"A riddle?" I asked.

Berlik shrugged. "Truth is a riddle."

I touched my sword-hilt. "Your kinswoman has somewhat I might claim as my own. What if I offered challenge for it? Would you answer for her?"

His voice dropped to a low rumble, so low no one else could hear it. "Look down."

I glanced down. The sleeves of his bearskin robe ended in shaggy paws, fierce black claws protruding slightly. Berlik's vast shoulders shifted. The claws flexed and curved. I looked back up at him.

"You do not wish to do that," he said in the same low voice.

"Nor do I wish to be bound, my lord," I said.

"Things are not always what they seem." Raising one hand-if that was what it was-Berlik touched the croonie-stone at my throat. A single claw clicked against polished stone. "Accept our oath. You may be grateful for it."

There was no lie in his eyes, only sadness. Or madness? I couldn't tell. Strangely, I almost found myself drawn to him, or at least wishing to speak further with him. But he said nothing else, only watched me silently.

I sighed, stepping back from him. "So be it."

Grainne nodded. "Then swear, my lord Berlik."

The bearskin robe rippled as he raised his hands; a man's hands, large, but ordinary. At breast-height, he clasped his left hand into a fist, folding the other atop it. "By stone and sea and sky, and all that they encompass, I swear this. By the sacred troth that binds me to my diadh-anam, I swear this. Across the length and breadth of Alba, no man nor woman of the Maghuin Dhonn shall harm this man Imriel; not a hair on his head, not a scratch on his skin."

The words hung like thunder in the air. Somewhere in the distance, a flock of birds took flight, wheeling across the bloody sky. Cattle lowed uneasily.

Berlik inclined his head. "Do we have your forgiveness, Lady?"

"You do," Grainne said. "So long as your oath holds."

"I will not be forsworn." He smiled, awful and grim. " 'Twould be a dreadful fate."

I wondered what he meant. I wished he would stay and speak further with me. Unlike the others, I sensed no mischief in him. I wanted to know why he looked so sad and weary, what burden bowed his shoulders. I wanted to know why they believed I meant to harm them. It seemed unreasonable. If I bore them ill will, surely, they must see it was due to their own actions. It was all so very strange, I wasn't even sure what I felt. If we could only talk in a reasoned way, mayhap all this could be resolved.

But instead, there came low notes drawn from a harp's strings; a sweet, yearning air. The tune Morwen had played on the pipes, the charmed tune that had haunted my dreams, was even more poignant in the harpist's hands. I'd not even seen him remove his harp from its case, but there it was, braced beneath his chin, his lean brown fingers moving over the strings.

A strange, hushed peace settled over everyone present; the Lady and her children, Phedre and Joscelin. Even Dorelei, even Brigitta; even Urist and the Cruithne and D'Angelines under his command, who stood aside, letting the Maghuin Dhonn pass.

I watched them go.

The music touched me; the charm didn't.

At the last moment, Morwen turned and gave me a long, impenetrable look. Tell me, was she beautiful? No, I'd said to Dorelei; I'd thought I meant it. Now I wasn't sure. There was beauty there, unfamiliar and wild.

I lifted one hand, gripping the croonie-stone.

Morwen smiled and passed.

And then they were gone, three figures moving into the deepening twilight. As they crested the distant rise, one remained upright. The harpist, still playing, the notes fading. Two figures dropped. One large and one small. Four-footed, shambling. My skin crawled. The fear I hadn't felt in their presence came home to roost.

"It's all right." A hand slid into mine. Conor, squeezing hard. "I think it is."

I squeezed back. "I hope you're right."

"So do I, Prince Imriel," he murmured. "So do I."

Chapter Twenty-Four.

We departed from Innisclan two days later.It was a bittersweet leavetaking. Our time spent with the Lady of the Dalriada and her children had been pleasant, but it had been strange and unnerving, too. Like Phedre, I would be grateful for the security Hyacinthe's mantle of power afforded.

We said our farewells. Eamonn and Brigitta would be attending the Alban wedding ceremony held for Dorelei and me in Bryn Gorrydum in a little over a month's time, so that, at least, was a casual parting. Conor was hoping his mother would allow him to come, and promised to play his harp at our wedding if she permitted it.

As for the others, they sent us on our way with fond regrets, and mayhap the slightest bit of relief. I daresay Innisclan would be calmer for our departure.

Once again, we set forth on the taisgaidh paths under Urist's expert guidance, retracing our steps across the green isle of Alba.

If our outbound journey had been lighthearted, this one was more somber. Our encounter with the Old Ones had everyone uneasy. Oddly enough, I was the least disturbed of the lot of us. The Maghuin Dhonn had sworn an oath not to harm me. Whatever else was true, I was certain Berlik meant his oath with absolute sincerity.

