If he had consulted an Oracle, Sioc would have known that the wide, lush expanse of wood he was staring at would, in a handful of centuries, be part of a bustling town. Trees razed to the ground, grass and brush plowed under to make room for streets and parking lots, grocery stores and apartment buildings. The humans that would reside there would be, on the whole, quite pleased with it.
It would have disgusted Sioc so much he might have taken flight off the nearest cliffs into the ocean.
Thankfully, Sioc held as much distaste for oracles as he did for humans.
He dropped abruptly from the rocky overhang where he'd perched and took off through the familiar treetops. Sioc often did things abruptly; when he'd made his mind up about a course of action, he simply implemented it.
Except this time, he hadn't made up his mind.
He might have been mistaken for a human at first glance—very briefly, and only until he moved. Wide ears tapered to angled, tilted points, collecting every sound—every rustle, every broken twig within a mile or more. Lithe muscles propelled him through the forest with a grace no human would ever match. Sharp, clear blue eyes missed nothing of the cacophonous life going on beneath him on the forest floor, things no human had the patience to see.
No, he would never be mistaken for a human. He was sidhe. Better yet, he was of the Wild Hunt.
And the Hunt did not answer to Oberon. They certainly did not answer to Titania, not anymore. They answered to him, and him alone, and he had not yet given them an answer.
The branch beneath his feet was solid. Real. He knew the grain of this wood, had climbed these trees since he could walk. His people had lived in this forest for longer than the humans had words to count. Every hollow, every deer path, every stream belonged to them in a way no human law could comprehend.
They could stay.
The thought settled over him with surprising weight. Not the frantic circling of indecision—Sioc didn't indulge in that. Just the simple, brutal truth of it. They could stay. Let the others flee to Oberon's new world. The Hunt had survived worse than human expansion. They could fade deeper into the wild places, become legend and shadow, wait for the humans to destroy themselves as they would eventually do.
It would be the easier choice.
"They're waiting, you know."
The voice behind Sioc should have startled him—an unexpected sound was still unexpected, no matter how familiar. But Sioc had known Tinéigeas would follow. More brother than friend, he had an annoying habit of appearing exactly when he wasn't wanted.
"Sent that fucking sprite, too," Tine continued, settling himself on a nearby branch with the carelessness of someone who knew he wouldn't be sent away. "Cu might have him skinned and spitted before we get back."
Sioc just grunted.
"You were hell to catch up to." Tine shifted his weight, the thick branch barely bending under him. Sometime around his sixteenth year he'd shot up to tower over almost everyone, Sioc included. Sometime after that he'd started to fill out so he looked less like an underfed colt and more like a stone wall. "Hell to catch up to, but easy enough to track, scrabbling through the branches like someone'd set your ass on fire."
"Nobody asked you to wear yourself out trying."
If the reply seemed snappish, it rolled off the other sidhe's broad, scarred back. "You didn't tell me not to, either. So there's a bone you can chew on."
Silence settled between them. Below, something small and furred darted between roots. Above, the canopy whispered secrets in a language older than words. Sioc had spent his entire life listening to those whispers.
He might never hear them again.
"We don't have to go, y'know." Tine said finally. Not pushing. Just stating fact. "Neither Oberon nor his bitch have any right to command us anywhere. Fuck them both with the sharp end of an ox horn."
Sioc said nothing.
"You're the clan's chieftain," Tine continued, his voice carefully level. "If you say we stay, we stay. We wouldn't be the only ones."
There it was. An unwanted reminder of the weight that never left him, the one that he could forever feel pressing into the back of his neck, but never so much as right now: they trusted him. None of them, not even Tine, would question his decision once it was made, they would just follow. Two hundred lives, the very last of them, content to let him shape their entire world the way they always had. The way they always would.
If they survived this.
He had already made his peace with whose hands had helped shape that world. He would not let the hatred that burned inside him cost his people their lives.
"The new world's made," Sioc said. His voice came out steady. Certain. "Lives were sacrificed to do it. It needs us, as much as we need it."
He looked out over the forest one last time. Let himself see it—really see it and mark it with the kind of attention he usually reserved for prey. The dappled light. The moss-covered stones. The ancient oaks that had sheltered his people for generations beyond counting.
"This world is lost," he said. "To the humans and their wars and their farms and their religion. Leave them to it. Let them destroy themselves. They won't take my folk with them."
Tine didn't question the reasoning, not even inside his own head. That would have been a waste of time, and he wasn't given to wasting time. Once Sioc's mind was set, one might as well try to pull the sun from the sky.
But this time, Sioc thought he caught something in the other sidhe's expression—relief? Disappointment? Hard to tell with him sometimes….hard to tell with any of them, really. The Hunt kept their feelings close….but there was something.
"Right then," Tine said, rising to his feet with the kind of casual grace that belied his size. "Best tell the others before Cu actually murders that sprite."
Sioc nodded. Started to move...then stopped.
Just for a moment—just one breath, no more—he let himself stand in the cool green of a wood that had nestled his people to its heart for centuries. A wood that would soon swallow up every trace that they had ever existed, long before humans had the chance to see.
Good.
Let the forest keep its secrets.
With his decision made, Sioc turned his back on the only home he'd ever known and moved toward whatever the future held.
