With a sigh, Clíodhna rose from the pond and crawled back into bed, letting sleep claim her.
Clíodhna counted at least twelve more long sleeps before Adhna returned. He stumbled in while she slept, but she woke as soon as he tripped over something and cursed. He looked well-worn and rough. After springing to her feet, she peeled the soiled clothing from his body and made him lie down. “You need rest, love. I’ll start some food, but you sleep.”
He mumbled something about leaving again soon, but she shushed him. “Sleep! Not talk. Sleep.”
When his snores filled the roundhouse, she picked his léine up with two fingers and, holding it out as far as she could, took it to the pond. She dunked it in, wrung it, and dunked again, until the stink went away. She hung the léine to dry and examined it, noting several places that required mending.
Clíodhna pulled out her sewing kit and the bone needle she used in Faerie, and repaired several rips. One had parallel cuts like an animal’s claw had ripped it. She glanced at her lover, trying to remember if she’d seen any wounds on his skin when she readied him for bed. If he’d been injured, he must have already healed, for she recalled nothing like this. Clothing didn’t heal like Fae flesh.
Someone cleared their throat. She spun to check on Adhna, but his snore still sung. Instead, a group of five Fae stood in a line. The largest one, a mountain Fae, his skin gray and mottled, stepped forward, wringing his hands. “Please, my lady…”
“I’m not my lady. I made that clear to Grimnaugh. My name is Clíodhna.”
He cleared his throat again, a noise like stone scraping together. “Yes, my lady Clíodhna.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed, gesturing for him to continue.
“My lady Clíodhna, we have come to beg a favor from you. Will you listen to us?”
“Your name is Cionnan, right? How can I help, Cionnan?”
Another of the Fae twittered and giggled, hopping a few times in excitement. The mountain Fae cast her a withering glance and she calmed down, her wings still fluttering. “We ask you to rid our land of a blight.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What sort of blight?”
He stared at his feet rather than answer her. He mumbled something, but so low she couldn’t make out the words.
“Well? Cionnan, I can’t help you if I don’t understand what to prepare for.”
The stone Fae mumbled slightly louder this time. “It’s my lord Bodach.”
“Bodach? Bodach is your blight?” Warring emotions clashed inside of her. As much as she feared the bark-skinned Fae, she also wanted to fight him, to once and for all banish his evil intent from those she cared for. Prudence overcame her urge for justice. “I don’t think I’m powerful enough to battle Bodach, Cionnan.”
He grumbled again, stone grating against stone. Adhna emerged from the roundhouse, rubbing sleep from his eyes, wearing nothing at all. He blinked a few times at the Fae delegation. “What’s going on?”
She gestured to her visitors. “These Fae would like my help in ridding their land of an evil blight. Bodach.”
His eyes grew wide, showing the redness from lack of rest. “That cannot be done! Not by this human. Cionnan, what possessed you to come to Clíodhna with this? Even I would be a better candidate for such a mission, and yet I am not powerful enough to beat him in a fair fight.”
The mountain Fae looked at his feet again.
Adhna walked to the Fae and pulled his face up to look into his eyes. “Why, Cionnan? You should have gone to Queen Áine with this petition. Why didn’t you do that?”
The stone Fae glanced at Clíodhna and back at Adhna, entreaty in his sad eyes. With a curse, Adhna let his face go. “Bah. This is not good, not good at all. Clíodhna, stay here. I must speak to the Queen. You lot, head back home. Clíodhna cannot help you with your problem. The Queen is the only one able to do such a thing.”
He stomped back to the roundhouse and donned a new, clean léine. He continued to grumble as he left the roundhouse toward the Queen’s court.
As soon as he left, Cionnan grabbed Clíodhna’s hand, his skin cool and hard. “Please, please, my lady, at least come with us to see what he’s done?”
Each Fae turned sad eyes upon her. She could no sooner stay now than she could take flight. With one last glance in the direction Adhna had gone, she followed the Fae to their home.
Calling it a mountain might have been over-generous. The modest hill rose to a rocky outcropping, but the sides remained grassy and gentle. A thin, lazy river curled around the base of the hill, wending through bracken and willow trees. One of the Fae delegation, a sídhe, hopped with glee to be back near her tree and dove into the wood, her smile brightening. Cionnan frowned and pointed to an area upstream. “See there? Where the water spreads out into a marsh?”
She scanned the area, noting a wide marsh with several bedraggled weeds poking out of hummocks and some skeletal branches without leaves along the edge. “I do. It looks rather gloomy.”
“Exactly. It used to be a cheerful place, with marsh Fae thriving amongst the reeds. It’s become a dead zone now. Bodach comes here to pluck the magic from the land, and the dead area is growing each time.
“Pluck the magic? What do you mean?”
“When one draws upon land magic, the way we do naturally, and the way some humans do, they always take what they need and return the rest to the land. That way it replenishes, grows, and thrives. Bodach has not
