She was back in Tir Alainn. Finally, she was back in Tir Alainn after all those weeks of being chained to Brightwood in order to anchor her Clan's piece of the Fair Land, living in that miserable cottage crammed with other Fae, hearing the muttered complaints about where she rode her pale mare, what she ate, where she sat, as if she hadn't been forced to give up everything for their sake. And now there was a challenge to her position as the Lady of the Moon.
She wouldn't have been challenged if she hadn't been chained to Brightwood, if she'd still been free to travel through Tir Alainn and visit the other Clans the same way her twin, Lucian, could do.
Well, it wasn't going to happen. She would meet the challenger and show that upstart she was still the Lady of the Moon, still the Huntress. And after her rival yielded, she would spare the bitch's life in exchange for a small service. Her rival would have to return with her to Brightwood and become the anchor for the Old Place's magic. Her rival would have to live in that cottage and listen to the complaints. Her rival could spend sleepless nights looking out on land that demanded sweat and hard work. Her rival would live in the human worlds-and she would be free to return to Tir Alainn.
Dianna turned away from the window to stare blindly at the tastefully
decorated room.
No smells from a chamberpot. No stains on the bedcovers. No chipped vases or cracked mirrors.
If she lost this challenge ... if her rival was actually strong enough to ascend and steal her place as the Lady of the Moon... She would end up back in Brightwood, back in that cottage, trapped forever as the seasons changed, summer giving way to autumn and autumn yielding to unforgiving winter. Even the thought of having to spend a whole winter in the human world was more than she could bear.
Lyrra did it last year. They aren't even her Clan or kin, but she stayed in the cottage with the cold and the winds driving in storms from the sea.
That was Lyrra, whose refusal to accommodate the Lady of the Moon and remain at Brightwood had forced that duty on her.
No matter. She might even forgive the Muse someday-once her rival was
settled into that cottage at Brightwood.
So she had to win. She had to. Because after she returned from the Old Place where the challenge would occur, she had no intention of leaving Tir Alainn.
Selena felt Rhyann shift, pause, then roll over to face her.
"Can't sleep?" Rhyann asked sleepily.
"No," Selena replied. 'Too many thoughts, too many feelings."
"Mmm. You always think too much."
"Did you notice how excited Ella and Mildred were about me standing with
the Fae for this gathering?"
"You're one of their own. Why shouldn't they be pleased?"
"The way they fussed over the dress to make sure all the creases and
wrinkles were out of it, you would think I was preparing for my wedding."
"Oh," Rhyann said, yawning, "they wouldn't have fussed over you half as
much if you were just getting married. Hundreds of women get married every year. But there's only one Lady of the Moon at any time."
"Thank you for being so comforting."
"Welcome," Rhyann mumbled.
"Rhyann?"
"Erf?"
"What if I lose?" Selena made a noise that sounded terrifyingly like a laugh
changing into a whimper. "Mother's mercy, what if I win?"
"You get to be the Lady of the Moon."
"I'll be expected to give orders to people I know almost nothing about."
"That shouldn't bother you. You're always bossy."
Selena just sighed. Nothing would be gained by pointing out that Rhyann
could be equally bossy.
When she thought her sister had fallen back asleep, Selena whispered, "I'm afraid I'll change."
Rhyann stirred. Propped herself up on one elbow. "The moon waxes and
wanes. The tides ebb and flow. The seasons turn, each in their own time.
Ever changing, never changing. Of course you'll change. The dance of life spirals, remember? Even when you return to a point, you're not in the same place. The dance would have changed you, whether you'd come here or stayed home." She leaned over and kissed Selena's forehead before laying back down. "Don't worry. If you start to act too much like them, I'll still be nearby to help you remember who you are."
Selena smiled in the dark, Rhyann's sleepy reassurance giving her more comfort than anything else could have.
"Good night, little sister," she said softly, feeling love swell inside her.
"Good night, mouse breath."
Chapter 8.
new moon Aiden sat in the shade of one of the Clan's courtyards and plucked idle notes on the harp, letting his mind wander just as idly, drifting on the sound. He looked up when a boot quietly scuffed the paving stones.
