The Pillars of the World

Chapter Six

Ari hurriedly filled the small pack with cheese, apples, and two of the fairy cakes she had made to celebrate the Summer Moon. She strapped two canteens of water into their places on the pack, then looked around. A blanket would be nice, but she didn’t want to be too burdened down. Her cloak would have to do for bedding. With the moon shining tonight, there was no need for a lantern, even if she would have dared use anything that might help someone locate her.

She wiped her hand on her trousers as she stared at the small package lying on the table and fought the revulsion that had been growing throughout the day. Then she gritted her teeth and stuffed the fancy into her left trouser pocket. Her folding knife went into the right pocket.

Grabbing her dark cloak, Ari took one last look around. She’d let the fire in the main hearth go out and had banked the one in the stove. The windows were all shuttered and locked. She’d put every warding spell she knew on the cottage to keep it safe. She’d even extended one of the wardings to protect the cow shed and her garden.

Nothing left to do.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she slipped out of the cottage and paused to listen.

Silence. Not even the usual night sounds.

Would the Huntress be out tonight with her pack of great hounds, riding over the land while her moon banished the hiding places the hunted usually found in the night shadows?

Fool, Ari thought as she closed the door and locked it. The Huntress wasn’t the only one who would be roaming the land tonight. And in truth, if she had to choose between Royce and the Wild Hunt, she’d rather take her chances with the hounds. At least with them it would end quickly.

She pressed her hand against the door in farewell and headed toward the sea.

A quick walk turned into a run until the stitch in her side forced her to stop. By then the cottage was out of sight.

Royce wouldn’t look for her on this beach. Surely not. Even if he remembered it existed.

She’d thought this out very carefully. Had thought of little else in the past two days. If the Gwynn women had any gift for magic, it was centered in their ability to brew love potions, so she couldn’t dismiss Granny Gwynn’s warning about the magic turning back on a person if it wasn’t properly released. Which meant she couldn’t just hide in the cottage. If Royce came to the door, she’d have to offer him the fancy—and herself, since she was sure he would accept it. But if she saw no one tonight, she wouldn’t be refusing the spell in the fancy, and since the offer had to be made on this particular night, the magic should fade harmlessly.

She hoped.

Another half a mile and she’d reach the rough path that led to the beach and the shallow cave in the cliff wall. Her mother had loved to come here, alone, on summer nights. Tonight it would provide shelter from the wind and, even more important, hide her from anyone who might look down from the cliff.

Clouds drifted across the moon, cutting the light, at the same moment Ari sensed that she was no longer alone.

Her heart raced as she spun around, straining to see down the road. Great Mother, had Royce been to the cottage already? Had he guessed her intention? Was he riding after her?

The road remained empty, but something came closer. She could feel it, even though she heard nothing.

The clouds drifted past.

The moon returned, bright enough to cast a shadow.

Ari forgot to breathe when she saw the black horse racing over the land. This was grace married to strength, an animal so beautiful it made Royce’s finest hunter look like a plow horse.

It wasn’t running away from anything, she decided as she watched it turn toward the old sea road that followed the coast. Just running for the sheer joy of it, as a celebration of life.

She stood there until it was out of sight.

Where had it come from? she wondered as she continued toward the sea. Old Ahern’s farm? He did raise magnificent horses, but even he didn’t have anything in his stables that could compare with this one. Unless this was one of his “special” horses that she hadn’t seen before.

Or perhaps it had slipped away from Tir Alainn itself. She could imagine the Huntress mounted on such a fine animal.

Remembering that she could well be the hunted one spurred her forward until she reached the cliffs that overlooked the sea. Even knowing what to look for, it took her several minutes to find the break in the cliff. She clattered down the rough path as quickly as she could, slipping a couple of times in her haste, until she reached the empty beach.

Over the years, her mother had gathered small boulders and pieces of driftwood that she’d used to build two low walls, using the cliff itself to form the third side of an open-air room. A few times, as a special treat, Meredith had invited Ari to stay with her overnight, but, for the most part, this had been her mother’s private place.

She had never been on this beach without her mother, hadn’t been here at all since Meredith’s death. Because of that, she could almost pretend that Meredith had simply gone for a walk along the beach and would be back soon. Then, as her hand brushed against the pocket that held the fancy, even that much pretense faded, giving loneliness a keener edge and reminding her that she was here to hide, not enjoy a summer evening by the sea.

