"No bride of the Boar of Balor will survive her wedding night," she said in a hushed voice, her eyes growing even larger, if that were possible.

Dain felt his lips twitch with the makings of a grin. "Mayhaps 'tis the alliteration they cannot abide,cherie."

"Mayhaps," she agreed somberly.

Then it hit him, the significance of what she'd said.

"Morgan takes you to Balor as a bride?"

"Aye."

Ragnor would be dead within the month and Morgan probably soon to follow, Dain thought, after Caradoc stripped the flesh from Ragnor's bones and staked him out in the wilderness to die. One did not abuse the betrothed bride of a powerful lord without penance being paid. One did not lose a bride either-and for certes one did not go around plying rose oil between her legs.

The thought gave him pause, and he was taken with an urge to check her again, to make sure he'd done no damage. "But no longer," she said, her hand trailing down the front of his tunic. A beatific smile played about her mouth. "Now I have died and come unto you."

Before he could assure her that she had not, he felt her fingers tangle in his hair and exert gentle pressure, pulling him down.

"A kiss of peace, sweet prince?" she asked. "To welcome me into paradise?"

She was not very strong, yet somehow was strong enough to have her way, drawing him ever closer.

Her gold-tipped lashes drifted down, giving him a moment to reflect on the doubtful wisdom of his next action-but a moment wasn't nearly long enough to stop him.

Their lips met, hers sweetly, innocently closed, expecting the blessing of a saint. He couldn't have delivered that even if he were nobly pure of heart, for when his mouth touched hers, instinct usurped his reason.

Warmth was his first sensation, then softness, then something more. For all she gave, Edmee did not kiss, and there was much he'd forgotten-much he'd missed. He parted his mouth to trace the curve of Ceridwen's lips with his tongue, and was rewarded with a sigh.

The resonance of that sound set up a vibration very near where his heart had once been. Their breaths mingled and became the same, flowing from one life to the next. The luxuriance of the ether filled his senses and went straight to his head, finer than wine, more potent than his deadliest draught. She tasted like a woman, every woman, all women, a rich melange of flavors he couldn't begin to absorb. They ran through him, rousing a wildness he had long thought broken to his will.

With that realization, he dragged his mouth away from hers, his blood racing faster than he would have admitted to anyone. In contrast, the woman below him was the picture of peace, drifting off to sleep with a smile on her face, blissfully unaware of the havoc she had created in less than a minute, with less than conscious effort.

Dain knew he was a charlatan. He also knew when he was in the presence of someone else who wasn't what he or she seemed, though in the maid's case, he couldn't put a name to what he'd felt in her kiss.

He reached out to touch her, but caught himself and drew his hand back. Her hair had dried into a cloud of haphazard curls and was spread out around her like the light of God, a halo of illumination surrounding her small, bruised face. Farther down, the remains of a thick, damp braid lay in disarray beneath one of her arms. She needed someone to tend to her, but he had done all he dared-mayhaps more than he should have dared. Nothing remained but for him to find Morgan and arrange for her return.

A smile twisted his mouth and a soft curse escaped him. She was to be the bride of Caradoc, and through the grace of God and Dain's own rough magic, nothing had transpired that would keep her from fulfilling those vows.

Chapter 4.

Ceridwen heard bells ringing in the distance, ringing prime, the hour of prayer at dawn. So much time seemed to have slipped away from her, 'twas good to recognize a singular moment. She'd been drifting here and there in her memories, hither and yon in her mind to strange places she'd never seen before.

Despite her myriad pains, the soft lapping of a warm tongue on her fingers brought a faint smile to her lips. She lifted her hand and felt a dog's muzzle.

"Good Jack," she whispered, thinking of her father's old lymer, though it seemed a very long time since she'd seen the dog or her father, or home-Carn Merioneth.

With a lazy effort, she turned her head, and a scream froze in her throat. 'Twas no lymer at her side, but one of the spectral hounds, the white one.

"Awake ye are, finally," a raspy voice said close to her other side.

