“I’ll take the lordship of this clan, though reluctantly,” Liam responded, “but I am not the man to lead the Outlands. That you cannot ask of me.”

“Vartan was the one man the others trusted, and admired,” Lara spoke thoughtfully. “He was strong, and he had my counsel. Roan of the Aghy is ambitious and will seek the post, but he is too hot tempered. The best man would be Rendor of the Felan. He has a cool head, and I can advise him without his wife, Rahil, becoming jealous.”

“You will go to the Felan then?” Liam asked her.

“Only on my way to the Coastal Kingdom in Hetar,” Lara replied. “I sense that is where I am meant to be at this time.”

He nodded. Then he asked, “Did you know what would happen to Vartan?”

“No!” Lara paled, surprised and shocked by Liam’s query. “Why would you ask me such a thing? I would have given my life for Vartan as he would have for me.”

“Did you love him?” Liam pursued.

“I should not have given him children otherwise, Liam. Faerie women, even half-faerie women, only bear offspring for the men they love,” Lara said quietly. “When the war ended my mother advised me to stop trying so hard to live up to my faerie nature, and follow my heart. She said I had time. Yes, I loved Vartan. Not as much as he loved me, I know. But I did love him.”

“Forgive me, Lara,” Liam said, and bowed his head in apology to her.

“I had forgotten what it is like to be mistrusted by humans,” Lara responded. “I have been so happy here among the Fiacre. I have even felt as if I were fully human, and one of you. Until now. Now I am forced to remember who I am, and that I have a destiny to fulfill. Noss has agreed to take my children, and I hope you will concur. She can tell you why.”

“I will take Dillon and Anoush gladly,” Liam said. He was ashamed of his question, and knew that Vartan would have been angry with him for asking it. “They shall be as my own, Lara. I swear it.”

“But they must not be allowed to forget Vartan,” Lara said. “Anoush will remember neither her sire or me, I know. She will think of you and Noss as her mother and father. If she is safe and happy then I am content. Dillon, however, will remember us. My son has magic in him, Liam. It must not be discouraged.”

“I understand,” Liam answered her.

“We will speak on this again before I leave,” Lara told him. “Now I had best return to the hall and give what comfort I can to Bera. Will you keep the children a while longer?”

He nodded, watching as she turned away from him and left his house. His wife now came from the shadows where she had been standing and slipped her small hand into his big one. “Well, lass,” Liam said with a small attempt at humor, “did you ever think you would one day be the Lady of the Fiacre?” He put his other arm about her.

Noss sighed. “Seven years ago I was sold into slavery by my parents. No, Liam, I never considered I should attain such a place in this world of ours. But then I could never have imagined the adventures that I shared with Lara, or a love such as the one I share with you, my husband.” Her free hand went to her distended belly where the child within moved strongly. “You are certain the elders will select you?” Noss asked him.

“Aye, they will,” he told her. “Now I wonder if I had accepted the lordship when they first offered it to me if Vartan would still be alive.” Liam sighed.

“He had his fate to live out,” Noss counseled. “You have yours.”

“You are becoming wise with age, wife,” he teased her gently.

“Well,” Noss said pertly in reply, “I am almost twenty.” Then she grew serious. “Poor Lara, to lose her husband so cruelly. To leave her children behind. I do not envy her, despite her beauty and her faerie magic.”

“I do not envy her because she must calm Bera,” Liam said with a grimace. “The woman was in a terrible state when I finally left the hall. I think she has gone mad.”

“Lara will calm her,” Noss said with assurance.

But entering the hall and seeing the state her mother-in-law was in, Lara wondered if anyone could ease Bera’s sorrow. The older woman paced up and down the hall muttering, her long gray hair swinging with each step she took. But her eyes were blank, without emotion of any sort. The three bodies were still upon the floor where they had met their end. Lara signaled to a male servant. “Fetch some others, and remove the dead,” she ordered. “And clean Andraste before returning her to her place of honor.” She handed her weapon to the serving man.