PROLOGUE
If he had consulted an Oracle, Sioc would have known that the wide, lush expanse of wood he was staring at would, in a handful of centuries, be part of a bustling town. Trees razed to the ground, grass and brush plowed under to make room for streets and parking lots, grocery stores and apartment buildings. The humans that would reside there would be, on the whole, quite pleased with it.
It would have disgusted Sioc so much he might have taken flight off the nearest cliffs into the ocean.
Thankfully, Sioc held as much distaste for oracles as he did for humans.
He dropped abruptly from the rocky overhang where he'd perched and took off through the familiar treetops. Sioc often did things abruptly; when he'd made his mind up about a course of action, he simply implemented it.
Except this time, he hadn't made up his mind.
He might have been mistaken for a human at first glance—very briefly, and only until he moved. Wide ears tapered to angled, tilted points, collecting every sound—every rustle, every broken twig within a mile or more. Lithe muscles propelled him through the forest with a grace no human would ever match. Sharp, clear blue eyes missed nothing of the cacophonous life going on beneath him on the forest floor, things no human had the patience to see.
No, he would never be mistaken for a human. He was sidhe. Better yet, he was of the Wild Hunt.
And the Hunt did not answer to Oberon. They certainly did not answer to Titania, not anymore. They answered to him, and him alone, and he had not yet given them an answer.
The branch beneath his feet was solid. Real. He knew the grain of this wood, had climbed these trees since he could walk. His people had lived in this forest for longer than the humans had words to count. Every hollow, every deer path, every stream belonged to them in a way no human law could comprehend.
They could stay.
The thought settled over him with surprising weight. Not the frantic circling of indecision—Sioc didn't indulge in that. Just the simple, brutal truth of it. They could stay. Let the others flee to Oberon's new world. The Hunt had survived worse than human expansion. They could fade deeper into the wild places, become legend and shadow, wait for the humans to destroy themselves as they would eventually do.
It would be the easier choice.
"They're waiting, you know."
The voice behind Sioc should have startled him—an unexpected sound was still unexpected, no matter how familiar. But Sioc had known Tinéigeas would follow. More brother than friend, he had an annoying habit of appearing exactly when he wasn't wanted.
"Sent that fucking sprite, too," Tine continued, settling himself on a nearby branch with the carelessness of someone who knew he wouldn't be sent away. "Cu might have him skinned and spitted before we get back."
Sioc just grunted.
"You were hell to catch up to." Tine shifted his weight, the thick branch barely bending under him. Sometime around his sixteenth year he'd shot up to tower over almost everyone, Sioc included. Sometime after that he'd started to fill out so he looked less like an underfed colt and more like a stone wall. "Hell to catch up to, but easy enough to track, scrabbling through the branches like someone'd set your ass on fire."
"Nobody asked you to wear yourself out trying."
If the reply seemed snappish, it rolled off the other sidhe's broad, scarred back. "You didn't tell me not to, either. So there's a bone you can chew on."
Silence settled between them. Below, something small and furred darted between roots. Above, the canopy whispered secrets in a language older than words. Sioc had spent his entire life listening to those whispers.
He might never hear them again.
"We don't have to go, y'know." Tine said finally. Not pushing. Just stating fact. "Neither Oberon nor his bitch have any right to command us anywhere. Fuck them both with the sharp end of an ox horn."
Sioc said nothing.
"You're the clan's chieftain," Tine continued, his voice carefully level. "If you say we stay, we stay. We wouldn't be the only ones."
There it was. An unwanted reminder of the weight that never left him, the one that he could forever feel pressing into the back of his neck, but never so much as right now: they trusted him. None of them, not even Tine, would question his decision once it was made, they would just follow. Two hundred lives, the very last of them, content to let him shape their entire world the way they always had. The way they always would.
If they survived this.
He had already made his peace with whose hands had helped shape that world. He would not let the hatred that burned inside him cost his people their lives.
"The new world's made," Sioc said. His voice came out steady. Certain. "Lives were sacrificed to do it. It needs us, as much as we need it."
He looked out over the forest one last time. Let himself see it—really see it and mark it with the kind of attention he usually reserved for prey. The dappled light. The moss-covered stones. The ancient oaks that had sheltered his people for generations beyond counting.
"This world is lost," he said. "To the humans and their wars and their farms and their religion. Leave them to it. Let them destroy themselves. They won't take my folk with them."
Tine didn't question the reasoning, not even inside his own head. That would have been a waste of time, and he wasn't given to wasting time. Once Sioc's mind was set, one might as well try to pull the sun from the sky.
But this time, Sioc thought he caught something in the other sidhe's expression—relief? Disappointment? Hard to tell with him sometimes….hard to tell with any of them, really. The Hunt kept their feelings close….but there was something.
"Right then," Tine said, rising to his feet with the kind of casual grace that belied his size. "Best tell the others before Cu actually murders that sprite."
Sioc nodded. Started to move...then stopped.
Just for a moment—just one breath, no more—he let himself stand in the cool green of a wood that had nestled his people to its heart for centuries. A wood that would soon swallow up every trace that they had ever existed, long before humans had the chance to see.
Good.
Let the forest keep its secrets.
With his decision made, Sioc turned his back on the only home he'd ever known and moved toward whatever the future held.
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