“You will live your lives as you always have, in peace, going about your daily business,” Kaliq said.
“And Lara? Where will she go, and will she come back to us?” Rendor asked.
“Do not ask him questions he cannot or will not answer,” Lara chuckled. “He will speak to you in riddles as he does to me when I inquire of him that which he does not wish to impart. Such answers will only hurt your head as they do mine. I am content to go, Rendor, knowing that my beloved Outlands will be safe in my absence. I will not leave you forever. I will be back. After all, my children are Outlanders.”
“I think we have concluded our business here,” Kaliq said to those about the board. “Ilona, have you anything you wish to say before we take our leave of Lara and her friends?”
“Rendor, because you now stand in Vartan’s place, and you, Liam, because you will care for my grandchildren, I give you permission to call my name should you need me. This is my gift to you, and a privilege allowed few, especially mortals.”
The two Outlander lords bowed low to the faerie queen and thanked her for her generosity.
Ilona then embraced her daughter. “I will see you before you leave Camdene, for I intend that my grandchildren know me well before you go that I may help to comfort them when you are gone. Is your Noss competent to care for Dillon and Anoush? I seem to recall she was a girl afraid of her own shadow.”
Lara smiled, and stroked her mother’s delicate cheek. “She is grown now, the parent of one son, and another soon to come. Her marriage has given her confidence, Mother. My son and daughter will be safe with her, and loved, too. Having to leave them is what I feared when I gave Vartan children, but I always thought their father would be here with them.” She sighed. “But they will have you, Bera, Liam, Noss and a whole clan of Fiacre who will watch over them, for they are Vartan’s offspring.”
“Beware Bera,” Ilona advised.
“Why?” Lara wanted to know. “She has always been good to me, and she adores Dillon and Anoush.”
“The death of her sons, the manner in which each died, remains with her, and always will. She cannot forgive Adon for his murder of Vartan, Lara. But neither can she forget that you slew Adon. She will appear to recover eventually, but she will never quite be the same again. What has happened to her has brought a madness into her soul. It lies beneath the surface of her sanity. She will raise Cam to be every bit as heroic as Vartan, but there is evil in that child’s blood that cannot be extinguished. One day he will have to be slain, too, for the sake of the Fiacre. It would have been better if he had never been born,” Ilona declared vehemently.
“Then teach my children to be wary of him,” Lara said.
Ilona nodded. “I must go. I will be back before you leave here.”
The two women embraced, and the men with them marveled that they looked more like sisters than mother and daughter, such was the faerie blood. There was a small thunderclap, and Ilona, queen of the Forest Faeries, with a wave of her hand disappeared into her cloud of purple haze.
Lara now turned to Kaliq and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, my dear friend, for coming on this day of days. Will I see you again?”
“If it pleases you,” he told her.
“Do you still love me, Kaliq?” she asked him, curious.
“I will always love you, Lara, daughter of Swiftsword,” he told her. And then he was gone, seeming to evaporate into the very shadows that had suddenly arisen to surround him.
Lara was now left with but two companions. She turned to them saying, “I am tired, and will find my bed. Rendor, pray do not leave Camdene until we have spoken in private again.” Then she turned away from them and was gone from the hall.
Rendor and Liam now found seats by the hall fire that they might speak privily. A servant appeared, bringing them cups of wine, and was then gone again.
“I am almost frightened by what has transpired here this night,” Liam said. “It would appear great changes are coming to all of us. What part we are to play in those changes I cannot tell.” He sighed. “I have never wanted to lead the Fiacre, I should have been content being Vartan’s cousin and friend, Noss’s husband, and father to my children.”
“The elders would not have chosen you had they not felt you were the right man,” Rendor said. “Remember that once before they asked you.”
“They asked because my father had been lord of this family after Vartan’s father died,” Liam answered him. “It was a matter of pure courtesy. They knew Vartan was the man who should lead us, and so did I.”
“And yet they have chosen you now,” Rendor noted. “I think, Liam, that you underestimate yourself and your abilities. As for the great changes to come, and what should be done, I believe we should follow the Shadow Prince’s advice. We will live as we have always lived.”
“Do you think that magic can really protect us from Hetar’s greed?” Liam said.
“I do,” Rendor replied. “Prince Kaliq would not have said it otherwise.” Of course, Kaliq had also said magic could not protect them forever. But perhaps it would serve long enough for Lara to find the destiny that would save them all from disaster. He emptied his cup. “It has been a long day, my friend,” he said to Liam. “I think I shall find my bed now.”
Liam stood up. “I had best be getting home,” he responded. “Noss is near her time, and she likes me with her.”
In her bedchamber behind the hall Lara lay sleepless. Vartan was gone. Every vestige of him was gone, burned in the fire that freed his soul from his body. He would be remembered in the oral history of the Outlands by the Devyn bards who were already singing of him. Once his generation had departed this world there would be few remaining who would remember the man, but they would know the legend of Vartan, Lord of the Fiacre. She wept silently again in the darkness of the night for the man who had been her mate. He had been a good man, a great leader. He had made a safe haven for her among the Fiacre. She was angry that fate dictated his demise, and yet had he lived, he would have resisted her going. And had he lived, would she even have heeded the calling of the voice within her? Ilona might claim that her daughter was not responsible for Vartan’s death, but Lara was not at all certain of that. She was beginning to realize that this destiny she had put from her mind these last five years was bigger than even she could imagine. And she was still not certain of what exactly it was. She turned onto her side, punching at her pillows, and tried to sleep.
She had the summer ahead to consider, long days of warm sun and gentle breezes to spend with her children. Days in which she would prepare Dillon for life without either of his parents. She most regretted that her daughter was so young. Anoush would not really remember either her mother or her father, and that was a tragedy. But Dillon could tell his little sister of their parents as long as he could remember them. Vartan’s face was already receding from her. Would her son’s memory be any better? And what of Cam, Adon’s son? They had never been friends to begin with, but Bera would surely try to foster a relationship between the cousins. Lara was not certain what to do about that. It seemed sad to deny Cam his place among them, but had not her own mother warned that Cam would be a troublesome child, and a dangerous man?
AT SUNRISE, Lara awoke surprised, for she had not remembered falling asleep the night before. Stretching she considered the day ahead. Rendor would want to leave today, and she must speak with him before he did. And she, Noss and Liam must decide the time for the new Lord of the Fiacre to move into the lord’s house. It should be soon, for until Liam had made the house his there would be those who would always consider it Vartan’s house—such was the nature of the Fiacre. She sat up, swinging her feet over the edge of the bed. First she wanted a bath. Slipping a house robe over her nakedness she slipped through a small door that led outside to a pergola thick with flowering vines that shaded the path to the bathhouse.