“No!” Bera screeched, and ran to Lara. “You cannot take them from me. The bitch, yes! But not my boys. Not my boys!”

“Go,” Lara said sternly. Then she took Bera by the hand, and sat her down by the hearth. “Listen to me, Bera. You cannot dishonor Vartan by leaving his body on the stone floor. His departure ceremony must be celebrated. He was the Lord of the Fiacre as was his father before him. The elders will demand Vartan be honored properly. As for Adon and Elin, they will be put into the earth unsung.”

“From the moment he sprang forth from my womb Adon competed with Vartan,” Bera said. Her eyes were now filled with her pain. “But Vartan never complained. He treated his younger brother with kindness. It is not our way to murder our own, Lara. How could he have done it? How? It was his mate – that wretched, wretched girl! I never wanted him to wed her. She was greedy and wicked, Lara. And now because of her actions her son is orphaned. What will become of little Cam, Lara? What will happen to the child?”

“You will raise him, of course,” Lara comforted the woman.

Bera’s sorrowful face looked into Lara’s. “Yes,” she said. “I will take him.”

Lara considered telling her all that had transpired in the short time following Vartan’s brutal murder, but she decided Bera was not yet ready to hear it. “You must rest now,” she told her mother-in-law, helping her to her feet. “I will do what must be done.” She signaled to a female servant. “Take the lady Bera to her chamber and give her a small goblet of wine.” She reached into the pocket of her robes and drew out a small gilded pill. “Put this in the wine. It will aid her sleep.”

“Yes, lady,” the serving woman said, and led the grieving Bera from the hall.

Lara now turned to the servants who had entered the hall. “Six of you take the bodies of Adon and his foul wife out onto the plain,” she instructed them. “Bury them deep in a single grave, and do not mark it. Have it done before the sun sets on this day. The rest of you are to build the lord’s funeral pyre. His departure ceremony will take place in two days time at the hour of the sunset. Have his body brought to the bathhouse that I may begin the preparations.”

She watched the servants lift the body of their lord. Vartan had built the bathhouse for her when they had returned from the Winter War. The Fiacre were used to bathing in small round tubs. But Lara wanted a bath such as she had enjoyed in her time with the Shadow Princes, a large bath in which she might submerse her entire body. A bath she might share with her husband. So Vartan had surprised her with the small bathhouse after telling her he was building a new cattle shed. He had imported the marble tub from the Coastal Kingdom, along with several carved stone benches. A small sob escaped her. Had she loved him? Oh, yes! With every bit of her human heart. Now she could feel that part of her hardening again as her faerie nature took over. To be strong, to follow her destiny, she knew she had to be faerie.

Hearing a familiar clap of thunder – considerably softened, she noted – Lara looked up to see her mother, Ilona, the queen of the Forest Faeries. Ilona held out her arms to her daughter, and rising from her seat by the fire Lara rushed into them. “What has happened?” Ilona said to her daughter, and Lara told her. “Then it is time,” the queen replied.

“I know,” Lara responded. “I have already begun making arrangements for Dillon and Anoush.”

“I will take them!” Ilona said imperiously.

“Nay, I want Liam and Noss to raise them. They are Fiacre, Mother. One day Dillon might be chosen lord of his people, like his father and grandfather before him.”

“Or Liam and Noss’s lad might be chosen,” Ilona said softly.

“If that is the will of the Fiacre then so be it,” Lara answered her mother. “But you must visit them. Promise me! Dillon has been exhibiting certain instincts that must not be stifled. Anoush is too young for me to know. Tell me, how are Thanos and Cirilo?” she asked after her mother’s consort, and her half brother.

“Thanos is Thanos,” Ilona said dryly. “As for Cirilo I must admit he is everything I could want in a son, Lara. He will be a fine king one day. For now he is a typical faerie lad, getting into all kinds of mischief. He particularly enjoys teasing the Forest Lords. They have lost some of their territory on the border with the Midlands. Gaius Prospero is buying up the smaller farms and blending them into great ones. It allows him to control the price of the crops he grows. The rumor is growing again that he would be emperor of Hetar.”

