“Driven from his clan, more like,” Grallic snorted. “A fairy without a clan is a fairy who has betrayed his clan.”
“The fairy is of no consequence,” Richard asserted, cutting off what Snedeker was already beginning to say. “From where do you hail?”
“The area north of Caer Llion,” Grallic grumbled. “The plains are full of men, men with their iron and anger. They camped on our lands, unsettled our home, and we had no choice but to leave. Hidden we have remained for centuries but no longer. Now we flee for our lives.”
“How many men did you see?” Bran asked.
“Like the sea,” the fairy said. “Do not go that way. ‘Tis very dangerous.”
“A war comes to the land, one like none of us have ever seen,” Richard warned. “In a matter of days, if not sooner, the dying will replace the living. You are wise to leave.”
“Wisdom has nothing to do with it,” Grallic said. “Farewell to ye and yer clan.”
“And to you, Grallic of the Grastolls.”
Grallic gave Snedeker a dark look before flying around the Rhedewyr and heading toward the Carn Cavall. The swarm followed their leader. After a few moments, they vanished as though they never had been.
“What was that about, Snedeker?” Bran asked. “You told me the Firewillows came after you. You never told me why your clan kicked you out.”
The fairy crossed his arms and ignored the question.
“He has never told me either,” Deirdre said. “Says it is none of my business.”
“Pigcrack right, it’s not!” Snedeker shot back.
“I bet more than anything that this fairy deserved being kicked out of his clan,” Richard said. “Guide or no guide, sent by the Lady or not, when it is their neck on the line, a fairy will never do what is right or courageous. Remember that, Bran.”
Snedeker looked away into the distance, ignoring the knight.
Richard clicked Lyrian forward. The others followed. The plains grew humid as early afternoon pressed in. They passed down the length of the Tawy River, the waterway wider than the Tywi River but slower moving through the grasslands. The odors of the plains mixing with the musk of the horses settled in Deirdre’s nose. Sweat trickled into her clothing, uncomfortably, but it was the burn that worsened, the heat from the fire seared into her feverish body. She kept a wary eye on the horizon, dreading what it may bring. A sporadic crow or prairie falcon circled, the only life they had seen beyond the fairies.
Arrow Jack kept to himself, an untiring scout. As the day’s light purpled into sunset, the tall golden grass receded slowly and became greener, hearkening a new change to the land.
When the emerald smudge of Dryvyd Wood had devoured half the sun, Deirdre brought Willowyn alongside Lyrian.
“What is your world like, Rick?”
Richard raised an eyebrow, surprised by the question. “The only word I can think of is busy,” he answered. “It is filled with people rushing from home to work and back again. It isn’t like Annwn, where people live off of the land—maybe it used to be a thousand years ago, but no longer. Magic has no place there, as it so obviously does here, and machines are everywhere. Everything happens at such a fast pace that often people of my world don’t appreciate what they’ve just passed. People don’t believe in…any of this.” He waved his arm around. “Annwn is a myth only found in Arthurian tales and other such stories.”
“The Forever King,” Deirdre said. “Not a myth. We still recount the history behind his war with the Mordred, Medraut, and his other exploits in the Misty Isles. The people of your world seem to have a hard time believing things they cannot see.”
“Very true.”
“Sounds scary,” she said. “I could not live that way.”
“I used to be like them,” Richard said. “Before Myrddin Emrys ruined my life, I was a student at a university. He proved those legends to be all too true. Now a day doesn’t pass that I wish I could still be ignorant like the rest in my world.”
Deirdre turned away. “Do you have a…woman?”
Richard looked away, the line along his jaw hardening. “Once I did,” he said simply. “Long ago.”
“What happened to her?” she asked.
Richard ignored the question. Deirdre thought he was avoiding it—and maybe he was—until she realized his interest in the horizon. In the distance, a column of diffuse gray smoke broadened toward the cloudless sky. She knew what it likely