Anne Bishop - The Pillars of the World

Like this place, he thought as he followed the path, his fingers brushing against the stone. He couldn’t say why this place felt different from the rest of the gardens, but the silence here was richer, rooted in a peace that could drain the heart of any sorrows.

Maybe his anger wasn’t fair. A handful of the roads that led from Tir Alainn to Sylvalan had closed, and many of the ones that were still open were harder to use. The Fae couldn’t stop a road from closing, nor could they create a new one. They were the Mother’s most powerful children, but that piece of magic had been lost to them. It was even getting harder to travel between Clan territories. They were islands of land connected by bridges that spanned mist. Sometimes, even when a road wasn’t closing, the mist claimed a bridge, breaking the connection between two Clans.

So he could understand why the Clan women would want the use of any male who wasn’t kin while they still had access to him. But fire was too much a part of his nature, and he didn’t like the coldness that had crept into the bedding. In the past two years, since he’d become the Lightbringer, the gleam in the eyes of Fae women who invited him to their beds had seemed more calculating than lustful, more shrewd than desiring.

Perhaps it wasn’t coldness that crept into the bed with him lately. Perhaps it was simply boredom. He knew what to expect, knew what was given and what was taken, knew it so well it had all become less than what it had been. What he didn’t know was why it felt that way.

He was twenty-four years old. That was far too young to have become bored with sex. But, perhaps, the number of women he’d enjoyed during his first year as the Lord of the Sun accounted for his waning interest now. Or perhaps his passion had slumbered like the winter sun and had not yet quite reawakened. He felt the waxing and waning of power now more than he had when he was just another young Lord of Fire.

Waxing and waning. Like the sun through the seasons. Like the moon through its cycle. Like the Fae who were the leaders of their respective gifts.

It seemed like every other Clan had a Lord of Fire, but only one might feel his power swell on Harvest Eve as he stood before the man who already held the title. Only one might eclipse the old Lord’s waning strength and became the Lord of Fire, the Lord of the Sun, the Lightbringer. And while a challenge wasn’t issued every year, the young Lords of Fire still gathered on that night wherever the Lightbringer chose to measure their strength against his. And sometimes an impatient fool tried to wrest the title from the one who held it before the old Lord’s power had sufficiently waned. A fool could discover that defeat was sometimes brutal—sometimes even fatal. But when the time, and the challenger, was right, the challenge was merely a formality, a ritual that allowed the old to yield to the new.

And so it was with all of the Fae. They didn’t meet at the same place or at the same time, but for every magical gift the Fae could claim, there was one of them who commanded all the others who shared that particular gift. And all those who commanded the others followed the Lord of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon.

So it wasn’t strange that he was sought after more now than he’d ever been before, but it had surprised him to feel more alone at the same time.

Lucian shook his head. He was brooding again, and if he returned to the Clan house before shaking off this mood, Aiden would haul out some tune about the follies of those who ruled that would prick and sting the ego. The Bard’s sharp mind and sharper tongue asked for no mercy and seldom gave it, even to those who could claim kinship.

Besides, there were better reasons to brood.

Aiden and Lyrra had quietly sent messages to the bards and storytellers among the Fae. None of the storytellers had heard of the wiccanfae, and the only songs about witches that were sent back to Aiden were the ones he’d already heard. If the storytellers and bards knew almost nothing about their potential enemy, the rest of the Fae certainly wouldn’t have heard of the wiccanfae.

Mother’s mercy! How could they protect Tir Alainn when they didn’t even know where these creatures had come from? Had they come over the mountains that formed the eastern border of Arktos and Wolfram? Was that why the Clans whose territories had been anchored to the Old Places in those human countries had disappeared first? Could it be as simple, and ugly, a thing as a fight for land? Could these witches have destroyed the roads through the Veil so that they could claim the Old Places for themselves?

Questions nested within questions, but neither he nor Aiden nor Lyrra nor Dianna had found any answers. The only bards who had heard the songs about the witches traveled through the eastern part of Sylvalan. The ones who traveled through the midlands had heard nothing at all, and the ones from the western Clans . . . Well, they didn’t have much to do with the rest of the Fae anyway. They had to be invited for the challenges, although, thankfully, most of the time none of them came. And when they did . . . It was embarrassing to have to acknowledge them as Fae. There was a roughness about them no veneer of manners could hide. And being around one of them made everyone else . . . uncomfortable.

Shaking his head, Lucian left his private spot in the gardens. Until they had some answers, there was nothing he could do. So he would travel the road through the Veil tonight, but not for the reason Dianna thought. He would take a long, hard ride under the full moon and enjoy a different kind of mistress. The Great Mother. The land in the human world. Unlike the other females he was familiar with, she always remained intriguing.

Adolfo secured the latch on the window, then pulled the draperies across it, closing out the coming night. The meal he’d ordered sat on the table, cooling.

Crossing to the table, he poured a glass of wine but didn’t drink.

Tonight was the Summer Moon, a night of magic and loose morals, a night when any decent man stayed inside once the moon rose and kept himself safe behind stout walls and strong locks.

Why had one of the carriage horses thrown a shoe late in the afternoon, forcing him to stay at this inn instead of arriving at Squire Westun’s house in Bainbrydge as he had planned? And why would the coachman who had worked for him for the past two years suddenly suggest that they could continue on this evening once the horse got a new shoe, that the full moon would light the road almost as well as the sun? Why would a man who should have known his employer better suggest that they’d be safe enough if they bought a few fairy cakes and a couple of bottles of wine to appease anyone they might meet on the road?

Mischance or mischief? Had it been luck that this inn had been a couple of miles down the road? Or had the horse lost the shoe precisely as intended so that he would be forced to spend the night here?

He sensed no magic around this place, and he could sense magic as keenly as a harrier could catch a rabbit’s scent. But just because he couldn’t sense it didn’t mean magic wasn’t the cause. Ill-wishing wasn’t an immediate spell; it exploited a weakness, turning it into misfortune, great or small.

Had his coachman’s eyes looked too bright, too eager when the man had suggested traveling tonight? Fairy cakes and wine. Did the fool actually believe that would keep a man safe from the Fae?

That had been the thrust of it. The coachman was hoping to meet a creature he’d only heard of in stories, was hoping for a slightly dangerous encounter with one of the Fae.

Damn fool. The Fae weren’t as dangerous as they sounded in the stories—at least, not anymore—but they couldn’t be dismissed either. They had magic, and magic equaled power to control the world, even if it was only one small piece that responded to a particular kind of magic. Oh, they all had the magic of persuasion, the ability to cloud a weaker mind to make a person do their bidding, and they had the glamour that could hide their true faces and make them look human. Beyond that, their magic was tied to a particular skill or thing in the world. That could make them dangerous, depending on what their magic could command. Still, they were only visitors who rode down their shining roads from the Otherland to amuse themselves in the human world—or seduce foolish young women or lure equally foolish young men to their doom. They were like the Small Folk in that they avoided the strongholds of civilization—the cities, the larger towns and villages. The places where men ruled. And they were like the Small Folk in that, once the land was tamed and scoured clean of its magic, they went away. In Wolfram, there were still new stories of meeting one of the Small Folk in the deepest part of a forest, but it had been many years since anyone had seen one of the Fae.