She jerked her head around, a mistake with instant repercussions. A searing bolt of pain made the room swim and grow hazy. She squeezed her eyes shut and fought the dizzying blackness that threatened to claim her once more.

"Yer s'posed to drink the bard-boy's potion, ye are." A warm cup was pressed to her lips.

The hound was real, not part of the wild, wondrous dreams she'd had of a dark-eyed prince of the tylwyth teg, and if the hound was real, so was the black-cowled demon.

She forced her lashes to lift, giving her a glimpse of the man next to her. It was not he. Relief dissipated a measure of her fear, but none of her pain. Her head throbbed and so did her bones; her body ached, feeling tight and bruised.

"Drink," the old man ordered, lifting the cup and dribbling wine into her mouth. "Dain'll skin me arse and feed it to the bitch, if ye don't."

She swallowed the sweet wine, more to keep from choking than to save the graybeard's backside.

"Ye'll notice I hain't laid a finger on ye. Not one. I'm touchin' the demned cup and not so much as one of yer fine white hairs." His voice trailed off into unintelligible mutterings of which she heard only the words "soft," and "pretty," and "what's it to 'im."

A low growl rumbled out of the hound on her left, and a wave of terror washed through her body. She did choke then, and spluttered, and near fainted when the dog lunged across her-but it was to the old man the dog went, with her head twisted down and her albino jaws closing around his throat.

"Call 'er off! Call 'er off!" he croaked, frantic.

Ceridwen watched in horrified fascination as the dog's sharp white teeth slipped through the old man's papery skin. All she could think was,Aye, this is a trick the dog knows well.

A gurgling sound from the man startled her into speech.

"Hound" was the only word she knew to use and "come." Her voice, weak and scratchy, barely carried the necessary distance, but it was enough to gain the clog's attention. Pale blue eyes turned on her.

"Come," she repeated, and gestured with her hand.

The dog, a levrier, sleek and lean and powerfully built, complied, releasing the old man into a heap on the floor and returning to Ceridwen's side.

The graybeard coughed, dragging up spittle he wiped on his sleeve. He touched his throat, and his fingers came away smeared with blood. Ceridwen expected him to leave, but he reached instead for a shallow pan on the brazier and refilled the cup he'd spilled.

"The jongleur'll owe me for this." He pressed the cup back to her mouth and leveled a beady gaze on the dog. "Watch yerself, Numa, or one night ye'll find yerself skewered and hangin' o'er the flames of hell."

Numa, Ceridwen thought, wondering at the strangeness of the name. She'd heard another odd name in this place. Dain, that's what the sweet prince had called himself. Dain.

A smile flitted across her mouth. In her dream, he'd kissed her.

"Drink," the graybeard said, tipping the cup higher and pouring a few drops past her lips. "I'll not have ye dyin' on me watch."

Death had been in her dream too, but 'twas clear now she hadn't died, and if she hadn't died, she was still betrothed to the Boar of Balor. Despair found a foothold in the thought. She would be going home, but Carn Merioneth was no more. The wooden palisades of that fair place had long since been razed in fire and replaced with the stone blocks of Balor. The flames still burned in her nightmares, reaching past the skies to the heavens and the vengeful God who had unleashed Gwrnach, Caradoc's father, upon them.

Those who had escaped the flames had been butchered in the bailey, ending the beautiful dream that had been Carn Merioneth. All had died except for the two who had been lost, she and her dear sweet brother, Mychael, and the one who had found them. Moriath had been the name of the maid, and she had disappeared years ago. Except for the letters Ceridwen treasured as life itself, Mychael had also been lost to her, from the day Moriath had put him in the monastery at Strata Florida.

She swallowed the wine the old man had given her and pushed his hand away. "No more."

"All of it."

She shook her head and lifted her other hand to ward him off. She was more successful than she'd hoped. He jumped back out of reach.

"Be careful with that demned thing," he hollered, then swore a jumble of curses.

