The House Of Gaian

would take them to the foothills. By midday tomorrow, she would reach her destination.
    Written on water. Whispered on the wind. How long had the Crones been sending the messages? Should she take the time to call up a wind and send back an answer? No. Best to get there as quickly as she could.
    Written on water. Whispered on the wind. But not in Tir Alainn. Barren air. Barren water. Barren earth in another generation if the Fae didn’t come to understand the reality of their land hidden above the world.
    She shouldn’t have gone back to the Fair Land after she went down to the Old Place and guested with Ella’s family overnight. She shouldn’t have listened to Gwynith’s argument that they could travel north faster by using the bridges between the Clan territories—and also that it would be wise to let other Clans meet the new Huntress. Had Gwynith known staying in Tir Alainn would isolate her, would keep her from the information she could draw from the Mother’s four branches?
    She looked at the woman anxiously waiting beside her. No, Gwynith hadn’t known, and her arguments for continuing to travel through Tir Alainn had been sound. Hopefully the Crones would see it the same way.
    “Huntress?” There was a hint of wariness in Gwynith’s voice. “If we’re not going north, where are we going?”
    Selena pointed. “There.” She looked back and saw the tension in the escorts’ faces. She looked at Gwynith and noticed how pale the other woman had become.
    “We’re— We’re going into the Mother’s Hills?” Gwynith asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
    “That’s where I have to go,” Selena replied. “It’s not something you have to do.” She didn’t understand the Fae’s reaction to the Mother’s Hills, but she’d quickly realized where she came from had frightened the Clans who had been her reluctant hosts as much as what she could do. “It’s just land,” she added soothingly. Which wasn’t quite true. Not after so many generations of witches had lived there, loved there, danced there, taken their last breaths there.
    “It’s the House of Gaian,” Gwynith said.
    “Yes, it is. Why does that bother you? You live with witches in your own Old Place.”
    “Not so many. And—” Gwynith faltered. “What if they object to Fae being in their land?”
    “Do no harm, and you’ll come to no harm.” Selena gathered Mistrunner’s reins. His ears pricked. “I have to go, Gwynith. When the Grandmothers send a message, a Granddaughter does not ignore it.”
    Gwynith’s eyes widened. “But you’re the Lady of the Moon now. You’re the Queen of the Witches.”
    Selena laughed and felt her own tension drain away. “That might impress them long enough to cool a cup of tea. After that, I’m just a Granddaughter again.” She smiled at Gwynith. “You don’t have to come.
    You can go north, or you can go home if that’s what you’d rather do.”
    Gwynith studied the Mother’s Hills, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We’ll go with you.”
    Selena wondered, and not for the first time, if Gwynith was being so helpful to help her or to be able to send reports to the Hunter about the new Lady of the Moon. Right now, it didn’t matter. “Then let’s ride.
    ”

 

     
     

Chapter 17

 

     
     

     
    waxing moon
     
    Liam leaned back in his chair and looked at the other five barons, who were once more gathered around his dining room table. He found it a strange twist of events that the Inquisitors’ attempt to kill him after the barons’ council earlier that summer had resulted in this delegation of midland barons arriving at Willowsbrook to find out why he, and Padrick, had left Durham so hastily. Because of that, the fate of Sylvalan would be decided here. “That’s it, then.”
    “That’s it,” Donovan agreed, while the other barons nodded. “The midland barons will gather men from their counties and march north and south to block the roads to the midlands, using the Mother’s Hills as a natural barrier. The barons nearest the western bay will send men there to keep the Inquisitors’ army from coming in by sea. We’ll assume Baron Padrick will lead the western barons in defending the west coastline.” He raked a hand through his hair. “And if he truly does have the Fae as allies, he’s got a stronger fighting force than the rest of us put together. If you’ll write a letter to him, telling him our intentions, I’ll send a courier to Breton