Redemption

Annie Windsor

The Legacy of Prator 2 -

For Bridgette

I wrote this with your candle burning. Enjoy the wild man.

Prologue

Camelford

Late Fall, 470

Lygnel barely allowed herself a breath as she stood in the stone hall outside Davyd Krell’s bedchamber.
She heard sounds of coupling within—but a type of sex she had never known. Lovemaking with grunts of
animal need, cries of wild abandon.

Jealousy surged in her throat, bitter and hot, and yet in truth Lygnel had no claim on the man beyond the
wooden door. The stallion. Davyd had long ago captured her fancy. She had watched him from her
window, from discreet vantage points about the courtyard, and sometimes from hidden places in the
nearby woods.

Rough of manner but clearly soft of heart in the way he handled his training charges, Davyd’s paradoxes
first interested Lygnel, then attracted her. In a court of barbarians, he seemed the most barbaric of
all—and yet the most civilized. He was, without question, as raw and splendid as jewelstone hidden
between layers of unforgiving rock.

Her pulse quickened at the mere thought of Davyd’s hard, muscled frame and his feral azure eyes. How
those layered gems darkened when he sparred! And no doubt when he swept a woman into his arms.
Gods, but he was more handsome than any she had known in Avalon, and those men were half-ancient.
Almost gods. Since Lygnel’s forced arrival at Castle Dore, though, Davyd Krell had been her secret
religion.

Now, she intended to do more than worship from afar, her own sham wedding be damned to the
deepest of hells. Her body tingled as she considered her duplicity, her newfound boldness. This plan had
to work, for the sake of her newborn babe. For the sake of this man she had barely spoken to but
instinctively loved. If all went as she schemed, she would enjoy the steel of Davyd’s flesh one sweet time,

enough to last her forever, then see him safe away with her little girl.

Both her daughter and Davyd would be spared the fate of Castle Dore and its dark master Mordred.
Her hated husband’s treachery would bring doom to all who remained at Camelford. That much,
Lygnel’s weakened magik showed her with little variation.

Inside Davyd’s room, a woman screamed her release. Lygnel shivered with shameful excitement,
wondering how it would feel to make a sound of unbridled pleasure, of deep satisfaction. She couldn’t
help covering her mouth. The soft, wet feel of her own lips against her fingers made her shiver all the
more.

She had never known pure lust in her bed. Only cruelty with Mordred—and briefly, with Arthur, gentle
kindness—but never, ever passion. Such things seemed forbidden, to her above all others. Lygnel moved
her fingers from her lips and pressed them against Davyd’s door, relishing the rough feel of the wood.

All of that was about to change.

* * * * *

Davyd jumped up from the bed, then froze with shock.

Alla, his night’s conquest, had fled in terror before the woman who now stood in front of him. A woman
who had filled his senses, his dreams, each time he dared to think of her. But a woman like this, so
proper and well-bred, so intelligent and discerning—she couldn’t possibly want the likes of such a
scarred war dog, old before his time. He dropped his hands between his legs, a boy’s gesture, but this
woman’s unswerving gaze had the effect of stripping away his staunchest defense.

“I said do not be shy.” Lygnel used her diamond-blue eyes like a weapon. Sure as any sword, those
jewels.

He moved his hands away. As she stared at his hardening cock, he felt like a hostage.

This was no serving wench. This was his queen, though two years his junior at eighteen, she could barely
claim a woman’s age. Lygnel had become the Dark Prince’s unwilling bride two seasons ago. Rumor had
it the union had been ordered by Avalon at the same moment King Arthur’s wedding to Gwenhwyfar
took place. The workings of the fey—those were things best left unconsidered by mortal men.

And still, this situation could not be ignored.

Davyd knew a thousand painful deaths awaited any man who dared to look upon Lygnel of Dore in a
wanting way. She was known to be rigidly faithful but for that one instance—at her foul husband’s
undeniable command.

Yet there stood Queen Lygnel, just inside his chamber door, shocking Davyd with her sultry gaze.

“You have quite the reputation for endurance,” she murmured. “I have heard much about your skill.
From many sources.”

Davyd’s manhood betrayed him by springing up to confirm her statement. He tried to swallow, but could

not. His eyes fixed on the queen’s lips. Carved ruby, cold-sweet. They had been the downfall of many
lesser fools than Davyd, and he well knew it.

Every man in Camelford would have ripped out his hair to spend one hour—nay, one minute—with so
fine a woman. But what did the lady want, coming here like this?

Mordred had been away nigh on twenty days, but he was due back any hour, to celebrate the coming of
his first child. A babe, born a week ago to this woman-girl, who looked as if childbirth had taken no toll
on her. But then, the castle’s midwife was known for her healer’s skill.

Lygnel swept toward Davyd’s bed and stood beside him, moving free of burden or pain. Davyd
managed not to move as he drank in her heady scent of roses and light powder. Beneath her gown of red
and gold, her perfect curves threatened to slay all who might resist, and Davyd was not of a mind to
refuse a woman’s attention. Even this woman. Especially this woman.

Damn the peril.

Outside the castle’s great stone curtain, thunder tore the air.

Lygnel didn’t flinch. She kept her bright gaze on Davyd’s cock. He could fairly imagine her satin touch
on his burning skin. Or those lips, taking him inside her clean, soft mouth.

Four hells. I be a dead bastard come the morn. Aye, but a happy dead bastard.

“Heed me, good man.” Lygnel glanced up at Davyd, and he saw both resolve and passion in her eyes. “I
have a task, and only you to trust.”

In halting words, the queen explained what she wanted of her husband’s training master, and what she
would give in return. With each sentence, Davyd’s mouth opened a little more, until his chin touched his
chest.

After a few seconds of silence, Davyd hung his great head, barely conscious of his still-throbbing cock.
He could well imagine how he looked to Lygnel with his lion’s mane of flaxen hair nearly covering the
jagged scar on his left cheek. “Don’t ask this of me. I beg you, Milady. Even for your sweet favor—I
can’t risk Mordred’s wrath. No man could stand such a storm.”

Lygnel caught his manhood in her hand, choking his speech. Before he could react, she began a slow,
maddening stroke. “Serve me, and your reward…will not leave you wanting.”

At those honey-slick words, heat rose in Davyd’s face, spread through his chest, and crept down,
down, down, to where her fingers worked his swollen shaft.

Lygnel seemed to read his mind, leaning closer, allowing her full bosom to brush against him. She
pumped him like a well, faster and faster. Davyd grunted in spite of himself, mind spinning as his queen
pushed him toward an explosion of warrior’s proportions. Lygnel’s hair, famous and infamous for its
likeness to High Queen Gwenhwyfar’s, spilled like spun gold down her lightly freckled shoulders, and
Davyd more than appreciated her thin red and gold gown. As sheer as moonlight.

Her nipples made dark, full cherries against the fabric.

As Davyd’s grunts became groans, he could well understand how even the fabled King Arthur believed,

if only for a short time, that Lygnel was his angelic wife.

On orders from her cruel husband, Lygnel had successfully passed herself off as Queen Gwenhwyfar for
nearly a month, sharing Arthur’s Camelot.

And his bed.

Davyd licked his lips.

Had the High King himself tasted that tempting mouth? Before Arthur realized that his true queen was
Mordred’s captive, had he known the pleasures of Lygnel’s wet folds?

By Arthur’s one God, she was as full as any fruit. No doubt juicy but without question, bittersweet.

Cursed.

That’s what the old ones said. The ones who remembered magik, and Merlyn, and the times before the
fair folke left Briton for less populated shores.

As his climax neared, Davyd grasped the False Gwenhwyfar’s free arm and pulled her to him. So soft,
that royal skin. The color of milk, firm but yielding beneath his eager fingers.

Abruptly, Lygnel stopped her massage.

Davyd’s back bowed, so great was his frustration. He started to protest, but his queen lifted her gown
and discarded it on the floor.

Candlelight played on her naked form as she lay down on the bed and spread her legs. His eyes
widened at her sun-colored triangle. At the full, red swell of her moist lower lips. So great was his
attention to her flesh that he scarce noticed the mark between her breasts. An interlocked sun, moon, and
star.

Something in the back of his brain stirred. Words of warning from his mother, his people about trusting
Avalon or the fey, even halflings—but he dismissed them and marveled at Lygnel.

How could she have given birth but days ago? Surely this was some spell. Old magik.

“You may touch me,” she whispered. “In fact, I command it.”

Davyd edged forward and stood over his queen, memorizing every line and swell, every shade and hue.
He lowered his fingers slowly, barely brushing the soft flesh of her belly. The contact made his blood boil.

“Sample the wares,” she insisted. “Touch me until I come. How else can you make your decision?”

Davyd’s heart nearly flew from his chest, but he didn’t need a second invitation. His trembling hand
covered Lygnel’s quim and pressed, drawing a sigh from her depths. Standing above her like this, he felt
like lord of the land, master of all he could see.

Woman’s musk filled his senses, and his cock throbbed until he thought he might spill himself before
completing his queen’s command. Sensing his urgency, Lygnel grabbed the base of his manhood and held
tight, forestalling his eruption. “Not until I have what I want. Everything I want.”

“Yes, Majesty.” Davyd’s voice was no more than a hoarse croak. Dizzy with the sight before him, he
thrust a finger into Lygnel’s damp hair.

She groaned as he parted her slick folds and found her swollen clit.

“Rub me,” she demanded. “Now. I tire of waiting.”

Davyd’s breath caught. He stroked his queen in gentle circles, picking up speed as if his life depended
on her pleasure.

Lygnel’s throaty moans spurred him onward. She kept her grip on the hilt of Davyd’s cock, and with her
other hand, she rubbed one cherry nipple. Were it not for her forceful grasp, Davyd would have
succumbed at that moment.

Instead, Lygnel thrashed beneath his fingers. Her orgasm shook her fair body, and Davyd gloried in her
satisfied woman’s smile.

As the tremors subsided, she once more pierced him with her sharp eyes. “Kiss me,” she said in her
undeniable queen’s tone.