With a sense of bemused wonder, she became aware of the serpent stone still clasped in her hand. Its green depths caught the first rays of morning sunshine streaming in through the windows and reflected it back, casting prisms of light against the striped damask draped at the corners of the huge bed in which she lay.

Brochan's Great Charm. She opened her fingers and let it float in her palm, as real as day. And if thestone was real, why not the place it had taken her, the sweet oblivion of a faerie's death-sleep?

She lowered her lashes and closed her hand around the stone, drawing it to her breast. Aye, better to try the faerie death again than to find herself in Caradoc's cruel grasp. He wanted her at his mercy, not her hand in marriage. She'd read it, read it in a book that held the key to the Boar's dark, impossible desires.

Only Mychael could save her. Mychael, sweet saint, was unassailable by evil. Mayhaps if she'd shown more religious fervor, she, too, would have been beyond Caradoc's reach.

She had not, however, and God had forsaken her, set her adrift in the strange world of men with little to help her find her way.

A wave of languor washed through her, muddling her thoughts. She wanted sleep, and that was where her heart led her, back to the heavenly lair of Dain, the dark-eyed prince of the Light-elves. Letting out a soft breath, she gave herself up to the welcome heaviness seeping into her limbs and showing her the way to the stars.

Erlend held the half-full cup and clucked in disapproval. She hadn't finished the draught. 'Tweren't his fault, not a bit of it, but he'd be demned if there was anyone else to step for'ard and take the demn blame.

The misty light of dawn filtered through an ancient grove of oak and hazel in the Wroneu Wood, capturing the form of a young man running through the trees. Morgan ab Kynan watched the sentry from the open flap of the tent where he'd gotten barely two hours of sleep. He could tell by the irritated expression on Rhys's face that Dain had been sighted, no doubt already breaking the boundaries of the camp with his levrier hounds running alongside.

"Lavrans?" he called out, grimacing as he pulled on his boots. His jaw tightened against the old pain in his right leg- "Aye. Below the falls," the young man said, coming to a stop in front of the tent, breathless from his sprint up the mountainside.

"I asked to know of his coming before he reached the river."

The sentry fought to hide a grim smile. "Ye know as well as me that e'en in broad daylight he's like a shadow in the night."

Morgan nodded. "And Ceridwen?" He reached for the wineskin he'd hung on the carved and tasseled tent pole and took a mouthful. He rinsed and spat the wine out onto the ground.

"No sign beyond the ravine. She's still on this side, and we'll find her. Dafydd is scouting west of the camp." Rhys used his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his brow. A shock of brown hair fell back over his forehead. "I've never seen a maid so skittish about marriage."

Morgan's mouth tightened. "You haven't met Caradoc." He cinched his belt around his waist and reached for his bow.

"Then why do you take her to him?"

The sentry's eyes revealed a disapproval he didn't dare voice. It was a problem Morgan rememberedwell from his youth, the penchant to fall in love easily and usually where one shouldn't. He understood Rhys's attraction. Ceridwen ab Arawn was reasonably fair of face and had all her teeth. It took little more to get a boy's blood running, yet Ceridwen had more-a sweet smile when she chose to use it, which wasn't often, and a voice like cool water running through a forest glade. She also hadn't used her voice often in the past sennight, except to accuse or plead.

Her pleading was not his problem this morning, finding her was, the troublesome wench. He and his band of five men had combed the hills the whole night long, but neither luck nor skill had been enough to bring her safely back to camp.

"She goes to Caradoc," Morgan said in answer to Rhys, "because the most powerful prince in all ofNorth Wales wills it, so she can bear her sons on the land of her ancestors. 'Tis the same reason Caradoc wants her, to be doubly bound by blood to the land he's won."

"Won by treachery and betrayal, and God knows what else." Rhys shuddered. "Some say 'twas his own blade that hewed Gwrnach from gullet to cock."

"Some say," Morgan agreed. He'd heard the tales, and he knew the hatred Caradoc had nursed for his father, but he also knew how the smallest twist of the blade and the merest shift of intent could turn a killing into a mutilation. Two thousand seven hundred Moslems had been slain by the Lionheart's Crusaders atAcre . Decapitation had been the order, but by the end of it, they'd all been hacking away at the hostages, slogging through blood and gore up to their knees. How many had he killed and how many mutilated? He would never know. Death was death, and by the sword 'twas never pretty.

