Shadows and Light

Chapter Ten

Aiden’s hand hovered over the case that held his small harp. He shook his head, let his hand fall to his side. Under normal circumstances, he would have met with any bards who lived in the Clan or were there visiting. He would have listened to any new songs they had created and shared his own. But these weren’t normal circumstances, and he wasn’t in the mood to bring his harp to play idly in one of the common rooms.

Crossing to the window, he looked out at the garden that made up part of this courtyard. Beautiful. Perfect. No tangles of weeds, no blighted flowers. Nothing out of place. That was Tir Alainn. The rain was always soft, gently soaking into the ground. No storms here to turn roads into mud. No lack of food, so the belly never tightened with hunger. Beautiful rooms, beautiful clothes, sprawling Clan houses that could rival the finest estates in the human world. And all of it required so little labor from the people who lived here.

A sanctuary. A place to rest from the toil of the human world. But the Fae weren’t the ones who toiled in the human world. What had they ever done to earn the right to be here?

Sighing, Aiden left the room that had been granted him and Lyrra for their stay, although he doubted either of them wanted to stay very long. A cold welcome didn’t encourage a person to linger in a place.

No matter. There was work to do here. Witches were still dying. Pieces of Tir Alainn, and the Clans who lived there, were still being lost. But here... If the Clan ignored the warnings here, it would be Breanna and Nuala and Keely who would die.

He entered one of the common rooms in the Clan house. Lyrra stood at the other end of the room, her lips set in a tight, grim line as she listened to several older women.

No doubt haranguing her for turning her back on the Lady of the Moon and leaving Dianna to shoulder the burden of keeping the shining road open so that her Clan’s territory in Tir Alainn remained in existence.

If they knew we weren’t just lovers but had made a vow of loyalty in the human fashion, they’d probably exile us on the spot, Aiden thought sourly. He started to scan the room—and was surprised to see a familiar face this far north. Smiling, he walked over to the brown-haired man whose attention was fixed on the group of women with Lyrra.

“Falco! Well met,” Aiden said.

“Aiden.”

There was just enough tension, just enough hesitation in Falco’s voice to stop Aiden from taking another step forward.

“What brings you here?” Falco asked, his brown eyes now scanning the room.

Aiden studied the Lord of the Hawks. There was too much anxiety in Falco’s eyes. “We’re here to rest—and catch up on any news that has been passed along through the Clans.”

“Aiden ... maybe this isn’t a good time for you—”

“So,” a male voice said loudly from another part of the room. “The Bard has decided to grace us with his presence. Where’s your harp, Aiden? Aren’t you going to subject us to another mewling song about witches?”

Recognizing the voice, and seeing the way Falco’s face paled, Aiden turned slowly to face the man who now stood in the center of the room.

“Lucian,” Aiden said politely. “Well met.”

Lucian, the Lord of the Sun, the Lord of Fire, said coldly, “We aren’t ‘well met,’ Bard. You saw to that. No, we are not ‘well met.’ I doubt we ever will be.”

“I regret the loss of your esteem, but I don’t regret the reason for it. I can’t. Not after the things I’ve seen. And, yes, Lucian,” Aiden said, his voice rising, “I will sing my mewling songs about witches, and I will say the words that need to be said, and I will keep saying those words until the Fae start listening, start heeding, start doing instead of standing back and watching witches die and then wailing because there’s a cost to not listening, not heeding, not doing. How many of them have to be tortured to death before you’ll listen?”

“We are doing what is necessary to make sure the witches don’t leave the Old Places,” Lucian said.

“What?” Aiden demanded. “Hemming them in? Taking away whatever means they might have to flee before the Black Coats kill them? If the Fae are doing what is necessary, where were they when the Inquisitors destroyed the witches in the villages south of here? Where were they, Lucian? Where were they when the Mother’s Daughters were dying in agony?”

“The witches are not the Mother’s Daughters,” Lucian said, his voice rising to meet Aiden’s. “They are witches. They’ve somehow bound their small earth magic to the Old Places, making their presence there necessary for the Fae to have what is rightfully ours.”

Aiden stared at the man who had been a friend as well as kin through their fathers. “Rightfully ours?” he asked, his voice becoming quieter as pain lanced through him. “Rightfully ours. What have we ever done to deserve Tir Alainn? The witches created the Fair Land. It’s been their power that has kept it in existence. What have we ever done to earn the right to be here?”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Lucian said fiercely. “We. Are. The. Fae.”