After making sure the shallow cave wasn’t occupied by anything else, Ari tucked her pack inside. There was a small stack of dried wood at the back of the cave. If she’d dared, she could have made a fire.

No matter. The low wall would block a fair amount of wind, and the night was fairly warm for early summer. Tucked in the cave with her cloak, she would be comfortable enough.

Ari closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, letting the rhythm of the sea and the roll of quiet waves settle her pounding heart.

No one had seen her come here. No one would find her here.

She opened her eyes and saw the black horse galloping along the water’s edge.

It must have found another path down to the beach, she thought as she watched it. But wasn’t it odd that the horse would even try to find its way down the cliff on its own? It couldn’t drink the water, and there was nothing on the beach for it to eat. Maybe it just liked the feel of sand beneath its hooves and sea foam around its legs? She’d have to ask Ahern the next time she saw him. His “special” horses tended to act a bit differently from other animals.

She didn’t know if the horse had seen her or had caught her scent in some shift of the wind, but one moment it was galloping in the foam and the next it was charging up the beach straight at her.

Ari took a step back, ready to duck into the cave.

The horse stopped a length away from the wall and reared.

A wave of heat went through Ari’s body, leaving behind the strange sensation of a heavy lushness combined with the ability to float.

The horse laid its ears back and pawed the sand.

“I have as much right to be here as you do,” Ari said.

Rearing again, the horse trumpeted a challenge.

Obviously, it didn’t like sharing the beach. Well that was just too bad. It could just go galloping back to Ahern’s farm—or wherever it came from. Besides, it was making too much noise, which could draw someone’s attention.

Ari put her hands on her hips. “Now see here, my handsome lad,” she said sternly. “Showing off your fifth leg might make your four-legged ladies roll their eyes and swish their tails, but it doesn’t impress me.”

A flash of panic swept through her. Why had she said that? Was this part of the fancy’s magic, to make a woman speak so brazenly?

The stallion’s forelegs hit the sand. He snorted indignantly.

Ari laughed. “There’s no need for you to nurse a bruised ego. I’m sure your ladies are most appreciative of your . . .” She waved a hand vaguely at his body.

He snorted again.

Ari’s chest tightened. Since it already bound her, she couldn’t fight the fancy’s magic. It would turn back on her if she did. So she had to find some harmless way to channel it. But, Lord and Lady, her body was becoming a stranger she couldn’t trust, and her thoughts were following unfamiliar paths. Even when she’d so foolishly believed herself in love with Royce she hadn’t felt like this.

The stallion pawed the sand.

Ari held out her hand and took a few steps toward the horse. “You are a handsome lad, aren’t you?” she said softly.

The stallion regarded her for a moment before coming forward to sniff her hand.

Ari remained still while he sniffed and lipped her palm, but when he began to lip her long, dark hair, she leaned back. “That isn’t hay.”

He snorted softly, almost sounding amused.

She’d never seen a gray-eyed horse before, Ari thought while the stallion pushed his muzzle under her cloak and snuffled her hip. In the moonlight, those eyes reminded her of her grandmother’s pewter vase that sat on the mantel.

The stallion nudged her left pocket. He stiffened, made an angry sound, then leaped away from her. He laid his ears back and pawed the sand while he stared at her.

Confused, Ari slowly reached into her left pocket. She withdrew the fancy wrapped in the brown waxed paper. Swallowing her distaste, she unwrapped it and dumped the two pieces into her hand.

“It’s just a fancy, a brown-sugar candy with some love magic added to it,” she said quietly while she studied the horse. “I’ve checked it with every bit of magic I know, and there’s nothing in it that would do harm. Except the love magic if it’s denied, but the magic’s binding on the female, not the male. It won’t hurt you.”

The stallion pricked his ears. He didn’t approach her, but at least he didn’t bolt.

It won’t hurt you.

