Her roses bloomed riotously.

One of the servants hurried out to take his horse. Hoyt merely shook his head at the question in the man's eyes. He walked to the door where the black banner of mourning still hung.

Inside, another servant was waiting to take his cloak. Here in the hall, his mother's, and her mother's tapestries hung, and one of his father's wolfhounds raced to greet him.

He could smell beeswax, and roses cut fresh from the garden. The turf fire simmering in the grate. He left them behind, walked up the stairs to his mother's sitting room.

She was waiting, as he'd known she would be. Sitting in her chair, her hands in her lap, clasped so tightly the knuckles were white.

Her face carried all the weight of her grief, and went heavier yet when she saw what was in his eyes.

"Mother-"

"You're alive. You're well." She got to her feet, held out her arms to him. "I've lost my youngest son, but here is my firstborn, home again. You'll want food and drink after your journey."

"I have much to tell you."

"And so you will."

"All of you, if you please, madam. I cannot stay long. I'm sorry." He kissed her brow. "I'm sorry to leave you."

There was food and there was drink, and the whole of his family-save Cian-around the table. But it was not a meal like so many he remembered, with laughter and shouted arguments, with joy or petty disagreements.

Hoyt studied their faces, the beauties, the strengths and the sorrows as he told them what had pa.s.sed.

"If there is to be a battle, I will come with you. Fight with you."

Hoyt looked at his brother-in-law Fearghus. His shoulders were broad, his fists ready.

"Where I go, you can't follow. You're not charged with this fight. It's for you and Eoin to stay here, to protect with my father, the family, the land. I would go with a heavier heart if I didn't know you and Eoin stand in my stead.

You must wear these."

He took out the crosses. "Each of you, and all the children who come after. Day and night, night and day. This," he said and lifted one, "is Morrigan's Cross, forged by the G.o.ds in magic fire. The vampyre cannot turn any who wear it into its kind. This must be pa.s.sed on to those who come after you, in song and story. You will swear an oath, each of you, that you will wear this cross until death."

He rose, draping a cross over each neck, waiting for the sworn oath before moving on.

Then he knelt by his father. His father's hands were old, Hoyt noted with a jolt. He was more farmer than warrior, and in a flash, he knew his father's death would come first, and before the Yule. Just as he knew he would never again look in the eyes of the man who'd given him life.

And his heart bled a little.

"I take my leave of you, sir. I ask your blessing."

"Avenge your brother, and come back to us."

"I will." Hoyt rose. "I must gather what I need." He went up to the room he kept in the topmost tower, and there began to pack herbs and potions without any real sense what would be needed.

"Where is your cross?"

He looked toward the doorway where Nola stood, her dark hair hanging to her waist.

She was but eight, he thought, and held the softest spot in his heart.

"She didn't make me one," he said, briskly. "I have another sort of shield, and there's no need for you to be worrying. I know what I'm about."

"I won't cry when you go."

"Why would you? I've gone before, haven't I, and come back handily enough?"

"You'll come back. To the tower. She'll come with you."

He nestled bottles carefully in his case, then paused to study his sister. "Who will?"

"The woman with red hair. Not the G.o.ddess, but a mortal woman, one who wears the sign of the witch. I can't see Cian, and I can't see if you'll win. But I can see you, here with the witch. And you're afraid."

"Should a man go into battle without fear?

Isn't fear something that helps keep him alive?" "I don't know of battles. I wish I were a man, and a warrior." Her mouth, so young, so soft, went grim. "You wouldn't be stopping me from going with you the way you stopped Fearghus."

"How would I dare?" He closed his case, moved to her. "I am afraid. Don't tell the others."

"I won't."

Aye, the softest place in his heart, he thought, and lifting her cross, used his magic to scribe her name on the back in ogham script. "It makes it only yours," he told her.

"Mine, and the ones who'll have my name after me." Her eyes glimmered, but the tears didn't fall. "You'll see me again."

"I will, of course."

"When you do, the circle will be complete. I don't know how, or why."

"What else do you see, Nola?"

She only shook her head. "It's dark. I can't see. I'll light a candle for you, every night, until you return."

"I'll ride home by its light." He bent down to embrace her. "I'll miss you most of all." He kissed her gently, then set her aside. "Be safe." "I will have daughters," she called after him.

It made him turn, and smile. So slight, he mused, and so fierce. "Will you now?"

"It is my lot," she told him with a resignation that made his lips twitch. "But they will not be weak. They will not sit and spin and knead and bake all the d.a.m.n day."

Now he grinned fully, and knew this was a memory he would take with him happily. "Oh won't they? What then, young mother, will your daughters do?"

"They will be warriors. And the vampyre who fancies herself a queen will tremble before them."

She folded her hands, much as their mother was wont to do, but with none of that meekness. "Go with the G.o.ds, brother."

"Stay in the light, sister."

They watched him go-three sisters, the men who loved them, the children they'd already made. His parents, even the servants and stable boys. He took one last long look at the house his grandfather, and his father before, had built of stone in this glade, by this stream, in this land he loved with the whole of his heart. Then he raised his hand in farewell, and rode away from them and toward the Dance of the G.o.ds.

