Moon Shimmers(24)

Bran liked to goad me. Raven Mother wanted me to marry him, but that was the last thing on my bucket list. For one thing, I was already married and had enough husbands. For another, the thought of him touching me—regardless of how good looking he was—made me queasy. We had come to a truce but I didn’t trust it to hold, nor did I trust him to keep his word. Bran was more cunning and less helpful than his mother, and he blamed me for his father’s death.

Truth was, he was correct. I had killed his father—the Black Unicorn—but the Black Beast, as he was known, had instigated it.

The father of the Dahns Unicorns, he was a legendary beast, and the consort of Raven Mother. Together, they had somehow engendered Bran. Every thousand years, eight times before I had met him, the Black Unicorn had died and been reborn, shedding his horn and hide. I was lucky enough to possess a set. Only those who worked with magic could wield them, and there were plenty of people who wanted to get their hands on them, especially sorcerers.

But even though the Black Beast had engineered his own death at my hands, Bran hadn’t forgiven me. And he hadn’t forgiven his father for giving me the horn and hide. Bran was running some weird hate/lust relationship with me. I doubted that love entered into his emotional repertoire.

“Raven Mother, what do you want?” I knew I sounded churlish, but given the situation and the baggage behind us, I wasn’t all that thrilled to see her.

“An abrupt question, and yet, no greeting? No greeting from the one who will rule her court soon? How the seedling has sprouted. How the tender young plant has become a haughty bush. Aren’t you ever joyful to see your old, dear friend, Raven Mother?” As she spoke, Raven Mother began to circle me. The others stood back, wary.

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but we need to hurry. I don’t have time to talk.” I stood my ground. No way was I going to tell her what our rush was. As entwined as my life was with hers, I didn’t trust her and doubted that I ever would.

“Then be aware of this: Bran received a missive from Otherworld. There are whispers that the sorcerers who survived the dragon fire have banded together and have gone back to Chimaras, the Lord of the Sun. They are very antsy, they are, to reestablish their power. They have been driven to ground and now have no thought for anyone but themselves.”

My eyes narrowed. “They deserve nothing. They don’t even deserve their lives.”

The sorcerers had marched on the elves and destroyed their lands, and were intent on destroying everything else. They had left the order of Chimaras and thrown themselves in with Telazhar who had promised them the world if they lent him their strength. When their attack failed—and it failed in a spectacular rain of fire—the ones who had survived scattered.

“That may be, may be indeed. But they are gathering. And their first target will be not the dragons, whom they cannot hope to fight, but your beloved grove.”

The Grove of the Moon Mother. I pressed my hand to my throat, catching my breath. “How soon?”

“Oh, it will not be for some time. Some time it will take them. But you should know and warn your sisters of the order. I cannot, of course, since the beautiful, shining Moon cast me out of her forest, warning me never to return. Sad is the bearer of sad tales.” Raven Mother talked in circles, but I was used to it by now.

I thought about what she had said. “I have at least a few days, then.”

“Oh, yes. They are not ready to move forth yet. Time it takes to gather forces and regroup.”

“Thank you. I…” I stopped. I had started to say that I owed her one, but that was never a wise move with the Elemental Lords. In fact, that pretty much guaranteed a one-way ticket to enslavement. “I’ll make sure that the Moon Mother gets the message.”

Raven Mother eyed me craftily, then let out a soft caw. “I still wish you would reconsider and marry my son. What a force you would be together.”

“I don’t doubt that,” I said, giving her a long look. “But it’s a force that I think the world is far better off without. Now, I have to run.”

She shrugged and then, in a blinding flash of smoke infused with overtones of ruby, vanished into her raven form and winged her way south.

Watching her go, I had a sudden thought. “The horn. Maybe I can use it under water. I’ll be right back.” I dashed back inside and up the stairs to my room, where I pushed past the clothes in my closet to a secret recessed niche that Smoky had built for me. A touch on the hidden panel and it slid back, revealing the box in which the horn sat. The hide, which had been fashioned into a cloak for me, was hanging at the back. Hiding in plain sight, so to speak. I left it in the closet. A cloak would do me absolutely no good underwater.