Born of Oak and Silver (The Caradoc Chronicles) (21 page)

I
was surprised when my mother shook her hand vehemently in the contrary. She then bent down and began writing in the dirt. “We are more than that,” was all she said. With the same defiant nature that she’d had in life, she looked up at me with just as much conviction in death.

I
nodded simply, unhappy that she had so easily rebuffed my willingness to honor her. But, she was right. I was more than that. To become as merciless as the Fae would be a dishonor to who I was now, and to everything that had once had been.

My mother’s eyes shifted uneasily, searching around her. Her hand gestured to me and then the ground, indicating that I stay right where I was.
I felt it then, a change in the air. Again, it was something that I couldn’t quite communicate, but knew for certain was there.

The
n the ground seemed to vibrate and hum, like a stampede that could be felt growing in the distance. I glanced around wildly, uncertain about what I should do or even if I would be able to do anything. I looked at my mother as the rumbling suddenly stopped, replaced by the sound of trumpets blaring loudly in the distance. Immediately after the horns had sounded, the ground resumed its wild growl.

I turned my back on my mother, spreading my arms wide in an effort to shield wha
tever was left of her from whatever it was that might be coming. With my back cool from her presence, we backed away toward the stream. My feet crunched over the frosted ground as my breath came in quick puffs when I exhaled.

The rumbling grew into what I could feel
as a literal, physical shaking. I could hear what sounded almost like the baying of hounds, mixed with the wild cacophony of horns at various pitches being sounded as everything seemed to draw closer. The thunder of many hooves could be heard. A fear resonated deep within my soul, and on a primal level I recognized what was charging toward us. The Wild Hunt was dangerously near.

Suddenly
, everything stopped. The earth no longer trembled, and I could no longer hear any bugles or hounds. The only sound was of my heart beating deafeningly in my ears. Fear took hold of me. This was an enemy that no one could escape unless they were allowed to.

I felt
cool pressure on my right arm, and I turned my head briefly from where the noise had stopped just as it threatened to crest the wooded hill before us.               My mother’s face was serene and resigned as she stared bravely into my eyes. Her eyes eagerly regarded my face as her hand came up once again to cup my face in a chilly but loving caress. Within the blink of an eye, my mother was nothing more than a quickly moving mist that was heading away from me and up the hill toward where I knew the Wild Hunt was waiting.

I raced after her, c
alling for her to stop. The fog still hovered over the ground, and I tripped as I ran, slowing and falling behind her. As I continued to run, I watched as a pair of pointed ears grew into a massive, black horse with glowing, red eyes as it appeared in silhouette on the crest of the hill above me. A cloaked figure sat astride the horse’s back, staring down at me from where I stood in the tangle of bracken. The horse stomped its hooves menacingly, promising death if I dared to move even a single step forward.

The mist that was my mother glided toward the cloaked figure on the horse.
She materialized once she reached the side of what I knew could only be the Wild Huntsman. He reached down for her hand and effortlessly lifted her to sit upon the horse behind him. More solid than she had been before, entirely corporeal, she looked at me reassuringly from her place behind him. Not once did she take her eyes off me as the Huntsman turned his wild steed away from the hill and took off at a gallop toward the undeterminable location of his waiting hunting party.

A single horn sounded, loud and echoing in the silent winter night. The single note lingered in the vale, dying away gradually
as it dissolved into nothing. I could only hear the hounds and rumble of hooves again once it could no longer be heard. Soon, I only felt them as they departed—running toward a never-ending hunt in a location that I didn’t know.

I waited
in dark winter’s freeze, scarcely daring to breathe as the silence began to grow oppressive . . . listening for anything that would break the deafening silence. My mind was racing, trying to discover a way in which I might be able to make it away from here alive.

Those
whom the Hunt perceived to be against them were not taken to kindly. The purpose of the Hunt was not entirely known, though it was guaranteed that if you were found to be guilty of delaying the Huntsman and his band of riders and hounds your life and soul were theirs. In what capacity, I was not sure. But the idea of being hunted by an undaunted foe was one that I did not feel up to avoiding.

I scrambled most ungraciously through the woods, becoming tangled in brush, grass, and branches as I mov
ed as quickly as I could manage, looking over my shoulder for fear that I was being pursued. Ahead I could clearly see Bram’s wards glowing reassuringly, marking the barrier of this strange containment. I ran through them, feeling the distinctive shiver as I passed. Immediately, I called the wind to aid me in my flight across the now relatively obstacle-free terrain that lay between me and Bram’s house. Bram’s words had not affected the Wild Hunt, neither keeping them out nor trapping them inside of the confines clearly lain out to be Maurelle’s prison. Perhaps there were things in this world to which the ancient arts did not apply.

Bram’s house came
into view. It was still deep into the night, though I lacked the reserve to be discreet and quiet in my haste to reach the house. Without slowing much from my aided flight, I managed to both open and close the door behind me with the massive gust of wind following me. The papers in the study and library rustled with the unexpected presence of the wind, and the fires in their hearths whooshed, popped, and cracked as the wind sought to exit from their flues.

I had not crossed
far into the large entry foyer before I was crashed into and held in a frantic embrace. The ancient Druid inside of me prepared to fight, and then subsided contentedly as I looked down upon wild, ebony curls. It was Ayda, her cheek pressed firmly against my chest.

“Daine! Ye’v
e been gone for four days!” Her wild, emerald eyes looked up into my own. Within them I could see the ferocious mix of anger and worry. I hoped that affection was hidden in there somewhere too; it might temper her mood.

I shrugged my arms from A
yda’s hold and held her close. I had not realized until I held her that I was deeply worried that I would return to Bram’s home to find them missing—fallen prey to the Wild Hunt in my absence.