"Are you working on a new song?" Taihg asked. The Clan's bard looked ready to retreat if the Bard wanted privacy-and also looked hopeful that he could sit in the courtyard and listen to a song come into being.
"No, just thinking," Aiden replied, smiling when he noticed the whistle tucked into Taihg's belt. "Why don't you sit down, and we'll see what two bards can do?"
Taihg pulled the whistle from his belt and hurried over.
For the first few minutes, harp and whistle played idle notes that twined
around each other. Then Taihg slid into a gentle tune, and Aiden let the harp follow and fill in, absorbing the whole of the tune as easily as he breathed.
When the song ended, Aiden stilled the harp strings. "You wrote that?"
"Yes," Taihg said.
"Did you write a harp accompaniment as well as the whistle melody?"
"No, I think you just did that."
They grinned at each other. Then Aiden looked away.
He'd met Taihg a few weeks ago, when he and Lyrra had stopped at this Clan house while searching for the Hunter. He had threatened to strip the bard of the gift of music when the man refused to tell him what the western Clans knew about witches- and had been stunned when Taihg said he'd prefer to lose his gift rather than his home and Clan.
If I'd been fool enough to strip him of his gift, the loss of his music would have been on my head.
He'd backed down, and Taihg had yielded enough to send him and Lyrra to Ashk, Bretonwood's Lady of the Woods, And there they had found the Hunter, who was not what they had expected ... and more terrifying than he could have imagined.
Needing a rest from troubling thoughts, he gave his attention back to the music, and said, "Let's try it again to make sure it's set in the hands and the heart."
They went through it twice more before Aiden nodded, satisfied. "Can you get the part for the harp written in with what you've got for the whistle?" "I-I haven't written anything down. It was just a little tune I-" Taihg swallowed hard as Aiden's blue eyes flashed with annoyance.
"Write it down," Aiden said. "Lyrra will need the music to learn the whistle part."
"Learn the- You actually want to play it outside of the Clan here?" You'd think I'd just asked him to jump off a cliff. Maybe I have. "Yes, I want to play it. I want it heard. I want other bards to take it up and send it on." He began plucking idle notes again. "And I do want you to go with me for part of the journey."
"Me?" Taihg's voice rose close to a squeak. "Why?"
"The Ladies of the Moon are gathering somewhere in the midlands," Aiden said quietly, "but there's something not quite ... right... about this. Dianna's power isn't waning, no one has come forward as the challenger who wants to
try to take her place as the Lady of the Moon, and this isn't the phase of the moon when these challenges take place.""There may not be a challenger, as such," Taihg said hesitantly."Meaning?""There's a saying in the west: The gift commands, and the gift chooses.
That's why the Fae in the west haven't traveled to these gatherings much.
It's really just a formality, a ritual so that the new leader can be acknowledged. If the gift chooses someone, that person will ascend no matter where he or she is."
"If that's the case," Aiden said grimly, "let's hope whoever ascends is in that Old Place tonight."
"Why?"
Aiden set his harp aside and turned on the bench to look at Taihg. "If Dianna loses, we need to know who the new Huntress is. We need to know if she's going to be like Dianna and refuse to do anything to help in the fight against the Inquisitors or if, the Great Mother willing, we might have another ally in the fight that's coming. When we leave here in the morning, we'll have a few days before Ashk has to decide if we're heading for the southern end of the Mother's Hills or going straight to Willowsbrook. I want you to travel with us until we get word about who the new Lady of the Moon is. Then you'll come back to the west and make sure all the bards and minstrels have all the information we can glean about her."
"Ashk will be getting that information, too, and she'll send word back to the
west."
"How the Hunter and the Bard interpret that information may not be the same. Ashk needs to consider it from the view of protecting Sylvalan. I'll consider it with the view of deciding whether or not the minstrels and bards will support the female leader of the Fae, whomever she might be."
Taihg stared at him. "If you ridicule the Lady of the Moon in a song, the Clans won't have anything to do with you in fear of offending her."
"Does that include the Clans in the west?"