“Has ‘Fae’ become another word for parasite?” Aiden asked bitterly, his temper pushing aside all prudence as his mind’s eye put before him images of hovels, of broken-down cottages, of broken bodies. “We feed off the labor of others, giving nothing in return.”

“If there are any parasites, it’s the witches, who have sunk their claws into the Old Places so that we have to keep watch over them in order to protect what is ours.”

“They’re the Mother’s Daughters,” Aiden cried passionately. “They’re the House of Gaian. When are you going to accept that?”

“Never!” Lucian shouted. “And I insist that you stop spreading those lies. The House of Gaian disappeared a long time ago.”

Aiden shook his head. “They are the House of Gaian. They are the Pillars of the World, the ones who created Tir Alainn. Mother’s mercy, Lucian, we have written proof of—”

“We have nothing!”

“We have the journals written by a family of witches, which are the record of their history and the Old Place in their keeping.”

“We have the scrawlings of women who wanted to be more than what they were,” Lucian said. “Where is your proof that there’s any truth to what was written? A passing bard could have told a tale about the House of Gaian generations ago, and the woman who heard it took it for herself, claiming to be something she was not, something she never could be. One family, trying to assuage their own inadequacies by pretending to be something they’re weren’t. Have you come across any other mention of it, Bard? Have you?”

I’ve lost them, Aiden thought, knowing none of the Fae in this room had missed his moment of hesitation. “No,” he said quietly. “I have not found any other record that the witches are the House of Gaian.”

“Then, by my command, there will be no more talk of this. Not here. Not in the other Clans. Is that understood?”

The Lord of the Sun. The Lord of Fire. The male leader of the Fae.

Lucian, you’ve condemned us all. “I understand, Lightbringer,” Aiden said softly.

He couldn’t look at Lyrra. Maybe it would be better if she severed her ties with him, went back to her home Clan, or any Clan instead of traveling roads that were getting more and more dangerous.

The Lightbringer had commanded, and he would obey— up to a point. He would be exiled for what he intended to do—assuming that he could do it—but he couldn’t see any other road left open to him.

Bowing formally to Lucian, he left the common room and retreated to the room he shared with Lyrra, knowing she would follow him there in a little while. The things he needed to tell her were best said in private.

Lyrra watched Aiden leave the room, her heart aching for him.

One of the older women next to her harrumphed in satisfaction. “It’s about time the Lightbringer put the Bard in his place and put a stop to these ... tales.” Her eyes slid to look at Lyrra. “And you would do well to take another lover, a man who will bring no shame to you or your Clan.”

Lyrra gave the woman her coldest stare. “If my Clan thinks my being with the Bard shames them, then I have nothing to say to them, nor they to me.”

She walked away before she could say anything else that would cause trouble. She knew, without doubt, that her words would find their way to her Clan within a handful of days—and she knew, without doubt, that if she went back to her Clan while she was still with Aiden, they wouldn’t have anything to say to her.

She moved from one end of the long room to the other, paying no attention to what was around her until a hand firmly grasped her elbow. She tried to pull away. When she couldn’t, she turned toward the person who held her.

“This is an open-air room,” Falco said. “Another few steps and you’ll go right over the balcony. Since you can’t sprout wings, it would be a hard fall.” He smiled shyly, hesitantly. “Blessings of the day to you, Lyrra.”

A witch’s greeting. The same greeting he’d offered every morning when she’d lived at the cottage that had belonged to Ari’s family, as if to remind himself of the young witch he’d been acquainted with briefly. Or to take to himself one small custom that belonged to the Mother’s Daughters.

“Blessings of the day to you, Falco,” Lyrra replied softly. Dear Falco. A year ago, he’d been an impetuous young man, too quick to speak without thinking, so sure that the Fae, who called themselves the Mother’s Children, were superior to anything else that lived in the world. Then he went down to the Old Place with Dianna, Aiden, and her to celebrate the Summer Solstice with Ari, and, that night, saw the power a witch could command. The past year had been a hard one for everyone in the Clan whose piece of Tir Alainn was anchored to the Old Place near Ridgeley, but Falco had surprised her. He’d accepted the need for so many of the Fae to remain in the human world in order to keep the shining road open with more grace than she’d thought he had in him. And he’d been a friend to her during all the months she’d stayed at the Old Place to be the anchor the others needed to keep the magic alive.

