Veil of Shadows by Jennifer Armintrout

vessels.

    Though she put up a brave front, sitting still and straight on the seat beside him, Cedric could sense Cerridwen.s fear. The Empath could likely taste it. He had to take her mind off that fear, replace it with some new emotion.

    Just as he needed to take his own mind off the traitorous feelings he.d experienced in the Humans. prison cell. He nudged her with his shoulder and nodded toward the land in the distance. “Do you see that? Those cliffs, and the beach below?”

    Cerridwen nodded mutely.

    “That is the scene of a very important battle. The last battle against the Human invaders on Éire.” He glanced quickly at the Empath, and saw that she studied him with suspicion. “You have seen the tapestry of Amergin.s defeat of the Tuatha De Danann in your mother.s Throne Room?”

    “I did not pay attention to the tapestries,” Cerridwen said flatly.

    “You should have,” he said, jovial, as if they were on their way to a pleasant destination and not a likely execution. “You would have learned something.”

    She stared at him as though he.d gone mad.

    “You see, those cliffs, right there, are the very same cliffs that the Mílseans approached in their boats when they came to avenge the death of Ith.” He paused, remembering the approach of those boats as if it had been only a few years before. He.d been young then, excited to be a part of Queene Banbha.s Court, and ready to fight the fragile Humans who sought to take their land. If he had known then that it would not be the first time he would defend his race from Humans, that there would be a time in the future, under a much different Queene, he would not have relished the battle so. “When the battle terms were drawn, it was agreed that Amergin would lead his ships nine wave lengths from the shore, to give the De Danann time to assemble their forces. To give them a fair chance. When they returned at the agreed upon time, we raised such a storm as you could not imagine.”

    “I cannot imagine any storm. I was born underground,” she reminded him sullenly. Then, as if resigned to her history lesson, she asked, “What happened then?”

    “The Old Gods were not with us that day. Amergin charmed them with his words, and they gave over the battle to him.” The failure stung as much as the failure to contain the Humans underground, hundreds of years later.

    The Empath slapped the water with her oar, startling them both. “Liar!”

    “Were you there?” he asked, knowing that she had not been. He remembered the faces of each and every Faery that had stood on those cliffs. “If you were not, how can you know the tale in its truth?”

    She brandished the oar like a weapon. “The Fae are never defeated! Queene Danae will not tolerate such insolence!”

    Young, then. Perhaps younger than Cerridwen, if she was so naive as to believe revised history from a false ruler. He let her feel pity, twisted with disdain for her foolishness. “The Fae have been defeated before. Many times, in cities all around the world. They have been forced underground, like rats. You might choose to ignore that, but that does not make your delusions true.”

    She cursed and beat the oar against the side of the boat, but she did not pursue the matter further.

    “Listen to the wind, and the water,” Cedric said softly, recapturing Cerridwen.s attention. The fear in her made her eyes dark, the rapid beat of her heart visible in the black pools within them. “They will tell you so much here.”

    She shook her head. “They have never spoken to me before. Why should they now?”

    “Because you were never here before. This place is magic. There is not magic in it. It is magic.” He closed his eyes and saw the winds, shimmering, rose-colored, as they twined playfully together above the waves, which stabbed up, more blue than any color he could have seen with his eyes, as though they sought to steal the sky.s place above the horizon. And, in the distance, the green of