She knew the truth. Not that she hated all wolves. That would make her like the Faol who had taken her and done the horrible things they had done with every intention of killing her in the end, as they would kill any Éan they came across.
No, she would not share the unreasoning prejudices of her enemy and hate an entire race, making no distinctions between individuals.
But she could not trust them, either.
TWO
Bryant and his companions rode into the clearing deep in the forest. Their guide, Circin of the Donegal clan, pulled his horse to a stop without a sound.
The six Faol soldiers also pulled their horses to a stop.
“Now what?” Donnach, the other Balmoral wolf sent by their laird to act as diplomat to the Éan, asked.
“We wait,” Circin said, his youth belied by his confidence.
In line to be the next leader of the Donegal clan once the acting laird, Barr, had trained him to his station as both laird and pack alpha, the youth was an extremely rare shifter with two animals. Not that Circin’s triple nature was common knowledge, but Bryant and the others, if they were looking, had witnessed the other man shift into his raven the night before.
Since Circin’s clan believed him to be wolf, that meant the Chrechte had a dual animal nature: both Faol and Éan.
“Why aren’t you one of the emissaries?” Bryant asked him.
He would think a man who shared his nature with both a raven and a wolf would make a better bridge for the gap between the two races than a pure wolf.
“I lived among the Éan for a year after Barr married Sabrine, but I told no one except the prince and Anya Gra of my wolf. We all felt it best at the time.”
Considering the shared past between the two races of Chrechte, Bryant had no trouble understanding why that decision had been made. “Just as your clan isn’t aware you are a raven?”
“Some in my clan know,” Circin admitted easily.
And then something became clear to Bryant. Circin had shifted where Bryant and the others could see him because he trusted them. “You are acting as a bridge even if others do not know it.”
A faint blush darkened the laird-in-training’s cheeks. “The trust between the Chrechte brethren must start with the individual man.”
“And woman,” one of the Sinclair warriors added solemnly.
They all nodded. Highland Chrechte understood the value of all their people. Among the clans, human women were often seen as chattel, but the Chrechte were not like that.
Ancient laws dictated that all had their place before the Creator. Man was nothing without woman and woman was nothing without man. Just as the Éan were not complete without the Faol and the Faol were not complete without the Éan.
The different races of Chrechte had been created for a reason and it was not the role of any individual to try to change that. No matter how misguided and downright evil the actions of some of the Faol.
He still found it hard to believe that in only a few generations the memory of the other races of the Chrechte had been taken from the Faol, leaving the wolves to believe they were the only shape-changers in existence.
Now, others besides just Bryant’s family knew and believed their ancient stories were more than simply that. They were a history of people that had indeed lived and still did live, if in secret deep in the forest for the past centuries.
One day, wolves and the birds would unite with the Paindeal, their cat-shifting brothers and sisters, again as well. It had to be so.
Bryant had not been chosen as emissary by accident. He passionately desired the reconnection of their races.
Had been raised since he was a whelp to believe the time would come when the Éan would be accepted once again among the Faol. Must be accepted.
The desire to make it so was imbedded deep inside him and he would see it to its conclusion.
The Éan needed to join the clans as the Faol had done, for all their good and safety.
* * *
Tucked against a branch high in her tree, Una watched in her eagle form as the six Faol warriors followed Circin of the Donegal and her own prince on horseback into the village, riding past the base of the trees in which most of the Éan made their dwellings.