The thought took root, making her a little dizzy. “I didn’t know what it was when Granny Gwynn dropped it into my hand. By then it was too late because, as soon as I touched it, I was bound to the magic. But Granny Gwynn did say the first male I met on the night of the full moon, not the first man. Oh, she meant the first man, but that wasn’t what she said.” That was the problem with all of Granny Gwynn’s spells. They were always phrased in a way that something could go wrong. But that might work to her advantage tonight. If she used the fancy based on what Granny Gwynn said rather than what was meant. . . . “I don’t suppose sugar is all that good for a horse, but old Ahern gives his horses a lump of sugar as a treat now and then, and this isn’t much bigger.”

Not giving herself time to think about what might happen if she was wrong about the importance of the spell’s wording, Ari stuffed the paper back into her pocket, kept the brown-sugar phallus in her left hand and held out the full-bodied woman in her right. She licked her lips, then took a deep breath. “With this fancy, I promise my affection from the full moon to the dark. This I swear by the Lord of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon. May they never again shine upon me if I do not fulfill my promise.”

The stallion froze.

Ari waited. The air seemed to get thicker, making it hard to breathe, making it hard to think clearly. There was something about the horse. Something that wasn’t quite right, but . . . He had beautiful gray eyes. And he was so big, so strong. Would he let her pet him, let her feel the ripple of muscles under that warm skin?

She felt strange. Why did she feel so strange? Was the magic in the fancy doing this to her?

Coming forward warily, the horse sniffed the fancy for several long seconds before he took it.

Ari popped the other piece into her mouth and tried not to gag.

It was just a piece of candy, no matter how it was shaped. But it reminded her of Royce’s anger when she’d refused to take him into her mouth as a prelude to the coupling. It reminded her of the way he’d laughed at her when he was done and the cruel things he’d called her before he walked away.

The candy melting on her tongue made her queasy so she chewed a couple of times and swallowed.

Pressing her hand to her stomach, she gulped air and waited for the queasiness to pass.

“Well, that’s done,” Ari sighed a minute later, “and it’s a better bargain than I would have made with any of the men in Ridgeley. So, my handsome lad, if your wanderings bring you to my cottage, you’ll be welcomed. And you won’t even have to wander far since it’s the cottage closest to Ahern’s farm.” She giggled with relief. “The rooms might be bit crowded with you filling them up, and I’ve not the slightest idea how those great legs of yours would fit into my bed, which is where I’m supposed to give you my affection, but a promise is a promise. Not that that would be of much interest to you.”

The stallion snorted delicately.

Ari stroked his cheek. “But that’s only one kind of affection, isn’t it?” she said softly as her hand traveled down the strong neck. She fingercombed the long mane. “There are other kinds, aren’t there? Like friendship. That’s something I could give with a willing heart.”

Oh, she liked petting him. Liked feeling his warmth under her hand. Liked the way that black mane brushed against her skin.

“I feel strange,” she whispered.

He made a sound that might have been agreement or understanding.

She pressed her hands against his cheeks.

He lipped her chin.

For a moment, she couldn’t look away from those strange gray eyes. Then she pressed her lips against his muzzle. “There. A kiss to seal the bargain.” Suddenly feeling shy, she went to the cave and pulled out her pack. “Since we’re friends now, I’ll share my meal with you. I don’t think cheese is of any interest to you, but horses like apples, don’t they?”

The stallion nodded vigorously.

Ari eyed him a moment. “You are a horse, aren’t you?”

He turned his head as if he needed to check the body behind him. He swished his tail, then gave her such a quizzical look she couldn’t help but laugh.

“All right. So it was a foolish question. But I wouldn’t want to insult one of the Fae by offering such humble fare.”

He shook his head.

It was nothing, Ari assured herself while she cut up the apples with her folding knife. Just moondreams and too many of her grandmother’s tales about the Fae and how they could change into another shape. The horse was used to people. And Ahern’s “special” horses tended to act as if they understood what was being said, so maybe there was some inflection in her voice that the horse was responding to, some cue she wasn’t aware of that made it seem like he was really answering her. He was just a horse that, for some reason, was curious enough about her to stay.

As expected, he wasn’t interested in the cheese, but happily munched his share of the apples. Since he seemed determined to have his share of the fairy cakes as well, she gave him one, hoping it wouldn’t make him ill. There was no fresh water nearby, so she kept pouring water from a canteen into her palm until he’d had his fill.

After slaking her own thirst, she tucked her pack back into the cave, then she joined him on the beach.

