The House of Gaian

Chapter 23

Since Keely was assigning garden chores to a handful of children and didn't need her help, Breanna walked between the rows of crops until she reached the wooden water bucket resting on the kitchen garden's stone wall. The water, after sitting in the sun all morning, was too warm to drink. She didn't have to take a sip to know that. She could feel the heat in it.

Resting her hand against the bucket, she quietly drew the heat of fire out of the water, through the wood, and, finally, into the stones. When she was done, she picked up the dipper resting in the bucket and drank. Cool. Delicious. She drank another dipperful, refilled it, then handed it to Keely when the other woman joined her.

"The Mother has been bountiful," Keely said, sipping the water while studying the garden with a sharp eye.

These moments were the only ones when Keely sounded like the adult woman she was, the only moments when the emotional scars that had frozen her forever in a mental childhood receded. The only moments Breanna glimpsed the woman her mother might have been if the old baron, Liam's father, hadn't raped Keely when she was still a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Those moments hurt, but Breanna held on to them fiercely, determined to remember them when Keely acted more like her little sister than her mother.

"The harvest will be good," Breanna agreed. But would there be enough? Oh, there would be plenty for the table during the harvest season. The plants were producing more than they'd ever done, and already there were vegetables to be picked for cooking. But would there be enough to feed all of them and still preserve what would be needed to see them through the winter? There had to be enough.

But for how many? If the fighting came to Willowsbrook and other families lost kitchen gardens or farmers lost entire crops, would there be enough to share so that everyone got through the winter?

Everyone who survived. The thought made Breanna shiver, so she pushed it aside. Not so easy to push aside the feeling that had been growing throughout the morning.

There was a storm coming. Something dark and violent.

She looked to the west, studying the blue summer sky and the puffy clouds that leisurely floated through it. She looked to the east and saw the same.

But something had shivered on the wind that morning, waking her suddenly out of a sound sleep when the air from her open window brushed against her skin. She'd realized then how foolish it had been not to fasten the shutters and make do with the air through the slats. There were still some nighthunters out in the woods, somewhere. They hadn't seen any recently, but there had been signs of them. Dead trees. Half-eaten animals. The Fae who had taken on the task of riding the boundaries of the Old Place rode in pairs—and rode cautiously.

She still wasn't sure she liked the Fae being around so much, still wasn't sure she liked the Fae—with a few exceptions.

Remembering Fiona's offer to find another place to sleep if she wanted her bedroom to herself so that she could have some private time with Falco made her face hot. She refused to think about that. She was hot enough as it was, and thinking about his kisses and the way his hands caressed her through her clothes whenever they found a few minutes to be alone wasn't going to make her feel cooler.

It would have been easier if they could have taken a moonlit ride, found a clearing that pleased them, and explored in private the intimacy of becoming lovers. But it wasn't safe to go into the woods after dark. Not with nighthunters around.

Maybe she should take Fiona up on that offer after all.

"I don't like Jean," Keely said suddenly, sounding like a girl again. "She's sneaky."

Breanna sighed. Jean had become a thorn in all their sides. "What's she done now?"

"She knows children aren't supposed to be in the pantry."

"She's not a child, Keely."

Keely ignored that. "She knows we're supposed to ask if we want something to eat." She dropped the dipper back into the bucket, then curled her arms around her body as if giving herself a comforting hug. "When Brooke and I saw her and told her she wasn't supposed to be there, she—" Keely bit her lip.

"She what?" Breanna's stomach tightened.

"She said she'd make us sorry if we told anyone she'd been in the pantry. She said it was her own business and none of ours. But she's sneaky, and she's mean, and I don't like her. Why can't she stay with Liam? He's got a big house."

That's precisely what Jean would like to do. Stay in Liam's house. Be waited on by Liam's servants. Have Liam in her bed until he felt obliged to do the honorable thing and offer her marriage so that she'd always live in a big house with servants to wait on her. There was no point telling Jean that gentry men didn't feel obliged to wed a woman they'd bedded, especially if the woman wasn't from a gentry family. There was no point telling Jean that Liam was more touchy about making a child out of wedlock than any man she knew, so he'd think hard about being a lover to any woman he wouldn't be willing to marry, and trying to force him with some kind of love charm would kindle hatred rather than love. And there was no point telling Jean that, while the Fae Lords looked at Fiona with cautious interest, she'd seen something ugly slip into their eyes whenever Jean appeared.

When she'd pointed out to Falco that the Fae's habit of using persuasion magic to seduce a human woman wasn't really any different than Jean making her love charms, he'd surprised her by not defending the Fae or insisting there was a difference. Instead, he'd pointed out the Clan was too nervous about giving offense to any of the Mother's Daughters to be able to shrug off getting caught by a love charm's magic. And he'd added brutally that no man would want to endure Jean any longer than it took to have her.

"She can't stay with Liam," Breanna said. "Besides, he's letting Lord Varden's men use his home as a resting place since we've no room for them here." And having Jean among those men would be begging for trouble—especially when Liam and Falco were cautiously introducing some of the Fae Lords to the human gentry in Willowsbrook so that both sides would recognize the other as an ally. And Varden and Donovan, with Gwenn's help, were working out a way to send messages from one side of the Mother's Hills to the other by using the bridges in Tir Alainn to shorten the time required to travel from one place to another and Gwenn's connection to kin in the Mother's Hills to give messengers a route through the hills instead of having to go around them.