Davyd obeyed her command, bending down to taste the forbidden fruit of her mouth.

Her lips were as sweet and soft as he imagined. More so.

Lygnel pulled him onto the bed, then urged him to give her his weight. In seconds, his pulsing cock
pressed inches from the hot welcome of her quim.

The queen shifted beneath him, opening her legs, inching up until the tip of his manhood slid against her
opening.

Davyd groaned.

Lygnel wrapped her hands in his long hair. “Is that what you want? To take me?”

“Aye. But I fear paining you. You gave birth—”

“Never mind that. The midwife did her work well. I have no pain, Davyd. Only questions. Now, answer
me—do you want to be inside me?”

Davyd ground his teeth, barely able to restrain himself. “Yes. I do.”

Once more, Lygnel shifted beneath him. He felt her wetness close over his sensitive head.

“How badly do you want me?”

Muscles tensed to the point of ripping, Davyd growled and bit his lip ‘til it bled. Queen or no queen, he
was close to rutting on her like a crazed hound. “Name your price, woman. Name it!”

Lygnel’s eyes blazed. “I have. I simply await your agreement.”

The sensation of her walls pressing toward his near-bursting staff became unbearable.

What she had asked him to do—was it really such a high price to pay? Hiding the babe from her
demon-father Mordred and winning Lygnel’s favor would be fair worth the prize he would claim.

“I will do it,” he grumbled.

“Make no mistake. I would die to see my child free of Castle Dore’s dark stain.” Lygnel’s nails dug into
Davyd’s shoulders. “Do I have your blood-oath?”

“Yes, curse my soul. Yes!”

And with that, Lygnel opened herself wider still.

So be it.

If she came to him as a woman, then he would show her all the pleasure a man could give.

All vestige of station forgotten, Davyd grabbed Lygnel by the shoulders and rammed himself deep
enough to tear a scream of raw excitement from his queen.

He took her like a man possessed, humping hard and fast, smiling at the look of rapture on her exquisite
face.

Lygnel met his every thrust, pounding her hands against his back. “More. More. Make me scream,
damn you. Make me scream until I have no throat!”

Davyd doubled his efforts, rutting like he dreamed of only moments before. The bed crashed against the
wall, and the stuffed straw mattress split apart from the power of his strokes.

Lygnel pinched her nipples and pressed them against his chest, bucking higher and higher until she indeed
screamed. And screamed.

Davyd bellowed with his own release, pouring his seed into his queen’s quim—the one most forbidden
of places.

But the queen did not release him.

She kept him well into the wee hours, satisfying her every whim, like a woman spending her last day of
life exactly the way she chose to spend it.

As for Davyd, he was of no mind to argue, no matter the hard road ahead.

Chapter 1

Spring, 490

Two Weeks Before Bealtuinn

In the years that followed, Davyd had to admit the road from Dore had been longer—and harder—than
he had imagined.

This windswept day offered no respite from his pains, and he placed the last stone on the last cairn, then
turned away from his sorrow. From Cruther’s Point, the highest hill on Chapel Down, he gazed down at
the blue vastness of the sea.

The scent of brine, the light perfume of loam and wildflowers—these hints of island spring failed to ease
his suffering despite his deep respect for the Goddess. Afternoon sun stroked his tanned cheeks as if to
soothe him, but in truth, even a mother’s embrace would have left him angry and wanting.

Finally, it seemed, he had lost everything.

Except me, whispered Myrddin’s voice.

“Except you, you bastard.” Davyd clenched his fists as a coastal breeze blew his blond mane and braids
across his eyes. A few whitecaps curled closer to Chapel Down’s treacherous beach, but the jagged
rocks barely matched his twice-jagged mood.

Sometimes Myrddin—or Merlyn, as Davyd’s people called him—sounded distant and quiet in Davyd’s
thoughts. Sometimes Merlyn sang, and other times he shouted. But one thing Merlyn never, ever did was
stay quiet. The ancient lurked at the fringes of Davyd’s troubled mind like a tune that refused to be
forgotten.

Clearly aware of Davyd’s seething anger, Merlyn began to whistle. The sound moved away, as if the
conjurer was taking a stroll toward the back of Davyd’s skull.

Just as well.

Davyd would have banged his head with a cairn stone if Merlyn failed to give him the peace he needed
this day, after burying a woman he cherished. In one way or another, Davyd had now lost all the souls of
any value to him.

He relaxed his fists, letting his scarred arms hang loose at his sides.

Princess Ysbet had been hauled away to the mainland to marry Onri of Dore, the bastard who took
Mordred’s castle after King Arthur and his troubled son died in the Battle of Camlann. Eduard, Prator’s
young Captain of the Guards, was likely lost at sea trying to save the princess from wedded misery. And
now, a fever had claimed Eduard’s father Andrus, the former guard captain—and King Roland and
Queen Twyllian. A third of the servants, pages, lords and ladies had succumbed shortly afterwards.

Knight after knight had fallen, until Arthur’s Men were naught but a rag-tag band of fools grieving over
too many graves. Too many dead.

Another breeze stirred Davyd’s braids and loose locks. He ran his fingers over the tightly wrapped hair

and thought of sweet, sensual Nallad. Nallad, who liked his hair braided at the sides and free in the back.

It be handsome, mon barbare.

Mon barbare. My barbarian. He smiled, almost hearing Nallad’s lyrical voice. He pointedly ignored the
pile of rocks to his right, marking her grave. He preferred to think of his exotic lover as alive and
vivacious. So dark and beautiful, and always ready to surrender her kisses, her fine body, her warm
embrace.

Together, Davyd and Nallad had given each other hours of comfort and pleasure, respite from years of
missing true loves lost to brutal, early deaths. And now, Nallad had given her life to the fever Onri left in
his spiteful wake.

“I will avenge you,” Davyd swore, keeping his gaze fixed on the sea. “And Ysbet, and…”

His voice caught.

Once more, his hands clenched.

He couldn’t bring himself to speak her name aloud, though he had spent years dreaming of their single
night together. A mere mental image of his first queen was enough to harden Davyd’s cock—and to
break his battle-bruised heart.

After nearly two decades, the scent of roses yet drifted through his memory, as if Lygnel sent the
fragrance straight from the land of the dead. And after nearly two decades, Davyd yet longed to speak to
her, touch her, even just once more. By the Goddess, he would give his life simply to see Lygnel again.

How had Mordred killed her? Did the Dark Prince dispatch Lygnel quickly for betraying him, or did the
bastard torture her for nights on end? Likely the latter, since Lygnel robbed Mordred of his child. Her
child. And Davyd managed to escape Camelford with the babe. Had it not been for the helpless infant,
Davyd never could have abandoned Lygnel, knowing what fate would befall her when her wicked
husband returned.

Yet, Lygnel chose that fate. Commanded it, in fact.

Perhaps her last edict as queen, sending me away with the girl.

Such thoughts routinely tormented him.

He could almost feel Lygnel in his arms, soft yet fiery. Terrified, yet determined. She should have been
the most jaded woman in Briton, yet when Davyd kissed her all those long nights ago, he had known she
was the truest of innocents. Pure of heart, pure of purpose, forced into games she didn’t
understand—but quickly learned to play better than most.

Lygnel didn’t play for wealth or power, though. She had gambled everything to save her daughter’s soul
from the likes of Mordred.

And what was I? Likely naught but a means to her ends.

The ache in his heart nearly drove Davyd to his knees.

Had Lygnel ever loved him, or was he just a night’s fuck, a price Lygnel paid for her wishes?

No. She had to have felt something. The way she enjoyed him, held him and kissed him, screamed for
him…their night had to have been more than a way to carry off her plans.

Not for the first time, Davyd considered throwing himself into the shallows below Cruther’s Point.

At least I might see Lygnel then, in the land of the dead. Aye. What would it matter now? Ysbet,
she’ll not be needing me again in this life. Arthur’s legacy, it’s all to waste with no one left to
rule…

His gaze drifted to Nallad’s grave, and he surrendered to his sadness with a sigh. “And both of my loves
are dead. Nothing holds me on this living earth.”

Except me, Merlyn challenged from some far corner of his brain.

Davyd felt the subtle grip of old magik, binding his muscles. He tried to take a step, but found—as he
knew he would find, of course—that he could not move.

“I despise you, Merlyn.”

Aye. The ancient’s voice sounded gentle. No mocking or teasing. At least Merlyn had that much respect
for the dead.

“All your plans, they’ve gone to hell.” Davyd willed himself to twitch, but managed only a deeper breath
besides the movement of his lips. “No point in keeping me prisoner. Let me go.”

I will not. Not yet.

Davyd’s muscles flexed, but his limbs remained paralyzed. “What more can you want from me?”

Prator’s survivors are in disarray, Merlyn murmured. Go back to the castle. Clean them up, for
soon, you will have reason to rejoice.

“Rejoice over what? Will you visit us with boils and pox, too?” This time, Davyd did manage to move,
just enough to deepen his frown.

Merlyn loosed a great sigh of impatience.

Raging against the ancient’s magik with all of his fearsome physical might, Davyd Krell turned away from
Cruther’s Point and marched, puppet-fashion, back toward Prator Castle.

* * * * *

On Briton’s mainland, beneath the shadow of Castle Dore, deep in the woods of Camelford, Lygnel
lowered her empty bucket into the courtyard’s vast well. From the water’s surface, her own blue eyes
stared back at her with bored disregard, mirroring sharp features. Almost pointed. Almost fey. Her
blonde hair fell wild about her shoulders, covering the apron straps of her brown scullery dress.

To think, I once wore a queen’s brilliant favors. Too many years ago to remember, in a time far
too painful to dream about on such a cool spring morning.

Bealtuinn celebrations, the rites of spring, were but days away, and Onri’s ships soon would be putting
to dock. The giant courtyard of Castle Dore bustled with servants and the few Saxon warriors left behind
to guard the tri-towered keep. Carts of new fruit had been set to on the northern wall, while children
rolled and played in the hay gathered for the stables. On the southern wall, minstrels worked at tunes to
please their returning master.

