The House Of Gaian

past her, armed with bows and knives. The two friends fell a moment later, pierced by enemy arrows. Her father ran on to where the black-coated enemies waited for him.
    She heard a woman scream. “Mother?” She turned, frantically trying to see through the smoke.
    Another field. But it wasn’t crops the Black Coats were burning. Women and wood. The stench of burning flesh. The screams of agony.
    One woman burst through the piled wood, fire eating her legs, turning them black as she tried to run.
    “Mother!”
    The woman looked at her, pointed to something behind her.
    The Mother’s Hills. She would be safe if she could reach the Mother’s Hills.
    A black-coated man swung something at the woman’s head, turning her face into a red smear.
    Still she screamed in defiance until the fire devoured her.
    “Mama! MAMA!”
    She spun around as the other child cried out. Rhyann. So small, so young, and still so fierce. She had to save Rhyann.
    She grabbed her sister’s hand, pulling Rhyann with her. “We have to run. We have to reach the Mother’s Hills.”
    “Mama! Papa!”
    “Come on, Rhyann! Run!”
    They ran and ran but couldn‘t get beyond the burning fields and the knots of men fighting, bleeding, dying.
    When Rhyann stumbled, Selena picked her up, staggering under the weight as she kept walking forward, her eyes on the hills. She had to get Rhyann to a safe place. She had to.
    Her legs burned from the effort of carrying her sister. Her arms ached. Her breath came in painful gasps. She heard a distant roll of thunder, but the sky was so smoke-darkened now she couldn’t tell if a storm was coming.
    She had to rest, had to find a safe place for them to hide for a little while.
    Then she saw them, astride their beautiful, strong horses. The Fae.
    “Help me!” she cried. “Please, help me. I have to take my sister someplace safe.”
    They stared at her out of cold, cold eyes. They smiled as a shadow fell over her.
    A man stood in front of her, blocking the road to the Mother’s Hills. A tall, large man with a lean face that was too deeply shadowed for her to see any details. Around him were dark, winged creatures with needle-sharp teeth.
    “Leave her alone,” she said, putting Rhyann down and pushing her sister behind her. “She’s just a little girl. ”
    He smiled at her.
    “Let her go. Take me instead.”
    “Oh, I will take you,” he said gently. “But I will punish you for being what you are by making you watch your sister die. ”
    “No.” She looked at the Fae. “Please, take her,” she begged them. “Please.”
    They just watched her out of cold, cold eyes. Then they turned their horses and rode off into the woods, which were suddenly so close and yet so painfully out of reach.
    Thunder rumbled again, closer now.
    “Yes,” the man said, “you will watch your sister die. My pets will tear her flesh and drink her blood.”
    “ No! “
    “And then they will devour her soul.”
    “NOOOOO!”
     
    Someone pounded on the door.
    “Huntress? Huntress!”
    Shaking, gasping with the effort to breathe, Selena pushed herself halfway to a sitting position.
    “What is it?” she said hoarsely.
    The door opened and closed. Gwynith rushed to the bed. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”
    “A dream,” Selena muttered, kicking at the tangled covers to free her legs. “Just a dream.”
    As Gwynith helped her get free of the covers, Selena wondered if it really was “just a dream.” There were Fae whose gift controlled sleep and dreams. Had one of them sent this nightmare to exhaust her, weaken her? Or had this dream come from the Sleep Sister herself as a warning? Right now, it didn’t matter. Right now, she needed earth and air and water.
    “I’m going riding,” Selena said, surprised at how unsteady her legs felt as she got up and walked to the basin and pitcher of water. “I want to see a bit of Tir Aiainn before I leave.”
    “Leave?” Gwynith said, sounding alarmed. “Where are you going?”
    Anywhere, as long as it wasn’t Tir Alainn.
    She poured water into the basin, then sent a glimmer of fire through her fingers as she put them in the cold water, which warmed quickly. After stripping off her nightgown, she pulled the basin that served as a catchall from the shelf beneath the wash table and stepped into it. It would take a real bath to completely clean the smell of sour sweat off her skin, but she didn’t want to take the time for it. The sponge bath would have to