Shadows and Light (7 page)

Wanting to turn the conversation to something else, Morag said, “You planted a lot of beans. You must like them.”

Ari wrinkled her nose. “I like peas better, but Neall likes beans. I want to be sure enough plants grow so that he can eat all the beans he wants fresh and still give me enough to can so that he’ll have some over the turning of the seasons.”

Glancing at Ashk, Morag was surprised to see pleasure and pain in equal measure on the other woman’s face.

“Are you feeling well?” Ashk asked quietly. “Neall mentioned that you’ve nodded off a few times almost before you’ve finished eating the evening meal. You shouldn’t be that tired after sleeping during the day.”

“I —”Ari looked around, as if checking to make sure it was still just the three of them. “I don’t really sleep during the day.”

“Oh?”

“When Neall and I went to Breton last month, I traded some of the weavings I’d done over the winter for fabric to make clothes for the babe, and something for me to wear while the babe’s still growing in me. And I got a fine piece of linen to make Neall a shirt for the Summer Solstice. I hid the linen among the rest of the fabric because he would have dug in his heels about me getting something for him that cost so dear.” Ari hesitated, took a deep breath, then let it out
slowly. “All those years when Neall lived with Baron Felston, he never had anything new, anything fine. All his clothes were Royce’s cast-offs. But this is Neall’s home; this is his mother’s land. He’s gentry here, and a Lord in his own right. So I want him to have something new and fine. And I want it to be a surprise, so I can work on it only when I’m supposed to be resting because that’s the only time when Neall takes care of chores that aren’t close to the cottage and I can be sure he won’t walk in before I can hide the shirt.”

What’s going on in your head and heart, Ashk?
Morag wondered as that mixture of pain and pleasure filled Ashk’s face again before the woman looked away.

“Fair warning,” Ashk murmured. “The young Lord approaches.”

Ari started weeding vigorously.

Morag rose to her feet, feeling oddly protective but uncertain why that was so.

Neall strode toward the kitchen garden. He frowned when he reached the wall and saw Ari.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” he said.

Ari looked over her shoulder. “I rested. Now I’m teaching Morag how to weed the garden.”

“I already told her how to do that.”

“And now I’m
showing
her how to do it.”

Before Neall could say anything more, Ashk said briskly, “Come, young Lord. While Morag has her lesson, it’s time for yours.”

Morag watched Ashk and Neall walk toward the woods. Neall looked human, but his father had been half Fae and his mother had been a witch, a Daughter of the House of Gaian. Ever since their arrival here last summer, after he and Ari had fled from Ridgeley and the Inquisitors who had come there to destroy Ari because she was a witch, Ashk had been teaching him how to nurture the power that had lain dormant within him, how to be a Lord of the Woods.

That much Morag had learned from Neall in the handful of days since they had welcomed her as friend and family and invited her to stay with them. But there were things she sensed weren’t being said when she spent time with the Fae who lived in this Old Place. More often than not, when she asked a question, the answer was, “That is for Ashk to answer.” And Ashk, who could be quite forthright about many things, turned away far more questions than she answered.

Who are you, Ashk? I’ve never seen a Lord or Lady of the Woods rule over a Clan the way you rule this one. Who are you that you can command this kind of obedience? That’s the real question no one will answer. Not even you
.

“The weeds are down here,” Ari said.

“What do you do with the weeds after you’ve pulled them from the soil?” Morag asked, putting aside the questions that had no answers.

“They go in the compost piles at the end of the garden,” Ari replied. “The heat of the sun, the rain, and the wind all help turn them into a rich food for the earth.”

Earth, air, water, and fire. The four branches of the Great Mother. The four branches of power that were the heritage of witches.

Life and death. Shadows and light. Witches understood those things, too.

Morag sank to her knees beside Ari. “All right. Show me what to weed.”

Ashk wandered the forest trails with Neall, her thoughts and feelings too scattered to remain focused on the intended lesson. Neall wasn’t paying much attention either. There were times in the woods when one could drift peacefully with one’s thoughts turned elsewhere. And there were times when a moment’s inattention could be fatal. A snapped twig, a subtly different scent in the wind were enough warning for her, but Neall was still
learning to use the gifts that had come from his father and couldn’t afford to be careless.

