Chapter 22

Rhiannon stood on the beach as the mist coalesced around them. She looked down at the sand beneath her feet. The tracks she and Raphael had left only hours ago were gone now and her father, two Water Nymphs, and the Nixie called Lyla were standing next to the readied barge with their eyes closed, ankle deep in the ocean willing a dense cold fog, that filled the inlet, into existence. It was a very Marion Zimmer Bradley moment. Rhiannon tried to shake off the heavy queasy exhaustion she was experiencing. She'd woken that morning feeling sick to her stomach but she'd attributed it in part to her disrupted night and the crushing guilt she felt. It improved once she'd eaten breakfast, but as she'd dressed in the riding clothes that were, typical of most things made by the Fay, functional yet very fine, she had exclaimed, as she'd drawn the fitted vest's laces tight, “Oh! Goodness! My breasts hurt!” And had continued dressing with more care. Rowan had grinned at her before rushing off to make sure that the preparations for their journey were going according to his standards and had met her on the beach only moments ago, leading Strawberry, his big black war horse, and a pack horse loaded with supplies with him. Both horses had survived the run in at the Grove. They waited until Lugh had deemed the fog dense enough before leading the horses onto the barge. Rhiannon turned to Lugh. She smiled, which was difficult in its way.

“I wish that your mother and I hadn't been so naive. I have lived the past over in my mind at least one thousand times this last week, finding all of the things that we did wrong. I wish that we could have spared you all of this upheaval,” he said.

“I keep struggling against the past . . . Wishing that I could unmake it.” Rhiannon shook her head to clear the tears that were threatening. “There is nothing that can be done. The past will drown us if we let it. There is nothing to do now but push ahead. It's the only thing that makes sense now.”

“That is very true.” Lugh agreed, and he looked out into the fog for a moment before returning to himself. “Everything will be ready when you return. Delegates from the other strongholds are arriving. Everything is in motion now. If the Angels have hearts beating in their chests, then I know that they will hear you.”

Rhiannon put her arms around Lugh and stood in his embrace for a moment, wishing that his arms felt like Gavin's and feeling guilty for it. Lugh wasn't the father who had raised her. “I will see you,” she said to him, then turned and stepped onto the barge with the others. She watched as the beach disappeared into the fog. The entire stronghold had turned up to see them off. She raised her hand in farewell and the last thing that the onlookers saw as the fog swallowed the barge was one small fairy looking back at them with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Rowan touched her hand and she jumped, turned, and seeing that it was him melted into his chest. “What's wrong my love?” he asked with concern in his eyes, placing his hands in her hair and stroking her cheeks with his thumbs.

“Everything. Nothing. I don't know.” She looked towards Raphael who was standing at the front of the barge talking with Thaylum and Hans, who had apparently survived Lyla. The fog muffled their voices and she couldn't make out their words.

But Rowan understood her look and said quietly, “Someone like Raphael is bound to bring up some pretty conflicted feelings. It's what he is. I don't mean in terms of him being angelic, I mean his personality. The force of him. I don't blame you for feeling conflicted.”

Rhiannon breathed out as if she had been holding her breath since waking that morning. “I love you Rowan. I love you so so much. I told him that, had things been different, I would have loved him, and I meant it. But life played out so that I met you first, and I don't regret it. You're my match, and all of those confused things that I feel about Raphael are there, but as long as you know that I love you and we can always talk, it's fine.”

Rowan smiled, “So if I asked you again, 'what's wrong?' what would you say?”

“Oh, other than the impending revolution, the war, and the sad Angel outside my bedroom window,” she smiled and kissed him, “Everything is perfect. Let's enjoy this boat ride.”

Rowan laughed as they sat down together on a bench across from Cole and Nimue who were huddled close, singing low sweet love songs together.

When they reached the north shore of the inlet they set out on horseback. Thaylum, Cole, Hans, Lyla, and Nimue would accompany them as far as Thaylum's house. They would turn back, taking Thaylum's wife and children back to the stronghold with them, after which Thaylum, Cole, and Hans would ride back to the Capital with Brian before the day was out. Rowan, Rhiannon, and Raphael would continue up into the mountains accompanied by Yuka, Merlin's Shadow, an adorably ugly Urisk who looked like a cross between a chimp and a goat—and who was called David, of all things—and a Gwillion archer by the name of Aledwen. A mountain fairy, Aledwen was strange and harsh and attractive all at once. Her skin was like translucent smokey quartz, and her eyes the colour of shale. Her hair was glossy black like obsidian and was pulled back severely, revealing the shaved and tattooed sides of her head. Rowan told her that Aledwen was the best and fastest archer that he knew. They were also being accompanied by a sumptuously, decadently, seductively beautiful, golden haired Glaistig called Bonnie, but she didn't speak and she disappeared into the forest almost as soon as the barge met the shore and silently shadowed them as they progressed.

Once they left the shore and were clear of the fog, the sun shone. The leaves were all brilliant yellow now with occasional splashes of red against the dark green backdrop of the cedars, arbutus, and fir. Rhiannon could almost believe that they were simply on a pleasant ride through the woods on their way to a picnic, and that feeling was amplified when, in slightly less than an hour, they reached the little stone cottage in the woods where Thaylum lived with his wife and children when he wasn't with the army. It was a sweet little cottage built partially into the mountainside. Its slate roof was covered in moss and there were wind chimes in the surrounding trees. It made Rhiannon think of Snow-White and Rose-Red or East of the Sun West of the Moon. A little cottage at the beginning of a fairy tale. As they approached Thaylum dismounted and called out, “Feather! Peony! Quinn! I'm home!”