He arched his neck and pranced in a circle around her.

“Don’t you think it’s time you headed home?” Ari asked.

He stopped, shook his head. One foreleg stamped the sand.

“You’re going to have to make your wishes clearer than that, lad,” Ari said primly.

He did. As soon as she turned her back on him, he came up behind her and gave her a firm nudge.

“Do you bully all your ladies like this?” Ari demanded.

He didn’t bother to answer. He just kept herding her back toward the rock wall. She tried slipping past him a couple of times, but he was bigger and faster and more experienced in herding than she was at dodging.

“All right. All right,” Ari grumbled a minute later. “I’m standing on the wall. Are you pleased now?”

The stallion shook his head. Sidling close to the wall, he presented his left side.

That invitation was plain enough.

“I’ve only ridden a horse a few times when I was a girl,” she said, hesitating. “I’m not sure I remember how.” But she wanted to ride him. Tonight. Here. Now. Oh, she wanted to.

He turned his head and looked at her.

She took off her cloak, folded it, and set in on the wall. Gripping a fistful of his mane, she eased one leg over his back, glad that she had chosen to wear the loose trousers and long tunic she usually dressed in except when going to Ridgeley.

He moved away from the wall at a quiet walk, giving her time to get used to the feel of him under her.

An odd sensation, to have her thighs spread this way, to feel the heat of his body where she was pressed against his back.

They walked along the edge of the foam. There was no sound but the sea sending gentle waves to kiss the shore.

Ari breathed deeply, draining one kind of tension from her body.

He lifted into a canter, the change so smooth she didn’t have time to tense her muscles. The wind in her face tasted of the sea. She knew they were moving far more slowly than his gallop down the beach, but she felt like she was flying. Here there were no problems, no unhappiness. There was only the sea and the wind and the sand . . . and the powerful body moving beneath hers.

He circled, headed back toward her mother’s place, then went past it, taking them farther down the beach. As he circled again, Ari glanced up at the cliff’s edge.

Her muscles involuntarily clenched, throwing off her balance. The horse immediately slowed to a walk, his ears nicking back and forth.

“That’s enough,” Ari said quietly, trying to watch the cliff without appearing too obvious. “That’s enough.”

The horse snorted softly, sounding disappointed, but he headed back to her mother’s place.

Unable to resist, Ari looked over her shoulder and studied the cliff for a moment. Had there been a man crouching on the edge of the cliff, watching her? Or had it been nothing more than stone and a trick of the moonlight? It didn’t matter. It had scared her enough to remind her of why she should have remained out of sight instead of riding on the beach.

As soon as they were close to the low stone walls, she slid off the horse’s back, not waiting for him to stop.

“Quiet,” she whispered harshly before he could voice his opinion of having indulged an erratic rider. She scurried to the cliff base, hardly daring to breathe until she was safely hidden.

The horse hesitated a moment, then followed her.

Ari petted his neck. “Thank you for the ride,” she whispered, “but you have to go now. Someone might notice you and come down here to find out why you’re wandering by yourself. I can’t take that chance. There are too many hunters out tonight.” She shivered.

His gray eyes studied her for far too long. Then he turned and trotted back down the beach in the direction he’d originally come.

She snatched up her cloak and wrapped herself in it. That didn’t stop the shivering. Sitting next to the wall, she pulled her knees up and rested her forehead against them.

Please, Lady. Please don’t let anyone find me tonight.

Ari wasn’t sure if she was making that plea to the Mother of All Things or the Lady of the Moon. To the Great Mother, she decided as she raised her head to look at the night sky, feeling a little disappointed that she couldn’t see the full moon from where she sat. The Lady of the Moon would be wearing another face tonight, and it wasn’t a gentle one.

Eventually, she stopped shivering. Leaning back against the wall, she let the sea’s endless song lull her into sleep.

And dreamt that a puzzled, gray-eyed horse had quietly returned to watch over her.

Neall leaned against a tree at one edge of the woods that bordered the meadow behind Ari’s house.

If you’d had the brains you were born with, you would have stayed in your room tonight. . . with the door bolted. Some men may joke about the Summer Moon being the Bedding Moon, but the ones who bedded a woman they wouldn’t have chosen to wed tend to call it the Ensnarer’s Moon . . . with good reason.