“No, it can’t have been that long. I was asleep with Bram’s tonic for quite sometime, but I have not been gone
more than,” I looked up at the clock; it marked 4:01, and considering it was still dark outside, it was most definitely in the morning, “two hours.”

Ayda stayed locked against my chest, her own head noting the negative in my statement as I said it. Her face pulled away to look up at me
. “No, ye’ve been gone for four days. Ye slept for three, but then ye just up and disappeared one morning, and Grandad and I’ve not been able to find any sign of ye for the past four days. Where the devil have ye been, Daine? I was worrit sick.” She again laid her head on my chest and held me tighter still. Her accent was always thickest when she was emotional.

I
let her hold me as I realized that I had been lost in some sort, or part, of Fae. I had not even been aware that it happened. In people’s past dealings with the Sidhe—in my case the Wild Hunt and possibly even my mother—time passed by much differently. There is an account of a man who had happened upon a feast in the forest on his way home. As he passed the gathering, he was asked to join in. Thinking that no harm could come from so simple a request, he joined in a happy jig. Soon his friends came round and pulled him away, much to his frustration. Their faces were in complete shock as they informed him that he’d been nearly gone a year. All the while, he was sure he’d not even finished his first dance.

A full week had passed without my knowing since I had arrived in
Strasbourg. I pushed Ayda away, holding her at arm’s length while I crouched to look levelly into her eyes. “Ayda, by chance did you hear any trumpets, bugling, or anything that sounded like a hunting party while I was away?”

S
he looked at me with concern. “No, I dinna hear anything of the sort.”

“Not at any time?”

“No, not at any time that ye were gone. Nor have I heard anything like it at any time that we’ve been here, for that matter. Why do you ask?” she questioned.

I breathed a sigh of relief. The hunting party had not
passed by here. I needed to speak with Bram immediately.

“I’ll tell you about it later. Where is your grandfather?” I asked her hurriedly.

Her eyes were still large and worried as she looked me rapidly over. “He’s in his study. He has not left it since he went in search of you after we’d discovered that you were gone. That was three days ago,” she responded matter-of-factly.

I moved to leave
, and her hand shot out quickly to reach for my own. Bravely, she confessed, “Daine, please do not do that again. I would have died myself if I had lost you too.” She looked down at the floor. Her bravado had disappeared with the admission as she strove to hide whatever it was that she did not want me to see.

I
waited for her to lift her eyes when she was ready. When she did, it was under the cover of her long lashes. “Ayda, do not worry yourself over me. I cannot promise that I will not leave again, or that my life will not be in danger. But know that I will not be dying anytime soon. I’ve got too much left to do, and two people who are all that are left to me to take care of.” I gave her a reassuring smile before slipping my hands away from hers. My boots fell heavily upon the wooden floorboards as I passed the staircase and entered the long hallway that led to the kitchen, dining room, and Bram’s small personal study.

I found him in a stat
e of agitation as he studied the masses of scrolls, papers, and books that had come to clutter his entire office. He had not heard me approach, so I lightly tapped the doorframe before I entered. He looked up; his eyes were red and weary. “Ah, Daine!” He came around the heavy desk to embrace me. “I am relieved to see you. I knew that you would reappear—I just had no way of knowing the when or where of it. I am most pleased to see that it was sooner rather than later. Despite my reassurances, Ayda was quite convinced to the contrary and no amount of stating otherwise could console her. Needless to say, it has been a long few days for the both of us.”

I took a seat in his study
, Ayda following just behind me, and began my recounting of everything that had happened. Our discussion, though lively at first, fizzled to an impasse. There were too many and at the same time very few options for us to take.

By the end of it, I was spent.
I went to my chambers and fell into a deep but haunted sleep.

My dreams were dark. No matter where I went or what I did, every move I made was checked by a cloaked figure astride a dark and terrible horse. The ghost of my mother clung fiercely to the rider as she sat behind him upon the horse’s back, her eye
s filled with love and wonder—not for me, but for the rider himself. My heart raced as I recognized that I knew I would see him again.

I awoke with a start
. My mother’s clearly spoken words, “We are more than that,” echoed loudly in my mind. It reaffirmed what I needed to do.

I found
Ayda and Bram sleeping in the library. Ayda was on the couch that faced the warmly burning fire, and Bram sat in a high, wing-backed chair that was half of a conversation pair facing a window. Seeing them so clearly at peace, I turned away in an effort to leave them undisturbed. But Bram’s voice, cracking and deepened from sleep, stopped me before I could slip away unnoticed.

I turned back
and crossed the expensively carpeted floor quietly, noting the sleeping Ayda comfortably tucked away as I did. I sat in the chair to Bram’s left, shifting uncomfortably. I was resolved to action and confining my mind and body to that large chair was a battle.

“Do you know what you must do?”

I nodded. “Yes. I will be entering the Silver—alone.” I looked at him until he understood very clearly that I would be doing just that.

“You do understand that
is an exceedingly dangerous course of action to take?” His brows lifted and his fingers drummed on the chair’s armrest before adding, “No one enters a Silver willingly, and we know very little of how they operate. I am unsure if you would be able to again open it once you were inside.”

Silvers were tricky, even for the best
of us. They were known to open—usually just as the sun was setting or rising—to allow unsuspecting humans fall or be pulled through. Those poor people were never seen or heard from again.

“Yes, I am well aware of the dangers. However, I do not see any other options left to us. I wish to
do all in my power to find the Sword, and if that means stepping into the unknown, then so be it.” Regardless of Bram’s approval of my decision, I would do what must be done.