But when he stopped to let the horses drink from a stream, she stayed mounted. When she got off, she decided, she wasn’t entirely sure she could get back on again.
Instead, she ordered herself to relax, to just be.
In the stillness, just the whisper of air through the pines and the hardwoods. Leaves drifting down as their cycle ended, and berries not yet gathered or eaten by birds and bears like little jewels on scraggly bushes. The light going soft, and the shadows deepening and stretching.
The stream rippled as the horses drank, a quiet music that joined the brighter notes of the water tumbling over rocks from higher ground.
The faintest rustle as a fox slunk through the brush, and the barest clicking of talons as an owl woke for the night’s hunt.
It struck her that of all the gifts she’d found inside herself, this one, just learned, seemed most precious.
“Amish.” Breen gestured up. “Morena must have sent him to scout for us, to be sure we were on our way back.”
Looking up, Keegan caught the blur as the hawk swooped down, danced through branches before he chose one. From its perch he gave them a long, cool study.
After returning it, Keegan turned Merlin away from the stream. “You weren’t looking at the sky when you said his name. In truth, you looked half-asleep.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. I felt him. And the owl.” She held up a finger as they walked the horses. “Listen.” Then let out a laugh at the two-toned hoot. “Nan helped me learn to find the heartbeats and the breath. Can you feel them?”
“Not as you do, no. My power there doesn’t go so deep as yours, though there’s Sidhe in our bloodline.”
“Is there?”
“Aye, Sidhe, and Elfin, Were, a dash of Troll. My father swore a many-times-great-grandmother was of the Mer.”
“Basically all the Fey?”
“So it’s told.”
She barely noticed they’d reached level ground again as she considered it. “That could be important.”
“Such a mix isn’t unusual given a millennium or so. Others have the same as well.”
“But others aren’t taoiseach. Others aren’t leading the Fey at this time, against Odran. You’re all of them, ties to every tribe. It could matter. It feels like it should matter.”
“It always just was, so I never thought otherwise.”
“I wonder if you should try exploring those other aspects.”
“I’ve a notion if I could sprout wings and fly, I’d have done so by this time of my life.”
“You’re being too literal. There’s more to the Sidhe than wings, or to an elf than speed.”
“That’s true enough.” He kicked Merlin into a trot when the track widened into a path. “Still, I’m damned if I can outrun an elf.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Still, you may be faster than you think because you’ve never pushed at that part of you. Trust me, I know all about accepting limitations, or believing I have them. Lots of them.”
“It’s interesting. I’ll think on it.”
“If you were a Were, what would your spirit animal be?”
“It’s not a choice, it is.”
Literal, she thought. Always so literal.
“If you had a choice. I think I’d be a dog, like Bollocks, making everybody smile. It’s a what-if,” she pressed. “There’s no wrong answer.”
“A dragon. Because there aren’t any, so I’d be the only.”
“Ah, ego intact. No were-dragons in Talamh?”
“Or in any world I know. Still, when you have each other, Fey and dragon, it’s all but being as one. Have you got a gallop in you? We’re coming to the road, and I’m long past ready for a meal.”
She asked Boy, and he stretched into a gallop.
She wanted to ask Keegan how dragon and rider chose each other, how it happened, what it felt like. But the idea of a hot meal and a gallop to clear some of the fatigue won out.
When they reached the road, she felt Boy’s anticipation. He knew home was coming, and with it, food and rest. She couldn’t agree more.
The moons rose over the bay, and the stars began to wink on. She saw four dragons ride the night sky, riderless, two a quarter the size of the others.
A family, she thought.
She thought of Marg and Sedric in their cottage, and reached out to let her grandmother know she was back.
When they reached the turn, something slid over her, through her, and she slowed her horse.
“What?” Keegan demanded as he rounded back to her. “I’m after a meal and some ale.”