"Please, Aiden."There was an eloquent plea in Lucian's gray eyes that Aiden couldn't refuse. Despite their clashes over the past year, they were still kin on their fathers' side. "All right. After the evening meal. Things should be settled down by then." Or as settled as they are going to be, he added silently as he turned toward Ashk and the others. He noted Lyrra's apprehension as she glanced from Morag to Lucian.
Mother's mercy. Morag, with her unpredictable moods of late, wasn't
someone he wanted near Lucian any longer than necessary.
"Hunter," Aiden said quickly, "may I present Lucian, the Lightbringer.
Lucian, this is Ashk."
Lucian made a slight bow, keeping his eyes on Ashk. "Well met, Hunter.
I've heard a great deal about you lately. After so many years of silence, you've made your presence felt in Tir Alainn."
"As you have made your presence felt, Lightbringer," Ashk replied. "Your denial of what's happening in Sylvalan has cost so many people suffering and sorrow, if not outright death. Because you are the Lord of the Sun, more witches have died since last summer, more Clans have been lost. That's what your presence has done for the Fae and the other peoples of Sylvalan."
Lucian stared at her. "You're blaming me for what the Black Coats have done?"
"I'm blaming you for not protecting, not defending, not doing anything while the Inquisitors have continued their slaughter of witches and their
mutilation of other women's bodies and spirits."I'm blaming you for being so blindly selfish that even when you understood the cost, you chose to ignore that the Fae have a duty to the world. We've always had a duty to the world. Now, instead of fighting against a few barons and Inquisitors, we have armies marching toward us, intent on snuffing out all magic in the world. And that means the Fae as well as the witches and Small Folk. So, yes, Lightbringer, I do blame you for what the Black Coats have done. Without your willful insistence that the Fae didn't have to do anything to protect Sylvalan, the Inquisitors couldn't have destroyed so much, couldn't have killed so many."
Lucian paled. "How dare you!"
"Look at the bodies of those who have died, and you won't have to ask how
I dare," Ashk said. "Look at the women whose lives have been crushed by the Inquisitors' words and a physician's knife, and you won't have to ask.
Look at the Old Places that are gone-and the Clans that are gone with them."
"So your solution is to threaten your own kind."
"The world was not made to supply the Fae with amusements and treats. It's
time they were reminded of that. It's time they remembered the world is made of shadows as well as light."
Lucian and Ashk stared at each other. Aiden held his breath. Lucian had
challenged the new Huntress-and lost that confrontation. He couldn't be
foolish enough to push Ashk into a challenge, could he?
Finally, Lucian said, "I hope you're right, Hunter. I hope forcing the Fae into this conflict truly is the right thing to do. If it's not, the only thing the surviving Fae will remember about you is that you destroyed us." He turned and walked back into the Clan house.
Aiden let out a gusty sigh of relief. One evening. One uncomfortable evening in the same Clan house. Surely they could get through a few hours without fighting with each other.
Then he looked at Morag, saw a bleak fury in her dark eyes, and felt something wash through him that was so cold it bit down to the bone. Before he could decide if he should say something, Ashk linked arms with the Gatherer and walked toward the Clan house.
Someone touched his arm.
"Aiden?" Lyrra said, her eyes filled with concern.
He put his arms around her, needing her warmth. Would Ashk be angry with
him for meeting privately with Lucian? Would Morag?
But this wasn't about the Lightbringer and the Bard. This was a meeting
between two men who were kin. Surely they would understand that-and appreciate the difference.
Nevertheless, he would keep his meeting with Lucian as private as
possible-and hope Ashk and Morag didn't find out about it until they were all long gone from this place.
"They're bitches, both of them," Lucian said, staring fiercely at the wood
carefully arranged in the fireplace.That was true enough, Aiden thought wearily, since Ashk and Selena were shadow hounds in their other form. At another time, he might have tried to play with words to make bitch mean other than what Lucian intended. But the truth was, he was exhausted. The Clan, taking courage from the Lightbringer's presence, hadn't quite told Ashk that they wouldn't heed her command to send huntsmen down to Sylvalan to help in the fight that was coming; they'd simply insisted that they were keeping careful watch on the witches to make sure the women came to no harm. He would never know how Ashk would have responded because Morag had stood up then and said in a voice that was far too calm and too quiet that if anything happened to the witches, the Fae had better hope that the shining road closed quickly, because if there was any way for her to reach them, there would be no one left but the dead.