“What brings you so far north?” she asked.

“I’m ... visiting.” He released her arm and walked the few remaining steps to the balcony.

Lyrra followed him, trying to sort out all the nuances in his voice. “Did you come with ...” Lucian’s name stuck in her throat. She wondered if it always would after today.

“No,” Falco said, staring at nothing. “It was unfortunate timing that he arrived here the day after I did. He ... wasn’t pleased.”

“You’re entitled to some time away from the home Clan to ... visit,” Lyrra said, still trying to decipher the underlying meaning to his words. For a Fae male, “visiting” meant enjoying the bed of one, or more, ladies in the Clan where he was guesting. If Falco had become restless for that kind of “visit,” there were other Clans closer to his home Clan where he could have found a lover for a few days.

“You’re not going back,” Lyrra said, suddenly understanding. “That’s why you’ve come this far north. You’re not going back to your home Clan.”

“No,” Falco said, his voice holding a deep-rooted unhap-piness. “It’s not like it was when you were there, Lyrra. Dianna left you there to do what she had promised to do, but you never took it out on the rest of us. You never—” He bit off the rest of the words.

Lyrra rested a hand on his arm. “Darling, I know Dianna can be difficult, but—”

“Difficult?” There was more than unhappiness in his eyes. There was anger, too. “She resents all of us. Her kin. Her Clan. Nothing we do is good enough. Ever. She’ll jump her pale mare over the wall enclosing the kitchen garden and trample the young plants past saving, then complain about the sparsity of the food set before her. We give her more than her share of the food grown in the human world because it does taste better than what we grow in Tir Alainn, and she takes even more than that. She has two rooms of her own while the rest of us sleep wherever we can, and it’s not enough. If she walks into a room, she gets the chair. If she walks into the kitchen, she expects to be served food, no matter the hour. And she reminds us, constantly, that her sacrifice is the reason the rest of us can still ride up the shining road and enjoy Tir Alainn.”

“Hush, Falco, hush,” Lyrra said, glancing over her shoulder to see too many of the Fae starting to pay attention to them. “Don’t call attention to yourself.” Think before you speak, she pleaded silently, knowing it was useless. He may have matured in many ways, but he was still Falco.

Surprisingly, he paused, then continued speaking quietly. “She resents me most of all.”

Lyrra frowned. “But... why? You did everything you could to help the others get settled in the human world. And I’m sure it would have been harder on all of us if you hadn’t hunted to provide some meat for the table.”

“That’s just it, don’t you see? I hunted, at Dianna’s command, to provide Ari with some meat after Dianna gave her that puppy. And I hunted for you.”

“Not just for me,” Lyrra protested.

“So I’m not doing anything ... special... to show my appreciation for Dianna’s sacrifice. And she resents that the other Fae in the Clan ask me what Ari was like. They want to know anything I can remember about her and about the night we were at the cottage to celebrate the Summer Solstice. I’m not a bard,” he added quickly, “and I’m not trying to tell a tale. Truly I’m not. But...”

“But everyone is so unhappy because Dianna is acting like a selfish fool that they’ve begun to wonder about the witches, about Ari, about how things might have been if they’d tried to know her before it was too late,” Lyrra finished for him. And that’s exactly the kind of wondering that could change the Fae’s attitude about truly helping the witches. If Lucian and Dianna are determined to have the rest of the Fae continue to believe that the witches are supposed to be some kind of servants to us, they’d be especially displeased about a shift in attitude in their home Clan.

Falco nodded. “And Lucian is furious because Dianna gave him a cold welcome when he came back to Brightwood to see her. He can go anywhere he pleases. He isn’t chained to the human world. So Dianna resents her twin for all the things he can still do, and Lucian is bitter about her reaction to him as well as losing Ari.”

A twinge of guilt pushed at Lyrra. She couldn’t give Lucian any hint that she knew what really happened to Ari. She couldn’t. But if his heart ached for the loss of someone dear to him... “Did he truly care so much for Ari?”

“Don’t waste your sympathy on Lucian,” Falco said harshly. “I’ve heard the Lightbringer rarely sleeps alone, and rarely spends more than two nights in the same bed. The only reason he still thinks about Ari at all is because he didn’t have her until he was ready to walk away—and because she’d chosen to wed a human instead of being his mistress until he tired of her. Well, she would have wed the man if the Inquisitors hadn’t gotten to her first,” he added in a sad voice.