Although
, Ashk thought,
when the teacher’s mind wanders, it’s hard to fault the student for the same thing
.

“Since it’s only your body that trails along with me, should we end the day’s lesson?” Ashk asked mildly.

“What?” Neall looked puzzled; then he smiled an apology. “Sorry. My mind was elsewhere.”

“When you’re in the woods, young Lord, keep your mind with you.”

“Yes, Lady.” He hesitated. “There’s nothing wrong, is there? With Ari or the babe?”

“Why would you think there was?”

“You all seemed so serious when I approached the kitchen garden, so I wondered if Ari had mentioned something to you and Morag that she wouldn’t have told me.”

There were plenty of things Ari had said, none of which she wanted to discuss with the young man standing nearby.

“Ashk —”

“If you must know, we were comparing the cocks of the lovers we’ve known.” She spoke without thinking, answering him the same way she answered Padrick whenever he prodded her about something that she didn’t want to talk about. Padrick always laughed and held up his hands in surrender, knowing she’d talk to him when she was ready — or wouldn’t talk if whatever was on her mind wasn’t hers to tell.

She wasn’t prepared for the stricken look Neall gave her before he turned away.

Fool
, she thought.
You not only stepped off the trail, but you also landed in a tangle of thorns
.

“So,” Neall said quietly. “How do I compare?”

Ashk stared at him.
“Neall
. I was teasing.”

The uncertainty in his eyes revealed things he’d kept well hidden until now.

“Ari chose you, Neall.”

“There wasn’t much choice,” he replied. “Not after the Inquisitors showed up in Ridgeley.”

“She made her choice before they came,” Ashk replied sharply. “That’s what you told me. Was it a lie?”

Neall shook his head. “But I can’t help wonder if … I wonder if I disappoint her as a lover, if she feels with me as much as she felt with _” His voice trailed off. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“If she feels as much with you as she felt with the Lightbringer,” Ashk finished. Her emotions soared, as ferocious as they were protective. “Ari chose you, not Lucian.
You
. He’s not the one who’s been warming her bed all these months. It’s not his child she carries. Has she ever given any indication that what you share in bed doesn’t please her as much as it pleases you?”

“Of course not,” Neall replied hotly. “She’d never say anything even if —”

“If what?” Ashk said, just as hotly. “If you think she doesn’t enjoy your lovemaking, you should pay more attention. The two of you —”She broke off, trying to hold back feelings that had been building inside her for months. “You’re more like your father than you know.”

“What do you mean?” Neall asked.

Ashk laughed softly, a pained sound. “Kief used to worry over whether or not he was good enough for Nora, whether or not he pleased her as a lover. Your grandmother didn’t approve of him, you know, because he wasn’t a witch’s son or even pure Fae. But he loved Nora, and she loved him in that quiet, deep way she had. She planted beans that first summer. Lots of beans. Because they were his favorite. He didn’t understand it was a declaration of love, didn’t understand that passion doesn’t always burn hot and bright on the surface, not when it’s deeply rooted in the heart.”

“I remember them,” Neall protested. “I remember their laughter, how they looked at each other. I was a child when
they died, and maybe I didn’t understand what those looks meant, except that I always felt warm and safe, but I would have known if they were unhappy with each other. I would have felt it.”

Ashk leaned against the nearest tree. “You can’t see how you and Ari look at each other. For me, it’s like seeing Nora and Kief again. The way you work together, laugh together, squabble about chores. The way you both look on some mornings, it’s obvious you spent a long night in bed and didn’t spend much of that time sleeping.” She sighed, closed her eyes. “There are times when I’ve come here and seen this dark-haired woman hanging out the wash. I almost call out Nora’s name before she turns and I know it’s Ari.” She opened her eyes and fixed her gaze on Neall. “It’s easy for passion to blaze for a short time when you don’t have to consider all the small day-today things that make up the rest of a person’s life. It flares hot and burns out quick, unless it’s nourished. When it came down to a choice, Lucian couldn’t offer enough to give her a reason to stay. Consider that the next time you doubt, young Lord of the Woods. A Daughter of the House of Gaian chose you over the Lightbringer, the Lord of the Sun.”