His heart had overruled his head. He knew Royce was coming here tonight, which was why he’d crept out of his uncle’s house and ridden to Brightwood. But when he’d slipped away, his cousin had still been at the table, guzzling ale, so there was a little time to decide what to do.

He knew perfectly well how Royce would react if he was the one Ari offered the fancy to. Royce would make his life more of a misery than it already was. But Ari was worth whatever misery might come of it. She was worth far more than that—even if she never seemed to actually see him.

So he was here to make sure he was the first man she would see. When he’d heard the whispers about the fancies Odella and some of the other girls had purchased from Granny Gwynn, he’d told himself over and over that he was just acting as a friend. A man could accept the fancy without taking advantage of the physical pleasure that was offered with it. Or, perhaps, accepting that offer just once to seal the bargain—and to assure the girl that she was desirable.

He told himself that he would refrain so that Ari would realize he wasn’t like Royce, that she mattered to him far too much for him to take advantage of love magic that gave her no choice. He needed to have her make that choice. If she didn’t, if she just tolerated him in her bed because she had to . . .

If she gave you the fancy, you’d be spending as much time in her bed as you could before the bargain ended. And if her belly swelled with your child because of it. . .

Neall closed his eyes. Even if he got her with child, she wouldn’t necessarily agree to stand with him at Midsummer and say the pledge that would make them husband and wife. And if she didn’t agree, she would be facing those months, and the birth that would come after, alone. He couldn’t do that to her. And he couldn’t stand by and not take advantage of anything that might bind her to him.

“Prey isn’t usually so obliging as to stand waiting for an arrow in the heart,” a rusty voice said quietly.

Neall stiffened but made no other movement. As he opened his eyes, he turned his head slowly in the direction of the voice.

The small man was no taller than the length of Neall’s arm, a stout little man dressed in the brown and gray clothing that would make him invisible in the woods. An arrow was loosely nocked in the bow he held.

“The Mother’s blessings be upon you,” Neall said softly. When the man didn’t respond to the greeting, Neall’s chest tightened. He’d always been courteous and careful not to give offense whenever he and one of the Small Folk crossed paths. They didn’t wield the power the Fae did, but their mischief magic could make a person’s life difficult, and if they were sufficiently riled, they could be deadly. But he knew this one, had spoken with him any number of times, so he didn’t understand the anger filling the air between them now.

“What brings you to Brightwood tonight, young Lord?” the small man asked.

Ah. So that was it. “The same thing as you,” Neall replied, giving the man a bit of a smile.

“I think not.”

Neall’s smile faded. “What I do here is none of your business.” Then he added angrily, “You’re not the only one who cares about Brightwood and the witches who live here.”

“Witch,” the small man said with a trace of bitterness. “There’s only one left now, isn’t there?”

Before Neall could reply, they heard a horse cantering down the road. Neall crouched down. His eyes flicked from the piece of the road he could see to the dark cottage.

Royce came into view, reining in hard enough to set his horse on its haunches. He studied the cottage for a long moment before dismounting and striding toward the front door.

“No lights,” the small man said, now standing beside Neall. “No smoke rising from the hearth. No reason for anyone to think she’s home.”

That was what worried him. He’d seen no flicker of a candle or lamp since he’d arrived, and he’d seen no sign of Ari. But she must know she couldn’t thwart the fancy that way. And where else could she be?

The small man said, “If she keeps the door bolted—”

“Love magic doesn’t work that way,” Neall snapped. “If she tries to defy it, it will turn against her.”

“A convenient spell, that,” the small man said with deadly softness.

They heard Royce pounding on the front door, watched him circle round the cottage and pound the kitchen door. His curses reached them clearly.

But no light flickered at any of the windows, no shutter moved to indicate someone might be peering out.

“You bitch!” Royce shouted. He threw his weight against the door again and again until the lock broke and the door swung inward. ”You’ll give me what I came for, one way or another.“

Royce tried to take a step forward, and ended up taking a step back. He tried several times, but couldn’t cross the threshold. “Bitch!” He spun around, and every line of his body shouted his intention to vent his rage on something.

Give him a different target, Neall thought, rising from the crouch and glancing at the still-dark cottage. You can survive a beating. As he started to step away from the tree, the small man gripped his wrist, holding him back.