Lyrra sighed. An hour spent talking to her own kind made her feel as weary as spending a day traveling over a hard road in the human world.

“They both resent you and Aiden,” Falco said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Because I chose to go with Aiden instead of remaining at the Old Place so that Dianna wouldn’t be inconvenienced. Yes, I know.”

“Because of that, yes. But more because you supported Morag when she refused to bring Ari back from the Summerland instead of siding with them. That’s really why both of them will deny anything you say about the witches.”

“Morag is the Gatherer,” Lyrra said angrily. “She did what she had to do.”

“I know. But they exiled her because of it, Lyrra, and if you’re not careful, they’ll do the same to Aiden and you.”

Would it make any difference? Lyrra wondered. We’re hardly welcome as it is.

“What can I do?” Falco asked.

Lyrra shook her head. “You’ve done all that you could, Falco.”

Now he shook his head. “I believe you and Aiden. I believe the witches deserve whatever help the Fae can give them. What can I do?”

“The Fae are already keeping watch over the Old Place this Clan’s territory is anchored to,” Lyrra said carefully.

Falco snorted. “They go down the shining road, find one of the Small Folk, and demand to know what the witches are doing. That’s hardly keeping watch. They never actually go close enough to see anything.”

Something in his voice. Something beneath the annoyance. Wistfulness?

Suddenly, Lyrra understood exactly what Falco was asking—and why. He wanted a way to justify getting close enough to become acquainted with the witches who lived at Willowsbrook.

“Well,” she said cautiously, “the witches who live at that Old Place aren’t very pleased with the Fae upsetting the Small Folk.” And Breanna threatened to shoot any Fae she found trespassing on her family’s land. Having met Breanna, she didn’t think it was so idle a threat as it might have been coming from someone else.

“You’ve met them?” Falco asked eagerly.

Lyrra winced. Mother’s tits. Today she was as bad as Falco usually was about speaking without thinking. But she had to say something now, and she simply couldn’t he to him. “Yes, they gave us shelter last night.”

“You stayed with them? What was it like? Did you tell them you were Fae? Would they really be upset about having another visitor if the Small Folk weren’t bothered?”

How was she supposed to answer when she could see anticipation instead of unhappiness in his eyes?

“I think if approached cautiously, and respectfully, it might be possible to become acquainted with them.”

He smiled at her. “I’ll be careful, Lyrra. I promise.”

She pictured a careful Falco—or as careful as Falco ever was—meeting Breanna. If the Lord of the Hawks expected every witch to be like Ari... Poor Falco. She couldn’t turn down what he was offering since she and Aiden had gotten so little help from the Fae, but at least she could send him down to the human world with one important piece of advice.

Placing a hand on one side of his face, she said, “Falco, if you do decide to make the acquaintance of the witches in this Old Place, don’t let Breanna talk you into taking the dog.”

Well, Lyrra thought a few minutes later as she left the common room and made her way back to the room she and Aiden shared, at least I’ve made one man I care about happier. Let’s see what I can do for the one who is dearest to me.

When she slipped into the room, she saw Aiden on the bed, one arm flung over his face to hide his eyes. He gave no indication he knew she was there until she lay on her side next to him.

“Perhaps...,” Aiden said. He swallowed hard. “Perhaps it would be better if you went back to your home Clan for a while.”

She wanted to ask him if he’d tired of her already, but the sharp tease would only bruise them both. So she said, quietly but firmly, “We’re in this together, husband.”

He moved his arm so that it rested behind his head. His blue eyes didn’t hold the passionate anger they would have at another time. Instead, she saw determination and ... fear?

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“We’ve been forbidden to do anything useful in Tir Alainn, and nothing we’ve done in the human world has made any difference.”

“You’re backing down because Lu— the Lightbringer demands it? You’re giving up?” She couldn’t believe that of him. Wouldn’t believe that. But when he turned his head and stared up at the ceiling instead of continuing to look at her, she felt a ball of sickness grow inside her.

“The Lightbringer has managed to silence the Bard,” Aiden said. “There’s no point in wasting time or words here, so I’m not going to waste either of them.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

He took a deep breath. Let it out slowly. “How did the Lord of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon become the leaders of the Fae? He doesn’t command the sun; she doesn’t command the moon. How did they become the ones to whom the rest of us yield?”

Lyrra frowned, wondering where he was going with this. “The Lord of the Sun is also the Lord of Fire, which is a powerful thing to command.”

