Shadows and Light

man’s head with my own.” But he wondered if she’
    d think all the nights he’d worked on a tune, hoping the song would impress her, amounted to the same thing. “Besides,” he added, resting a hand on her belly, “you’re taken. And I’m taken. So the only heads we have to butt are each other’s.”
    “I think some of the ladies were disappointed to see a ring on my left hand.”
    “I think some of the men were equally disappointed.”
    She smiled at him. “We’ll give them some good tunes tonight.”
    “The best we have.”
    She closed her eyes and drifted into sleep.
    Aiden settled down and tried to sleep, but the songs danced through his mind.
    They’d give their hosts the best songs they had—but not all of them would be joyful.
    “It’s an imposition, and I know it,” Skelly said. “But the lad got so excited when he’d heard it was the Bard himself who was staying in the village overnight, it would have broken his heart to refuse him.“
    Smiling, Aiden waved off the explanation. “I’ve listened to plenty of apprentice minstrels. I can listen to another.”
    “Well, that’s just it, isn’t it?” Skelly said, looking uncomfortable. “He’s not an apprentice minstrel. Just a boy who loves to play music.”
    The words pained him, but Aiden kept his smile in place. “That’s how we all begin.”
    Maybe it had been a bit of head butting, as Lyrra so curtly put it when she found out, to tell Skelly that the Fae guesting in his village were the Bard and the Muse. It had certainly delighted him to see Skelly’s mouth fall open—and to watch the man’s eyes almost pop out of his head when he thought back to the conversation on the road and realized he’d been talking about the Muse to the Muse. Maybe it had been a need to let the witches know that the Fae had something to offer and didn’t come down the shining roads just for their own amusement.
    Whatever the reason, by the time he’d finished the tankard of ale Skelly had poured for him at the evening meal, the news had run through the village, and the small gathering that would have been held in the tavern had turned into a large gathering in the village square. Benches and blankets were being carted out of people’s homes and set up to face the bench cushioned with folded blankets that he and Lyrra would use.
    The wiccanfae might not think much of the Fae in general—and he wondered how different their welcome would have been if he and Lyrra hadn’t been wearing the tokens Nuala had given them—but it became clear that they were hungry for the gifts the Bard and the Muse could offer.
    And that cut at him. He didn’t hoard his gift, didn’t keep it for just the Fae. He’d come across many a human musician who just needed the spark kindled a bit for it to catch fire and truly shine. But, until a year ago, he, like the rest of the Fae, had used the shining roads in the Old Places without thinking about the people who lived in those places—when he noticed them at all.
    “If the crowd that’s gathering doesn’t make him nervous, let him play,” Aiden said.
    “His nerves are dancing, and I’ll be surprised if he manages to get out more than a word here and there, but I’m grateful to you for giving him the chance.”
    Don’t be grateful for what we should have done for the people who are the Pillars of the World.
    Just another thing we chose to forget along the way.
    With a smile, Aiden turned away to help Lyrra set out the instruments. He settled on the bench and tuned the harp. By the time he was done, his half-healed fingers were so sore, he knew he wouldn’t be able to play.
    The next time we come by this way, I’ll play for them.
    He pondered that certainty for a moment and knew it was true. They would come back this way to share their songs and stories.
    By the time everyone had assembled, it looked like every person within shouting distance was in the village square, crowded up as close as they could get in order to hear.
    In order to keep the bargain Skelly had made, some of the musicians made their way to the front of the crowd, stood a little to one side of Aiden and Lyrra, and began to play.
    The first tune was a familiar one. Aiden had heard variations of it in the Clan houses as well as in human taverns. The singer was nervous, and her voice tended to fade more often than not. But the applause from the crowd gave her and her companions more confidence, and her voice was steady for the next