Shadows and Light (6 page)

“I don’t give a damn about that,” he said sharply, but remembering to keep his voice low to avoid disturbing Keely. “They’re my family. I love them. I don’t want to lose them.”

Understanding softened Breanna’s face. “I know how that feels.” She sighed. “I’ll talk to Nuala. She’ll be more persuasive where Elinore’s concerned.”

“Thank you.”

Breanna hesitated, seemed to be arguing with herself. “Is that the only reason you came here?”

It seemed crude right now to admit that it was, so he said nothing.

She winced a little. “You see, I’d wondered if you’d also come to demand a stud fee.”

Liam felt his jaw start to drop. “A —
a stud fee?”

Color suddenly blazed in her cheeks. A little defiant, she lifted her chin to indicate the stallion. “Well, that one comes visiting when he pleases, doesn’t he? It wasn’t as if we’d planned on…” She huffed.

“You had a mare in season on one of those visits,” Liam concluded.

“And him acting the ardent lover, and not a fence that can keep him out when he puts his mind to getting over it.”

Liam tucked his hands in his pockets — and firmly tucked his tongue in his cheek. He hoped it took her a little longer to fumble through this explanation. He was enjoying seeing her flustered.

“It wasn’t like there was anything we could have done about it by the time Clay came running to tell us your horse was helping himself to our mare.”

Liam made little coughing noises to keep from laughing out loud. “So what did you get out of his helping himself to your mare?”

“A filly.”

“Can you afford to keep her?”

Breanna’s eyes slashed at him. “We aren’t paupers.”

“I didn’t think you were.” Especially after seeing the house and the well-kept grounds. “But that doesn’t mean you’d want an extra horse.”

She looked uncomfortable again. “There’s good bloodlines on both sides, and she is a sweet little thing. I would like to keep her.”

“Then let’s just consider the filly a peace offering,” Liam said quietly.

“Thank you.”

“Well.” He scuffed the toe of his boot in the dirt. “I’d better collect my horse and get back to my work.” He watched the dog trot up to Breanna, dragging the linen that must have blown away while Breanna had dealt with Keely’s wrath. The dog sat at her feet, looking up at her until she took the offering and gave the expected praise. “And I’d better let you get back to your own work.”

Breanna studied the dog. Then she looked at him, the light in her eyes making him want to check to make sure his purse hadn’t been stolen. “How old is your sister?”

“Ten,” he replied cautiously.

“Wouldn’t she like a dog?”

“I’m not taking him.”

“He’d be a fine companion for a young girl.” “He’d be a domestic disaster.”

She drew in a breath to say something else, then simply grinned. “He is that. But you could consider him a peace offering.”

He grinned back at her. “Your keeping him here is a much better peace offering.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Come along, then. I’ll walk you over to your horse.”

He fell into step with her, keenly aware of how easily their strides matched.

“Keely,” Breanna said quietly. “Oakdancer has to go home now.”

Keely pouted, reminding Liam of Brooke. “Arthur hasn’t come to fetch him yet.”

“He’s not going home with Arthur,” Breanna said firmly. “He’s going home with Liam.” She gave the stallion a pat as she slipped an arm around Keely’s shoulders and moved her away from the horse.

Liam mounted. “Ladies.”

“Blessings of the day to you, Liam,” Breanna said.

How much had it cost her to say those words? Liam wondered as he held Oakdancer to an easy canter all the way home. How hard had it been to grow up with a mother who had never grown beyond childhood emotionally? That had been his father’s doing, the scars Elinore said time hadn’t healed. And yet .

Breanna was his sister. She was a witch. She had power that frightened him now that he’d seen a small demonstration of it. And yet she was a woman like any other.

A sister.

A witch.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, how he felt about her. But he knew he’d find another reason, before too many days had passed, to cross that bridge again for another visit.

“You liked him.”

Standing next to Nuala as they watched Keely throw a stick for Idjit to fetch, Breanna nodded reluctantly. “Yes, I liked him. I didn’t expect to, didn’t want to.”

“He’s your brother,” Nuala said quietly.

Breanna shook her head. “He’ll never be that.”

“Never is a long time. Things can change.”

“Not that much.”

