Bloodstone (74 page)

“So soon?”

“It’s nearly midday.”

She hadn’t realized so much time had passed. Much as she wanted to linger, she was wary of testing Fellgair’s patience.

The tree-folk moved closer. She patted a barky arm, stroked a drooping catkin. When they turned their backs, she feared she had offended them. Then she realized they were forming a protective circle that excluded the Trickster.

She peered between Rowan and the oak-man. Fellgair still wore a pleasant smile, but his brush swished back and forth with more vigor than usual.

“Griane?”

Of course, she would go with him. He held Darak’s life in his hands. But it puzzled her that he would ask so politely when he had the power to force the tree-folk to stand aside. Perhaps the Summerlands hindered his ability to make mischief. She doubted this place would encourage visits from the Unmaker’s son.

“Griane.”

“I’m coming.”

She hugged Rowan hard, repeating all the useless things people say when they don’t want to say good-bye. Even if they couldn’t understand the words—Fellgair refused to translate—she hoped they would understand the sincerity of her voice and her gestures.

Rowan touched her cheek. Griane took the delicate hand and kissed the nine fingers one by one. Then she slipped out of the circle to take her place beside Fellgair. The last thing she saw before the clearing melted away was Rowan pressing her fingertips to her lips.

Fellgair was true to his promise. He showed her many wonders, both within the Summerlands and without. He allowed her to peep through portals at snow-clad mountains that extended from horizon to horizon, their peaks so high they were obscured by windswept clouds. She looked into deep canyons of rock striped all the colors of sunset, across endless hills of golden sand that rippled like waves. She hovered over sprawling cities of stone and tiny villages of snow and ice. She saw women dressed in cloth so sheer it revealed every curve of their bodies, and others bundled in so many furs that only their dark eyes were visible.

And then he gave her still greater joy by leading her through the Summerlands and teaching her about its plants. He pointed out ones she recognized like sundew and red-shank, without ever realizing they could be used to dye wool. He gently uprooted unfamiliar ones and offered them to her with an explanation of their healing properties. She repeated his instructions out loud to imprint them on her memory and darted from plant to plant, demanding information that he always provided with an indulgent smile.

When her hands overflowed with her bounty, he conjured another handkerchief, much larger than the first, so she could carry her precious sprigs. When she grew weary of walking, he whisked her back to the waterfall so she could drink and be restored. And when she clasped his white-ruffed cheeks between her palms and kissed him soundly on the lips, he pressed one hand to his heart, groaned ecstatically, and collapsed on the grass at her feet.

“Oh, Fellgair, I never expected . . . it was more than I ever . . .” She dropped to her knees beside him. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He raised himself on his elbow, squinting against the brilliance of the afternoon sun. “There is something else I would show you. But I’m not certain it will please you.”

Her smile faded. “Darak. Is he ill? Or hurt? Or—”

“It’s not Darak I planned to show you, but Faelia. But if you wish to see him—”

“What’s happened to Faelia?”

“Nothing. Yet. Stop spluttering. She’s fine. But something might happen today that will . . . change things.”

“What? What will happen?”

With one claw, he sliced open the air in front of her. She caught a glimpse of brown and green before he grasped both edges of the sky and peeled it back, revealing a dense forest that hung suspended between the summit of the waterfall and the pool. A thin mist obscured the vista, yet bright shafts of sunlight slanted through the trees.

“The mist is my doing. It allows us to watch without being seen, to speak without being heard.”

“But where . . . ?” The words trailed off. At first, she thought it was one of the Watchers, but the trees were far smaller than those of the First Forest. Then she saw a flash of red among the greens and browns.

Faelia took three steps forward and froze. Griane stifled a cry at the sight of the bow. Was it Keirith’s old one or had she crafted it herself? And why, why had she flouted the tribe’s law to hunt with it?

Her daughter’s face was intent, her eyes fixed on something Griane could not see. As she watched, Faelia took three more steps and froze again, as motionless as the trees around her. In one fluid movement, she brought the bow up, drew the bowstring back to her cheek, and released. In a blur of motion, she drew another arrow from her quiver, nocked it and released again.

Her triumphant shout broke the stillness. She raced out of sight, but with a quick gesture, Fellgair shifted the scene to follow her. Faelia knelt beside a small doe, fingers stroking the long neck, lips moving in a prayer too soft for Griane to hear. The doe’s flanks heaved once, twice, and fell still.

Why had Fellgair shown her this? So she could put a stop to Faelia’s hunting before anyone else found out?

Something moved in the shadows behind Faelia. Griane tensed, but Fellgair’s hand came down on her shoulder. “Wait.”

A large paw rested against the trunk of a birch. The tree’s branches drooped, yellow catkins reaching out to return the caress. The leaves of the neighboring trees fluttered as if they, too, sought the creature’s touch. Faelia’s head came up and her hand moved to the quiver. She scanned the trees but apparently saw nothing for she turned back to the doe.

A dark form emerged into a shaft of sunlight. Griane gasped as she beheld the wide-spreading antlers, the green leaves cascading over a chest as massive and furry as a bear’s.

