Shadows and Light

were making it impossible to speak. “When I was at Brightwood over the winter, I read the journals the women in Ari’s family had left behind. This is what they wanted. This is what they had once and wanted to have again. This is what Ari never would have gotten from Lucian. I met her only that one time, but I liked her. It seems so unfair that, because we met her, I’ve gotten my own heart’s wish and she—” She swallowed the tears. “And she got nothing more than whatever kindness Morag gives to the spirits the Gatherer takes to the Shadowed Veil.”
    Aiden rocked her for another minute. The storm of emotions that had battered her was fading now, leaving her limp and exhausted. Comforted by the movement and the feel of his arms around her, she began to drift toward sleep.
    “We all have secrets,” he said quietly. “Things we know that we don’t share for one reason or another.
    We all have the right to have thoughts that are private. But I’ve noticed that, among humans, it usually is not considered breaking a confidence when something is shared between a husband and a wife.”
    “That’s part of love,” she replied.
    He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Lyrra, sometimes words can lie even when they tell the truth.”
    “I’m aware of that,” she said, a little prickly. “After all, I am the Muse.”
    “Ari is gone.”
    She felt the tears sting her eyes again. He didn’t need to tell her the obvious. Wasn’t that what she’d been talking about a minute ago? Ari had been captured by the Inquisitors, and Morag had told Dianna and Lucian—
    She sat up slowly.
    Sometimes words can lie even when they tell the truth.
    “Ari is gone,” she said, watching Aiden’s eyes, seeing the silent message in them: there was something under the words being spoken that she needed to pay attention to. Over the past few weeks, they’d gotten very good at giving each other these silent messages as they sang and told stories and listened to what the villagers and farm folk said—and didn’t say.
    “Morag told Dianna and Lucian that Ari was gone,” she continued. Truth and lies. “And because Morag is the Gatherer, they assumed Ari was dead. But she never actually said that. She just said Ari was gone.
    ”
    “Yes,” Aiden agreed, “that’s all she ever said.”
    Lyrra thought a moment, then shook her head. “She did take two spirits up to the Shadowed Veil.”
    “Yes, she did.”
    “Then—” Lyrra paused. Ahern, the Lord of the Horse, had been killed in the confrontation with the Inquisitors when they came to Ridgeley—and Brightwood—last summer. Had there been someone else at Brightwood? Someone none of the Fae but Morag had known about? “What happened to the young man Ari was going to wed? What was his name? Neall. Yes, Neall. Morag ... said he was gone.”
    “He gave her kindness, courtesy, respect, and loyalty,” Aiden sang softly.
    Unable to sit still, Lyrra scrambled off the bed to pace the width of the small room.
    You ‘re the Muse. He’s the Bard. He expects you to be able to hear what isn’t being said. Just as Morag had expected him to understand what she hadn’t said.
    He’d gone to see Morag one last time before she left Ahern’s farm. Why would she have told him anything? Because he had grieved Ari’s death—and the loss of a Daughter of the House of Gaian.
    “He got her away from them,” Lyrra said, more to hear the words spoken than to speak to Aiden. “
    Somehow, Neall got Ari away from the Inquisitors. And then took her away from Brightwood, as well.”
    She pressed her hands against her face. “If the Lightbringer and the Huntress ever learn that the last witch from Brightwood still lives ...”
    “They would search for her until they found her, and they would bring her back to Brightwood, regardless of what Ari wants,” Aiden replied. “Dianna would bring her back so that she wouldn’t have to stay in the human world and be the anchor that keeps the shining road open and her Clan’s piece of Tir Alainn intact. And Lucian would bring her back to have Ari as his mistress because he lost her before he tired of her—and because his pride wouldn’t tolerate the truth that she’d chosen a human male over him.
    ” He paused. “But that is merely speculation. Morag said Ari is gone, and the Gatherer would know that better than the rest of us.”
    “Mother’s mercy, Aiden.” Lyrra sank down on the end of the bed. “Let’s hope they never