My nights were free of haunting incidents.

My days were free of thoughts of Sidonie.

I left the ollamh's protections in place, checking every morning and evening to ensure that the red yarn was still tied securely around my ankles and wrists, the croonie-stone hanging around my neck. Berlik's oath may have been sincere, but my will was still subject to Morwen's ensorceled charm. I had no desire to be lured out of my tent in the middle of the night, filled with heartache and desire. Of a surety, she could do great damage to my relationship with Dorelei without harming a hair on my head.

I liked Dorelei. At least I'd allowed myself to learn that much. I liked her a great deal. She was quiet and thoughtful, but she liked to laugh, too. She was an easy person to be with, and exactly the person in private she seemed in public, steady and unchanging. There was no malice in her, and a good deal of kindness.

Did I love her? No. There was none of the obsessive passion I'd felt for Sidonie, soaring, searing, and absurd. I never felt my heart swell within my breast at the thought of her, never felt her name stitching an endless pattern through my thoughts. With the ollamh's bindings on me, I wasn't sure I could feel that way for anyone. But I wasn't miserable, either; racked with longing, struggling against the adamant shackles of unwanted love.

Anyway, all that seemed like a dream, now.

And it might be that love would grow between us yet, Dorelei and I. It wouldn't be the same. It would be a gentler thing, an easy fondness growing slowly into somewhat deeper. As Amarante had said, love wasn't always a raging tempest. It could be a safe harbor, too.

As we crossed Alba, I began to think mayhap that wouldn't be so bad. Every safe harbor I'd known had been stolen from me. My childhood home, my very sense of identity, my scholar's retreat in Tiberium. Even Phedre and Joscelin's love had become a place fraught with dark undercurrents when I'd grown from a boy to a young man. There were worse things in the world than finding a lasting peace as Imriel, Prince of Alba, husband of Dorelei. Paradoxically, the very binding placed upon me had freed me to find that peace.

Things are not always what they seem, Berlik had said.

Truth was a riddle.

We arrived at the Stormkeep on a hot, sweltering day. Although it was only a day's ride from Bryn Gorrydum, it was an isolated place, perched on a high crag overlooking the sea. It had been a Tarbh Cro holding, once, but Drustan had granted it to Hyacinthe and Sibeal some years ago.

"Not the most welcoming place, is it?" Joscelin observed, gazing up at it.

"No," Phedre murmured. "He found a taste for solitude."

It had always been hard for me to reconcile the high-spirited, half-breed Tsingano lad of their memory with the man I'd met. But for ten long years, Hyacinthe had labored under a geas, apprenticed to the old Master of the Straits, studying the secrets of wind and wave written in pages of the lost Book of Raziel. When the old Master had died, his power and his curse had passed to Hyacinthe, binding him to an isle in the midst of the Straits; binding him to a life of eternal aging.

Phedre had freed him from the curse, or I daresay he'd still be there. But there was no way to remove the burden of power, to restore the years of carefree youth he'd lost.

"Have you met him?" I asked Dorelei.

"Oh, yes." She nodded. "He's ...imposing."

The approach to the castle was a winding path up the crag. There had been defensive fortifications once, but the ditches were crumbling and silted and the drawbridges hadn't been raised for years. A man who could call thunderbolts down on his enemies had little fear of attack.

"Should we bring our escort or have them make camp here?" I asked Joscelin, uncertain what protocol dictated. "Is Hyacinthe even expecting us?"

"Phedre sent a message," Joscelin said absently, shading his eyes and staring at the Stormkeep. He let out a laugh and pointed. "I'd say he is."

I squinted. There were banners fluttering from three corners of the keep's single turret. Two were familiar: the Black Boar of the Cullach Gorrym and the lily and stars of Terre d'Ange. The third, I'd seen only once: a black field with a ragged crimson circle, pierced by a barbed golden dart. Kushiel's Dart. It had flown from Admiral Rousse's flagship when we'd sailed to rescue Hyacinthe.

"Damned Tsingano," Joscelin said softly. He and Phedre exchanged a long, private glance, then he shook himself. "Let them make camp here. I doubt the keep's big enough to accommodate them."

So it was that the four of us mounted the pathway alone, our horses picking their way along the winding path. At the top, we found the portcullis raised and the tall doors to the Stormkeep's inner courtyard standing open.

We were expected.

They were there, waiting for us. A pair of Cruithne stable-lads waited to take our mounts. And beyond them was the Master of the Straits and his family.

Hyacinthe.

It had been some seven years since I'd seen him. I'd been no more than a boy when it had all happened, but seeing him brought it all back. The wind-driven ship, the maelstrom. The bright figure emerging from it, awful and wonderful. Phedre, standing on the waters, speaking the Name of God.