He slipped his quiver over his shoulder and took off with long strides toward where the horses were tied.

Rhys followed alongside, his boy's jaw jutting out.

"Methinks she would have been happier remaining with the nuns at Usk."

If Rhys would rather protect her than bed her, Morgan thought, there was hope for him yet, for it was always the bedding that caused young men to completely lose their senses.

"Have Rhodri and Drew cross the river, and send Owain to me," Morgan ordered, ignoring Rhys's summation of the situation. The boy was a good tracker, and with time he would become even better, but his feelings for the maid had clouded his judgment. Ceridwen was no nun, not yet. "She heads for Mychael and Strata Florida."

"Why?" the young sentry asked, surprised. "The monks won't take her, even if her brother is one of their order."

"She doesn't go for sanctuary, but to rouse Mychael out of his monkish ways, to put a sword in his hand."

"She thinks Mychael will fight for Balor?" Rhys's tone implied a hefty share of doubt.

Morgan shared those doubts. He'd known Ceridwen's brother since his birth, and Mychael was more likely to be sainted than knighted. The boy had taken to the monkish life with a fervor. "When her father had it," he answered, " 'twas called Carn Merioneth, and if Ceridwen could win it back, Mychael would no doubt let her have the castle and no lord a'tall, or mayhaps the lord of her choice." "And has she chosen?" A betraying amount of hope crept into the young voice.

Morgan stopped short of his destination and flashed the sentry a reproving grin. "She asked me, cub, but I don't think her heart was in it."

Accusation glared from Rhys's eyes. "Then why did she run?"

Another knowing grin spread across Morgan's face. "I told her I had more to offer a woman than my sword arm. Should she but care to notice and make me an offer with more... um, heat in it, she might gain what she hoped."

Rhys, no stranger to the bawdy inclinations of camp life, was plainly shocked by his lord's brazen overture.

"You could have wed Ceridwen ab Arawn, the most beautiful, sweet, and kindly maid in all of Christendom, and you offend her with lewd and-" He stopped abruptly, his gaze shifting to a place beyond Morgan's right shoulder. A bright flush coursed over his cheeks. "I'll give Owain and Drew your orders," he said curtly, and turned on his heel, striding back to the camp.

"You are a hopeless romantic," a distinctive voice-one capable of mangling both French and Welsh with equal ease-said from behind him.

"And you are a hopeless cynic," Morgan said, slowly turning to face his friend.

"Du kommer sent." Dain pushed off the oak tree where he'd been waiting and listening. "You're late. I expected you before St. Winnal."

The Welshman winced. "Every time you speak a saint's name, I expect a bolt of lightning to strike nearby."

Dain laughed. "Lightning, Morgan? At dawn? For a mere heretic?"

"You're more than a heretic. You're pagan. Maybe worse."

"An infidel?"

"Easily, by anyone's definition, Christian or Moslem." A reluctant smile curved his mouth.

The dark-robed Dane stepped out of the shadows into a shaft of sunlight, striding into the clearing with a natural elegance that some mistook for softness-until they'd seen the grace and power of it behind a blade. Morgan had seen it as such, more times than he cared to recall.

"The forest is alive early this morn, mostly with your men," Dain said, offering the wineskin he carried. A horse, fifteen hands of dappled white and gray, stood quietly in the trees behind him. "Mayhaps my wine will be more to your liking."

Morgan accepted the skin. "None of them sighted you," he said. "It's a wonder our throats aren't slit in our sleep. Where are the hounds?"

"Numa guards my chambers, and Elixir guards the Druid Door and the tower stairs." "Stolen yourself a rich prize, have you?" Morgan asked, part of his humor returning. His sentries had missed only Dain and his horse, not Dain, his horse, and two dogs. It was small comfort, but still comfort.