The House Of Gaian

sending it out again to hold back some of the rain.
    As they broke apart, Fiona stepped forward to join them.
    Breanna felt the power in the dance, felt the way Fiona’s presence kept grounding that power in the branch of earth, spreading it through the land.
    Acknowledging, celebrating, taming. Isn’t that what Fiona said she and Jenny had done once before?
    When the last cloud passed over them, she stopped the dance. All three women were soaked to the skin and shivering from exhaustion.
    As she pushed her wet hair away from her face, she noticed Liam and Donovan standing side by side, their expressions watchful... and a little wary. Standing near them were Clay, Rory, and Falco, their expressions equally watchful, equally wary.
    We are what we are , Breanna thought wearily as she walked back to the house.
    When they reached the men, Donovan slipped an arm around Gwenn’s waist to lead her the rest of the way to the house. Rory and Clay took Fiona’s arms to support her.
    Liam put his arm around her shoulders, and said tightly, “You’re going to get dry and go to bed before you get some kind of lung fever.”
    “It’s summer,” she muttered. “It’s warm.” But now that the dance was done, her muscles wouldn’t stop shaking.
    Nuala stood in the kitchen doorway, a shawl around her shoulders. She stepped back as Donovan led Gwenn inside and pointed to the large kitchen table. “The kettle’s boiled. Let her sit there for a minute and have something hot to drink.” She raised her hand, cutting off Donovan’s protest before he could say the first word.
    Liam, Clay, and Rory didn’t argue. They pulled out chairs for Breanna and Fiona, then stood back while Nuala took a seat and Glynis set hot mugs of tea in front of the women.
    Breanna felt a pang of regret when she saw the way Falco hurried through the kitchen without saying anything to her. She felt puzzled confusion when he returned with three blankets. He gave one to Donovan, another to Clay, and wrapped the third one around her, his hands resting on her shoulders for a moment in a way that was as comforting as Liam’s arm had been.
    “Now,” Nuala said quietly. “What was the message?”
    Breanna looked at Gwenn, who nodded to indicate Breanna should go first. “Something definitely changed. Something that, I think, preceded the storm. Something that will change things for all of us—
    witches, humans, the Small Folk.”
    “The Fae, too?” Falco asked quietly.
    Breanna thought about the feel of the wind and nodded. “Yes, the Fae, too. But I can’t tell you more than that.”
    “I can,” Gwenn said. She shivered. “I told you I’d studied in the Mother’s Hills a few years ago and met some of the other witches who were being trained by the Crones. I think ... I think this was Selena. It’s hard to tell. There’s been so many who have touched that storm, but at the core of it, I think it was Selena. Her power had a different feel to it because”—She hesitated, then looked at Falco—“Because Selena is a very powerful witch, but she’s also Fae.”
    Breanna felt Falco’s hand come down on her shoulder, but she didn’t think it was meant as comfort to her as much as for the support he needed at that moment.
    “What does that have to do with the storm?” he asked in a strained voice.
    Gwenn kept looking at him, and there was something close to pity in her eyes. “I think someone was foolish enough to provoke Selena into striking back—and the storm was her answer.”

 

     
     

Chapter 12

 

     
     

     
    waxing moon
     
    Adolfo stared out the window, watching the storm continue east into Wolfram. Not much of a storm now
    —and still too much. Far too much.
    He shuddered.
    “Master?”
    Adolfo turned away from the window. Ubel had been reporting on the number and position of the men marching toward the western border under the family crests of Wolfram’s barons, the fleet of warships standing ready in the harbor, the messages sent by the Arktos barons to confirm their readiness to wage righteous war against the Sylvalan barons who couldn’t see with a clear eye what honorable, decent men needed to do to cleanse their land.
    He’d heard nothing from the moment he’d opened the window to let some rain-cleaned air into the stuffy room. One of the things that had helped him become the Master Inquisitor, the Witch’s Hammer, was his ability to scent magic. It was how he detected witches—the real witches—and it