Onri was a bastard, true enough—but the kindest of rulers compared to Lygnel’s deceased husband
Mordred. The Dark Prince. The destroyer of the realm.

“Lousy lover,” Lygnel added, hoisting her full bucket back to the well-stones. “Royal prick. Prince of
naught but his own arsehole.”

At least Arthur had been gentle in his lovemaking during the few weeks Lygnel had been passed off as
his wife, Queen Gwenhwyfar. Lygnel’s twin.

Was she doomed to hell for her days as the False Gwenhwyfar, for enjoying her sister’s husband?
Mordred had given her no choice, after all. The kidnapping of Gwenhwyfar and Lygnel’s substitution in
Arthur’s bed had been yet another of the Dark Prince’s schemes to overthrow his father and take the
throne of Briton. If Lygnel had not complied with Mordred’s demands, he would have killed Gwen. As it
was, Gwen managed to escape, likely with fey assistance. Whether or not Gwenhwyfar knew the
circumstances of Lygnel’s “betrayal,” Lygnel never discovered. Their twin-link had long since died to
nothing, and Gwen shortly disappeared into Glastonbury Abbey.

The Abbey. Lygnel sighed. She would like to see it again. Anywhere would be preferable to Castle
Dore.

As she hauled her bucket to the training barn, soldiers and servants alike gave her clear passage. A few
cast her sidelong glances—either nervous or pitying. Sometimes Lygnel couldn’t tell. She never stopped
moving long enough to figure out the meanings.

She did, however, slow to a stroll at the door of the training barn. Inside were a few lads busy at spar,
and one of those never failed to catch Lygnel’s eye.

Bertram, he was called. One of Alla’s many sons, Goddess rest her soul. Alla’s children were hale and
hearty, and blond or redheaded, to a one. Bertram, however, had to be the pick of the litter. The young
man’s golden braids and chiseled muscles pleased Lygnel, as did the odd quirk of his smile and the
sparkle in his eyes. The lad was perfect, and so like the man who undoubtedly fathered him…

Davyd.

The name snuck up on Lygnel and broke her stride. She set her bucket down hard, slopping water over
the barn’s threshold.

Davyd. Ah, gentle Goddess. You punish me without mercy, to bring me thoughts of that sweet
man today. Tears crept down her cheeks even as the training master strode toward her.

“Are ye daft, wench?” Dylert’s red hair hung in his face, but it failed to cover his smirk. He seemed to
savor that last word. Wench.

Lygnel could imagine him dominating some hapless castle helper, throwing the term about like he had
some right to use it.

Dylert was a runt, worthless in battle but skilled at the forge. He had been but a teen when Mordred
died and Lygnel lost her throne. Still, Dylert’s vitriol kept pace with Mordred’s older soldiers, who now
formed Onri’s home guard.

At present, Lygnel chose not to answer the bastard. This was an old experience, being chastised and
cursed. Many at Castle Dore made sport of it, but few were brave enough to take on Lygnel without
audience. Humiliation, it seemed, was a group activity.

“Were ye watchin’ my lads?” Dylert leaned toward Lygnel. The sour stench of his orange-brown beard
nearly gagged her. She found nothing attractive about this hairy stump of a man. Nothing desirable or
redeemable.

Unlike the first training master I knew, in every sense of the word…

“Filthy whore,” Dylert continued. The younger men scattered, showing heart enough to avoid the
senseless torture of a serving woman. “Ye got no cause but our cause. Haul the water proper and bring it
in clean, lest I pull out the strap and give ye a good one.”

Lygnel nodded, keeping her thoughts on the one subject she knew she should avoid.

Davyd Krell.

Her third and final lover. There had never been another after Davyd, and there would be no other, not
by choice or consent. Lygnel’s neglected body tingled from the mere thought of his masterful hands plying
her flesh. The way he handled her, seemed to know every inch of her—surely he had loved her.

Or am I as mad as these people think I am? Davyd was a stallion. Mayhap I was naught but a
prize filly, a conquest with a jeweled bridle.

Tears spilled more freely now, drawing a disgusted snort from Dylert. “Off with ye, hear? And don’t be
slow getting back.”

Perhaps it was the season, or the weather. Perhaps it was too many thoughts of Davyd, or a boldness
drawn from the lack of a jeering crowd. Whatever the reason, Lygnel found herself looking dead into
Dylert’s dull green eyes.

A rogue breeze carried the unmistakable scent of fertile earth and new life, lighting a fire in her
mind—and in her old, faded tattoo. Despite her situation, she smiled, feeling the small rise of magik inside
her. Above her, a white bird flew slowly across the sun, casting a quick shadow across Lygnel’s eyes.

“Tu’than dan,” she whispered, recalling the words from a childhood home so distant and beautiful it
seemed like a dream. “Tu’than ari dan, et amac.”

She sealed the old spell by touching her lips once, with her left index finger.

Dylert’s mouth hung open while his cheeks streaked a dangerous maroon.

For once lacking fear or shame, Lygnel turned and left Onri’s training master sputtering in the barn door.
Let Dylert’s temper rise. If her spell had been effective, little else would rise for the bastard, at least for a
fortnight.

“Did ye hear, lads?” Dylert howled from behind her. “She cursed me, I swear it! The wench cursed
me!”

His hateful voice faded from Lygnel’s mind as she headed for her room. No doubt she would pay for
such folly, but at the moment, she didn’t care. The seal of Avalon—the intertwined sun, moon, and star
tattoo she received in her girlhood—burned like fire between her breasts. A bit of spring magik lingered
in the crisp air, and Lygnel intended to use it.

Maybe this time, she would vision the answers to some of the many questions haunting her spirit.

When Mordred’s guard caught Davyd and the babe, had they died swiftly, and with no pain? More
importantly—what had the murdering soldiers done with the bodies?

Threw them in the ocean, according to reports that had now become legend.

Lygnel didn’t want to believe those tales. She fervently hoped to learn she had graves to visit. A
connection she could touch. Something real.

Perhaps if she concentrated her full attention, her full remaining magik on the seeing bowl, she would
finally see Davyd’s fate that night—though watching the man of her heart die was not something Lygnel
relished or strove to accomplish. Still, if she could figure how and where he fell during his escape attempt,
she might find some hint of his remains, and her baby’s.

The courtyard of Castle Dore blended to a blur as Lygnel hurried toward the back wall, to the tiny hovel
that was her home. When she reached the unadorned thatch hut, she made straight for her wooden
seeing bowl, already filled afresh with water that morning, just in case.

Lygnel never chanced missing a surge of her old abilities. She might have been sent away from Avalon,
she might no longer believe in her abilities and show little skill from lack of practice, but the depth of her
magik never could be lost completely. It also could not be blocked, even by her distant relative Morgain,
Queen of the Fey. Or Morgain’s sworn enemy and treacherous cousin Nimue, the Lady of the Lake,
who ruled in water as Morgain ruled on land. One day soon, Merlyn would be free from the caves and
Nimue’s trickery, and Nimue’s treachery would be revealed. All the wrongs done to Lygnel in earlier
years would be set right, and…

And nothing.

With a sigh, Lygnel centered the seeing bowl on the small table before her.

Avalon is of no use to me now. I made my choices years ago.

Grinding her teeth, she gazed into the water she had blessed by the old rites. The mark of her childhood
yet burned on her chest, and indeed, images swam into view each time she tapped the water’s surface.

Dylert’s enraged face came first. He was bellowing to Grakor, Onri’s eldest son. Dylert pointed to his
crotch. Complaining of Lygnel’s curse, certainly. Had her magic been stronger, not only would his prick
have failed to swell, the offensive appendage would have shriveled and fallen off. She smirked at the

thought even though she doubted such success. The more years away from her mist-hidden birthplace,
the less she could conjure, even with full effort and the strength of spring. Such was the fate of halflings,
even those trained as Adepts on Avalon.

Dylert’s image faded without grace, replaced by the sight of six sailing frigates. What seemed a hoard of
boy-children swarmed over five of the riggings, tearing the ropes asunder, breaking stays and hacking at
knots with small daggers. Below them, a blonde woman not unlike Lygnel herself lowered herself into the
hold carrying axe and wedge and torch, clearly bent on some treachery.

“Please.” Lygnel tapped the bowl again, and this time she saw a woman on the decks of a meager sloop.
The woman had hair as black as onyx, and a stubborn set to her jaw. She looked…familiar, and yet,
unknown.

Someone who will cross my path, Lygnel figured. Perhaps Onri’s bride. She is said to be young and
beautiful, like this one.

The picture faded, and none replaced it.

Lygnel tensed. The fire of her birth tattoo subsided, and with it went her chances to vision, at least for
the moment.

“Let me see what I must,” she prayed, and once more tapped the bowl.

For a moment, she saw ships, maybe six in all. They quickly faded to sea, to endless blue—and then a
blurry face formed in the waves. Devil-handsome, scarred at the neck…

Blond braids framed the image, but the picture faded to nothing as the magik seeped from Lygnel. She
couldn’t sustain the power any longer. She almost couldn’t remember how to use it—and yet, she had
seen enough to stun her.

That last vision.

It couldn’t be. But, then, it could be no other.

Davyd. Older. With scars I do not recall.

No. That’s ridiculous. I saw the bloody swords when Mordred’s two surviving guards returned.
Davyd’s clothes. The babe’s bloody blankets. These things they presented their master as proof,
just before I was shackled in the dungeons.

Her heart thundered, and she gripped the seeing bowl as if to crush it. What spells could she use? How
could she wake the magik dormant within her?

“Come back!” Lygnel shook the bowl. “Davyd, please. By the Goddess, come back!”

Chapter 2

Davyd stood atop Prator Castle’s forward battlement. The gray stone walls and cobbled courtyard,
moss-covered and worn by the salt air, were receiving a fair scrubbing by peevish scullery maids. Inside
the twin keep, the few surviving servants freshened rushes and re-stuffed mattresses and pillows. Rooms
were being aired, to release the stench of illness and poultices. Even the baths were being skimmed and
salted with fragrance, as if some great royal stood ready to claim them.