Neall picked up a small dead branch and idly broke it into pieces. “I don’t remember my grandmother. When did she die?”

“She hasn’t yet.” Ashk saw his eyes widen. “She lives on Ronat Isle with her Lord of the Sea, her selky man.”

“But —”

“Cordell’s gift is water, but it’s the wildness of the sea that calls to her, not the quieter songs of rivers and streams. This Old Place is too far away from the sea for someone like her. By the time I came to live here, she had left for good, leaving Nora and the land in her own mother’s care.”

Neall snapped to attention. “Came to live here? This wasn’t your Clan?”

No matter how she turned, she was still caught in those emotional thorns. “No. But I needed _a different place _so my grandfather brought me here where I would still have kin. That’s why —”She bit her lip.

“Why what?” Neall asked quietly.

“I didn’t know.” The words burst out of her. “I was nineteen when Nora and Kief died. My path wasn’t something I could change, so I couldn’t keep you here with me.”

“Ashk.” Neall reached out to touch her arm in comfort.

She stepped away from him. “I thought it would be for you the way it had been for me. People who were kin who would become family. I thought they would take care of you.”

“They did take care of me.”

Tears stung her eyes. “No, they didn’t. ‘Poor relation.’ I know what that means among the gentry in the human world. They had no right to say that to you. They had no right.”

Neall sighed. “Ari cares about me. I think she’s colored things blacker than they were.”

“And I think you try to heap flowers over a pile of shit to cut down the stink. It doesn’t make it any less a pile of shit.”

He said nothing for a long moment. “You told me I had to leave in order to learn the ways of my father’s people. And I did. And now I’ve come home. If I’d never gone to live with Baron Felston, I never would have known Ari. Shadows and light. Isn’t that what you keep showing me during these walks through the woods? She’s my light, Ashk.”

“If I hadn’t left my family and gone wandering, I wouldn’t have ended up here in the western part of Sylvalan,” Kief had said. “I wouldn’t have ended up with Nora.”

“Come on,” Neall said quietly when she didn’t respond. “I’ll walk you back to the Clan house.”

A subtle change in the woods instantly commanded her attention. The power was old and waning, but it still called to her.

“No,” Ashk said. “I have other business. You go home.” He studied her a moment, then bowed and turned to leave.

“Neall.” She hesitated, then decided she could tell him this much. “Ari planted beans this year. Lots of beans. Because they’re your favorite.”

She watched him absorb the message. Even after he left, she remained where she was, sensing his presence in the woods. When she was certain that he wouldn’t come back, she turned and followed the trails that led to the oldest part of the woods.

She walked for several minutes, listening to the chirping of birds and the chattering of squirrels. Finally, she saw the stag, standing so still beside the girth of an old oak tree. If he’d been a true deer, his antlers would have been young and velvet-covered in this season instead of a full, mature rack. But he was one of the Fae in his other form.

“Kernos,” she whispered. It had been many years since he’d been the Green Lord, since he’d been
the
Lord of the Woods. That didn’t matter. Not to her, anyway.

She approached him slowly, bowed when she stood before him. “You honor me with your presence, Grandfather.”

He didn’t move. Just watched her with those dark eyes.

“There are shadows gathering in other parts of Sylvalan,” she said quietly. “If they aren’t stopped, they’ll creep into our part of the land, too.”

He turned and walked up the trail, his left hind leg dragging a little, just as it did in his human form ever since the brain seizure three years ago. He’d regained most of his strength, but his left leg still dragged a little and his speech was a bit slurred.

Obeying the silent command, Ashk followed him.

The Clan where he lived was a day’s journey from here. He shouldn’t be traveling so far alone. Not anymore. Not that there was anything that would dare touch him while he was in her home woods.

He had been there for her. Always. He had taught her to be a Lady of the Woods, and he’d trained her to be so much more.

He was the one who had knelt beside her the first time she’d made the transformation to her other form. He was the one who had petted her, soothed her, encouraged her while the rest of her family recoiled from what she’d become. A rare form. Dangerous. Nothing was safe from her in her other form.