The two dirty but happy, healthy, children who were playing out front looked up, and at the sight of Thaylum, came running and screaming. Thaylum got down on his knees and they crashed into his arms in pure delight. He kissed their golden heads, smiling, then stood as his wife came skipping down the path with equal enthusiasm if not quite so much noise, and she and Thaylum stood, wrapped up in one another, oblivious to the world for several moments before he loosened his hold and turned to make introductions. Rhiannon could see immediately why Thaylum's wife was called White Feather. Her hair was the palest blond Rhiannon had ever seen and with the perfect white pearlescent skin and the glistening white wing like nimbus that danced behind her, she did indeed resemble a white feather. She smiled sweetly. A smile that easily reached her electric blue eyes and spread across her ruby lips. She was quite possibly the loveliest creature Rhiannon had ever set eyes on. Rowan had told her that morning that White Feather was actually her cousin on her great grandmother's side. Thaylum's family were obviously not accustomed to strangers and even White Feather was almost trying to hide behind her husband. “This,” Thaylum said prying a little girl with pale pink cheeks, strawberry blond curls and deep blue eyes, off his leg, “Is Peony. And this little dandelion,” he said, lifting a smaller boy with a puff of blond hair, “Is Quinn.”

He introduced White Feather to anyone who she didn't already know, leaving Rhiannon to the last at which point he told her, “This is Rowan's wife Rhiannon. She is the oldest acknowledged child of King Lugh and Queen Sulamith.”

Rhiannon watched White Feather's face. The ethereal Sylph's eyes had been fixed in fascination on Raphael but as Thaylum's words trickled through she changed her focus and stared, all too aware of the implications of a Human Fay queen and the changes it would bring. A long overdue revolution. Relative freedom. No more hiding in the forest out of fear that someone would think her children abominations.

White Feather came forward and gave a smooth, graceful curtsy.

“Oh, please don't. This is your home,” Rhiannon said taking White feather's hands and pulling her up.

“You're . . .” White Feather started. “Half human. Like my children . . .” There was hope and longing in her voice.

“We've come to take you and the kids back to the stronghold,” Thaylum told her.

White Feather looked stunned, off balance, as she stood blinking rapidly.

Rhiannon spoke,“The Fay kingdom is supportive of ending the taboo and uniting with the humans. I think that they have been more aware of the degree to which Human Fay relations have proliferated over the years and, what with the Fay predilection for . . .” she smiled. “I have to find a politically correct, positive way of putting this, I can't say 'breaking the rules and stirring up trouble', so shall we go for 'embracing change and moving forward'?” She raised her eyebrows questioningly. “My father has asked Thaylum to bring you home, at least until things are safer. He has made sure that any Humans who are tied to Fay partners are welcome in the strongholds. It's Fay law now.”

Rhiannon turned away, giving White Feather space. She, personally, found it difficult to receive emotionally charged news when all eyes were on her, and there was quite a crowd of them, comparatively speaking, standing now in White Feather's yard. Rhiannon walked to where Rowan stood and waited quietly for things to move on. After a few moments she heard White Feather telling Thaylum, “I'm glad you're home. Three nights ago a small band of elves made camp not far from here. I put a glamour over the cottage and kept the children in. I sat up all night in the kitchen with a bow and a large stack of arrows. I don't like feeling afraid in my own home. I am very glad that you're here.”

Peony and Quinn had overcome their shyness and discovered Raphael, who now had a child on each arm and was bringing his wings up so that they were hidden in feathery cave from which giggles issued.

“We have to leave soon love,” Thaylum said to White Feather.

“I just finished the week's baking and there is a big pot of mushroom and wild rice soup on the stove. Do you think that we have time to eat it before we leave so that it doesn't go to waste?”

Thaylum looked at Rowan questioningly.

“Fine, but we need to make it quick.”

Rhiannon went with Nimue and Cole to the kitchen to slice bread and find dishes. She noticed that the two of them barely let more than a few feet of space grow between them, and that close enough to touch, seemed to be the preference. In another two hours Cole would ride away and Nimue would be left behind. They were making the most of the time left. Rhiannon knew first hand that this was a hard time to fall in love with someone. White Feather hurriedly packed clothes and fussed at the idea of Rhiannon working in her kitchen. Outside the others worked at boarding up the windows and loading Feather's preciously gathered sacks of wild mushrooms onto a pack horse. Within twenty minutes they were gathered around a rough table outside, eating what turned out to be a serendipitously welcome mid morning meal. The hot delicious soup and dense, hearty, fresh bread with lots of nuts baked into it eased Rhiannon's nausea and left her feeling stronger.

“I hope that you don't mind forest food?” Feather asked Rhiannon and Rowan shyly as they ate.

“Don't worry about those two,” Thaylum reassured his wife half jokingly. “They're as Fay as it comes with regards to food and even Cole here is half Selkie so the only flesh you'll catch him eating is fish.”

“Thaylum's right. Food doesn't get better than this,” Rhiannon said as she wiped out the bottom of her bowl with the crust of her bread.

The sun shone through the trees as they ate in the little clearing, and from a certain perspective Rhiannon envied Thaylum and White Feather their quiet life in the woods. The few minutes of camaraderie, conversation, and good food were somehow magical, but it was over all too soon. They washed the dishes, shut up the cottage and parted ways. It was the end of a very short era. Rhiannon looked back over her shoulder as they rode away from the clearing and Nimue was looking back from her seat behind Cole on his grey. They would never be together under those circumstances again. She could see in her sister's eyes, the same feeling of being trapped in a current pulling them irrevocably towards a fate that neither was sure she wanted.