“An elemental thing, you could say.”

“And the Lady of the Moon commands the Wild Hunt.”

“Which must have had more of a purpose at one time than simply riding over the countryside with a pack of shadow hounds.”

She sighed in frustration, still unable to follow his thinking.

“Fire is a branch of the Great Mother. If it burns long enough and hot enough, it can sweep away anything on land, which is good reason to yield to the one who wields that power. And no living creature can stand against the Wild Hunt if it’s the chosen prey.”

“Which brings us where?” Lyrra asked, frustration making her voice sharp.

“Which brings us to finding the only one among the Fae who commands enough power to defy the Lightbringer and the Huntress and walk away from the encounter intact.”

Lyrra stared at him for several seconds. An odd chill went through her, a shiver of fear that she had no rational reason to feel. “You want to find the Lord of the Woods? The Lord of the Woods?”

“The Hunter,” Aiden said quietly. “Yes.”

“But... Aiden ... no one has seen the Hunter in years. No one’s even heard anything about him in years.”

“I know.”

“Then why do you think he would help us protect the witches, even if we can find him?”

Aiden said nothing for a long moment. Then, “The day came when the old Lord of the Woods felt his power waning and knew the time had come for another to ascend to the full power of the gift and become the Green Lord and the Hunter. And so it was, at the full moon nearest Harvest’s Eve, that he went to a clearing in an old woods and waited for the young Lords to test their strength against him to see who would ascend and become the new Lord of the Woods.”

“And the young Lords came,” Lyrra said, taking up the story both of them knew so well, “but none of them were strong enough. None of them could match the waning strength of the one who commanded all of them.”

“Then another Lord stepped into the clearing, a stranger the others had never seen before. The stranger walked to the center of the clearing and faced the old Lord of the Woods, and all those who had gathered there felt the power rising— a fierce, joyful power that burned like a hot sun compared to a waning moon—and they knew this stranger was the new Lord of the Woods. The old Lord changed into the mighty stag that was his other form, and waited for the young Hunter to shape an arrow of magic, fit it to the bow, and send it into his heart, stripping him of his magic as was the custom.”

“And the stranger did shape an arrow of magic and fit it to the bow. Then the new Lord of the Woods shot the arrow into the ground in front of the old Lord’s feet, and said, ‘I will take the burden of your duties with a glad heart, but I will not take from you the power that made you what you are. For you have walked in the shadows and the light for all these long years, and your strength, your experience, your wisdom are still needed in the world. Go in peace. Merry meet, and merry part, and merry meet again.’ ”

“The stag lowered his head, then turned and walked away from the clearing. When he was gone, the other Lords of the Woods came, one by one, to kneel before the Hunter and offer their loyalty, swearing to obey the commands of the new Lord of the Woods. And so it was, that night near Harvest’s Eve, and he who came into power that night still rules the shadows and light of the woods and all things in it.”

Lyrra said nothing, feeling the echo of Aiden’s last words whispering through her.

“He changed things, Lyrra,” Aiden said. “Before that night, every time a Lord or Lady ascended to rule over all the others who had that same gift, the one whose power had waned was stripped of all of it, if not killed outright, in order to ensure that there would be no rivalry between the old and the new. By letting the old Lord walk away, the Hunter changed the waning and waxing of power from a battle between rivals to a ritual where the duties of power were passed on to the one best able to take up the task. When I ascended to become the Bard, I didn’t strip the old Bard of his gift of song. You didn’t strip the old Muse when your time came to command that power. And we would have, because it was the custom, if it hadn’t been for the story of how the Hunter came into his power.”

“Some still strip the power from the old to prevent any rivalry,” Lyrra said.

“And some always will. But many no longer do. If the Hunter could show compassion that night, he might be willing to hear what we have to say about the witches and why they need the Fae’s help.”

Hopeful. Doubtful. Lyrra wasn’t sure which was the strongest feeling pulsing through her. “Where would we even begin to look?”

“Where no one has thought to look.”

She puzzled over that for a moment. Then her eyes widened. She sat up on the bed and stared down at him, wondering if he was feverish. “The west? You want to go to the western Clans?”

“Think about it, Lyrra.” Aiden sat up to face her. “He hasn’t been seen in years. But we know he’s still the Lord of the Woods because if he wasn’t, another would have ascended to become the Hunter. No one knew who he was that night. No one knew what Clan he came from, and I don’t think he ever said where he came from, even during the time when he did travel to the other Clans so that the other Lords and Ladies of the Woods would have no doubt about who ruled them. Then he disappeared again. Where else could he be?”