Hernan. The Forest-Lord. Protector of wild things and lord of the hunt. Darak claimed the god had led him back to the grove, but he’d been out of his mind with fever and she had never really believed it. The delicate feathers on his legs trembled with every step, a shivering display of blue and brown, tawny and gold. Darak had said nothing about those or the large, webbed feet that moved silently through the thick mulch of dead leaves. But he had described the feel of Hernan’s warm paw cupping the back of his neck. Those paws looked strong enough to break Faelia’s neck like a twig, but the Forest-Lord seemed content to observe her.

“Why can’t she see him?”

“Because he doesn’t wish her to. She’s too young for such a vision.”

She had warned Darak about encouraging Faelia. How would they ever turn her from this path now?

A giant paw rose and Griane’s breath caught, but the Forest-Lord simply laid it atop Faelia’s head. She moaned, a woman’s sound of pleasure. Then her eyes went wide. She scrambled to her feet and whirled around, but the god had already blended into the shadows. A hot blush stained her throat and cheeks. She muttered something under her breath and drew her dagger to butcher the doe.

Fellgair pulled the portal closed and held up a hand to forestall her furious questions. “He would not have harmed her. But he has offered his blessing.”

“I don’t want his blessing. I want him to leave my daughter alone.”

“It’s too late for that. Faelia is a hunter like her father. To try and turn her from this path would be as cruel as . . .”

“As what? What?”

“As attempting to turn Darak from his,” Fellgair concluded, his voice gentle.

“But I didn’t . . . Darak chose to become a Memory-Keeper. Even you encouraged him.”

“I sent a dream to Old Sim. Who offered Darak a choice. Which Darak accepted. It’s taken him nearly half his life to understand that he made the wrong choice. No man who abandons his life-path can be truly happy.”

Vehement denials rose to her lips and died. She had seen Darak bring down a doe in the First Forest with one shot to the heart, remembered the fierce joy on his face, the exuberance of his embrace. When, in all his years as Memory-Keeper, had she ever seen such exultation?

“Has he been so . . . so miserable all these years?”

“You know he hasn’t.”

It helped to hear Fellgair confirm that. Darak loved her. And the children. He’d been happy with them—and unhappy with himself. A part of her had always recognized the truth, but she had thrust it away, fearing that if he went back to the forest, she would lose him.

“They will need more than your love when they return, Griane. They will need your acceptance.”

She nodded, her heart pounding. Not “if” they returned but “when.” They were both coming back to her.

“There’s more.”

“Is it . . . bad?”

For a long moment, Fellgair hesitated. Then he sliced open the sky once again. This time, she saw two men standing on a beach. Although their backs were turned to her, she recognized Darak at once. A soft whimper escaped her as he turned toward the other man. He looked exhausted. His clothes hung on him. But he was alive, thank the Maker. Alive and unharmed.

The other man continued staring out to sea, his shoulders slumped. Compared to Darak, he looked positively frail. Although he wore the tunic and breeches of a raider, his hair was very short, little more than a cap of dark fuzz.

Darak was speaking with some urgency, and she longed to hear what he was saying. But it was the hunger on his face that shocked her, a naked longing that he masked immediately when the other man glanced up at him.

“Who is he?” she whispered.

His sparse hair had made her conclude the man was Darak’s age, but he was young and smooth-cheeked. He kept shaking his head until Darak seized his shoulders. Then his eyes squeezed shut and an expression of despair came over his face. Darak pulled him close. Slowly, the younger man’s arms came up and he rested his cheek against Darak’s chest.

They were still standing there, locked in each other’s arms, when Fellgair pulled the portal shut.

“Tell me who that was.”

“That was Keirith.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I know my own son.”

And then Fellgair told her what had happened.

At some point, she must have sat down, for the grass was much closer. And Fellgair must have stopped speaking, for there was only birdsong and the ceaseless splash of the waterfall. The sun was low in the sky. She could still feel its heat on her face, but she was shivering.

The sun still shone. The birds still chirped. The waterfall splashed. The Summerlands took no heed of her son’s murder. It neither grieved for the loss of his body nor rejoiced at his spirit’s survival. Nor did it condemn her for the choice she had made, the choice that had led Keirith to the altar she had seen so many times in her nightmares.

“Is he alive?” she had asked the Trickster. And he had told her the truth. But he lived in the body of the man who had murdered him. He saw with his eyes, moved with his body—transformed like Tinnean into something new.

If she had chosen differently, would it be Darak returning to her in the body of a stranger? Or would they both be dead? She would never know. But every day, for the rest of her life, she would look into her son’s eyes—dark now instead of blue—and wonder.

Dry-eyed, she stared up at the one who had offered her the choice, but even a god couldn’t give her the answers.

Fellgair knelt before her, his hands cupped. “Drink, Griane.”

The cold water burned her throat. Fellgair gently stroked her face with the back of his hand. The fur was soft against her cheek.

In time, she would feel again, instead of merely noting sensations. In time, the numbness would give way to pain and grief and anger. Dully, she wondered why Fellgair had allowed her to see Keirith. It was hardly the best way to seduce a partner, unless he wished her to be numbed to compliancy.