Rhiannon tucked a silvery strand of hair behind her ear and concentrated on the runes cast before her. Even with the recently discovered runes of Fate and Domain, the picture of what would happen tomorrow, or even today, was still shrouded in mist.

She stood, lamenting the low ache in her back even though she was True, her wings free to caress the silky Irish air. Such an ache was earned from too many hours in the kneeling position as she threw cast after useless cast.

She was so tired of being responsible for the health and safety of the Realm, of putting the needs of the fae over herself, over the wants and needs she had as a young woman, or at least a young woman by fae standards. She’d even given up her last name, O’Malley, when she’d assumed the title of Moira.

But as with her oft-revisited recriminations of late, bemoaning her station wouldn’t change anything. Things were the way they should be, as shown by her casting of the runes prior to Fiona-Sidhe’s appearance.

And now she must appear strong, invincible, for the Council meeting set to convene in just a few short moments. She dreaded the backbiting, the court politics the Council was steeped in, had been steeped in since their formation two centuries before, when the runes were first lost.

There had been an outcry when she was raised to Moira at the tender age of fifty. Many of the elders were considerably older, more experienced, better suited. The arguments had been often and loud. But the cast of the incomplete set of runes had declared her ascension, and no one could argue with such a pronouncement.

Today she knew the focus of their “discussion” would be her inability to wrest the rune of Inspiration from Fiona-Sidhe, never mind the fact her leadership had been instrumental in recovering the other two missing stones. All of the Elders knew the runes had to be freely given, but they would conveniently forget that during her oh-so-subtle lambasting.

She’d elected to keep Fiona’s mixed parentage a secret. It was a calculated risk, but one she’d take to minimize the further strife sure to accompany such a revelation. She had no idea who the half-fae’s parents were, although she would dearly love the information, both to satisfy her own curiosity, and to use as a tool in regaining the rune Fiona held. The pixie Liam has claimed to be her father, but no father she knew could harm their child so.

Except for the Earth Elder Chloe-Sidhe, the fae had never intermixed with the pixies. Chloe had paid dearly for her indiscretion, losing her sister and her self-respect in the process. It had taken the Earth Elder forty years to recover and to finally find her true love, Logan Whitefeather. Even still, she had to spend six months in the Realm and six months in the Outer World to be with her Shaman husband.

Their enemy the pixies held their own little piece of the Realm, carved out of two hundred years of anguish and bloodshed. But the fae had held fast since Rhiannon’s ascension, using complicated weaves of earth, air, water and fire to stop the murdering sprites in their tracks. The pixies used their affinity with the arts and their manipulative natures to acquire what they couldn’t through pure violence. It was a combination which had worked all too well, and left a rancid taste in her mouth, sparked a thrum of pure hatred in her veins.

As Rhiannon thought of the hated pixies, her mind drifted to her recent encounter with the second of their kind she’d ever seen since childhood. Liam. His stunning face had haunted her since their showdown on the Oregon beach, and it angered her that she had allowed him to capture her thoughts, even if those thoughts began subconsciously.

The pixie called to her on an elemental level, plucking at every string within her which made her a woman. And even if it was a harmless obsession, it still chafed that her iron self-control seemed to disappear like mists on the wind whenever she thought of him.

Life as the Moira was lonely, yes. If she had to count her friends, they would sum up in two. Aidan Hughes, of the Salamander Clan, and in an unlikely twist of fate, Chloe Saint James, the Earth Elder.

As Moira, she couldn’t even indulge in a casual liaison, lest it be used against her. Unless, of course, she left the Realm and consorted with a human. But she never left the Realm unless it was to attend to a call of duty, so any sexual satisfaction she’d gained over the last ten years had been by her own hand. Politics was a particularly ugly beast.

Oh, how she missed the touch of a man, the sensation of callused fingertips gliding over her skin, plucking and tormenting and teasing. With the appearance of the pixie in her subconscious and dreams, those hands now had a face associated with them.

It was shameful, in essence consorting with the enemy, and she hated that her thoughts took her to him more often than not. When her fingers cruised the familiar curves of her body, it was his eyes she saw burning into hers with sensual, decadent intent.

She flicked her wings in annoyance, collected her thoughts and pushed through the door connecting her living quarters to the Council chamber, the sacred box holding the runes tucked under her arm. Let the games begin.

*

“Under Rhiannon’s leadership,” the sitting Earth Elder in the scheduled absence of Chloe Saint James, Ciar, intoned, her words dry with disdain, “the Jionagh have evolved from a nuisance into an outright threat. Never mind the fact the pixies still hold ground in the west. Ground which is rightfully ours.”

Rhiannon held her head high. “I see we’re revisiting old arguments here, Elder. You know as well as I that this was foretold before the recovery of the two runes.”

“Recovery implies some action on our part, Moira,” Ciar sneered, openly hostile as she ignored Rhiannon’s point. “They fell into our laps. We have ‘recovered’ only a child who is of no assistance and a pixie whose brain is so damaged he can barely speak his own name. The one rune we might have gained through action sits with a fae who refuses to enter the Realm, who disobeys your direct order to return. An Outer World fae who apparently holds power which eclipses yours, if she cannot be compelled to return. I’ve said it for ten years; your decision-making skills leave much to be desired.”

