Fionavar 1 by The Summer Tree

Author:The Summer Tree [Tree, The Summer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-08-28T02:31:46+00:00

of pain and pride truly meant.

She heard Tyrth cross the yard, limping west, and she knew what that meant, too. There were so many unexpected griefs, she thought, so many different things to pity.

Not least, what she had now, at last, to do. For the storm was upon them; that cry in the wood was the harbinger, and so it was full time, and this night would see her do what she had seen long ago.

Not for herself did she grieve; there had been true fear at her first foreknowledge, and an echo of it when she had seen the girl in the Great Hall, but it had passed. The thing was very dark, but no longer terrifying; long ago she had known what would come.

It would be hard, though, for the girl. It would be hard in every way, but against what had begun tonight with the dog and the wolf. . . . It was going to be hard for all of them. She could not help that; one thing only, she could do.

There was a stranger dying on the Tree. She shook her head; that, that was the deepest thing of all, and he was the one she had not been able to read, not that it mattered now. As to that, only the sporadic thunder mattered, thunder in a clear, starry sky. Mörnir would walk tomorrow, if the stranger held, and no one, not one of them could tell what that might mean. The God was outside of them.

But the girl. The girl was something else, and her Ysanne could see, had seen many times. She rose quietly and walked to stand over Kim. She saw the vellin stone on the slim wrist, and the Baelrath glowing on one finger, and she thought of Macha and Red Nemain and their prophecy.

She thought of Raederth then, for the first time that night. An old, old sorrow. Fifty years, but still.

Lost once, fifty years ago on the far side of Night, and now. . . . But the dog had howled in the wood, it was full, fullest time, and she had known for very long what was to come. There was no terror any more, only loss, and there had always been loss.

Kimberly stirred on her pillow. So young, the Seer thought. It was all so sad, but she knew, truly, of no other way, for she had lied the day before: it was not merely a matter of time before the girl could know the woven patterns of Fionavar as she needed to. It could not be. Oh, how could it ever be?

The girl was needed. She was a Seer, and more. The crossing bore witness, the pain of the land, the testimony in Eilathen's eyes. She was needed, but not ready, not complete, and the old woman knew one way, and only one, to do the last thing necessary.

The cat was awake, watching her with knowing eyes from the window sill. It was very dark; tomorrow there would be no moon.

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