Splendid work, Merlyn whispered. You will not be sorry. These brave souls need a leader, and for
now, they have you.

“Hmph.” Davyd clenched the hilt of his jagged blade. He had his shirt off, allowing spring sun to pound
against his muscles and scars. His breeches hugged his sweaty waist, and his jaw remained set against the
indignity of being forced to bend to the will of another being. No matter that Merlyn was more powerful
than the winds and tides, or that Avalon’s ancients were like unto gods and goddesses, it galled Davyd to
be ordered about. One day, he would have the chance to fight Merlyn hand to hand, sword to sword,
and they would see who proved the stronger man.

A thought for later discussion, Merlyn announced. Look to the horizon, Davyd Krell. Prator’s
destiny comes in with the tide, and with it, our discourse ends.

The ancient abruptly fell silent, as if snuffed like a candleflame.

The sudden change temporarily disoriented Davyd, but he recovered himself quickly, before any of
Prator’s inhabitants noticed his slack posture.

What was Merlyn on about, to quiet himself so suddenly and completely? The stillness in Davyd’s mind
felt almost eerie. He shook his head, but Merlyn didn’t rattle back to life.

“Odd,” Davyd muttered to himself. He shrugged off a small chill, wondering if the conjurer’s unnatural
silence meant ill portent.

Below him, people scuttled and fretted, but Davyd scarcely heeded them. Cold prickles broke along his
spine. He drew a tense breath and gripped his sword hilt all the harder as a wave of chills shook him,
followed quickly by a wave of warmth.

And then…more prickles along his neck.

Someone was watching him.

Eyes, from a distance.

Davyd’s hand twitched against his sword and he cut a glance left, then right. Nothing seemed amiss, but
with fair folke, who could tell?

Is this a human stare, or have I been snared in a fey’s vision quest? Merlyn, damn your hide.
Speak up! Tell me what you think.

More mental silence answered Davyd.

A group of lesser pages and nobles scurried about, shoveling manure and spreading fresh hay. The
sounds seemed unnaturally loud without Merlyn’s noisy chatter. Davyd couldn’t even feel the ancient’s
presence. He raised one hand to his temple, keeping the other ready to draw his blade.

“Merlyn? Talk, you bastard! After all the times you’ve given it unbidden, I have need of your opinion
now.”

Merlyn still refused to speak, or even to stir.

With slowly dawning shock, Davyd realized he was truly alone. The wizard, it seemed, had truly
departed.

Davyd didn’t know whether to shout or laugh.

Not since the day he rode like a madman away from Castle Dore at Camelford had he known a moment
of complete quietude. And yet there on Prator’s battlement, Davyd felt the blessed stillness of—of
singularity—again.

Once more, confusion seized him. He laughed, but tears flecked his vision. Then, another stab of unease
pained his insides.

As if drawn by a force greater than Merlyn, Davyd turned slowly and squinted into the sun. A breeze
carried the scent of roses to him, and his light-blinded eyes caught the image of a face, peering at him
from the cloudless sky.

“By the old Gods!” Staggering back against the outer battlement wall, Davyd drew his sword and held it
before him.

The visage didn’t waver or approach.

Davyd’s pulse rushed hard against his temples. He had naught but a handful of knights, and barely one
hundred souls to defend Prator from this…this…being. But defend the castle and its denizens he would,
if he could.

The face in the sky faded, then redoubled. It seemed young, yet immeasurably old. Eyes the color of
blue gemstones flickered, as if backed by firelight. It—she—had fair features and full red lips, parted in
surprise.

The sword in Davyd’s hand dipped toward the ground. He went bloodless from the shock of
recognition, swaying, catching his balance by only a few protruding stones.

And then his body responded in a new way. Heat suffused every muscle and sinew. Wind whipped his
braids over his shoulders, and his cock stiffened like a divining rod carried too close to the barely-visible
sea.

The sky seemed to ripple, and the face disappeared—but too late for Davyd to deny the truth of what
he had witnessed. Dizziness nearly claimed him again, but he fought off the wave of blackness threatening
to tamp his senses.

“Lygnel!” His shout was more a roar of pained surprise. “Lygnel!”

All work ceased as Davyd sheathed his sword, then thundered along the battlement like a man drunk
with desperate joy. The stairs were in ready proximity, which was good fortune. Otherwise, Davyd might
have leaped from the corner of Prator Castle and fallen to his doom in the meadow below.

It had been Lygnel watching him. Aye. Lygnel reaching out from the land of the dead to let him know
she was waiting.

But how should he join her? Kill himself quickly, or die valiantly in battle? Perhaps there was some
entrance to the land of the dead that required only physical passage, not actual death—some sort of
magik transformation.

Davyd’s thoughts quickened as he hammered down the battlement’s stone steps.

Would Nallad be there as well? And her much-beloved husband? Surely in the land of the dead, petty
jealousies would be forgotten, and a soul would be free to enjoy love aplenty. Davyd had always tried to
believe this.

As he reached the courtyard, he heard servants and knights alike call him mad as he passed.

Some said, “Touched.”

Yet a few others muttered, “Daft.”

Davyd didn’t care.

His only thought was to reach one of Prator’s few boats, a craft that might sail from Chapel Down to the
Cornish coast. The urge was near unquenchable. Davyd couldn’t shake the intuition that he would find
answers in the last place he saw Lygnel alive. Mayhap within the very castle where he once enjoyed her
sweet favors.

Even as Davyd left the safety of Prator’s walls, Merlyn’s presence did not return to stop him. He still
didn’t know whether to be grateful or disturbed, but he opted for the former.

“Where are you going, Master Krell?” called a youngling who had followed him out of the main gates.

“To the sea, lad,” Krell managed, though his strongest urge was to curse and order the boy back to the
keep. When he glanced over his shoulder, he realized that more than the boy had come trailing after him.

A steady stream of castle inhabitants flowed behind, as if Davyd were some second-rate enchanter.

Bother with them all. They’re like wolves with no pack leader, except—

He slowed his stride and cursed. “Except for me. Ah, damn you, Merlyn. Damn all the Gods!”

The forest lay in sight, and bordering the massive trees, the path to Chapel Down’s beachhead. As
Davyd began his journey down the wending trail, a fierce battle broke out in his soul.

He wanted to honor the vision in the sky and find his way to his lost love. The desire was palpable,
holding his heart and mind captive as surely as Merlyn had done.

And yet, free of Merlyn’s insistence, Davyd found he still felt tremendous loyalty to Arthur’s Men—what
was left of them. How could he leave these people, Ysbet’s people, who needed him so desperately?

Ysbet had been like a daughter to him, and after all, she was Lygnel’s blood. Of all the people Davyd
had loved and lost, Ysbet was likely alive, though married to a man she hated and quite unhappy. There
had been no answer to the messages he and Nallad had sent by falcon when the fever struck, but Davyd
had a gut sense the princess was still breathing. And no doubt kicking.

Eduard—now he was questionable. The odds of the young man surviving the sea in that flimsy slip, and
during the storm that had followed Ysbet from Prator—very slim, those.

“Why am I thinking of chasing after the dead when I should seek the living?” Davyd crested the hill
above the rocky coastline, already slowing his stride.

The answer was simple, in truth. He couldn’t leave Chapel Down. At least not until he found out—

“What in twenty hells?” murmured the youngling from close behind him.

Davyd whirled on the boy but restrained his temper. “Lad, you turn yourself back to the castle.”

“But, Master Krell.” The boy’s eyes widened. He pointed over Davyd’s left shoulder. “The sea—a ship.
A ship!”

No sooner did the boy speak than Merlyn’s last words struck Davyd like a gale.

Look to the horizon…Prator’s destiny comes in with the tide…

Uncertain if he could manage one more surprise on this strange day, Davyd slowly turned and gazed in
the direction the boy indicated.

“It is a ship,” he murmured.

Something glinted off the bow, as if light struck a gemstone of immense proportion.

The boy drew closer, as did Prator’s sad and desperate rabble.

Davyd squinted at the sloop. Too small for a fighting vessel, though he’d put no treachery past Onri and
the blackhearts from Dore.

Yet, this seemed more a ship made for quick passage. And if his eyes didn’t deceive him, the sloop
sailed beneath the most unlikely of banners.

A bright red dragon. The symbol of King Arthur’s beleaguered line.

“Master?” the boy whispered, still pointing.

“Aye.” Krell nodded, then lifted his voice for all to hear. “Summon the guard. Tell them a ship
approaches—and she’s flying Pendragon’s standard.”

* * * * *

At Castle Dore, the Saxon homecoming stunned Lygnel and the other residents of the tree-shrouded
fortress.

Onri…lost at sea.

The fleet and his raiding regiments…decimated by his unwilling witch-bride and her lover.

Onri’s son Grakor, now the master of the keep…possessed by a fury so sharp it furrowed his soul.

Lygnel, still obsessed and astounded by what she had visioned, had been making plans for escape when
the watch horns sounded.

“Damn! Nine damns!” She cinched a large travel bag, but groaned again as she realized she’d never
make the stables to take a horse.

The bag was too big to carry by hand.

She had intended to flee Dore and search for Davyd Krell, for if he lived, she would die rather than be
separated from him a moment longer than necessary. If he didn’t love her, if her memories and dreams
were folly, so be it. She would leave this earth and be done with her pain, one way or the other.

But now, with the horns blowing, Lygnel knew her chances for clean egress from Dore’s lands had been
greatly diminished—if not destroyed. Dejected, she had gone out to see Onri’s approach…and
discovered the strange turn of events along with Dore’s other residents.

As the bedraggled contingent approached with an unruly hoard of mercenaries, Lygnel had known that
as resident “witch” and perpetual scapegoat, she would somehow pay a price for the disasters met by the
wedding party.

She just hadn’t expected that price to come so quickly.