“Can’t you feel it?” the small man whispered harshly, pulling Neall down to a crouch again.

“Feel wh—”

Magic rippled across the land. A moment after that, a howl filled the air.

“Mother’s mercy,” Neall whispered.

“Best to stay down and stay quiet, young Lord,” the small man said. “The Wild Hunt rides through Brightwood.”

Neall shivered. He saw Royce freeze, then run to the front of the cottage where he had left his horse. He had one glimpse of Royce whipping the horse into a flat-out gallop before horse and rider vanished from his line of sight.

Twisting around, he stared at his gelding, which hadn’t stirred at all.

“Sleeping dust,” the small man said softly. “He’ll sleep a bit longer. Perhaps long enough,” he added under his breath.

The pack of shadow hounds burst from the woods that bordered the back of the meadow, racing silently toward the road.

Neall’s breath caught, suspended by fear and awe. The hounds looked like phantoms shifting across the meadow rather than living creatures. As they streaked past his hiding place, he didn’t dare move. The traveling minstrels and storytellers had plenty of tales about men who had been invited to participate in the Wild Hunt—as the prey. True, all the men in those tales were scoundrels whose own misdeeds made the Hunt a deserved justice. But it was one thing to listen to those tales while sitting safely by the hearth; it was quite another to be out in the open with the hounds racing by.

It was the small man digging his fingers into Neall’s wrist that made him glance away from the hounds in time to see the Huntress and her pale mare canter into the meadow.

When she was abreast of his hiding place, she reined in the mare. She studied Ari’s cottage with its broken kitchen door for a long time. Then she turned her head and seemed to look straight at him.

The small man’s grip on his wrist grew painful. The Huntress’s stare was compelling enough to be painful in another way.

She’s ice, Neil thought. A man would be a fool to put his life in her hands.

One of the shadow hounds returned, as if wondering why its mistress no longer followed the pack.

She looked at the hound, hesitated . . . and moved on.

When she could no longer easily see him, Neall dared to turn his head toward the road. The pack was gathered there, sniffing the tracks. Some of them were staring in the direction of Ridgeley—the direction Royce had taken.

The Huntress paused there too, then crossed the road. She urged the mare into a canter and headed toward old Ahern’s farm, the hounds flowing on either side of her.

“You’d best be gone before she comes back this way,” the small man said, finally releasing Neall’s wrist.

“What makes you think she’ll be back?” Neall asked as he straightened up slowly.

“She’ll be back.”

Neall walked over to Darcy, placed a hand on the gelding’s neck. Startled awake, the animal jerked away from his hand, then turned its head toward him, as if needing the reassurance of a familiar smell and touch.

“You’d best ride, young Lord, before she begins wondering a bit too much about you,” the small man insisted.

“What’s there to wonder about?” Neall said uneasily as he untied Darcy. “And being a poor relation of Baron Felston doesn’t make me a lord.”

“Wasn’t talking about the likes of him,” the small man said, annoyed. He studied Neall, his expression grim. “You think the Small Folk talk to every lad that comes looking for us? We watch them the same way we keep watch to make sure the rats don’t harm our young. The only difference between most humans and rats is that rats are more honest. But like will recognize like, even when the blood has thinned—and yours isn’t as thin as you pretend. That’s why the Small Folk have made themselves known to you, and that’s why the Huntress will wonder about you.”

Neall stared at the small man. “You’re mistaken.”

“Am I?” the small man asked softly. “Am I really, young Lord?” He shrugged. “As you will. But the boy you were has grown to be a man, and a lie told by a boy isn’t swallowed as easily when it’s told by a man. Remember that.”

Neall didn’t see any movement, but the small man was no longer standing there.

“Let’s get home before anything else happens,” Neall muttered to Darcy.

He kept to the woods for as long as he could, skirted the tenant farms his uncle controlled, and finally reached Felston’s manor house. As he gave Darcy a hurried grooming, he noticed Royce’s horse wasn’t in its stall yet, which probably meant his cousin had stopped at the tavern in Ridgeley. He imagined the place would be crowded tonight with the younger men who wanted a roomful of witnesses in case a girl pointed a finger in their direction. It didn’t matter if the man left early or came late. They would protect each other to keep from getting caught.