"Hyacinthe." She said his name through tears, dismounting.

I watched them embrace, a lump in my throat. He didn't look all that much older; nor did she. But they'd known one another for a long, long time. I saw his face when he released her, saw the flicker of anguish and regret that came and went so swiftly I might have imagined it.

"Cassiline." Hyacinthe approached, hand extended.

"Tsingano." One corner of Joscelin's mouth quirked. He clasped Hyacinthe's hand. "Good to see you."

"And you." Hyacinthe moved to hold Dorelei's reins as she dismounted. "Welcome, my lady Dorelei," he said courteously. "Your aunt has been very much looking forward to this visit, as have I."

"Thank you, Master Hyacinthe," she whispered.

He tilted his head. "Please, go greet her."

I watched her go, exchanging happy greetings with the Lady Sibeal, Drustan's sister, who appeared to have two smallish children clinging to her skirts. Joscelin went to Phedre's side. She hugged him briefly, hiding her face against his neck. The Bastard sat motionless beneath me, prick-eared and interested.

"So." Hyacinthe took hold of the Bastard's bridle. "Imriel de la Courcel."

I dismounted with alacrity and bowed, keeping a wary eye on the Bastard, who continued to behave himself. "My thanks, Master Hyacinthe, for your hospitality."

Hyacinthe looked at me without speaking. Dark eyes; Tsingano eyes. As dark as the Cruithne. Only things shifted and changed in their depths, like shadows moving over the ocean's floor. There was power enough behind those eyes to scatter the Maghuin Dhonn to the four winds. "I would not have Phedre no Delaunay's foster-son stand on ceremony with me," he said at length.

I put out my hand. "Imriel, then."

He clasped it. "Hyacinthe."

Thus, our welcome at the Stormkeep. Dorelei reintroduced me to her aunt, the Lady Sibeal, whom I'd also met as a child. She embraced me with unreserved warmth as a member of the family. We all met their two children. Galanna, the girl, was six; the boy Donal was four. At first they were shy of us, but it passed quickly. Once it did, we discovered they were both prone to chatter.

For all its isolation, there was a surprising degree of warmth and informality within the keep's walls. There was no garrison, but they maintained a small household staff, a mix of Alban folk who cooked and cleaned, and tended to the stables and the extensive gardens that supplied much of the Stormkeep's provender. They were respectful of their imposing master and seemed genuinely fond of Sibeal and the children. Hyacinthe showed us the place, as gracious as any regional lord playing host to old friends; except that his holdings included a locked room at the top of the tower, which contained an ancient leather case bound with bronze straps, in which resided pages torn from the Book of Raziel.

"This is where you study?" Phedre asked, gazing out the high windows.

"I come here to think." Hyacinthe watched her. "There's naught left to study."

She glanced at the case. "You've committed it all to memory?"

He nodded. "All of it, yes."

"The ollamhs would approve," I observed.

Hyacinthe laughed. "So Sibeal says. Come, I'll show you the sea-mirror."

He led us to the rear of the keep, where a small, windswept terrace extended to the edge of the cliff. A narrow stair led down to the sea, waves crashing against the rocks. There was a pillar at each corner of the terrace, and in the center, a broad, shallow bronze basin sitting on a tripod, filled with seawater.

Joscelin took a deep breath. "It's been a long time since I saw that."

" 'Tis not the same vessel," Hyacinthe said. "This one was wrought of ore smelted on Alban soil. Still, it serves the same purpose. Is there aught you would see, Cassiline?"

"No." Joscelin shook his head. "I saw enough the last time."

"Phedre?" Hyacinthe asked.

She smiled. "All I desire to see is here. Let the children choose."

Hyacinthe turned to us. "What will you?"

"Can it show my mother?" Dorelei asked.

"Of course." He inclined his head and swept one arm over the basin. The water within it rippled in a manner that owed nothing to the wind, then went still. When it did, it reflected not sky, but a scene unfamiliar to me: a room filled with afternoon light, three Cruithne women sitting and conversing, their hands busy with embroidery-work. I leaned over the basin and stared, fascinated.

"That's your mother?" I pointed to the one with a look of Dorelei and Sibeal, careful not to disturb the surface of the water.

"It is." Her voice was warm. "And that's Kinada beside her, Kinadius' mother, and her daughter, Kerys. She's a friend of mine. They're in the parlor of Clunderry Castle."

It looked to be a pleasant place; a safe harbor. Nice.

"What will you see, Imriel?" Hyacinthe asked.

I shrugged. "I can't think of anything."

"Imri!" Dorelei nudged me. "What of Alais?"