A Distant Tomorrow. Бертрис Смолл

she promised. “Now go and find Tearlach, my son, and ask Noss to join me.”

       The little boy ran off to do her bidding. Lara reached for her goblet of frine, but Noss was quickly there, and stayed her hand.

       “We need wine,” the younger woman said, uncorking a decanter, and pouring a fresh goblet of the strong red brew. “Here, I will join you.” She filled a second goblet. “Dillon seems all right.”

       “We cried together,” Lara replied. “He knows I’m leaving.”

       “You told him?” Noss was surprised.

       “No,” Lara answered with a small smile. “He just knew. Don’t discourage his instincts while he is with you, Noss. I know such things tend to unsettle your nerves, but you must let whatever powers Dillon has grow and thrive.”

       “I will,” Noss promised nervously.

       Liam entered the house, and came to join the two women. “I could not remain in the hall,” he said. “Bera’s keening would awaken a statue. The word is spreading. I’ve dispatched messengers to all the Fiacre villages. The elders will gather in three days’ time to choose the new Lord of the Fiacre.”

       “It must be sooner,” Lara said. “The clan lords will know as soon as our own people. A new head of the Outlands High Council must be chosen as well.”

       “I’ll take the lordship of this clan, though reluctantly,” Liam responded, “but I am not the man to lead the Outlands. That you cannot ask of me.”

       “Vartan was the one man the others trusted, and admired,” Lara spoke thoughtfully. “He was strong, and he had my counsel. Roan of the Aghy is ambitious and will seek the post, but he is too hot tempered. The best man would be Rendor of the Felan. He has a cool head, and I can advise him without his wife, Rahil, becoming jealous.”

       “You will go to the Felan then?” Liam asked her.

       “Only on my way to the Coastal Kingdom in Hetar,” Lara replied. “I sense that is where I am meant to be at this time.”

       He nodded. Then he asked, “Did you know what would happen to Vartan?”

       “No!” Lara paled, surprised and shocked by Liam’s query. “Why would you ask me such a thing? I would have given my life for Vartan as he would have for me.”

       “Did you love him?” Liam pursued.

       “I should not have given him children otherwise, Liam. Faerie women, even half-faerie women, only bear offspring for the men they love,” Lara said quietly. “When the war ended my mother advised me to stop trying so hard to live up to my faerie nature, and follow my heart. She said I had time. Yes, I loved Vartan. Not as much as he loved me, I know. But I did love him.”

       “Forgive me, Lara,” Liam said, and bowed his head in apology to her.

       “I had forgotten what it is like to be mistrusted by humans,” Lara responded. “I have been so happy here among the Fiacre. I have even felt as if I were fully human, and one of you. Until now. Now I am forced to remember who I am, and that I have a destiny to fulfill. Noss has agreed to take my children, and I hope you will concur. She can tell you why.”

       “I will take Dillon and Anoush gladly,” Liam said. He was ashamed of his question, and knew that Vartan would have been angry with him for asking it. “They shall be as my own, Lara. I swear it.”

       “But they must not be allowed to forget Vartan,” Lara said. “Anoush will remember neither her sire or me, I know. She will think of you and Noss as her mother and father. If she is safe and happy then I am content. Dillon, however, will remember us. My son has magic in him, Liam. It must not be discouraged.”

       “I understand,” Liam answered her.

       “We will speak on this again before I leave,” Lara told him. “Now I had best return to the hall and give what comfort I can to Bera. Will you keep the children a while longer?”

       He nodded, watching as she turned away from him and left his house. His wife now came from the shadows where she had been standing and slipped her small hand into his big one. “Well, lass,” Liam said with a small attempt at humor, “did you ever think you would one day be the Lady of the Fiacre?” He put his other arm about her.

       Noss sighed. “Seven years ago I was sold into slavery by my parents. No, Liam, I never considered I should attain such a place in this world of ours. But then I could never have imagined the adventures that I shared with Lara, or a love such as the one I share with you, my husband.” Her free hand went to her distended belly where the child within moved strongly. “You are certain the elders will select you?” Noss asked him.

       “Aye, they will,” he told her. “Now I wonder if I had accepted the lordship when they first offered it to me if Vartan would still be alive.” Liam sighed.

       “He had his fate to live out,” Noss counseled. “You have yours.”

       “You are becoming wise with age, wife,” he teased her gently.

       “Well,” Noss said pertly in reply, “I am almost twenty.” Then she grew serious. “Poor Lara, to lose her husband so cruelly. To leave her children behind. I do not envy her, despite her beauty and her faerie magic.”

       “I do not envy her because she must calm Bera,” Liam said with a grimace. “The woman was in a terrible state when I finally left the hall. I think she has gone mad.”

       “Lara will calm her,” Noss said with assurance.

       But entering the hall and seeing the state her mother-in-law was in, Lara wondered if anyone could ease Bera’s sorrow. The older woman paced up and down the hall muttering, her long gray hair swinging with each step she took. But her eyes were blank, without emotion of any sort. The three bodies were still upon the floor where they had met their end. Lara signaled to a male servant. “Fetch some others, and remove the dead,” she ordered. “And clean Andraste before returning her to her place of honor.” She handed her weapon to the serving man.

       “No!” Bera screeched, and ran to Lara. “You cannot take them from me. The bitch, yes! But not my boys. Not my boys!”

       “Go,” Lara said sternly. Then she took Bera by the hand, and sat her down by the hearth. “Listen to me, Bera. You cannot dishonor Vartan by leaving his body on the stone floor. His departure ceremony must be celebrated. He was the Lord of the Fiacre as was his father before him. The elders will demand Vartan be honored properly. As for Adon and Elin, they will be put into the earth unsung.”

       “From the moment he sprang forth from my womb Adon competed with Vartan,” Bera said. Her eyes were now filled with her pain. “But Vartan never complained. He treated his younger brother with kindness. It is not our way to murder our own, Lara. How could he have done it? How? It was his mate—that wretched, wretched girl! I never wanted him to wed her. She was greedy and wicked, Lara. And now because of her actions her son is orphaned. What will become of little Cam, Lara? What will happen to the child?”

       “You will raise him, of course,” Lara comforted the woman.

       Bera’s sorrowful face looked into Lara’s. “Yes,” she said. “I will take him.”

       Lara considered telling her all that had transpired in the short time following Vartan’s brutal murder, but she decided Bera was not yet ready to hear it. “You must rest now,” she told her mother-in-law, helping her to her feet. “I will do what must be done.” She signaled to a female servant. “Take the lady Bera to her chamber and give her a small goblet of wine.” She reached into the pocket of her robes and drew out a small gilded pill. “Put this in the wine. It will aid her sleep.”

       “Yes, lady,” the serving woman said, and led the grieving Bera from the hall.

       Lara now turned to the servants who had entered the hall. “Six of you take the bodies of Adon and his foul wife out onto the plain,” she instructed them.