“We may need his help. He may need ours. The family is uneasy about the things that are happening in the eastern villages. Harsh words are being said about witches, and that has the elders worried, too. Some of our cousins will be coming for the Summer Solstice — and they may be staying for quite some time.”

Breanna turned to look at her grandmother — the gray that streaked the dark hair, the lines that accented a strong face. “Are you worried?”

Nuala remained silent. Then, “Yes, I’m worried. I dream of water that turns dark from the gore spilled into it. Keely has had a couple of nightmares recently about trees that weep blood. What about you, Breanna? What have your dreams carried in them?”

“Wind that turns black, becomes filled with wings and fangs. And everything it touches dies.” Remembering those dreams made her shiver.

Nuala nodded. “So, you see, I have reason to be worried. And the Small Folk have told me that the Fae have been skulking about lately.”

Breanna shrugged, but her voice had a bite to it. “The Fae come and go as they please and don’t care whose land they use to do it.” Not that she’d actually seen any of the Fair Folk. Well, perhaps once, when she was still a girl and had snuck out of the house one restless summer night to take a walk. But those riders she’d glimpsed at a distance in the moonlight could have been anyone.

“They’ve never questioned the Small Folk before, never paid any attention to anything beyond themselves,” Nuala said.

Breanna frowned. “What would they question the Small Folk about?”

“Us.” Nuala took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “It seems the Fae have developed a surly interest in us.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. The Fae don’t do anything that doesn’t serve themselves, so it has to have some benefit for them.”

“Did the cousins say anything about the Fae taking an interest in them?”

Nuala shook her head. “When there’s a wolf at the door, you don’t worry overmuch about the fox raiding the henhouse.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I. So it may be in our own best interest, as well as the interest of those who are coming to us, not to dismiss Liam as a potential ally — especially when we may have enemies gathering in Tir Alainn as well as in this world.”

M
orag, the Gatherer of Souls, sat back on her heels and stared with dismay at the profusion of little green plants before her. “It’s easy, he says.” She almost snarled as she said the words. “Just pull up anything small and green that doesn’t belong in that patch of the garden, he says. Mother’s tits, Neall, how am I supposed to know what doesn’t belong here?”

“That doesn’t belong,” a voice said. A slim stick came over the waist-high kitchen garden wall and pointed to a spike of green. “That’s grass trying to find a home for itself in well-turned earth.”

Morag looked up. Ashk, Bretonwood’s Lady of the Woods, stood on the other side of the garden wall, smiling at her.

Pushing at the strands of black hair that had escaped from the ribbon she’d used to tie it back, Morag gave Ashk a sour smile in return. “Are you certain? If I pull up the wrong thing, Ari will be upset and Neall will spend the rest of the year teasing me about it. ‘We’re having grass soup tonight because Morag weeded out the peas.’ Or the beans. Or whatever it is that’s supposed to be growing here.”

“The rest of the year?” Ashk said, her voice full of laughter. “You’re Clan now, darling Morag. You’d be lucky if he didn’t mention it for the next
ten
years.” She leaned farther over the wall and studied the little green plants. “But you may be right. Those might be the beans. Or the peas.”

“In other words, you don’t know either.”

“I can tell you what grows in the woods, but in the kitchen garden …” Ashk shrugged. “But I
am
certain that
that —”
She pointed again with her stick. “— is grass and doesn’t belong there.”

Morag leaned forward, grasped the shoot of grass firmly between thumb and forefinger — and couldn’t bring herself to pluck it from the soil, to tear its roots out of the Great Mother. Last summer, she’d been steeped in death — cruel, vicious death — while she discovered the presence of the Inquisitors and uncovered why their destruction of the witches also meant the destruction of Tir Alainn. She had gathered too many spirits and taken them up the road to the Shadowed Veil so that they could pass through to the Summerland beyond. But here, staying in this Old Place with Ari and Neall, she was almost overwhelmed by the heady feel of
life
. So much of it, all around her. She didn’t want to hear Death’s whisper, not even for a weed.

“Day and night,” Ashk said softly. “Shadows and light. Life and death. They’re all part of the turning of the days, Morag. All pieces of the world. Life can choke out life. Weeds can leave no room for other plants to grow. Some harvesting must be done.”