Less than an hour after Grakor’s remnants stumbled through the gates, Dylert stood leering in her door.
Bertram, the blond page who bore his father’s features so well that it hurt Lygnel to her core, bound
Lygnel’s hands with leather jesses as if she were no more than a falcon meant for sport. “Shouldn’t ought
to be cursing folk,” the training master observed with undisguised glee. His eyes kept roving to her
breasts, then lower and back up again. “This time, you’ll get yer come-uppance.”

“Aye, and your cock will scarce be so fortunate,” Lygnel muttered where only the page could hear.

Bertram’s hands stumbled at their task as he made eye contact with the woman who was queen at his
birth. His gaze held sympathy and a latent anger hidden so well only an Adept could see it.

“A daughter of Avalon should not be subject to such a station or humiliation,” he whispered as he
finished lacing the jesses—but didn’t tighten them. “If my mother yet lived, she would slay this bastard in
his sleep. There are those still loyal to the Lady and hers.”

And if your father were here… “Thank you.” Lygnel smiled even as she realized she had spoken too
loudly, doing her best to shut off her own thoughts.

“Quiet!” Dylert lunged forward, grabbed Lygnel by the shoulder, and jerked her toward the door.
“You’ll not be corruptin’ the younglings!”

Lygnel kept her body limp and her eyes half-closed as Dylert hauled her from the hut. Bertram’s furious
gaze followed her until she could see him no longer. By the time Dylert threw her to the dais steps in front
of Grakor’s throne, Lygnel had placed herself in an almost-trance.

A skill from Avalon, yet unforgotten.

If I had known then what I know now, would I have listened to Nimue, or to Merlyn? And my
poor twin fared no better. Lygnel’s mind filled with images of the sun’s island, hidden behind the
moon’s mists and guarded by the stars. Avalon. Her haven. Lost to her for all times, like her only known
kin. Gwen and I were naught but pawns in a game with too many kings and queens. I was happy
only once after I left my sister and my home.

Davyd, where are you? I would come to you if I knew!

Dylert departed the room without a word.

It took Lygnel a few moments to realize that Grakor showed no signs of rage. The big man looked much
bigger without his mountain of a father towering beside him.

In fact, Grakor appeared to be strangely large and even more strangely calm, seated as he was on the
throne in Castle Dore’s empty great hall. Only he, Lygnel, and three of the royal hounds were present.

“Stand up,” he commanded.

Still gripped by the past and her fears of the present, Lygnel complied.

Grakor opened his mouth, then closed it. He stroked his auburn beard, then ran a massive hand through
his thick red hair. He wasn’t ugly, Lygnel realized, but he wasn’t as handsome as his father. Onri, though
cruel at times, had been a good-hearted rake in his day. Grakor didn’t have such skill with women, or
with anyone, as he was now proving.

Lygnel didn’t dare speak. Her heart slammed against her ribs as her mind gradually cleared. What could
the new king want with her alone, if not to kill her?

Oh, please. Not that…

Grakor gazed at her, but thank the gods, not in a sexual way. Something else haunted his green eyes.

“Do you,” he said at last, “know anything about Glastonbury Abbey?”

Of all the things Lygnel had expected, this question hadn’t been among them.

One of the seven unchanging gates…

The last haven for women in peril…

Home to my fey cousins when they journey this side of the mists…

Shock and rising fear drained the moisture from her throat. Each answer dug a larger pit than the last.
How could she speak these things aloud to a savage like Grakor, a nonbeliever? If he didn’t kill her for
her impudence, one of Avalon’s secret protectors might. Choosing the only option that wasn’t certain
suicide, Lygnel kept her eyes level with Grakor’s and said nothing at all.

“I thought as much.” He grunted. “That mark you bear on your chest—oh, yes, I’ve seen it now and
again, when the soldiers tried to take sport with you. I think that mark means something more than I
understand.”

Without warning, Grakor stood.

Lygnel stepped back and almost fell down the dais steps.

“Do you fear me, witch?” Grakor advanced, sounding more like Lygnel had first expected—hard, cold,
and furious.

Holding her ground by force of spirit and will only, Lygnel nodded. “I would be a fool to have no fear of
my king.”

“But I am not your king.” He reached her in two strides and captured her chin in one meaty palm. “You
were wife to Mordred and consort to Arthur. How can Onri’s son Grakor compare to the likes of such
gods?”

Once more, Lygnel elected silence. What did he want from her?

“That’s why my father didn’t have you killed,” Grakor admitted. “Bedding both of those men—well, he
figured old magik must run like thick meade in your veins. Father believed that if he put you to death,
Avalon would avenge the spilling of your blood. Is that true?”

Knees weak, Lygnel could find no response.

Grakor gave her chin a pinch. “Please,” he whispered. “Make me a believer. Tell me there is some
place, some power beyond this mortal path. If I kill you, will Avalon avenge your death, yes or no?”

“I do not know,” Lygnel answered truthfully, then closed her eyes. “I left Avalon’s shores years ago.”

The pressure on her chin faltered, then fell away.

When Lygnel opened her eyes, Grakor had moved away from her, back to his throne. He took his seat,
but kept his hard gaze trained on her.

“Why did you leave paradise?”

“To explain all the reasons would do naught but harm.” Lygnel sighed. “Mordred was cause enough. I
entered into a bargain for marriage with the Dark Prince without knowing his true soul.”

Though others did, and saw fit not to tell me.

“Dragons defeated us at the Abbey,” Grakor interjected. “Four of them, all breathing fire. Dragons!
Things of myth and children’s tales. Who would send dragons against us, witch? And why?”

This time, Lygnel’s shock was near enough to drive her back to her knees. The fey interfered in a battle
of men? And not just any fey. Dragons. Gods be damned, that had to have been Morgain.

Since Merlyn’s imprisonment, Morgain had done naught but live her own life and occasionally, in
Merlyn’s name, help the Pendragon bloodline.

But the Pendragon bloodline died at Camlann.

Didn’t it?

The image of Davyd’s face came to Lygnel, older, clearly alive despite that dark night so many years
ago, when Mordred’s guards brought back his bloodied clothes.

If Davyd survived, perhaps he spirited the babe away as well? Onri’s chosen bride, his unwilling
wife-to-be, was said to be young and dark-headed, like Mordred…

No! I won’t think it. I can’t! Lygnel’s fists clenched against a fierce pain in her chest and womb. The
lost-child pain.

“Perhaps Avalon still has fondness for the weaker fighters in any battle,” she managed, though her
thoughts and emotions swirled like a hurricane.

“Mmm.” Grakor leaned forward. “And perhaps you know more than you allow. I won’t kill you today,
but some time in the under-rooms might loose your tongue.”

Lygnel didn’t respond to the threat of the dungeons. She was no stranger to those dark places. Mordred
had sent her there too many times to count. In fact, she had been a guest of the under-rooms when that
bastard died. Mayhap she’d be there when this bastard made his passing as well.

“Have it your way.” Grakor shrugged. “Dylert! Come, get this witch from my sight and take her to
Dore’s depths. That way, she’s closer to hell.”

Hours later, in the absolute darkness of the under-rooms and left alone with little fear of disruption,
Lygnel worked free of the bonds Bertram had refused to tighten. When the blood again flowed freely in
her wrists, she stripped off her ragged dress and underclothes, glad to be shed of all earthly bonds save
the room itself. Standing naked in the dark was one way she had learned to pass the time but keep
herself grounded, and she hoped it work again.

The dungeon’s dampness didn’t yet feel unpleasant, so the sun must still be high, giving off warmth.
Lygnel trembled as moisture beaded on her nipples and belly. She reached up and set free her hair,
feeling its silky whisper as it tumbled over her shoulders, back, and breasts.

In such a short span of time, her world had changed so much!

The mere chance that her daughter might have survived, the intrigue of Morgain’s interference into the
affairs of men, the defeat of the Saxon contingent—and most importantly, the possibility that Davyd Krell
yet walked in the world of the living—these things gave Lygnel a new life. She felt refreshed, renewed, as
if she had a second chance to rise above the cesspool her life had become.

Redemption.

Ah, what a tempting word.

To rescue herself from her own mistakes, to have an opportunity to settle old scores, right wrongs she
herself had committed. Could such a fate possibly await her, after her many missteps?

Lygnel wondered if she had grown too old for salvation, whatever the method or route.

And still, even in the bleak coolness of Castle Dore’s dungeons, she felt young and free again.
Adventuresome and daring, willing to take risks. The image of the six sailing ships from her earlier vision
intruded unbidden, and once more, Lygnel imagined the sails and riggings of five of them, torn and
tattered by a score of small hands. The sound of axe on wood echoed, as if from some hollow within the
sea itself.

But why would I wish to ruin such fine ships, vessels that might carry me to my love, wherever he
has gone?

She brought her hands to her breasts and massaged her nipples. Not being able to see, having to act
only by touch, Lygnel found herself able to fully imagine a joy-filled reunion with Davyd. She could well
feel his skilled hands touching her in such a passionate and possessive fashion.

“Yes,” she murmured. “Please. Make me yours again.”

When she and Davyd made love so long ago, the man had teased her to the point of pain, but just to that
point. Into that perfect place where pleasure and too much sensation compete to the fullest. Lygnel
pinched her sensitive buds harder and harder, trying to find that same balance. She could almost achieve
it, but not quite.

Enough, though, to make her slit wet. Enough to make her channel ache for Davyd’s cock yet again.

Backing up to the cold stone wall for support, Lygnel kept one hand busy with her nipples and let the
other drop to her aching folds. She felt the softness of her own woman’s hair, and the fullness of her
lower lips as she thrust her fingers inside to find her throbbing clit.

“Davyd,” she moaned as she rubbed her slippery center, bringing herself higher and higher, toward that
summit she had not allowed herself to reach since that long ago night she spent with him.

The wickedness of touching herself so thoroughly in the dark dungeon pushed her faster, harder, until an
odd chittering cry stilled her hand.

The sound had come seemingly from a distance, and yet very close. But it couldn’t be, not here on
Dore. Avalon’s white herons rarely ventured from the safety of the island, and why would they come to
speak to her, anyway? It had to be a memory, and a cruel one at that.

