Page 68 of The Shadow Path
Night on the river with the Crow Mother lurking in the trees and the river fae putting on a show. Riddles spoken between a fae exile and a triple-faced sorceress with power that even Queen Orla had to appease.
An offering.
Carys tried to piece together what Orla could offer a powerful fae like the Crow Mother that she couldn’t simply take for herself.
None of this made sense. The Queens’ Pact had kept Briton at peace for centuries. The agreement, forged centuries before, demanded that royal children be fostered in foreign courts to secure the peace of the islands. It wasn’t always agreeable to rulers, but it had been successful for generations.
Briton’s people were thriving, and their rulers cooperated. Unlike empires in the Brightlands, the magic of this placed kept human ambition in check. It kept human empires in check.
The fae ruled over humans; they were at the top of the food chain. They controlled the gates. They controlled everything in the Shadowlands.
“Are you the reason the river folk are singing a kingsong and the serpent has risen from the deep? Won’t Cian be pleased?”
“You let me worry about Cian and don’t bother yourself with mortal matters, old one.”
“Old one,” Carys whispered.
Carys flashed back to her memories of the Crow Mother in the woods. To the moment when Dru arrived and they spoke in riddles before the Crow Mother changed her appearance and disappeared.
She’d shown them three faces. The mature, vital woman Carys had bargained with, but two others flashed quickly in the shadows. A dark-eyed maiden. A bent old woman.
Carys blinked.
No.
Oh no.
Cadell.She called out in her mind, hoping the dragon was near.
Nêrys?
Can you come to my room?
He didn’t answer, but a few minutes later, she heard a knock on her door.
Cadell was standing in the doorway, towering over her with a grim expression on his face. “What is it? What is wrong?”
She pulled him inside. “How many faces can fae take?”
Cadell frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Humans have one face. I mean physically, we have one face.” She pointed to her own. “Shifters have two, obviously. Your beast and your human face.”
“Yes.” Cadell nodded as if she was a rambling child. “And the fae have one face. Like humans.”
“One face.” She let out a breath. “And their glamour?”
Cadell shrugged. “Itchangestheir face in subtle ways. It can make them more attractive or more foul, but it’s still the same face.”
“So who has three faces?” Carys leaned toward him and dropped her voice. “Who has three aspects? Three completely different forms?”
Cadell blinked. “Gods.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “The gods. Duncan and Lachlan thought Angus was a fae, but he’s not. Clearly he’s not. He can handle iron.”
“But he presents himself as fae,” Cadell said cautiously. “And you think?—”
“The Crow Mother is not fae,” Carys said. “She’s some kind of god, some kind of deity with a triple aspect. There are any number of possibilities, but the fact remains that I traded passage to the Brightlands not to a fae who is going to lose her power there but to a god who could be just as powerful in the Brightlands as the Shadowlands.”
