Shadows and Light

grinned.
    The door opened, and Breanna and Lyrra walked into the room.
    “Aiden!” Lyrra cried, rushing over to him as he struggled to get to his feet. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with an intensity that made him blush, since he knew Breanna and Nuala were watching with great interest. “How do you feel?”
    He wrapped his arms lightly around her. “Better.” She, on the other hand, looked exhausted and yet peaceful. “What have you been doing?”
    “I worked in the garden.” She turned her head and gave Breanna a dark look. “And I turned the compost piles.”

    Breanna just smiled and took the other chair near the windows. “I just let you learn one of Gran’s lessons: Given time, even muck will change into something that nourishes.”
    “Did I phrase it that way?” Nuala asked mildly.
    “No, you phrased it much more nicely, but the lesson remains the same.”
    Smiling, Nuala put her needlework aside. “Sit down, you two. There are things to discuss.”
    Aiden eased himself back down on the sofa. Lyrra sat beside him, one hand on his arm as she rested lightly against his left shoulder.
    “Now, Aiden. You’ve lost your horse.”
    Grief stabbed through him. No one knew what happened to those who got lost in the mist. He couldn’t say if the horse was dead, injured, or wandering around alive until lack of food and water killed it. It was easier to believe it had died swiftly, cleanly.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “We don’t have a horse we can offer you, but I could inquire tomorrow if the baron would be willing to lend you a horse.”
    Aiden shook his head. “I thank you for the offer, but to travel as we do, I would need a Fae horse. I doubt any would be found in the baron’s stable.”
    Nuala nodded. “I thought that would be the case. So. What are your plans?”
    He felt Lyrra tense beside him. She wasn’t going to like the decision he’d made at some point while he’d slept. “We need to reach the western part of Sylvalan as soon as we can. So we’re going to go through the Mother’s Hills.”
    “Aiden!” Lyrra pulled away from him. “We can’t go through the Mother’s Hills.”
    “Why not?” Breanna asked.
    “Because ... because the Fae don’t go into those hills. We just don’t.”
    “Why?”
    “Because we’re afraid of them,” Aiden said quietly. “I can’t tell you why. It’s never spoken, but it’s understood that we do not go there. But I don’t see that we have a choice.”
    “We have a choice,” Lyrra said heatedly.
    “What choice?” Aiden snapped. ‘To add more days and delays to the journey?“
    “We don’t even know it will be worth it!”
    “We won’t know anything if we don’t try!”
    “I think I know why the Fae don’t like the Mother’s Hills,” Nuala said quietly.
    A chill went through Aiden, banking his temper.
    “It’s an Old Place,” Nuala continued. “The Old Place. From the northern tip to the southern end, the Mother’s Hills are the home of the House of Gaian. The power there ...” She shook her head. “I don’t think the Fae would want to have to acknowledge the power that lives in the Daughters and Sons of the House of Gaian. So they’ve stayed away until they’ve forgotten why. If what Lyrra told Breanna is true, that whole families of witches have forgotten who they really are, then it would be easy for those witches to come to believe they are less than what they are. And far easier to believe that a people who appear only occasionally in the human world are more powerful.”
    “We do have gifts of our own,” Lyrra muttered.
    “I didn’t say you didn’t. I only offer a reason why the Fae may have avoided the Mother’s Hills.”
    A long, thoughtful silence.
    Then Aiden said, “Can we cross through the hills?”
    “As long as you offer no harm, you’ll come to no harm.” Nuala reached into her work basket, pulled out two wooden disks strung on thin cords of leather. She handed them to Aiden and Lyrra. “Here. Wear those where they can be seen.”
    Aiden studied the disk. On one side was a rough image of a willow tree in front of some wavy lines that probably were meant to be water. The carving had been stained somehow to stand out against the lighter wood.
    “We have kin in the Mother’s Hills,” Nuala said. “That is our family symbol. Show it to anyone you meet there. They will know you guested with us ... and that you were welcome.”
    “Thank you,” Aiden said, slipping the