Lygnel removed her hand from between her legs, much to her body’s intense displeasure. She let go her
nipples and contented herself with running her palms over her bare skin. After all, she had been saving
her ultimate pleasure for Davyd Krell, offering this sacrifice in hopes Avalon would hear her.

And hadn’t Avalon given answer enough, letting her know the man was alive?

She had waited this long for relief and pleasure. It would be nothing to keep waiting until she found him.

It seemed right, somehow, and Lygnel felt disinclined to argue with her instinct on that point.

Chapter 3

Davyd waited on Chapel Down’s dock, jaw set, hand on the hilt of his sword. Behind him, along the
rocky beach, forty-two knights made ready for battle. Bolstering that paltry force, Prator’s meager
rabble stood prepared to die defending what land and dignity they yet possessed.

Sweet Gods, let us die with valor.

Days, weeks, years of anger pounded through Davyd’s veins. So much sacrifice and loss, to have it all
come to this. An outmatched army on a beach forsaken by fate. But at least the Saxons would get their
due. Arthur’s Men—and Arthur’s women and children—would not go quietly.

The ship, so far away only a few moments before, drew near to port. Saxon by design yet flying
Pendragon’s standard, it was naught but a small vessel. Maybe it carried thirty or forty fighters. Davyd
thanked the gods for small favors. At least this might be an even match.

But why would Onri or his kin send only one sloop into battle if he meant to claim the island? And why
fly a dead king’s banner? Some sort of joke or cruel irony.

“Likely more blackmail,” Davyd muttered, still accustomed to talking to Merlyn as if the blasted ancient
stood beside him. “Treachery, trickery. Won’t trust the beggars. Not an inch, I won’t.”

And yet, as the sloop pulled alongside the dock and set to, only a man and woman tended the riggings
and anchor. Davyd didn’t recognize the woman, a buxom blonde, but the man dressed in a white tunic
and black breeches—

“Eduard?” Davyd’s voice cracked as he spoke. His sword hand twitched, and the thrum of blood
against his temples eased.

After so much disaster, did he dare hope for some reprieve?

“Master Krell!” came the quick reply, and Eduard of Prator made his way around the decks. Davyd
could scarcely mistake the boy’s broad shoulders and hesitant grin.

The blonde joined Eduard at the rail, and the two of them extended the small ship’s gangplank.

Davyd caught the plank’s forward end and secured it on the dock. He knew his scowl offered less
greeting than Eduard deserved, but who was this fair-skinned wench? And where was Ysbet?

“Are you alone? Just you and…and this woman?” Davyd managed through clenched teeth.

“No, Master.” Eduard hurried down the plank until he stood face to face with Davyd. “I brought back
the one I sought. So, tell me, what reception will she receive? I will not expose her to danger.”

In that instant, white-hot joy burned away anger’s lingering heat. Davyd felt himself grow pleasantly
warm and focused. He smiled, then beamed. “There is no danger left on this island. Not from human folk,
at least.”

Eduard visibly relaxed. “A storm took Onri and much of his Saxon force at sea. We battled his heir
Grakor on Ynys-Witrin until we reached refuge in Glastonbury Abbey.”

“Hmph. Dodgy place, that Abbey. Glad it offered you some comfort and didn’t swallow you whole.”
Davyd grunted. His folk had always steered clear of the Glass Island and its Tor—and most especially
that Abbey—which was rumored to be partially under Avalon’s veil. “But how did you and one girl fight
off the Saxons to get that far?”

Eduard’s frown grew as he studied the small band of knights and the bedraggled people of Prator, who
eased closer, a step at a time, as they realized who had been at the ship’s helm. “We had help from the
fair folke, like Almi here.” He nodded to the blonde at his right. “And Ysbet drew a mighty sword from
the sea. Davyd, where are the rest of the people? King Roland and Queen Twyllian? Nallad and my
father?”

The warm sensation sustaining Davyd deserted him, opening a pit of coolness around his heart. “All
dead, lad. From a fever left by the Saxons.”

Eduard’s intake of breath stabbed at Davyd. Guilt, self-reproach, quiet desperation—Davyd saw all
those things claim the boy’s features and wound him, each in their turn.

Before those dread feelings could twist Eduard forever, Davyd hardened his voice and once more took
the mantle of Prator’s training master. “None of that! You were at greater purpose, saving Ysbet. Were
it not for you, these folk would have no queen and Arthur’s line would be lost for all time.”

Eduard opened his mouth as if to protest, but Krell grabbed him by his sea-soaked white tunic. “Don’t
you dare give yourself to pity! These brave souls can ill afford a prince who doesn’t give them—and his
queen—his full heart and mind.”

“Prince,” Eduard muttered, and then the weight of Davyd’s words, the weight of Chapel Down’s many
deaths, settled on him in a different fashion. His eyes mirrored surprise, then acceptance, then
determination, and his countenance firmed to that of a man instead of a boy. To that of a leader instead of
a grieving son.

“I have missed your rough ways and wicked accent, Krell.” Eduard offered a wan smile as he pushed
the training master away from him. “It would be scarce a proper homecoming without your bluster.”

“Bluster. Hmph. And you’re the one with the accent.” Krell’s grumble wasn’t forced. He truly felt a
needled peevishness, and enjoyed it. “All proper and powdered, like a real noble. Now, go, you
lummox. Get your woman and tell her these shores are hers to rule.”

With no further protest, Eduard turned and hurried back to the ship. Almi watched the new prince pass
with something akin to disinterest, then disembarked as Prator’s knights and subjects drew yet closer.

“Come, come,” Davyd waved them in, trying to ignore the similarity of Almi’s fair features to those of

Lygnel. “There is no treachery here. Only joy. Only the light of hope, and your future.”

“They respect you,” Almi noted as the people complied.

Davyd eyed her, still pushing off a pang of familiarity. “I suppose they do, after a fashion. Are
you…fey?”

Almi nodded. “Halfling by birth, fully trained.”

The Adept’s ready admission caused Davyd a deep unease. Ysbet’s power, her right to Arthur’s legacy
must be strong indeed if magik folke so freely supported her.

“Can you tell me where Merlyn has gone?”

Almi seemed startled by the question. “Merlyn has been trapped for years, Master Krell, since before
Arthur’s death. Bound by spell in one of Avalon’s deepest caverns. Why do you ask?”

“I—er, well, damnation with it.” Davyd rubbed his chin, feeling the prickle of stubble. No use telling this
fey about the voice. She’d only think him mad, and he surely looked the part, always so distracted and
unkempt. “No reason.”

Gasps rippled through the gathered crowd behind Davyd, and he turned his gaze from Almi to the main
deck of the sloop.

Ysbet stood beside her chosen husband, robed in a garment so blue and flawless it could only be
wrought by fey hands. Her black hair tumbled loose down her shoulders, a dark waterfall with one spray
of white in the center, highlighting the moon-white shine of her skin. Her tear-filled green eyes seemed
bright in the sun, almost glowing, and around her waist, she wore a bejeweled girdle and scabbard. The
sword it held gave off its own shine, and Davyd had an odd sense that he could hear the weapon
humming, that he could feel the blade’s energy on his skin, like lightning soon to strike.

“Not her,” someone whispered. “Mordred’s spawn!”

“Is she fey?”

“Cursed, I tell you. The druids…”

“Be silent!” Davyd bellowed. Anger gripped him anew, a forged molten glove. His cheeks blazed, and
were it not for the shreds of sanity yet binding him together, he might have drawn his sword and had a go
at some of those who insulted Lygnel’s daughter. Arthur’s legacy.

Queen Ysbet.

As it was, he only moved closer to the ship, to stand within arm’s reach of the young woman he
considered a daughter.

Ysbet favored him with a smile. “Sweet Krell. Always loyal.”

Sweet? Now that’s something I’ve never been called before, least of all by Ysbet.

Davyd inclined his head, riveted by the changes in Ysbet—and equally riveted by the sword at her side.

“Draw your weapon,” he instructed. “Show them who you are.”

“I—I do not wish to touch it.” Ysbet’s tone was quiet, laced with grief, and still child-like enough to
annoy Davyd.

He narrowed his eyes. “Draw it, girl. Nallad taught you to be more than a fainting female. Do you expect
your subjects to honor a power you fear?”

Ysbet’s furious glare assured Davyd that his barbs sank exactly as deep as he planned.

Baring her teeth, Ysbet ripped her formidable sword from its prison and held it high above her head.

Murmurs turned to yelps and screams as the blade—undeniably Excalibur—blazed brighter than the sun
above. Even Davyd felt compelled to step back, but refused the urge with a snort and growl.

“Hear this!” Ysbet’s voice rose above the din of waves and shouting, enhanced by the magik of the
weapon and her own heritage. “I have returned to claim what is mine by birth. I call this island my own,
and Prator Castle, and all who would serve me!”

For a moment, no one moved.

Even the ocean seemed to have drawn a great breath, and clouds appeared to pause in the sky.

Damn. Davyd’s insides drew tighter than bowstrings. They couldn’t reject Ysbet, these people. Not
now, when they needed her most—and she needed them in turn. His vision clouded with the force of his
emotion, and he did the only thing that made sense to him at such a momentous juncture.

Davyd Krell slowly knelt and bowed his head before his new queen.

There was another pause, seemingly across the island, the world, and time itself.

And then rustles, clanks, and cracking of older joints told Davyd that Prator’s faithful had followed his
lead.

Quietly, Ysbet sheathed Excalibur and disembarked from the ship that bore her home. Eduard followed,
and Almi came to stand beside her like a proper lady in waiting.

“Rise, Krell,” Ysbet said in a solemn voice. “I owe you more than I can ever repay.”

Davyd did as his sovereign bade him, and when he met Ysbet’s piercing stare, she smiled. “I would ask
that you accompany me back to Prator. I wish to visit my parents’ graves, and that of my beloved
Nallad. It seems we yet have sore need for a training master to rebuild our forces, especially with Onri’s
son Grakor intent on my head for a coronation favor.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Once more, Davyd bowed his head, but when he lifted his eyes again, a
movement over Ysbet’s left shoulder caught his attention.

