The House Of Gaian

of Sylvalan. You could have been the one who protected the witches and the Old Places... and Tir Alainn. You would still be the Lady of the Moon, and the Fae would still love you... as they used to love you.
    Maybe she had been mistaken about a few things, but she’d done her best for the Fae. For the Fae .
    They didn’t seem to remember that. They certainly hadn’t wanted to live in the Old Places or deal with humans or do any of the things they were now scurrying to do.
    Her pale mare stumbled over something, almost fell. Mist suddenly enclosed them. Dianna slowed the animal to a trot while fear produced jagged spikes to scrape her nerves.
    She should have reached the other side of the bridge by now. At the very least, she should be seeing the glow from the arch that indicated the end of the bridge. And ... why was she riding through mist? There was no mist on the bridges.
    But there had been. Thin wisps of it that swirled around her mare’s knees. She remembered that now.
    She dug her heels into the mare’s sides, desperate to get clear of the mist.
    A few strides later, the mist thinned. A few strides after that, she was galloping over flat green land—and the Clan house was no more than a few minutes away.
    Reining in the mare, she looked back.
    Mist. Swirling, spreading, devouring.
    When the mare stumbled... She must have stumbled at the end of the bridge, where it connects to this Clan’s territory. Which means I’ve been riding through mist in Tir Alainn.
    She wheeled the mare and galloped toward the Clan house, then changed direction to intercept the stream of people hurrying toward the markers that indicated the shining road.
    As she reached the markers, she reined in and shouted, “What’s happening?”
    A woman holding a baby stared at her with terror-blank eyes. “The road is closing! We have to get away now!"
    Two boys shoved the woman, causing her to stagger against Dianna’s mare. They continued pushing and shoving through the crowd in front of the markers until they’d gotten clear and were running down the shining road.
    A moment later, a male voice shouted hoarsely, “Go back! Go back! Mother’s mercy, you can’t go down there!”
    The pain in that voice silenced the Fae crowded in front of the markers. And in that silence, Dianna thought she heard faint screams.
     
    A few moments later, a man lurched into sight, sweating and struggling to get up the last few steps of the shining road. He had an arrow in one shoulder, another arrow in his thigh. Two men near the front of the crowd dropped their bundles and rushed to help their wounded Clansman.
    Dianna’s heart pounded as the wounded Clansman was helped past the markers.
    “Stand back now!” an older female voice ordered. “ Stand back .”
    There were mutters and low curses as people trod on the toes of those behind them in an effort to obey.
    Seeing the woman who stepped into the cleared space around the wounded man, Dianna muttered a curse of her own. She’d forgotten this was Sorcha’s Clan. The woman had always disapproved of the way the Fae interacted with the human world and never hesitated to say so. And Dianna had the feeling Sorcha hadn’t really approved of her and Lucian becoming the leaders of the Fae, which is why she’d never felt comfortable around the old woman. But when Sorcha demanded obedience, she was obeyed, and that strength of will would help all of them now.
    “What’s happening down there?” Sorcha demanded.
    “They’re killing us,” the wounded man gasped. “They’re killing us. The Black Coats are down there with an army of men .”
    Gasps and murmurs ran through the crowd.
    “What about the huntsmen who were down there keeping watch on the Old Place?” Sorcha asked.
    One tear spilled down the man’s cheek before he closed his eyes. “Dead. Slaughtered. And the witches
    ... I saw what the Black Coats did to the witches. I saw.”
    A man’s voice rose from the crowd. “The Black Coats couldn’t have killed all the Fae. My sister went down the shining road with her children.”
    “Mine too!” another man’s voice said. “I sent her down as soon as we saw the warning signs that the road was going to close. She must have gotten away.”
    The wounded man shook his head. “Dead. All dead. Women, children, babes, old men. The Black Coats didn’t care. They were waiting at the end of the shining road. Just waiting for us with swords and bows. They killed all of them.”
    A woman