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giving his rod some relief—. . . and for helping him win the bet that he could have her on her back within a moon’s cycle of beginning his “courtship.”
    She had crept home, ashamed and brokenhearted. Her mother and grandmother had been understanding
    —and never spoke aloud the sadness she knew they had felt that her first experience had left her with such bitter memories.
    Taking a deep breath, Ari turned aside from those thoughts. It did no good to look back at something that had happened two years before—something that she had never allowed to happen since.
    Maybe it was that feel in the air that made a budding summer day have an edge like an approaching winter storm. There was a message there, if only she could understand it. But earth and fire were the branches of the Mother that were her strength, and she couldn’t sense what the branches of water and air might have told her.
    Think of something else , she told herself sternly. Your thoughts are your will, and you bring to yourself what you will .
    Loneliness had brought today’s events down on her like an earthslide. Well, she would ignore it the next time it crept into her dreams. She’d been alone since her mother died a few months after Grandmother Astra. She would get used to it, wouldn’t let herself be ruled by it. She had no choice, since she was all that was left of her family.
    We are witches. I’ll not deny it , Astra had told her once. Whether that’s a gift or a burden is something each must choose for herself. But, child, it’s only a word, and only you can decide what that word will mean. When you let others define you, you give up the greatest power of all .
    Wise words from a strong, wise woman. But even Astra couldn’t have foreseen a time when there would be only one of them left, and that one being a seventeen-year-old girl struggling to define herself while an entire village strove to reshape and diminish her.

    Willing herself not to cry, Ari looked around and spotted a hawk watching her from a nearby tree. She felt her mood shift, as it always did when she saw one of the Mother’s wild children, and she smiled for the first time that day. Raising her hand in greeting, she called out, “Blessings of the day to you, brother hawk.”
    The hawk chose not to answer. But she noticed that, every time she looked back, it was still watching her.
    It’s only a hawk , she thought as that feel in the air began to press in on her again. Of course it was only a hawk. Then again, it could have been a Fae Lord or Lady from Tir Alainn. It was said that each of them had another form that could be taken at will.
    Tir Alainn. The Fair Land. The Otherland. The land of magic—and the home of the Fae, who were the Mother’s most powerful children.
    It was better to believe the hawk was only a hawk. Despite what Odella and the other girls might think about a romantic encounter with a Fae Lord on a moonlit road, the Fae were not always kind when they dealt with humans.
    Suddenly shivering, Ari hurried toward the safety of her home.
    She had two days to understand the magic Granny Gwynn had set into the fancy, two days to see if there was some way to safely counter the spell. If she couldn’t she would have to abide by that spell and swear a promise that invoked the two most powerful Fae—the Lady of the Moon and the Lord of the Sun, the Lord of Fire. The Huntress . . . and the Lightbringer.
     

 

     
     

Chapter Four

 

     
     

     
    Dianna stood on one of the terraces overlooking the gardens of the Clan house, watching her brother until the path took him out of sight.
    “He’s has been prowling the gardens all morning,” Lyrra said, settling herself on the low terrace wall. “
    And he’s got that look in his eyes that bodes ill for anyone offering him company.”
    “You mean for anyone offering him a romp,” Dianna replied defensively. “Lucian accepts invitations when he chooses and takes his pleasure where he wills.” Her voice