Gwynith sounded so much like Rhyann, Selena had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. “I think I have the strength to answer one question.” Before Gwynith could protest, Selena turned back to the bards. “I don’t come from a Clan.”

The bards’ spokesman looked puzzled. “Then…where do you come from?”

“I come from the Mother’s Hills.”

Instant silence as even Gwynith stared at her. She could hear the raindrops dripping from the leaves of the nearby trees.

“Mother’s mercy,” the bard whispered.

She didn’t want to terrify these people any more than she’d already done, but they needed to understand how much her presence among them, and her power over them, was going to change their lives. She said gently, “I think you will find, good bard, that if the wrath of the House of Gaian looks in your direction, the Mother will have no mercy.”

All three men glanced up at the clear night sky and turned deathly pale.

“Enough,” Gwynith said.

“In a moment,” Selena said. “Now I have a question. Do you know the Bard?”

The bards’ spokesman nodded warily.

“Do you know where to find him?”

The man looked even more wary. “Not at present, Lady. He is…traveling. But we could send a message through the Clans,” he added hurriedly.

“Then tell the Bard that the new Lady of the Moon would like to speak with him, if he would so oblige me.”

“We’ll send the message, Lady.” They moved away, hurrying toward their horses.

Selena looked at Gwynith. “It is not that I don’t appreciate your assistance, but I’m wondering why you’re offering it so freely.”

“Two reasons,” Gwynith replied after a long pause. “First, I have pledged my loyalty and service to you, and I think you are not familiar with Tir Alainn or riding the shining roads.”

“I have no experience with either.”

“You have no reason to trust any of us, but I swear to you I will do nothing that would harm you in any way. I—I can’t say with any certainty that will be true of the others here tonight…or other Fae who weren’t here tonight.”

“Understood. Your second reason?”

Gwynith hesitated, obviously struggling with how to say enough without saying too much. “Lady Ashk did not approve of Dianna and the way she was leading the Fae. But I think…I think Lady Ashk would approve of you.”

And that’s very important to you, isn’t it? “Who is Lady Ashk?”

“She’s the Lady of the Woods at Bretonwood, a Clan in the west.”

Lady of the Woods.

A shiver went through Selena. The woods coming alive. Coming toward her. “What is her other form?”

Gwynith gave her an odd, searching look. “She is like you, Huntress. She is a shadow hound.”

Two shadow hound bitches racing through the woods, racing through the moonlight, united against a common enemy.