“Perhaps ... in the human world, living there the same way Ahern did?”

“Even if that’s so, it still has to be in the west. All of us who ruled a gift knew where the Lord of the Horse was, even if few approached him. But no one knows how to locate the Hunter, and maybe that’s because we avoid the western Clans. If we approached one of those Clans and asked for him, I wonder how long it would really take to find him.”

What was it about the Fae from the western Clans that made the rest of them so uneasy?

“There’s another reason why the Hunter might be willing to help us,” Aiden said softly. “ ‘Merry meet, and merry part, and merry meet again.’ ”

Lyrra frowned. “I’ve always wondered about that. It’s such an odd saying, and it’s only in that story because the Hunter said it.”

“I wonder if Breanna or Nuala would find it an odd saying.”

Could the Hunter have taken those words to himself the same way she and Falco had taken Ari’s ritual greeting to themselves?

“If that is a witch’s saying ...,” Lyrra said carefully.

“Then the Hunter might already be acquainted with a witch or two.”

Lyrra didn’t bother to remind him that plenty of Fae males had been acquainted with witches—for as long as it took to bed them and breed them—but they hadn’t actually understood anything about the women they were mating with.

“When do we leave?” Lyrra asked.

“Tomorrow. Early. Even using the bridges between the Clan territories, it will still take a couple of days to reach the north end of the Mother’s Hills and then head west.”

“And what will we do today?”

“We’ll rest.” Aiden brushed a finger gently down her cheek. “Lyrra, this won’t be easy, even going through Tir Alainn as much as we can. Are you sure you—”

“Do you think the Fae in the western Clans have any stories we haven’t heard before?” Lyrra asked, deliberately cutting him off. “Maybe a song or two that even you haven’t heard?”

“It’s possible,” he said cautiously.

“And if I stay behind, you would promise to listen to any new stories as carefully as you listen to the songs and tell them to me when you got back.”

“Yes, of course I would.” He smiled at her, looking regretful and relieved.

“Ha!” She rolled off the bed so that she could stand with her hands on her hips. “You’d listen to them well enough to snip them here and nip them there so that they’d fit into a melody that suddenly came into your head, and the only thing I’d get is your version of the story instead of the story itself.”

“But—”

“Why don’t I go instead, and you stay here? I’ll listen to the songs and bring them back to you.”

His mouth slowly opened, but no sound came out. “Lyrra... You know I love you, and you have a lovely voice, but, darling, you never catch all of a song when you only hear it once. Most of the lyrics, yes, but never the tune.”

“Well, I can turn the song into a story so that I remember all of the words.”

He looked scandalized.

“You don’t approve?” she asked sweetly.

He rolled off the other side of the bed to stand and face her. “No, I don’t approve! A story and a song are not the same thing!”

“In that case, Bard, it would seem we have to go together. You to hear the songs, and I to hear the stories. And we’ll find some way to convince the Hunter to help us. Together.”

His breath came out in a huff that turned into a laugh.

“Very well, Muse. Together.” He came around the bed and held out his hand. “Shall we stroll through the gardens for a little while? I think my wife could use a little courting.”

Smiling, she slipped her hand into his. “I think my husband could use a little of the same.” A thought occurred to her, and she voiced it before she could change her mind. “What made you think of the west?”

He studied her for a moment in a way that made her sure her guess was correct.

“Morphia,” he said. “She was going to the western Clans to find Morag since there was nowhere else to look. It made me wonder if the Hunter might not be there, too.”

“Do you think Morphia has found Morag?”

“When we reach the western Clans, perhaps we’ll find out.” Aiden kissed her gently. “Let it go now. There are miles between us and any answers. For today, just let it go.”

Lyrra leaned toward him. “When we come back from our stroll through the gardens, will you play for me?”

“On the harp?”

“If you insist.”

He grinned, hesitated, then opened the door. “After our stroll, I’ll play you any tune you care to name.”

“I don’t catch all of a tune with only one hearing. You said so yourself.”

He burst out laughing, and was still laughing when he pulled her through the open door. “Come along, then. I want a bit of romancing before you have your way with me.”

And that, Lyrra decided when they reached the gardens, was one of the reasons she’d fallen in love with him. The Bard would never leave the romance out of passion—which suited the Muse perfectly.