Slipping out of the stables, Neall headed for the back of the house. The kitchen door was unlatched, and there was no one sleeping by the hearth. Well, even servants weren’t excluded from the delights— and dangers—this night could hold, and he could well imagine what would happen to a young servant who had the misfortune of being the first man a gentry lady saw—especially Odella, if she was still out.

Using the servants’ stairway, Neall made it up to his room and gratefully bolted the door. Quickly undressing in the dark, he got into bed, releasing a sigh of relief.

Not that any of the gentry girls would have wanted to make an offer to him. He had no more to offer any of them than the servants. At least, nothing he was ready to acknowledge yet.

He had turned twenty-one a few weeks ago. He could own property in his own name now, without “Uncle” Felston claiming control over it as his guardian. He could leave Ridgeley and finally go back to the mistily remembered place that had been his home as a small boy. His mother’s house. His mother’s land.

“Why do I have to go with them?” Neall asked. Tears filled his eyes, despite his efforts not to cry, as he watched Ashk calmly fill the trunk with his clothes and the wooden toys his father had made for him. “I don’t know them.” His young voice rose to a wail.

Ashk turned to look at him, her woodland eyes filled with dry grief. “Your father was a good man. If he had lived, he would have taught you what you need to know about the world. But he is gone, so you need to learn those things from his people, his family.”

“But I don’t know them! Why can’t I learn those things from you? Why can’t I stay with you?”

She knelt before him, brushed her fingers through his hair. “First you must learn what your father’s people can teach you. Then, when you are grown and return here, I will teach you other things about the world.”

Neall sniffed, studied the eyes of his mother’s closest friend—eyes that reminded him of his mother’s. “I can come back?”

“This house and land will be waiting for you. That much I can promise.” She hesitated. “But you mustn’t tell your father’s people about the land. It belongs to the daughters, and no one else has any say here.”

So he’d kept the secret about the land from Baron Felston for all these years. One of the many secrets he’d thought he’d kept well since he was brought to the baron’s house as a young boy grieving the loss of both parents.

Now that he was grown, and no longer legally Felston’s ward, there was only one thing that stopped him from saddling his horse and riding to the western part of Sylvalan: Ari. He wanted her to go with him, but he didn’t think she would ever leave Brightwood. And he knew, despite his daydreams of being her lover and husband, that being with her here would be no good for either of them. Even if they married, he would always be considered Baron Felston’s poor relation as long as he stayed around Ridgeley. And Felston, claiming a “family” connection, would look with already-greedy eyes on the bounty Brightwood held and expect to make use of it.

Ari was still young, barely more than a girl. Now that her mother and grandmother were gone, maybe she would be willing to leave Brightwood, and the cruelty she faced every time she went to Ridgeley, and start a new life somewhere else . . . with him.

He would give it another year . . . and spend another year working from sunup to sunset as the baron’s unofficial steward, wearing Royce’s castoff clothes while Royce, Odella, and the baron and baroness spent all the profits that could be squeezed from the estate, bitterly complaining all the while that he wasn’t trying harder to wring a little bit more out of the land already wrung dry.

He would give it another year. Then, with her or without her, he was going to go home and put his heart and his sweat into his own land.

Placing his hands under his head, Neall stared at the ceiling.

If Ashk had understood what it meant to be a poor relation in a gentry family, would she have still sent him away to live with his father’s people? Would she have considered the lessons she’d wanted him to learn worth the misery of knowing he was unwanted and unloved?

It had been made clear to him over the past fifteen years that his father had been an . . . embarrassment. . . a blot on the baron’s family tree—one the whole family had been happy to forget as soon as he was old enough to strike out on his own. He had been a child conceived during the Summer Moon, and his mother, Neall’s grandmother, had calmly refused to name one of the men in their village as the father, insisting that a Fae Lord had fathered her child. It was a common enough claim that was used if a young woman found herself with child after the Summer Moon and either didn’t want to marry the man who had sired it or found herself in the position of having the man deny any responsibility.

Sometimes it was even true.

Thinking about what the small man had said, he wondered if Ari would think of him differently if she knew the truth about him: that his paternal grandfather really had been a Fae Lord . . . and that his mother had been a witch.