him, standing alone before him when Aerune would have taken his Wild Hunt among the tribes under her protection. She had stood unafraid in the path of the Unseleighe rade, her child’s face stern, telling him that he and his folk must ride another way.
He might have cut her down, bespelled her, done a thousand things to remove this obstacle from his path, for Aerune cared for nothing living. But something in her stern innocence had stopped him, and he had turned the Hunt aside.
Afterward, he had sought her out. She knew him by reputation, but had accepted him into her hall as a guest. She had spoken to him of the humans, the lastborn of Danu, and had tried to show him the good in them, the spark of magic that they shared with Danu’s firstborn, the Sidhe. Aerune felt his dark heart open to her like a flower to the sun. He begged her to come away with him to the World Beyond.
“But how can I abandon my human children, Lord Aerune? They are so innocent, so helpless. Their lives are but a brief span compared to ours. Stay with me, and offer them your guidance as well.”
He had not stayed, but he had come to her often, always hoping to persuade her to come away with him. And perhaps, Aerune told himself, he would have succeeded in time.
But time was not granted to them.
War came out of the East. At first Aerune paid no atten­tion to it. Mortalkind’s battles were the echo of the Sidhe wars, eternal and unchanging. They could not matter to him.
Or so he thought.
Aerete tried to make peace between the two tribes. It was hard, for the newcomers had the secret of a strange metal far stronger than the flint and bronze weapons of her people, and their losses had been heavy. Aerune had urged her to fight, counselling that only their victory would end the threat. He had not meant for Aerete to take the field beside her war-­captain, using her magic against their iron blades.
Iron. It was iron that had killed his love, a spear thrown to