The Pillars Of The World

to help us!”
    Lucian stared at her. “She can’t refuse. She’s Fae. And even the Gatherer yields to the Huntress and the Lightbringer.”
    “Not according to the Gatherer,” Dianna said bitterly. “Not only did she refuse to help, she threatened me. Me .”
    “She’ll regret that,” he said softly.
    “Yes, she will.” Dianna felt something inside her slowly untwist. Not even the Gatherer would stand against both leaders of the Fae. Not even the Gatherer would dare. “What do we do about that . . . that Neall?”
    “What we should have done in the first place. Take care of the problem ourselves.” He strode toward the stables. “You get your shadow hounds. I’ll get your horse. Meet me at the stables and—” He abruptly stopped speaking and pulled Dianna behind a hedge.
    “What?” Dianna said impatiently.
    “Morag. Riding toward the Clan house.”
    “She’s the last person we want to meet right now.”
    “Agreed.” Lucian looked at her, a strange excitement shining in his eyes. “So we’ll avoid her.”
    They parted, Lucian slipping through the gardens to go the long way around to the stables, and she running to the kennels where her shadow hounds were kept.
    Yes, Dianna thought. They would take care of that Neall, and then Ari would have no excuse to leave Brightwood.

    Ari stood in the spot where the spiral dance ended— and, in ending, began another kind of dance.
    She raised her arms, breathed deep as she began to draw the strength of Brightwood into herself.
    The land beneath her feet rolled, spun, swirled, pushed at her as if it were trying to hold in something terrible that was fighting to burst free.
    Ari staggered, her arms dropping to help her keep her balance. Stunned, she just stared at the ground that looked no different but felt so strange.
    The land doesn’t want me, no longer wants to know me. Can the magic that breathes through Brightwood somehow sense that I’m going away? Is that why I can’t focus it, can’t keep it from shifting and scattering? It tingles beneath my feet the way it does when a bad storm is coming.
    But the sky is clear.
    Shivering despite the warm day, and suddenly uneasy about standing in the meadow, Ari ran to the cottage. As soon as she stepped into the kitchen and closed the door, the fear that made her run like a deer before the hounds disappeared.
    She studied the meadow. It looked no different, but something had happened there. The wounded mare had felt it, too, and she was still standing there, watchful.
    Maybe the land hadn’t rejected her. Maybe, like Neall and Ahern, it had pushed her toward the place where she was the most protected.
    Ari smiled.
    Great Mother, I leave this place to those who will come after me. May the land I go to be as generous in its bounty to those who care for it — and are in its care .
    Best to make use of the time. Neall would be here soon, and there were still some things to be done.
    She took the soup off the stove and placed it on a metal trivet on the worktable. Then she banked the fire in the stove. If Morag returned soon, the soup might still be hot enough to eat. If not, it wouldn’t be difficult to rekindle the fire.
    She looked at her biscuits and frowned. She needed some kind of sack. Remembering her small pack, she rummaged in the storage cupboard until she found it. She wrapped the biscuits in a towel, leaving two of them for Morag, wrapped the cheese she had left in another towel, and a jar of berry jam in another.
    She filled the two canteens, then slipped them back into their places on the pack.
    “Saddlebags,” she muttered, hurrying to the bedroom.
    As she walked back to the kitchen, she heard the mare scream.
    Dropping the saddlebags on the table, she flung open the top half of the kitchen door.
    The mare was lying in the meadow. She kept struggling to rise, but something was wrong with her legs and she couldn’t get to her feet. She screamed, struggled, screamed again.
    Ari opened the bottom half of the kitchen door. The air thickened in front of her—the warding spells’
    reaction when there was something nearby that shouldn’t be allowed to enter.
    Moving from one side of the doorway to the other, she tried to see if there was anything out there.

    Nothing.
    But the mare kept screaming, and . . . Was that white pus pushing out of one foreleg?
    She had to do something. She had to. She could run out to the mare and see what was wrong. She couldn’t just stand there and let the