It stood on a rise of rough gra.s.s that was thick with the sunny yellow of b.u.t.tercups.

Clouds had rolled to layer the sky so that light forced its way through in thin beams. The world was so still, so silent, he felt as though he rode through a painting. The gray of the sky, the green of the gra.s.s, the yellow flowers and the ancient circle of stones that had risen in its dance since beyond time.

He felt its power, the hum of it, in the air, along his skin. Hoyt walked his horse around them, paused to read the ogham script carved into the king stone.

"Worlds wait," he translated. "Time flows. G.o.ds watch."

He started to dismount when a shimmer of gold across the field caught his eye. There at the edge of it was a hind. The green of her eyes sparkled like the jeweled collar she wore. She walked toward him regally, and changed to the female form of the G.o.ddess.

"You are in good time, Hoyt."

"It was painful to bid my family farewell.

Best done quickly then."

He slid off the horse, bowed. "My lady." "Child. You have been ill."

"A fever, broken now. Did you send the witch to me?"

"There's no need to send what will come on its own. You'll find her again, and the others."

"My brother."

"He is first. The light will go soon. Here is the key to the portal." She opened her hand and offered a small crystal wand. "Keep it with you, keep it safe and whole." When he started to remount, she shook her head, took the reins.

"No, you must go on foot. Your horse will get safely back home."

Resigned to the whimsy of G.o.ds, he took his case, his bag. He strapped on his sword, hefted his staff.

"How will I find him?"

"Through the portal, into the world yet to come. Into the Dance, lift the key, say the words. Your destiny lies beyond. Humankind is in your hands, from this point forward. Through the portal," she repeated. "Into the world yet to come. Into the Dance, lift the key, say the words. Through the portal... "

Her voice followed him in, between the great stones. He locked his fear inside him. If he'd been born for this, so be it. Life was long, he knew. It simply came in short bursts.

He lifted the stone. A single beam of light speared out of those thick clouds to strike its tip.

Power shot down his arm like an arrow.

"Worlds wait. Time flows. G.o.ds watch."

"Repeat," Morrigan told him, and joined him so that the words became a chant.

"Worlds wait. Time flows. G.o.ds watch."

The air shook around him, came alive with wind, with light, with sound. The crystal in his uplifted hand shone like the sun and sang like a siren.

He heard his own voice come out in a roar, shouting the words now as if in challenge.

And so he flew. Through light and wind and sound. Beyond stars and moons and planets.

Over water that made his sorcerer's belly roil with nausea. Faster, until the light was blinding, the sounds deafening and the wind so fierce he wondered it didn't flay the skin from his bones.

Then the light went dim, the wind died, and the world was silent.

He leaned on his staff, catching his breath, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the change of light. He smelled something-leather, he thought, and roses. He was in a room of some sort, he realized, but like nothing he'd ever seen. It was fantastically furnished with long, low chairs in deep colors, and cloth for a floor. Paintings adorned some of the walls, and others were lined with books. Dozens of books bound in leather.

He stepped forward, charmed, when a movement to his left stopped him cold.

His brother sat behind some sort of table, where the lamp that lit the room glowed strangely. His hair was shorter than it had been, shorn to the jawline. His eyes were vivid with what seemed to be amus.e.m.e.nt.

In his hand was some sort of metal tool, which instinct told Hoyt was a weapon.

Cian pointed it at his brother's heart and tipped back in the chair, dropping his feet on the surface of the table. He smiled, broadly, and said, "Well now, look what the cat dragged in."

With some confusion, Hoyt frowned, scanning the room for the cat. "Do you know me?" Hoyt stepped forward, farther into the light. "It's Hoyt. It's your brother. I've come to... "

"Kill me? Too late. Already long dead.

Why don't you just stay where you are for the moment. I see quite well in low light. You're looking... well, fairly ridiculous really. But I'm impressed nonetheless. How long did it take you to perfect time travel?" "I... " Coming through the portal might have addled his brains, he thought. Or it might be simply seeing his dead brother, looking very much alive. "Cian."

"I'm not using that name these days. It's Cain, right at the moment. One syllable. Take off the cloak, Hoyt, and let's have a look at what's under it."

"You're a vampyre."

"I am, yes, certainly. The cloak, Hoyt."

Hoyt unhooked the brooch that held it in place, let it drop.

"Sword and dagger. A lot of weaponry for a sorcerer."

"There's to be a battle."

"Do you think so?" That amus.e.m.e.nt rippled again, coldly. "I can promise you'll lose.

What I have here is called a gun. It's quite a good one, really. It fires out a projectile faster than you can blink. You'll be dead where you stand before you can draw that sword."

"I haven't come to fight you."

"Really? The last time we met-let me refresh my memory. Ah yes, you pushed me off a cliff." "You pushed me off the b.l.o.o.d.y cliff first," Hoyt said with some heat. "Broke my b.l.o.o.d.y ribs while you were about it. I thought you were gone. Oh merciful G.o.ds, Cian, I thought you were gone."

"I'm not, as you can plainly see. Go back where you came from, Hoyt. I've had a thousand years, give or take, to get over my annoyance with you."

"For me you died only a week ago." He lifted his tunic. "You gave me these bruises."