There was no argument Ashk could make after that, even after Morphia led her sister from the room. He didn't know what was pushing Morag to the edge of sanity, but he was certain he didn't want to be around her when she finally lost control.
And now, having pushed Lyrra out of their room with no more explanation than a request for an hour's privacy, he was sitting on the bed listening to Lucian's complaints.
"They're going to destroy the Fae, you know that, don't you?" Lucian said, still staring at the fireplace. "Maybe I am selfish, but I've never terrified my people into obedience. That's what they're doing, Aiden. One threatens our home, the other threatens an essential part of our nature. They're ruthless, cruel bitches who used tricks to gain the power they have, and now the rest of us will have to pay for it."
"You didn't help matters by doing nothing this past year," Aiden said
quietly. "You not only gave the Clans the excuses they wanted to justify doing nothing to protect Sylvalan, you continued to encourage those excuses, even though you knew who the witches were. You were the one who insisted the Daughters of the House of Gaian were no more than servants whose purpose was to serve, and service, the Fae."
"It's so easy for you, isn't it?" Lucian said bitterly as he turned to face Aiden. "You're not alone, are you, Bard? You have the woman who matters to you. You can hold her, talk to her, feel the pleasure of her under you at night. You don't have the anger of grief and the guilt of failure haunting your nights. Well, I do." He turned back to the fireplace, his voice now filled with sorrow. "I do. When Morag offered me that damned bargain, I almost took it, almost offered my life in exchange. But I had a duty to the Fae." He laughed grimly. "Look what my duty has brought me."
Aiden stood up, a sick feeling rolling through him. "What are you talking
about?"
"Ari." Lucian put his hands on the mantel, letting his arms take his weight as he sagged in defeat. "I'm talking about Ari."
Aiden took a step forward, unsure what to do. Lyrra held his heart, and if something happened to her because of something he hadn't done, the grief would crush him. He knew that. But... "I know you cared for Ari," he said carefully, "but I never suspected it was more than you've felt for any other lover."
"Why should you have suspected anything?" Lucian's voice broke. "She sent me away. Did you know that? I was no longer welcome at her cottage because she had decided to marry that... human. So I wasn't close enough when the Black Coats came. I wasn't fast enough to save her."
Aiden raked a hand through his hair. Something wasn't right. Couldn't be right. "If you cared for her, why have you fought against helping other witches?"
"Because I couldn't stand knowing that Ari died because I had failed. And there you were with your eloquent pleas and demands to protect the witches, constantly reminding me of the woman I had lost, shoving it down my throat until I was sure I would choke on it. So I dismissed their importance, denied what they are. I couldn't seem to do anything else."
"I... I didn't know, Lucian. I didn't know." Would a man deny so much to diminish grief? Yes. Oh, yes. And looking at it that way changed Lucian's actions into something Aiden understood. But he was too tired and couldn't quite get his brain to think past his heart even though he sensed something
was off-key about the conversation. Still, he said hesitantly, "She would
have left Brightwood anyway. She couldn't have a decent life there."
"She would have had us instead of those paltry humans," Lucian said fiercely, regrets giving way to anger as he faced Aiden again. "We would have dealt with the villagers, and they wouldn't have dared slight her."
"You didn't do that while you were her lover. She wouldn't have any reason
to think you'd do it when you were no longer lovers.""We would have been lovers. The Fae would have been her companions. She would have wanted for nothing."
Except love, Aiden thought bleakly. Except respect and loyalty. But was that true? Had he misunderstood the depth of Lucian's feelings for Ari? "You wouldn't have been faithful to her, Lucian. You know that."
"Faithful." Lucian spat out the word. "That's a human word. I cared for her. But if what I offered wasn't enough to convince her to stay, I would have let her go with that fool. Despite the problems it would have caused for my Clan, despite my own feelings, despite everything, I would have let her go." His voice broke. He put his hands over his face.
Aiden couldn't stand seeing a man who had once been a friend and was still
kin break under a year's guilt and grief.
"Lucian ..." He stepped forward, rested a hand on Lucian's arm. "Do you mean that? You really would have let her go?"
Lucian lowered his hands away from his face, and said wearily, "If it had been Lyrra, wouldn't you rather know she was living somewhere without you than to have died under the Black Coats' hands?"
"She survived." Aiden tried to stop the words, tried to think it through, but he couldn't think anymore, could only feel. "She got away from the Black Coats."
He watched all emotion drain from Lucian's face.
"Morag lied to me?" Lucian said in a queer voice.
"No," Aiden said quickly. "No. She told you Ari was gone, and that was
true."