Anne Bishop - The Pillars of the World

“I saw Lucian briefly this morning,” Aiden said.

“And?” Dianna prodded. “How did he seem?”

“Pleased.” Aiden paused. “He wasn’t here last night.”

“No.”

“And he hadn’t gone to visit another Clan.”

Dianna shook her head slowly. “But where he was is no concern of anyone but—”

“I am not of this Clan, but Lucian and I are still kin through our fathers,” Aiden said sharply. He narrowed his eyes and studied her. “As you and I, therefore, are kin. It is my turn to ask for indulgence. I should have not been so sharp about being teased by you.”

“There are different rules for kin?” Dianna said, forcing a smile.

“There are,” Aiden said, not returning the smile. “Will you talk to him?”

And say what ? Dianna wondered. “Not yet.” She raised a hand to prevent the protests Lyrra and Aiden seemed ready to make. “There is something that must be done before Lucian and I talk.”

“Don’t let it wait too long,” Aiden said. Then he hummed a few bars of “The Lover’s Lament.”

Understanding the warning, Dianna stood up. “We’ll talk again this evening.”

“Good hunting,” Lyrra said softly.

Dianna inclined her head and left the room.

Good hunting, she thought as she hurried to her rooms. Yes. Not the usual kind of hunt, but a hunt nonetheless. Until she actually saw this female creature for herself, she was holding an empty quiver instead of sharp arguments that could find their mark.

If Lucian was truly acting as strangely as Falco indicated, she would need arguments sharp enough to pierce a heart.

Neall didn’t need to see the stone marker to know he was now on the part of the road that cut through Brightwood. He could feel a subtle change in the air, and his mood lightened in response to it. Even the gelding, which had been bred and raised on Ahern’s farm, could sense the boundaries of Ari’s land—and could sense them a little too well.

Shortening the reins just enough to keep Darcy’s attention, Neall said, “We’ll approach at a dignified trot rather than cantering into the yard like unmannered colts.”

Darcy snorted, then tested Neall’s sincerity by shifting from an easy trot to a brisk one.

“We aren’t doing this,” Neall warned. His voice didn’t hold the sincerity it should have, but his hands were firm. The result was what he expected—a compromise in speed that obeyed the command from his hands but had listened carefully to the tone of his voice.

Well, they’d just get to the cottage that much sooner, and he couldn’t argue with that.

Yesterday had been a misery. At breakfast, it had only taken a glance at Odella’s face to know that the man she had met on the Summer Moon had not been to her liking, and that the man’s skills as a lover—or his lack of them—had made him even less appealing. The fact that she couldn’t refuse him until the dark of the moon without having the magic in the fancy turn on her made it even worse. It would have been bad enough to endure one time with a man who disappointed, but to suffer him again and again . . .

Seeing the unhappiness in his cousin’s face had made Neall feel more sympathy for Odella, but it was a small cup of sympathy, and weak. Odella had not only brought this on herself by buying love magic from Granny Gwynn, she had also, with no kind intent, boxed Ari into the same corner.

Royce had been suffering from a rough night with the bottle, an overindulgence that he’d probably hoped would numb the fear of seeing the Wild Hunt, and had been more abrasive than usual.

Then Baron Felston began making barbed comments about how he, Neall, had probably spent the Summer Moon in his own virtuous bed instead of “flexing his muscles” as any other young man would have done. Knowing he would have been roundly condemned for “flexing his muscles,” especially if any young woman came forward a few weeks later and accused him of getting her with child, didn’t take the sting out of the baron’s remarks.

Despite what the baron sometimes implied, he was as hungry as any other young man for the pleasure a woman’s body could give, but knowing that Felston wouldn’t hesitate to try to force him into a marriage that would trap him here made him even more cautious about accepting an invitation from any woman who was looking for a husband and a household of her own. That fleeting pleasure couldn’t compare with the need to go home to his mother’s land. Besides, he’d given his heart to Ari so long ago he couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t love her.

To make a bad start to the day even worse, Royce had decided to go with him to check the tenant farms and see what needed to be done. He’d expected Royce to grow bored with playing lord of the manor and return home or ride into Ridgeley to meet with his friends at the tavern. But Royce, with cutting remarks and steady complaints, had stayed with him throughout the long day.

Which was why he hadn’t come to Brightwood yesterday, and had even avoided the tenant farms that bordered Ari’s land—especially after the second time Royce suggested going there. He’d wondered why Royce had been pushing to visit the cottage while he was with him, and he’d wondered why his cousin hadn’t simply gone alone. It wasn’t until they were approaching the home yard and Royce finally relaxed that Neall had understood. Royce had wanted to go to Brightwood, probably to find out where Ari had been on the Summer Moon, but he’d been afraid to ride there alone in case he met up with the Huntress and her shadow hounds. In fact, he’d simply been afraid to ride anywhere alone, but he hadn’t wanted to remain at home under Baron Felston’s critical gaze. So Neall had spent the day silently fretting over Ari’s broken kitchen door and that he couldn’t ride over and fix it for her while Royce was with him.

But that was yesterday. This was today, the cottage was in sight, and he had an hour he could spare for a visit.

As he trotted past the cottage, intending to tether Darcy by the unused cow shed, something caught his eye. He reined in hard enough to set the gelding on its haunches, then murmured a wordless apology to the animal as he stared at the cottage’s front door.

It was open. Not wide open, not obviously open. He wouldn’t have even noticed it if a light gust of wind hadn’t moved the door just enough to catch his attention, and it was something anyone else wouldn’t have thought about twice.

Except he’d been visiting Brightwood since he was a child, and he knew the front door was rarely used and was never left open unless someone was working right outside.

Uneasy now, he dismounted and led Darcy to the cow shed as quietly as possible, then came back to the front of the cottage to study the door.

Ari might have opened the door for some reason this morning and then hadn’t realized the latch hadn’t caught securely when she closed the door. She might have wanted to check the flower beds without walking over sloppy ground. The ground, like the road, was drying quickly from last night’s rain, but Ari got up with the sun, and the ground would have been very wet. In the gray light, she could have easily missed the fact that the door hadn’t latched properly.

Or something could be very wrong.

Pushing the door open, he remained on the threshold, the warding spells making his skin tingle.

“Ari?” he called.

No answer.

He closed his eyes, felt the power in him stir. Astra, Ari’s grandmother, had recognized the power in him. It wasn’t as refined as a witch’s magic, nor as strong, but it let him feel things that other people couldn’t, it gave him an instinctive knowledge of woodland creatures, and it helped him sense magic when it was used around him. If his mother had lived, she might have taught him how to use this gift. Or perhaps his father, being half Fae, could have taught him better since, from what little he could remember, his father’s diluted ability with magic had been more like his own. As it was, what little he knew about the power that was his heritage he had learned passively from being around the witches of Brightwood and by working with it on his own.