Shadows and Light

last night either—and didn’t regret it.
    If anyone else noticed that the Bard and the Muse remained strangely silent throughout the meal, no one mentioned it. It couldn’t be easy for either of them to be afraid of the person they had searched so hard to find.
    Then Morphia said, “Oh, my.”
    Turning on the bench to see what had caught Morphia’s attention, Morag watched Padrick and a slender man walk toward them. The stranger had short, ash-brown hair and woodland eyes, and looked so much like—
    “Ashk?” Morag said hesitantly.
    The man smiled. “Blessings of the day to you.” The timbre was a little lower, but it was still Ashk’s voice.
    “Mother’s mercy,” Aiden said. “That’s how you did it. That’s why no one ever suspected the Hunter was a woman.”
    “One can use the glamour for other things besides creating a human mask,” Ashk said.
    “Did the old Lord of the Woods suspect you were a woman?” Lyrra asked.
    Ashk’s smile turned feral, but Morag saw the slash of grief in her eyes.
    “He was the one who taught me this mask,” Ashk said. “He said when the time came for me to take his place, the western Clans would accept me as the Green Lady but the Clans beyond the west never would. He believed the Lords who held the gift of the woods would feel compelled to challenge me over and over because the Hunter had always been the Lord of the Woods. Out of respect for him and kindness to me, the Clans here have kept my secret from the rest of the Fae. Now...” She shrugged. “
    That I’m a woman isn’t important. The power that I can wield is.” She looked at Aiden, who slowly rose to his feet to face her. “Do you still want the Hunter to go with you?”
    Aiden swallowed hard. “Yes, I do.”
    “Then I’ll go, and we’ll see what can be done about cleansing the Inquisitors from Sylvalan.”
    “It won’t just be the Inquisitors you have to deal with, Ashk,” Morag said quietly. “Even if you use the glamour to look like a Lord, the Fae will resist you too, and the humans outside of the west may not be willing to accept the Fae’s presence.”
    “If the barons command it, the people will accept it,” Padrick said. “I can be of some help with that.”
    “We won’t be taking land away from the humans,” Ashk said. “We’ll simply be taking back the Old Places.”
    Last summer, I told the Master Inquisitor that the Fae were reclaiming the Old Places, but it never happened, and the slaughter of witches continued, Morag thought. If Ashk can really bring the Fae back to the world, then maybe we will be able to stop this.
    “It won’t be easy,” Morag said.
    “No,” Ashk agreed, “it won’t be easy.”
    Aiden was looking at her, his expression uneasy. She wasn’t even sure why she was resisting, except that Ashk was leaving her home and family without truly knowing how difficult the task ahead of her would be.

    “How will you explain to the Small Folk and the witches and all the humans for whom the Fae mean nothing more than a seduction or taking their amusement at another person’s expense?” Morag asked. “
    What words can you say that will keep us from fighting among ourselves instead of fighting the enemy that wants to destroy us?”
    “The words aren’t difficult.” Ashk turned and stared toward the east for a long time, as if she could see beyond the woods, beyond the rolling land, even beyond the Mother’s Hills. When she turned back, Morag was glad she had come to know the woman before meeting Ashk as the Hunter.
    “This is what we will tell the Small Folk and the humans and the witches,” Ashk said softly. “Too long have we been absent. Now we have returned.”