Someone stood astride the deck of Ysbet’s ship.

Davyd gripped his sword out of reflex until he realized the man—the haunt—was silvery and quite

transparent. Well-muscled and perfectly defined, the spirit seemed as youthful as Eduard, yet his eyes
mirrored ancient concerns. He wore a simple robe, as stark white and insubstantial as his flesh. The hint
of a beard graced his chin, and his hair hung to his waist, billowing in the breeze as if at least the wind
could touch him.

Slowly, the apparition shook his head as if to say, No. You cannot accompany her.

I have gone completely mad now, Davyd decided. They all will know and see, and there is naught
I can do to hide it.

And then murmurs of fear burst from everyone around him. Knights jumped to their feet, swords at the
ready. A few druids murmured prayers. Ysbet and Eduard turned and startled, but Almi’s shock proved
deepest of all.

“Myrddin!” she cried, clasping her hands beneath her chin. She looked faint and excited all at once, as
did all of the women Davyd could see, save Ysbet. “My most handsome and desirable Lord. You are
free!”

Once more, the haunt shook his head. The women sighed, as if viewing a tasty offering from the
heavens.

Soon, Davyd felt rather than heard the apparition announce, in a voice all too haughty and familiar to his
yet-weary mind. And when I am free, I will avenge myself—and many others.

Ysbet stepped forward, resting her own hand on Excalibur as if she had been trained as a knight.
“Welcome, ancient. What business have you here?”

Be it known that Davyd Krell has served me well and faithfully these many years.

The apparition bent his head toward Davyd. My eyes when I could not see, my ears when I could not
hear, and my hands when I could not act. For this, I owe debt beyond mention, and now I make
my first payment. Board this ship, faithful Krell. Ride my winds back to the mainland and make
your way to Castle Dore with all haste.

“Why?” Davyd dared to ask, though his insides still felt drawn to the point of snapping.

The one you seek lives, but at peril undeserved and no longer tenable. I would have you rescue
her, and bring her safe to her surviving kin.

With that, the haunt faded into twinkles in the sunlight.

Almi and Ysbet turned to Krell and began rapid-fire questions, but Davyd didn’t understand a word
they said. His heart bulged to bursting, and his mind hung on five simple words.

She lives, but at peril…

She lives, but at peril…

“Peril,” he uttered aloud, awash with new purpose and rage. He pushed past his queen, her fey
handmaiden, and Eduard to reach the board lowered to dock, and before anyone could stop him, he
boarded the Saxon sloop and pulled the plank up behind him.

Immediately, docking ropes unfurled themselves. The ship’s anchor wound itself back from the depths,
and an unnatural wind filled the ship’s waiting sails. Amidst calls of fear and concern he heard at
increasing distance, Davyd Krell departed Chapel Down in a rush of magik.

As he stood astride the deck, barely holding fast in the rising wind, his breeches slowly changed from
their normal black to a textured and rich forest green. A green cape furled about his shoulders, and a
green hood covered his head.

Davyd’s ship moved faster than any ship could, and he felt the hand of Merlyn in his change of outfit,
and in this swift and no doubt sure passage.

He didn’t look back at Ysbet and Eduard. For the moment, his work at Prator was finished. All Davyd
could see were the waiting waves, and beyond the sea, the horizon hiding Briton’s shore, Saxon hoards,
and Onri’s heir, who was no doubt prepared to carry out the same sentence Mordred placed on Krell’s
head years ago.

Davyd didn’t care.

“Lygnel lives.” His blood ran hotter than liquid iron, steeling his veins for any hardship he might face in
claiming her. “By the Gods. She lives!”

Chapter 4

Bealtuinn

In the endless dark of her dungeon, now well-memorized by touch, Lygnel had little sense of time
passing. Had it been one week? Two?

No doubt Grakor would have left her without food or water or clean clothing, but Bertram and a few of
his nine half-brothers smuggled her wineskins, flasks, fruit, wheat cakes, and occasionally, a fresh outfit
from her own meager stores. She could tell which lad slid the garments or nourishment to her by their
whispers of support and brief prayers that Avalon would not destroy Camelford and Castle Dore in a fit
of righteous pique. Always, they accepted her soiled clothing, cups, and dishes without comment.

Bless them, one and all. She wished one of the boys would stay and visit, or that one would come now,
this minute, for her loneliness threatened her sanity.

“Bealtuinn,” she said aloud, if only to break the monotonous silence. “Avalon’s mark burns my chest as
it does during sacred times.”

She rubbed the interlaced sun, moon, and star.

No vision came, and no visitor answered her lonely remarks. There were no other prisoners, either.
Since Mordred’s death, Castle Dore’s dungeons had gone unused except for her periodic visits, and the
fey had long since left this sinister leg of Briton.

Bealtuinn. Comes the May. Spring. The time of cleaning, repairing, beginning anew.

Lygnel sighed even as she sang her thoughts to herself. A few times in the next hours, she spoke aloud to
stave off a rising sense of wrongness and desperation, and a queer tickle in her belly, as if a visitor might
be approaching.

Would it be someone welcome, or someone fearsome? Or was it just the coming of the Goddess to her
spring festivities?

Lygnel place a hand on her stomach and battled tears.

Was it day or night outside?

It felt so strange and sad, being locked away from the Bealtuinn bonfires. Even in Camelford, the
celebration would light the night.

And somewhere, on Avalon’s locked, hidden shores, great blazes would reach to the very stars. Adepts
of all levels would dance and make merry, then run into the woods and hills, or tumble into the warm surf
to bring in the May. No doubt they would sow a fine crop of babes to prosper beneath the Goddess’s
benevolent watch, if the Goddess yet concerned herself with Avalon.

For a moment, Lygnel’s senses played havoc with her mind, and she thought she could hear the sea, or
feel herself upon it, sailing fast and hard over the waves.

This time, her tears came. Lygnel couldn’t hold them back any more than she could stop longing to
dangle her fingers or toes into a wellspring or a warm current. Living water formed the source of all
breath, all magik for those Avalon-born, ancient and halfling alike.

If I could only spend a few long days near fresh water, free to bathe and swim and drink, perhaps
my childhood confidence would come back to me. Maybe I could throw off Nimue’s spells and all
the betrayals, and know myself again.

She pressed her hand against her tattoo, and a loud clink made her near faint.

There came a creak, the rasps of metal on rusted metal, followed by fresher yet still dank air, and Lygnel
knew the door to her cell had been opened.

Her pulse galloped. No lantern brought light to announce the identity of her savior, so she had to assume
whoever released the lock was no savior at all. More likely a trickster or murderer, intent on pleasure at
her expense.

She wouldn’t gratify the malefactor with piteous questions or pleadings for his or her identity.

Instead, Lygnel drew a soft breath and held it, trying to summon the barest of glamours from her old
training. If she tried hard enough, an intruder might not be able to locate her even if they conducted a
thorough search of the tiny cell.

A heron’s chitter nearly startled her into screaming, but a soft laugh quickly followed.

“No need for any alarms,” said a voice more whisper than substance. “Grakor and his thugs are away
recruiting armies. The night awaits you, and an old friend. When you see him, tell him I have once more
made payment on my debt. I will trust the two of you to do what is right.”

With that, a breeze swept through the dungeons, clearing the air and Lygnel’s senses. Sage, clove, and
smoky cedar filled her nose, and she knew only one being who gave off that strange, strong odor.

“Myrddin?” She shook her head.

But Myrddin can’t be here. Merlyn, they call him in these parts. Lygnel found herself shaking as she
took a few steps forward, then stumbled and stopped. And yet, he seems spirit, not flesh. Has he
figured some way around Nimue’s magik trap?

Impossible.

Is it? teased a voice from the back of her mind. Or is it a matter of overcoming, of reclaiming hope?
Maybe Nimue’s true power lies in her ability to convince—as pervasive as the water she
commands. Are you really a prisoner here, Lygnel? Or do you simply believe it to be so?

Lyngel’s mouth hung open. Where had the words come from, so soft and whisper-gentle? Her own
thoughts were rarely so full of possibility. And yet, someone or something had opened the door to her
cell. She had but to find her way out.

“I can’t,” she said aloud, shivering in the absolute darkness. “I can’t see. This place is treacherous. One
wrong step, and I will break my neck.”

Only you can find your path, said the maddening voice, and then it was gone—along with the sensation
of companionship.

Lygnel knew she was alone again, and that made her angry. She was truly and properly sick of being
alone, and even more ill with being a pawn in fey games. An energy rose inside her as she ground her
teeth and thought of freedom.

“I want out, damn it. Let me out!” She raised a fist to pound wall or air, whatever might be in front of
her—and a faint yellowish light grew in a straight line from the packed earth floor. Like a mystical road, it
showed her the way out of her cell to the stairs, and up, up, back toward the surface. Back toward her
life and her world.

Lygnel took a slow breath, feeling a mix of surprise and relief.

Had she created the ribbon of light? Perhaps. And yet, the shimmering path leading her from the
dungeons felt like Merlyn, even smelled like Merlyn. Simply put, such understatement marked Merlyn’s
magik. The giving of just what was needed, and nothing more.

Just like he taught you, back on Avalon.

“Rather like dragons mark the hand of Morgain. If a little will do, then a lot must be better.” Lygnel
actually laughed as she reached the unlocked door leading to the main floor of Castle Dore. Her legs and
body ached, and despite Merlyn’s talk of old friends and debts, Lygnel wanted nothing more than to

cleanse herself and find a satisfying meal.

Then, she would plan her departure. A little auguring, and perhaps she could pick up Davyd Krell’s trail
and begin her search for him. No matter what, she would not remain at Castle Dore beyond a bath, a
meal, and a fair night’s sleep. She would not be trapped again, because Grakor’s next fit of temper might
prove fatal for her. That much, Lygnel knew, from her remaining extra sense.

Or perhaps from her common sense.

