“How dare you!” I seethed, reaching for her arm.
Siobhan stepped away, avoiding me. “Take heed.” She smiled like a cat who has fallen but landed on her feet. “You cannot fight the forces at work here. He and I were promised by our parents long ago. ’Twas a plan to unite the Vykrothes and Leapvaughns. And although my Diarmuid has strayed with the likes of you, he always comes back to me.” Her pale gray eyes were full of spite. “He loves me. You are just a passing fancy.”
“So you say,” I said tartly, though I felt my strength washing away in the rising tide of doubt. I stood there, trying to fight the feelings that swept through me at the implication that Diarmuid had lain with another, perhaps many others. Oh, Goddess! I wanted to fall to the ground and sob but wouldn’t give Siobhan the satisfaction of witnessing my fully blossomed pain.
Would he betray me?
Would he lie with another?
Oh, Diarmuid.
“I’ve come here not to fight with you, but to give you a warning,” Siobhan went on. “I know of your silly magick and your Wodebayne tendency to turn to the dark forces.” She reached into her pocket and took out a small object. She held it up to the moon, then tossed it to my feet.
The rose stone! How had she come to have it?
“It is worthless now,” she said. “I saw to that.”
The small stone looked dim and gray in the dust of the road. I felt too startled to pick it up or respond.
“Stay away from Diarmuid, or you will regret it for as long as you live.” With that, Siobhan turned away and marched off toward Lillipool.
I stared after her in utter shock. Ordering me away from my love? Crossing my magick charm! Defying the Goddess! Malice rose within me, churning, burning. The urge to shoot dealan-dé at her made my hands twitch. I lifted my hand.
But she turned back with a scowl.
I held the fire within me, held on to the desire to blast her in the face. “You haven’t seen the end of me!” I shouted. “You will not have Diarmuid, and you will pay for foiling our plans.”
Siobhan laughed. It was a cruel, cold sound that seemed to dance on the summer breeze. She was still laughing when she turned away and strode off. Even from behind, her long neck and pale beauty were regal and comely. I wished she would shape-shift into a fat swan and fly away!
There in the center of the road, I stretched my arms out to the Goddess and lifted my face to the sky. I was so frustrated! Why did I keep losing my love at every turn? Despite Diarmuid’s weaknesses, I knew the Goddess intended us to be together. I knew he was destined to be a father to the child in my womb.
The moon above me was ringed with a watery halo—a sign of disruption. As I watched, it moved like a ring of oil, snaking in and out. A ring of madness. It made me wary. Nothing in the air tonight was reliable. It was a moon of illusions and interruptions. I half expected the ground beneath my feet to buckle and give way, dropping me deep into an earthly grave.
Oh, what was I doing, suffering hysterics here in the middle of the road, where murderers, thieves, and disapproving Christians could come along at any second? Overwhelmed, I moved off the road to hide behind some bushes, pressed my palms to my face, and began to cry. It was too much to bear—losing my love again! And it hurt all the more now that he knew of our child. He was not just turning against me: he was rejecting the tiny babe in my womb!
I was on my knees, sobbing, when I sensed another blood witch in the brush behind me. I turned and stared into the darkness, using my magesight. Aislinn, the young witch from Síle’s coven, was closing in on a rabbit. She leaped into a patch of watery moonlight, trying to catch it, but the animal slipped away at the last second.
She was probably on her way home from the Lughnassadh circle, but what was she doing trying to catch a rabbit? “Aislinn?” I called through my tears. “What are you doing?” Could she be trying to capture a creature to spill its blood in a dark spell?
“Oh, just having a game with the creature,” Aislinn said, closing the distance between us. Her mouth twitched a bit, making me wonder if my suspicions were correct. “What say you, Rose? Your ma said you were ill, but here, collapsed along the road?” She hurried over and helped me to my feet. “Can you walk?”
“I think so,” I said, “though I have nowhere to go now that...” A new wave of hysteria came over me, and I choked on my words.
Aislinn patted my back. “Come now, Rose. I’ve never seen you in such a state. We must sit.” She led me to a fallen log, where we sat amid the fireflies. “We missed you at the circle tonight, and I know your ma was worried, though she made your excuses, claiming that your sickness had arisen once again. I sense that it is not sickness that kept you away, but some other distressing matter.”
As she talked, I dried my eyes with the hem of my summer skirt. When she pushed back her red hair, I noticed that she had inscribed runes of plant dye on her forehead as part of her devotion to the Sun God. I gasped. It was typical Aislinn, but Reverend Winthrop of the village would have her hanged for the pagan practice if he saw the markings. It seemed as though she were risking her life to flaunt her devotion to the Goddess. Aislinn had always been a rebel, and I found much of her behavior shocking. I was not sure that I could trust her, but she was a member of my coven, and at the moment I had so few choices.
“You have guessed right,” I told her. “It seems I am caught in a terrible love triangle, and I have spent the evening grappling with a vicious Vykrothe girl who intends to steal my love away!”
Her face was awash with moonlight and interest, so I told her of my sorrows. Of my love for Diarmuid despite our clan differences. Of his intentions to run away with me. Of Siobhan’s interference. I managed to exclude mention of my baby, not wanting to give Aislinn more than her share of sordid details. And it seemed that her ardor was fired by the situation alone.
“Yet another example of the other clans conspiring against us!” she railed. “Oh, you poor girl! To be the victim of their hatred.”
I felt new tears slip down my cheeks at her words. At the moment I didn’t care so much about the hatred among the clans, I just wanted Diarmuid back.
“I don’t blame you for crying,” Aislinn said. Her red hair fell over one cheek like a thick veil as she leaned toward me. “It’s a heavy burden upon your shoulders now, made all the worse by the fact that your ma doesn’t understand at all. She keeps telling Wodebayne folks to lie down while the other clans trample over us!”
I sniffed, surprised that Aislinn understood how difficult it was to be the daughter of a high priestess, especially one with such strong views. Although the Wodebaynes had endured bigotry throughout my life, my mother had never wavered from her position of peace among the clans. I wondered about Ma now. She would be annoyed at my disappearance. But her true fury would pour out when she learned of my love for a boy from another clan and of my pregnancy.
Pressing a hand against my belly, I realized I would have to return to Síle tonight. It was late, and it would be far too dangerous, not to mention foolhardy, for me and my babe to try to make the journey into Lillipool tonight.
Oh, how had I gotten myself into such a position?
“You cannot let this matter rest,” Aislinn said, her eyes lit with determination.
“Aye, my heart will not let me.” Nor will the child inside me, I thought as I slid off the log.
“You must fight back,” Aislinn went on. “Síle and her coveners keep trying to tamp down the fires, but there’s no quenching the blaze now. The other clans have struck the first blows, and now it’s up to us to show them the strength of our magick. We have the power to punish the other clans. Why don’t we use it?”