the open with people all around them, but he couldn’t stop himself, and the way she leaned into him and answered the kiss told him she wasn’t thinking of other people either. But her hands kept his pressed against her waist, a prudent compromise of passion and common sense.

He broke the kiss, wondering a bit desperately how offended Ashk would be if he and Lyrra slipped away without seeing her planned entertainment.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Padrick said. “I’m wanted for the next dance.”

The warning under the amusement was enough to make Aiden struggle to get his libido under control—and finally notice that he and Lyrra had a very interested audience.

“Oh,” Lyrra said softly, blushing.

“Well,” Ari said.

“My,” Morphia said.

Neall and Sheridan, who had recently become Morphia’s lover, just grinned at him.

It was the wistful expression on Morag’s face before she turned away to watch whatever was happening in the meadow that made Aiden uncomfortable. Had Death’s Mistress ever had a real lover? It wasn’t something he could ever ask Morag, but the flicker of sadness on Morphia’s face before she linked arms with her sister was answer enough.

Sheridan left them, drawing Aiden’s attention back to the meadow. The large wicker baskets that had been left near the musicians were now open, and the Fae were carefully unwrapping masks.

Aiden shifted uneasily. Each mask was a work of art, shaped and decorated to represent an animal. The children were squirrels, rabbits, mice, and songbirds. Small creatures. Among the adult masks, he saw hawk, raven, owl, wolf, stag, fox. Watching Padrick fit a hawk mask over the top half of his face, he wondered if the adults wore masks that matched their other forms. He searched for Ashk, wanting to know what her other form was. When he saw her, he wasn’t sure what to think.

The mask was female, and feral. Human, but not human. As she passed by one of the torches that had been lit for the musicians, he caught some of the mask’s colors—summer greens twining with the oranges and reds of autumn—but she turned away before he could puzzle out the details.

Ashk walked over to the bonfire. The rest of the Fae formed a large circle around her, the elders of the Clan on the outside ring of the circle, the children in the inner ring, the rest of the adults in between.

The music started. Ashk smiled, turned as the Fae in the circle began to move. She skipped a few steps with one child, moved forward to circle with a stag in a way that was highly suggestive of a mating dance, moved on again to do a few steps with a vixen, stepped within the circle to twirl and dance on her own, always moving with the others in a way that was clearly intended to celebrate life.

Then the music changed, becoming darker, deeper—and Ashk changed with it.

Chilled by her slight smile, Aiden watched her raise her arms as if she were drawing an imaginary bow. The masked Fae moved faster now. She loosed the imaginary arrow, and three of them dropped to their hands and knees.

She drew back another arrow. More of the Fae fell. As the arrow pointed at them, the elder Fae moved out of the circle to stand with their heads bowed. A vixen staggered before she fell. A stag leaped high, his back arched, before he crumbled to the ground. Ashk kept pivoting, firing her imaginary arrows as the music filled the meadow. As the last masked Fae fell to the ground, the music suddenly stopped.

Aiden felt Lyrra shivering beside him. A dance that had celebrated life had become a circle of the slain.

A heartbeat of silence. Two.

The music began again, the same part of the tune that had begun the dance, but quieter this time.

Ashk walked the circle, one hand extended. As she passed, the masked Fae got to their feet and began walking the circle with her again. When they passed behind the bonfire, they stepped out of the circle, forming lines beyond the fire.

Once. Twice. Three times. As the last notes faded, Ashk stood behind the bonfire, with the rest of the masked dancers spread out behind her.

Aiden couldn’t breathe right. The faces staring back at him were feral and alien, something a part of him recognized—and feared. And Ashk...

In the flickering light, he finally made out the details of her mask. Not a human face decorated with vines and leaves, and yet it was. Not an animal face, but it held that quality, too.

The dancers were breaking formation now, helping each other untie the leather straps that held the masks in place. The spell of the dance should have broken with those ordinary movements. It didn’t. Instead, Aiden had the sense that those ordinary movements were simply a way of donning a different kind of mask.

“What are they?” Lyrra whispered, her voice shaking.

“They’re the Fae,” Morag said softly.

Aiden looked at her. Morag’s eyes were wide and staring. Her lips were slightly parted to help her breathe. And as she watched Ashk, still masked, walk around the bonfire and move toward them, she looked as if she’d finally seen the answer to something that had puzzled her.

“They are the Fae,” Morag said. “And Ashk...”

Ashk walked up to Morag, stood close enough that if either of them had extended a hand, they would have touched.

That close, Aiden saw the mask and shivered. It was the woods come alive. Life and death. Shadows and light.

Ashk stood in front of Morag, a strange smile curving her lips.

“And Ashk,” Morag said softly, “is the Hunter.”

Morag carefully closed the shutters over the window, adjusting the slats to let as much cool air in as possible. Until the nighthunters’ appearance in the Old Place, there’d been no reason to shutter the windows at night. Now it was a sensible precaution.

She climbed into bed, pulling the sheet up around her, not relaxed enough to sleep despite the fatigue pulling at her. Perhaps she should have stayed with Neall and Ari. The cottage was her home, after all. But Morphia and Sheridan had stayed at the cottage, and she’d come back with the rest of the Fae to the Clan house.