“I am going to the coast,” Lara told her mother. “I feel it is where I should be now. But it has been so long since the voice within spoke to me that I am not certain I am hearing it correctly. Could I be wrong, Mother? Should I remain with the Fiacre and my children? I am suddenly unsure.”

“I am not surprised,” Ilona remarked. “It has been but hours since your husband was murdered before your eyes, since you slew his murderers. You are suffering shock, but your first thoughts are always the best ones, Lara. It is time for you to leave the Fiacre. If the voice says the coast, then that is where you must go. Do not be afraid, my daughter.”

“When you said I had time,” Lara began, “I never thought it would end this way. I expected that when the knowledge came to me, Vartan would fuss at me and try to prevent my going, no matter he said he wouldn’t. I did not expect him to die. Am I responsible for that, Mother?”

“Nay,” Ilona replied. “Vartan’s fate was his fate. His jealous younger brother was destined to slay him, for that was Adon’s fate. That you gave your heart to Vartan for a brief time, that you gave him children, had nothing to do with his end, Lara. You may believe that I speak the truth to you.

“Now I must go. Your faerie family will be here for Vartan’s departure ceremony. What did you do with Adon and his wife?”

“The ultimate shame for Outlanders. I had them buried in a secret and unmarked place,” Lara explained. “They will have no funeral pyre, or family and friends to sing their souls to the Celestial Actuary’s kingdom. They will lie beneath the earth until the flesh rots from them, is eaten by maggots and beetles, and finally their bones dissolve into the earth itself. Their souls will wander in the Limbo forever. Even Bera dare not mourn them publically. I am just sorry they have left a child.”

Ilona put a hand on her daughter’s hand. “For whatever reason, it is the will of the Celestial Actuary that they did.” She arose. “Goodbye, my daughter.” Then she was gone in her puff of purple mist, leaving a scent of flowers behind her.

Looking to where her husband’s body had lain Lara saw it was gone. She arose slowly and went to the little bathhouse where their servants had set Vartan upon a long stone bench. But for the stain of blood upon his tunic he looked as if he were sleeping. Lara bent and kissed the cold lips. “Oh, my dear love,” she whispered to him. “I am so sorry. So very sorry.” And the tears came again. When they finally stopped Lara sat down next to her dead mate, and began to assemble her thoughts.

Liam had sent word to all the Fiacre villages, but what of the other clan leaders? She would send for them by faeriepost, and transport them to the departure ceremony herself, for she knew they would want to honor Vartan. Several serving women crept into the bathhouse and looked to her for guidance. Lara rose, and working with them they stripped Vartan’s body of his bloody garments, and washed it tenderly. When the task was almost done Lara fetched the garments in which her husband would be displayed on his funeral bier. At the end of the departure ceremony the bier would be taken outside to the funeral pyre, where Lara and Dillon would light the fire that would burn Vartan’s body to ashes as all sang his soul to the kingdom of the Celestial Actuary. For an Outlander to be buried in the earth was anathema.

On his lower body they fitted him with a pair of brown leather trousers Vartan kept for special occasions. They drew his finest boots, highly polished, onto his feet. A soft linen shirt came next, and over it the tunic of his office as head of the Outlands High Council. Lara had embroidered it herself, having brought the fine material and silk threads back from their first visit to the Coastal Kingdom. The tunic was deep green in color, and the long sleeves of the garment were folded back to make a cuff that displayed the deep blue lining. She had embroidered the cuffs with silver and gold stars. On the chest of the of the tunic Lara had embroidered a large gold circular wheel divided by spokes. Within each segment were symbols representing the eight Outlands clans. Cattle for the Fiacre. Horses for the Aghy. Grain and flowers for the Blathma. Grain and vegetables for the Gitta. The Piaras had gold and silver rocks. The Tormod showed multicolored gemstones. The Felan displayed sheep, and the Devyn a harp for they were the poet’s clan. In the center of the wheel was a single blue star. Vartan had loved the tunic of office Lara had made for him.