“Are we talking about small green plants, Ashk?” Morag asked. The understanding in Ashk’s woodland eyes was as compelling as it was disturbing.

“We’re talking about life,” Ashk replied. She looked up, her gaze focused on the woods that bordered the meadow where Ari and Neall’s cottage stood. “This is the growing season. This is the time when the Lord of the Woods is called the Green Lord, the time when life is bursting into the world. But no one forgets that when the Green Lord walks, you can see the shadow of the Hunter, which is his other name.”

Morag rested her hands on her thighs. “My sister pointed out that there are no forests in Tir Alainn. I told her
it was because life and death walk hand in hand there, that it was because forests have shadows and they’re too alive to be perfect.”

Ashk’s gaze returned to Morag. “Then you do understand. Pluck the weeds while they can still be plucked. The grass has its own place to grow. Let it grow there. But keep it out of the garden where it doesn’t belong.”

As they watched each other, a tension grew between them. Then a happy bark made Ashk turn, and the moment was broken.

“Ah,” Ashk said. “Here comes the person who can tell you what is weed and what is not.”

Getting to her feet, Morag saw Ari walking toward them while Merle ran exuberant circles around her. The big animal, half shadow hound, was still young enough to be puppyish in his behavior and had been acting even more so since being reunited with Ari.

When Ari reached one of the gates that opened into the big kitchen garden, she rested a hand on Merle’s head. “Go run and play in the meadow,” she said. “I’ll be right here with Morag and Ashk.”

Merle just looked at her and whined.

“It’s all right,” Ari said. She leaned toward him. “Go chase a bunny.”

With another happy bark, Merle turned and raced across the meadow, a black-streaked, gray shape. Only the tan forelegs gave away the fact that he wasn’t pure shadow hound.

Looking at the two women, Ari smiled ruefully. “When I closed him out of the bathing room last night, he sat at the door and howled.”

“We heard him,” Ashk said dryly. She laughed when Ari’s eyes widened.

“You may not have really heard him,” Morag grumbled, “but Neall and I certainly did.” And no command or scold could move the animal away from the bathing room door.
She had taken the puppy when she left Ahern’s farm last summer, but Merle had never forgotten Ari, the first person who had loved him without reservation.

“Give him time,” Ashk said. “He’s been with you only a few days. He doesn’t trust yet that a closed door doesn’t mean you’ll go away.”

“I know,” Ari said, opening the garden gate. “At least Neall has convinced him that he can’t sleep in the bed with us.”

Ashk smiled. “The next step will be convincing him that he can’t always spend the night in your bedroom.”

Ari blushed. Then she frowned at the empty basket at Morag’s feet. “I came out to help you weed.”

“You’re supposed to be resting,” Morag said as Ari sank to her knees, braced one hand on the ground in order to lean over, and neatly plucked the shoot of grass out of the soil.

“I rested,” Ari said, sounding a bit defensive. She tossed the grass into the basket and busily continued to weed that patch of the garden.

Life can choke out life
, Morag thought as she sank to her knees beside Ari and reached to pluck a small plant from the soil.

Ari grabbed Morag’s hand. “That’s a bean plant.” She pointed to a sprout right beside it. “That’s a weed.”

“How can you tell?” Morag muttered. “They look the same.”

“No, they don’t. Their leaves look different.”

Maybe those leaves looked different to Ari, since witches were the Daughters of the Great Mother and drew their power from Her four branches — earth, air, water, and fire — but to Morag, they were all just sprouts of green that made the ground look soft and fuzzy.

“Besides,” Ari said, “I want to do the work now, before I get so fat with the babe I can’t get up off the ground by myself.” She sighed. “Our first harvest here, and I won’t be able to do more than waddle around while others work.”

“It was quite thoughtless of Neall to have his way with you after the Winter Solstice feast and not take into account you might be waddling by the harvest season,” Ashk said dryly.

Morag looked up at Ashk. There was something sharp behind the words that were teasingly said.

Ari didn’t seem to notice. She blushed fiercely, then laughed. “All right. We enjoyed each other, and neither of us was interested in counting on our fingers that night to see when a babe might come.”