Breanna sighed. She was glad to have their help and their company, but Gwenn and Donovan should have left with the other midland barons who had come to Willowsbrook. A war was coming, and their own people needed them. But Gwenn had insisted that she needed to stay, that there was something she needed to do here before she could go home. She couldn't explain it, wasn't even sure what it was—but she was certain it had something to do with Selena.

A common enemy hadn't brought human and Fae together to make a determined effort to work together. A witch, powerful enough to shake the Fae's world and threaten their way of life, had frightened them into coming down from Tir Alainn and making their presence felt in the world. Because of Selena, the world would never be the same—for humans or the Fae.

"Of course, we went and told Elinore and Mother right away," Keely said, pulling Breanna back to the conversation she didn't want to have. "That's why Jean had to help Glynis with the washing."

And that explained the new lock that Clay had put on the pantry door.

"Gran didn't mention it," Breanna murmured, trying not to feel hurt at being excluded by her grandmother from something that affected her home.

"Elinore said they should tell you, but Mother said she'd tell you later," Keely said. "She said she and Elinore could deal with the household—both households, since they have to take care of things for Liam, too—but you were shouldering the burdens of dealing with the world beyond the Old Place and didn't need the burdens of the household added to it."

"What burdens do I have?"

Keely chewed on her lower lip. "The Fae," she said thoughtfully. "Every time Liam makes a suggestion to them, they want to know if you approve of it. They're afraid of you, so they won't do anything if they think it will make you angry with them."

Breanna's mouth fell open. "Why would they be afraid of me?"

Keely gave her a look that was both childlike and wise. "You were going to shoot them."

Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, she shrugged. "Yes. Well."

"And you made that Lightbringer man go away, and he's very powerful. So they don't want you mad at them."

She wasn't sure she liked being feared. After all, she'd only done and said those things to protect her home and family. And while the information was certainly useful, she was going to have to talk to Nuala about Keely's sudden habit of listening to conversations Breanna doubted she was meant to hear.

"Is Mother sick?" Keely asked abruptly.

Tension slammed into Breanna, tightening muscles until she had to work to breathe. "Why do you think that?"

"She gets tired so much. She never used to get tired until nighttime."

The tension turned cold, shivered through muscles. She'd noticed the same thing, and Liam's reassurance that Nuala's fatigue was a reasonable reaction to the strain had dulled the worry but hadn't relieved it. Her grandmother had been her emotional anchor, had provided the practical wisdom that had taught her how to be a witch and a woman. Was Nuala ill and hiding it? Or was it simply a need for more rest to deal with the turmoil? Had Elinore noticed anything?

Gran would deny whatever she didn't want to reveal, but Elinore . . . Surely Elinore would tell her if there was anything to tell. And Gran was more likely to confide in Elinore, who was only a generation younger and a mother herself. Yes, she needed to talk with Elinore at the first opportunity. And she'd keep a sharper eye on Jean. Fiona would help her with that.

"I'm sure there's nothing wrong with Gran that a good rest won't cure," Breanna told Keely with an assurance she didn't feel.

Keely nodded. "I'd better check on my helpers." She narrowed her eyes and stared past Breanna's shoulder. "Liam's coming."

Turning, Breanna watched Liam, Donovan, Gwenn, and Varden striding toward the kitchen garden. Not wanting to waste time walking to one of the gates, she swung herself over the garden wall and hurried to meet them.

Gwenn looked pale. The three men looked grim.

"What is it?" she asked as soon as they met.

"It's begun," Donovan said. "Thanks to Varden's assistance, we're hearing about it sooner than we would have otherwise."

"What?" Breanna demanded, her heart now thumping against her chest.

Liam took her hand. "The barons of Arktos have crossed the border with an army. They've joined up with some of Sylvalan's eastern barons." His fingers tightened around hers. "They're fighting in the north."

Breanna tightened her own hold on his hand, finding comfort in his strength.

Do no harm.

The creed had shaped her life. Now it felt like a cherished luxury she had to wrap up and put away. The pang of regret was sharp enough to cut, and she hoped with all her heart that before too many seasons passed, she would be able to wrap herself in that creed again.

"Come along then," she said. "We'd better tell the others and make sure we're as prepared as we can be for whatever the Inquisitors are aiming at us."

As she released Liam's hand and walked toward the house, she suddenly realized Liam and Varden were following her, intent on listening carefully to what she was sensing, feeling, seeing in the world around her.

She watched Falco glide toward the house, land, and change into his human form.

Witches were the bridge between Fae and human. They'd always been the bridge, even if none of them had realized it. But she was the link here because her brother was a baron and the man who would soon be her lover was Fae—and because the Small Folk and the other witches in this Old Place would obey her commands.

Nuala had been right. She carried a burden that went beyond her home and the Old Place in her family's care. And now, as she reached the kitchen doorway, she felt the entire weight of that burden.