The Witch's Daughter Read Free Page B

witch,” Brielle replied. “Suren the time has brought me girl to womanhood, but it has not touched us at all.”
    “Yer fortunes,” Bellerian grumbled lightheartedly, stretching a creak out of his aging back. “Me wish it be that the turnin’ clock’d leave me bones alone.”
    “Just a baby,” Ardaz went on, too caught up in his nostalgia to hear the words of his companions.
    Brielle winked at Bellerian and moved out to join her daughter. The Ranger Lord started to follow, but Ardaz, understanding what would come next, held him back.
    And then the mother, the witch of the wood, joined her daughter in dancing. Their graceful movements, heightened by the mysterious flow of gossamer gowns—white for Brielle, black for Rhiannon—caught the essence of the forest night and translated its beauty into an art that the eyes of those less knowledgeable in the ways of the sylvan world could understand. For watching Brielle and Rhiannon was to watch the dance of the earth in all its glory, an ancient dance, older than the race of man. The dance of life itself.
    They twirled and crossed, rising up high into the air and floating to gentle landings that did not even bend the blades of newly sprouting grass under their bare feet. So alike they seemed, in spirit and body, but if Brielle, with her shining golden locks and sparkling green eyes, was the light of day, then Rhiannon was the mystery of night. Black hair rolled across her shoulders as she spun, soft as the moonlight andimpossibly thick. But even if it fell across the porcelain features of her fair face, it could not dim the light in her eyes, the palest blue but with a depth that belied the lightness of color.
    Bellerian and Ardaz could only watch silently, entranced as the witch and her daughter continued their dance. The hugest and clumsiest of dragons could have crashed through the forest to stand right behind them and they would not have sensed its presence.
    And then, after a long while that seemed too short for the onlookers, Brielle leaped in a twirl and froze in her landing, arms wide and eyes unblinking. Rhiannon spun a full circuit around her, coming to a stop in a similar posture, facing her mother and staring into Brielle’s green eyes, staring into her soul.
    Inches apart stood mother and daughter, finding the truest serenity in their bond.
    “If my life now found its end, I would surely die a contented soul,” came a voice from the side when the mystical moment began to wane, and out from the boughs walked Arien Silverleaf, the King of the Elves, with a brown-skinned man at his side. They crossed the field to join the witch and her daughter.
    “My greetings to you, Mistress of Avalon,” the noble elf greeted Brielle. “Blessed are we to be invited to the beauty of your realm.” He bowed low and sincerely.
    Ardaz and Bellerian walked out to join the gathering. “Splendid,” cried the gray-bearded wizard. “Then we are all here. Oh, we are, we are indeed! I do so enjoy a party! I do, I do! What fun would life be without them, after all?”
    “And glad I am that ye could come to celebrate me daughter’s birthday,” said Brielle. She paused and smiled when she took note of Billy Shank, the man at Arien’s side, his mouth frozen in a silent whistle, his eyes wide andglazed as he looked upon Rhiannon, the legacy of his dearest friend, for the first time in almost two decades.
    Brielle brushed her hand across her daughter’s forehead, pushing back the thick mane. Rhiannon kept her eyes to the ground—not an impolite posture, but rather, an embarrassed one. So at home among the creatures of the forest, the young woman was not accustomed to human visitors.
    “This is Billy Shank,” Brielle said to her. “The others ye know. He was a friend o’ yer father’s, a friend dear and true.”
    Rhiannon peeked out of the corner of her eye at Ardaz, her uncle Rudy, and found courage in his assuring smile. Then she looked at Billy, and found only friendship