Rhiannon stiffened. Ciar had been a thorn in her side for the last decade, always sniping, exploiting perceived weaknesses. It had simply been worse of late. The fae’s seat on the council, as with all the elders, had been dictated by the runes, otherwise her insubordination would never have been tolerated. And as before, there was only one way to shut her up. “As always, your candor is appreciated, Elder, if uninformed. Shall we repeat what we have so oft in the past, a casting to determine leadership?”

“Nay,” Donough, the Air Elder and Rhiannon’s staunchest ally, stated firmly. “The cast will read as it always does when Ciar puts us through this useless exercise. Rhiannon is the fated Moira and her word will be law.”

“For once, I find myself agreeing with Ciar.” Seamus, the Water Elder, spoke, his voice in modulated tones. “In this case we must be sure. The Jionagh are like termites, eating away at our very foundation. Both they and the pixies must be stopped, if we are to retain the Realm and safeguard humanity.”

Rhiannon nodded in deferment. Seamus’ quiet support of Ciar left her unsettled. The water sprite had always straddled the fence, usually acting as the voice of reason when tempers grew hot and voices were raised. For him to question her leadership now...

As always, Cullen, the Fire Elder, sat silent and stoic in his corner of the room, quietly assessing the tableau before him. Once made up, his mind was always the hardest to change.

She spread a blood-red silken cloth on the table and bowed her head over the box containing the runes. “Oh, Mother Earth, hear my plea, combine together earth and air and fire and sea, give to us, our future bold, from runes together, knowledge old.” She opened the box and cast the stones onto the cloth, closing her eyes as they fell with a thump predetermined by fate.

It was Ciar’s grunt of satisfaction that made her open her eyes, and because of it, she wasn’t so surprised to see what the stones foretold. Her fall from grace.

* * * *

Rhiannon stepped out of the car and beheld the beauty unfolding beneath her gaze. It was a beauty to balm the soul, to soothe her tattered pride and angst-filled heart.

Yosemite Valley had been the place she’d selected to consider, reconsider and obsess over her removal as Moira, an act untold in all the chronicles of the fae. Her predecessors had passed to the Upper Realm either through age or violence, but none had ever been shunned by the runes.

Her friends and supporters had railed against the declaration, but in the end, it could only be for naught. The runes declared what was to be. Their casting was not a decision to interpret, rather it simply was.

She’d accepted her downfall with as much poise as possible, but it ate at her inside, a raw and particularly painful ulcer she couldn’t ignore. She’d asked Seamus, the new Moira, for a by-your-leave with as much dignity as she could muster. He’d granted her request with a slow, stately nod, asking only that she not become another Chloe who had sequestered herself away from the Realm for forty years. Since Rhiannon had no intention of ever separating herself from her kin in such a manner, it was an easy promise to make.

Once upon a time, with the full influence of the Moira’s station behind her, she could have easily transported to her destination. Now, stripped back to the basic energy any fae held, it was an act which, without a focus, would have laid her low. Not an undertaking she was willing to undergo. Instead, she’d used Aidan’s focus in San Diego and Logan Whitefeather’s expertise in the human world to obtain the documents which would allow her free passage in the United States, and this National Park she’d heard of from the fae who ventured into the Outer World.

Aidan and Leanan had insisted she borrow their second vehicle, and after a few lessons, she was as proficient as could be expected. Proficient enough to stick to the less-traveled roads of the high country once out of San Diego. And now, she was finally here. What she planned on doing now that she’d gained her destination, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps spend time watching the human magic of television, or something equally mundane.

She shivered as a draught of cold air gusted around her, eddying in a dance reminiscent of a water sprite. The ground was still snow-clad in the higher reaches of the granite cliffs, still dusting the far-flung glory of the pines.

Rhiannon breathed, drawing the pure, crisp air--her clan’s signature--deep into her lungs. It called to her, urging her to unfurl her wings and soar, to become True as a simple fae, unfettered by rules and expectations. But she was not so irresponsible, so resistant to her new world order. Fae in the Outer World were expected to maintain human form unless under duress, or in the security of their own hearth and home. They’d safeguarded the secret of their existence from humanity for too many years for her to toss it aside in a moment of pique.

No, instead she would journey to the wonderland before her, using part of the generous stipend her clan had gifted her with. Ciar had, of course, argued over assisting Rhiannon in any way. But even the Earth Elder had to bow when her superior, Chloe-Sidhe, made an unannounced visit and essentially shamed the Council into it.

So now she was free to pursue her own dreams, her own desires, for as long as the human’s mundane money held up. And then she would return to San Diego, and on to the Realm, to do what she knew not. It galled that the very freedom she’d wished for just a week ago was hers, but at the expense of her station, her pride. She knew the Council would even now be searching for a proper life-partner for her, and while she might have welcomed a suitably appropriate male to share the rest of her days with in the past, after seeing her friends unite--mate--for love ... she wasn’t sure a political or advantageous pairing would be enough.

Rhiannon clenched her fists. She would not spin herself into a malaise on her first glorious day of autonomy, even if her liberty was forced. Or at least that was what she kept telling herself. Because freedom was what she’d craved for the last decade. Wasn’t it?

Ten years of bowing and scraping, of fighting for small victories while her detractors reveled in the obstacles they threw in her path. Yes, she’d covet this freedom, make the most of it before duty called her home again. Even if it was a duty she’d never envisioned.

Climbing back into the car, she returned to the road winding down into Yosemite Valley, drinking in the magical beauty, willing it to lift her spirits. It worked, marginally, and by the time she reached the valley floor, she was ready to experience all the things she’d been denied these many years. Hungry for them, in fact.