Steal the Sun (Thieves #4)(51)

“Why?” Not even Dev had been able to explain the real animosity between the two tribes. Declan had personal reasons, but there were Seelies who had never even met an Unseelie yet they called for their blood at the merest provocation. “I know you’re different but you come from the same place. Why do you hate each other so much?”

He stopped. We’d reached the start of the forest. We’d been walking for thirty or forty minutes and now he pulled out a flask and settled down on the ground. “Sit for a moment, Your Grace. We still have much ground to cover.” I dropped down beside him, and after a moment he began to speak. He took a long drink but didn’t offer it to me. I was betting it wasn’t water. “I think it’s a lot of things that cause our hatred. My people are straightforward. They say what they mean and mean what they say. The Seelie are anything but. They play with a person mentally. They compliment, but their words have two meanings. They skirt the definition of a lie. We don’t understand them so we keep ourselves apart in a way we didn’t when we were all on the Earth plane.”

“A couple of years back I met a group of faeries who claimed to be Tuatha Dé Danann.” The Tuatha Dé Danann were a legendary group of Fae who led the second settling of Ireland and who, if you believed the legends, left the Earth plane altogether when they were defeated in battle. Well, most of them left. The ones who stayed behind built the mounds attached to the Earth plane, like the one I was sitting in. The Tuatha Dé Danann had traveled by passing through the veil between worlds. It was a talent that had been lost to this plane.

Herne grunted, a manly sound. “We haven’t seen nor heard from the old ones in many a generation. Why were they on the Earth plane?”

It was my turn to skirt around certain issues. “They were traveling, you know. Doing that thing where they pass through the veil. They were moving a transference box from one tribe to another. I helped them out.” I hadn’t really. I’d stolen the transference box, which had been full of magic passed on to the tribe as a gift. Daniel and I had accidentally primed said stolen box, which took the gift and formed a living creature from the magic. I skipped over that part, though. It wasn’t my shining moment in life. “Why did the tribes here stay behind? Why would someone like the Hunter not follow the old ones?”

“I was born in my sithein.” His eyes studied the forest around him. “It was many years after the old ones left us behind, and the ones who can remember the time rarely speak of it. I have two theories on the matter. One is that the Fae left behind were weak and the mighty ones didn’t want the weak to contaminate their tribes on the new planes.”

“That’s awful.” It didn’t go along with the impression I had of the older faeries. They’d been just when dealing with me. They could have simply killed us all, but they’d taken the time to hear me out. I’d been weak, but they healed me. I still thought often of the small magical child they had taken with them to their plane. Sometimes that baby girl haunted my dreams, a vision of what Daniel and I could have had.

I shook off that old ache.

“My other theory has to do with my god,” Herne continued thoughtfully. “The Hunter isn’t weak. He’s the spirit of the hunt. He came into existence on the Earth plane and he must return from time to time. He’s connected to the plane on a base level. You see, Zoey, the non-corporeal gods who stayed behind all had a deep connection to something on the Earth plane. The Hunter is connected to the forest and the predators of this plane. Bris is connected to the fields and the women of the Earth plane. Arawn is probably more connected than any of the others.”

Now I found that name in my brain’s repository and I sent a startled look to the faery. “The Welsh god Arawn is in the Unseelie sithein? The death god?”

Herne nodded as though he was just a guy he hung out with, not a person who used to be the Lord of all things Dead. “Oh, yes, his host is my best friend. He’s a funny man. Not at all what you would expect the death god’s host to be. But my point is he needs humans the same way Bris needs the fields of his birth and the Hunter needs his forests. Perhaps we stayed behind because we were more connected to the Earth plane.”

It made sense. What good could a death god be if he was always surrounded by the immortal? Herne was proving to be a veritable fount of knowledge and I was curious. I had questions I hadn’t gotten around to asking Dev about the god who now shared his body and our bed. “Did you choose the Hunter?”

“Oh, no,” he replied. “A host does not choose his god. We open ourselves and if our magic is compatible, then we’re accepted. There is a ceremony, but it changes from god to god. My ceremony was a hunt. I tracked a mountain troll who’d gone insane and begun to kill for no reason. We fought for days, but I was victorious. I cut out its heart and when I feasted, the Hunter came into me.”

“Eww, that’s way grosser than what Dev had to do.” What Dev had to do had been me.

Herne’s smile was all masculine appreciation now. “Yes, well, we can’t all be that lucky. You should have had an Unseelie witness, you know. He’s our priest, as well. I heard Devinshea’s challenge was a pleasant experience for all concerned. Though you should know, it wasn’t your technique that tempted the fertility god to inhabit Dev.”

“What do you think attracted Bris?” The way I understood it, it was Dev’s magic that called to the fertility god, but I was certainly interested in hearing what Herne thought.