Page 71 of The Shadow Path
“It’s the best I can do right now.”
“I might consider it, but not by myself.”
She frowned. “I told you, there are seven of us who?—”
“And if I joined you, it would be eight.” Naida shook her head. “Eight is an unlucky number. The old gods wouldn’t be happy.”
Carys and Cadell. Lachlan and Duncan. Laura and Winnie and Godrik. She couldn’t think of anyone who could drop out and not be missed. “Is eight really that bad?”
Naida grimaced. “Oh yes.”
Carys hadn’t thought about eight being unlucky, but maybe for the fae of Briton it was. If they were in Asia, eight would be the perfect number. Either way, she’d learned to be cautious around unfamiliar magic.
“But nine,” Naida continued. “Nine isverylucky.”
“Absolutely not.”Lachlan was adamant. “We’re trying to avoid a war, not start one.”
“Do you have any idea who he really is?” Duncan’s voice was a thunderstorm. “Do you have any idea?—”
“Yes!” Carys put a hand on Duncan’s shoulder, which was positively vibrating. “I know. Or I know what Naida told me.”
Carys and Laura were in the kitchen garden outside Dafydd’s house the following morning, and Carys was cutting rosemary because she couldn’t stop thinking about the smell. Duncan’s soap smelled like rosemary.
Lachlan was as worried as Duncan was even if he wasn’t as explosive. “It’s not that I don’t have an… affection for Dru, but you have to know that bringing him in adds a layer of fae politics to this matter that we were hoping to avoid.”
Laura sat back on her heels and squinted up at the two men. “But fae politics is at the heart of all this. I’ll bet you some ofCarys’s coffee that’s exactly where the smoke takes me when I do this ceremony.”
Laura had agreed to do a reading from her rune stones and was cutting sage for the cleansing ceremony while Cadell was at the international market downriver, searching for tobacco and sweetgrass. Laura had already gathered cedar from Dafydd’s woods.
“Cian is the closest thing to a fae king that there is in Briton.” Duncan sat on a low brick wall that bordered the kitchen garden beds. “And he’s the consort to the Éiren throne. He’s been building his power for over a century now, and hewillgo to war to keep Dru from taking his crown.”
Lachlan was pacing. “Whatever Orla may be up to, the last thing anyone in Briton wants is to spark a fae civil war. The last one killed half the human population of Briton.”
Laura blinked. “Seriously?”
Lachlan nodded. “Seriously.”
“But according to Naida, Dru doesn’twantthe crown,” Carys said. “And he’s not here to take it.”
“No, he’s here because he’s in love with Naida,” Duncan said. “But that doesn’t mean Cian will see it that way, particularly if Dru’s presence becomes known more widely.”
“He needs to go back.” Duncan looked at his brother. “I’ll tell him. It was foolish of me to ask him to come. If I had known?—”
“You can do that,” Carys said. “But if you do, any help from Naida is out. She says we need him if we want to counter whatever Orla and Cian are planning.”
“Of course Naida says that,” Lachlan paused in his pacing and glared. “She’s in love with him as much as he’s in love with her.Andshe feels guilty because she’s the reason the fae of Briton have no king but an Éiren consort more concerned with his power than his people.”
Laura stood up and stuffed her herbs in the wicker basket she was carrying. “Okay, maybe all of you have this backstory, but I do not. Explain or I’m out.”
Lachlan looked at Duncan, and some wordless communication passed between them before Duncan shrugged and started talking.
“Cian and Dru—Diarmuid is his proper name—are brothers, the children of the light fae Queen Aine who ruled over all the fae of Briton for centuries,” Duncan said. “She was the one who returned the fae to peace after their last war.”
Lachlan continued, “Aine had two sons. Cian was the oldest and the son of the old god Elatha, who came from the Fomorians.”
“In Irish mythology, Fomorians are kind of…” Carys squinted. “Not gods but god adjacent if that makes sense.”
“The Fomorians were monsters,” Lachlan said. “But Aine took a step toward peace when she had a child with Elatha, who was seen as one of the more… peaceful of the Fomorians.”
