Between visits, and when he didn’t have duties for the Queen, she shared Adhna’s bed. While he still taught her magic, they no longer shared a student and teacher relationship. Having a child together cemented their partnership far better than any earthly vows. They lived and loved and laughed together as time passed and Rumann grew.
Crunn returned to collect his payments, and after her first song, her audience grew. The creatures listened with rapt attention to her human voice. She would in no way compete with the perfection of Fae voices, but her human mistakes somehow made the songs more interesting to the lesser Fae. Her imperfections flavored it with intrigue.
One day, she played with Rumann while Adhna had left on an errand for their Queen. She lifted him up high to his delighted giggle and swung him low in a slow arc. He grabbed at the sprite who flitted out of his reach, but the sprite flew too fast.
A pond naiad, covered in green and blue scales, approached her, wringing her hands. The worry lines in her face spoke of obvious distress. “My mistress, I need some help! My baby is caught in the reeds and they won’t let her go!”
Rumann in her arms, Clíodhna tramped to the other edge of the pond where thorny reeds had caught a young naiad’s gossamer fins. With careful fingers, she untangled the young thing. When it came free, with only a small tear on one fin, she bobbed three times in thanks and disappeared under the water. Her mother offered more substantial gratitude—a hug and a tear, before she followed her daughter.
After she helped the naiad, other Fae came to her for help. Caught wings, lost objects, spoiled food, each one required assistance of some type. Sometimes she could help the Fae, others she couldn’t. At least trying made her feel useful.
Rumann delighted in the creatures and learned what he might get away with for each Fae. A few sharp raps with beetle wings or a lash with a whipping tail taught him to be gentle with each of them, and how much teasing would be permitted.
Her son seemed to be learning how to survive in Faerie.
* * *
After she’d extracted a thorn from a Grugach’s fleshy foot, the creature’s eyes grew wide with abject fear and he fled into the tall grasses. The three sprites who had been playing with Rumann followed suit, and the two humans remained alone in the clearing.
The ever-present light grew dim, so Clíodhna gathered her son into the safety of her arms and ran for the relative shelter of the roundhouse. Weather didn’t exist in Faerie. While that meant she needn’t fear heat, cold, or rain, she also couldn’t call upon her greatest source of power. The earth would listen to her call, but she had yet to learn how to control the much stronger magic of the land of Faerie. She’d been working with this new entity, under Adhna’s cautious tutelage. She didn’t yet have the skill she needed to defend herself.
The light continued to dim, and her panic rose. Rumann fussed against her chest, gripping her hair and pulling hard as he reacted to her fear.
“Ow! Hush, Rumann. Shh.”
“You need not silence your spawn, human.”
She’d feared Bodach had found them, but the voice which boomed through the valley sounded female. Powerful, confident, and strident. Adhna, where are you?
“Human woman, calling for your protector will do little good. He is powerless next to me.”
She cowered behind the table, wrapping herself around her son. She didn’t give in to such fear often, but this voice incited terror that gripped her bones.
The door darkened and a cold wind whipped into the roundhouse, making everything fly in a confusing mess. Wind? Where had wind come from? Faerie had no wind.
“Faerie has what I say it has, woman. Show yourself.”
Her body moved of its own accord, her knees straightening. She maintained her death grip on Rumann but she wouldn’t hide any longer. She rose and lifted her chin, despite fear shooting through her heart with increasing panic.
The woman before her, if such a mundane term might apply to her, stood tall, taller than any woman Clíodhna had ever seen. Taller than Oisinne had been, or Pátraic. Unlike some Lesser Fae, she wasn’t slender or dainty. She had muscles and solid thighs, rounded curves. The clothing covering these curves shifted in radiance as she stood, shifting from brilliant greens to soft blues, icy whites and vivid yellows. Clíodhna blinked before this brilliance, despite the dimness in the roundhouse and the darkened sky outside.
Long, white curls framed an imperious, snow-white face with piercing black cat eyes. Her hands planted on her hips, several tiny winged Fae peered around her form at Clíodhna and Rumann, curiosity clear in their faces.
Three tall male Fae stood outside, their stiff postures and bronze spears indicating their position as guards.
“There you are. Give me the child.” Her voice split through Clíodhna’s head and commanded obedience.
Clíodhna began to stretch her arms out but fought against the compulsion and pulled back. “No! You may not take my baby.”
She laughed, the low rumble of a thunderstorm across the sea. “I will not take him from you, mortal creature. I wish to examine him. A child borne of Fae is unusual enough that it requires my attention, especially when it’s born in my very realm.”
With great reluctance, Clíodhna gave into the coercive power of the woman and placed Rumann into her arms.
With lightning speed, Queen Áine, for so she must be, shifted from commanding ruler to adoring mother. She beamed at the child, tickling his feet and chuckling at the giggle she elicited.
“The babe