Like a thief slipping from the scene of her latest crime, Lygnel stole from the main castle keep and rushed
into the arms of a cool spring night.

After days of darkness, even the stars seemed overly bright, but she rejoiced in seeing them. As she
hurried across Dore’s sprawling courtyard, the castle’s three towers loomed above her like angry
sentinels, threatening to blow horns and alert Grakor’s wards to her early release.

And yet, no horns sounded.

Lygnel made straight for the common baths. By the moon’s position, she estimated the time as near to
dinner. Most of Dore would be in the dining hall, so she had a fair shot at relieving herself of weeks of
filth prior to circling around for scraps and leftovers. The cooks were less than sympathetic to her, but
being cooks, they would not withhold food from a half-starved woman.

Some things about people remained predictable and immutable, Lygnel realized. And sometimes, that
unwavering sameness was a blessing, indeed.

* * * * *

A short time later, Lygnel felt much better. Thoroughly scrubbed and dressed in her simple but clean
servant’s dress, fed well on the remnants of a Bealtuinn feast, and oriented once more to the movement
of the stars and the universe, she felt ready to conquer anything. In fact, she had decided not to wait until
morning to leave Castle Dore. The cover of darkness would see her safe away, and the Bealtuinn fires
would light her path as she made her way toward the sea.

Her bag, packed for questing just before her rude removal to the dungeons, held nothing but a change of
clothing and two more items of paramount importance: a blanket she had used to wrap her newborn
daughter, and a man’s tunic so frayed it looked as though it might fall to threads if challenged. The tunic
had belonged to Davyd Krell. She had taken it the night she sent him away, off the floor of his
bedchamber. It was her only tangible reminder of the man, and she couldn’t bear to part with it—with
either keepsake—though they added weight she would no doubt notice many miles down the road.

Feeling years younger and more excited than she had been since she first left Avalon, Lygnel closed up
her hut on the edge of Dore’s enclosure, never intending to return.

On hillsides all around the castle, blazes dotted the horizon.

Bealtuinn, in full celebration.

Bless the Goddess for choosing this night to release me, and for sending Bertram and his people

to keep me strong enough to take advantage of this opportunity!

Most of Dore’s inhabitants were in the woods and fields, on the knolls and rises, dancing or bringing in
the May. Lygnel figured she’d have an easy time unless she happened across the wrong person in the
darkness.

In fact, she cleared the gates without even passing another soul.

Eschewing the main road, she headed into the woods, intent on finding her way to the coast. Once there,
she would borrow the sea’s energy and draw on what little magik remained at her disposal until she had
some sense of Davyd Krell’s location, or her daughter’s.

“I’ll find him,” she whispered, chant-like, as she pushed through scrub and brush, avoiding trees and
roots on instinct. “I’ll find them both.”

Her thoughts remained singularly on her child and her lover, and she kept smiling despite the protesting
ache in her legs. It seemed no time, but she knew she had walked a fair piece.

A bonfire crackled nearby, and Lygnel skirted wide of the sound and smoke, once more distracted by a
vivid image of ships covered with imp-like and destructive children. The thought had the quality and feel
of a vision, subtle, understated, yet direct, important, and very confusing.

“I’ll find them both,” she murmured again, trying to steer her thoughts from the children and the
boats—and then she stopped short as something caught her by the hair.

Pain shot down her face and neck, spreading to her shoulders and squeezing tears from her half-closed
eyes.

For a moment, Lygnel thought she had snagged herself on a branch, and then a hated, simpering voice
said, “Well, well. The Witch of Castle Dore makes her escape.”

Before Lygnel could react, Dylert, Grakor’s slimy training master, turned her hard about and shoved her
against the base of a massive oak.

Lygnel’s breath left in a rush. Her precious bag dropped to the ground, and she fell to her knees beside
it, gasping. Bile rose in her throat, and she nearly vomited—half from the blow, and half from the sight of
Dylert, naked and blotched by ale and rage.

As if hearing her thoughts, Dylert gripped her hair once more and used it to haul her to her feet. “Cursed
me, ye did.” His drink-thickened voice held more hatred than Lygnel imagined possible for a man of such
weak will and intellect. “My manhood, ye spoke some words against it. Even by Bealtuinn fire, it lies as
dead as a strangled bird!”

“Nay, Master Dylert. ‘Tis the feast and the ale.” Lygnel heard the choked sound of her words even as
she spoke the lie. “I could help you if you’ll free me. In my bag, I have herbs—”

“Lying bitch.” Dylert threw her forward, and Lygnel pitched into a clearing, barely keeping her balance.
A small bonfire burned at the center, and two drunken home guard soldiers lay naked in its warmth.
Dylert’s friends, no doubt, if men like Dylert had friends.

Heart drubbing her ribs, Lygnel scrambled forward and tried to run from the clearing.

Dylert reached her too fast, clearly propelled by his murderous anger.

He grabbed Lygnel’s shoulders, jerked her backward, and damn near threw her into the burning sticks
and logs. She hit the ground hard, once more losing her breath and nearly her awareness. Half-present,
gasping, she lay on her back, looking up at the merciless stars. The comforts of Avalon’s trance came
quickly and immediately, like a welcome cover, shielding her from the physical reality of her plight.

“Wake up, lads! Our May Queen’s come to give us her gifts.” Dylert dropped to his knees beside
Lygnel and pinned her to the ground. His tone was beyond spiteful.

Lygnel knew he would enjoy seeing her defiled, perhaps so much his pathetic prick might rise in spite of
her magik, if only an inch, and only for a moment.

From her ground-level vantage point, she watched the two drunken soldiers stumble to their feet, leer at
her, and quickly demonstrate that no curse held their rods in check. She struggled against Dylert’s grip to
no avail, and as the soldiers approached, she worked to deepen her trance.

And then Dylert’s grip on her lessened.

Lessened more.

Vanished completely.

Something—no, someone—had confronted the training master and knocked him sideways. His pale
flesh glowed in the firelight as he crawled to his hands and knees and tried to get up again.

The soldiers hesitated, clearly confused.

Watching as if from a great distance, Lygnel struggled to bring herself back from the trance fast enough
to make use of this opportunity. She had to get up, run, get as far from the clearing as she could.

“Stay down, Master Dylert,” came a younger male voice. “I wouldn’t choose to hurt you, but I will if
you force me.”

Lygnel regained her muscles and pushed herself off the ground. In seconds, she stood beside Bertram,
who was, thankfully, sober and fully dressed. At once, she felt gratitude and fear for the lad, for though
he might save her now, he would surely pay a steep price when these men regained their advantage.

“What do you mean, disturbing us?” Dylert managed to stand. Petulant. Flushed. And still the only
flaccid prick in the crowd.

“I do not believe the lady wishes to bring in the May with the likes of you.” The tremor in Bertram’s
voice didn’t detract from the sharpened swords he clenched in both fists. The blades gave off a wicked
gleam as flames played against their shining lengths, and the boy positioned himself between Lygnel and
her would-be attackers.

“Don’t be stupid, ye daft puke,” one of the soldiers growled, staggering forward. “You’re no match for
three.”

“Aye, perhaps not, were you clear-headed, clothed and armed.” Bertram turned a slow circle as the

men closed in on him—and on Lygnel. Not for the first time, she wished for a sword, even an enchanted
weapon like Excalibur. What she wouldn’t give to be invulnerable, at least for a brief time. To have a
break from being prey, or scapegoat, or just plain sheep to a shepherd she didn’t choose.

“I won’t be a pawn to the needs of others any longer,” she warned, though she doubted the advancing
men had a clue what she meant.

Dylert sprang first, dodging Bertram’s wild thrusts with shocking skill. His fist connected with the boy’s
chin, and Bertram staggered.

Lygnel caught Bertram before he fell, then took one of his swords. They held hands, squeezing together
as the three predators circled, teeth bared.

“The bitch thinks she can fight.” One of the soldiers snickered. He reached for Lygnel’s sword and she
thrust it at him—just in time to realize the feint as he kicked her legs from beneath her.

She crashed to the ground in an ungraceful, aching heap.

Drunk and foolish or not, these sots were trained knights.

Bertram managed to slash Dylert’s chest before the training master belted the lad yet again.

This time, Bertram dropped his sword and fell next to Lygnel. “My apologies, Lady Lygnel,” he
whispered, then surrendered to the blow’s damage and closed his eyes.

Lygnel wished she truly did have herbs in her bag, wherever it had landed. Gods, but she had tended this
lad’s cuts and bruises since he learned to walk! And now here he lay, helpless and wounded, felled in her
defense.

Damn, damn, damn!

As Dylert and the soldiers dragged her to her feet for more taunting, her only thoughts were for Bertram
and his healing. If she survived this foul play, she would treat the young man and be sure his kindness was
repaid.

Vengeance and wholesome purpose. Those two aims might help her in mind, if not in body.

As for Bertram’s small army of elder half-brothers, Lygnel wished they would appear—but such luck
rarely visited her. Screaming would do her no good. Most of the women in Briton would be screaming
from Bealtuinn passions.

Dylert snatched one of Bertram’s swords from the ground just as one of the soldiers pinned Lygnel’s
arms tighter to her sides.

Would they kill her now?

Lygnel struggled, fighting tears as much as her hopeless capture.

A few weeks ago, she wouldn’t have cared. Life or death meant nothing to her, but now, she had the
boy to tend, not to mention a daughter and a lover to find.

“Even Mordred did not dare spill my blood,” she whispered, loud enough to be heard but low enough to
sound menacing. “I still bear the mark of my birth.”

“Superstitious foolishness,” grumbled the soldier who didn’t have a hand on her, but he stepped back
once, then twice.

Dylert leaned forward and pressed the sword’s tip under Lygnel’s chin. “Mayhap I have more fortitude
than the Dark Prince.”

If not for the sword at her throat, Lygnel would have loosed a string of insults and invectives over the
absurdity of that statement. As it was, she simply murmured, “Fortitude will not spare you the Lady’s
wrath,” wishing with all her heart that those words carried truth.

The training master spit on the ground, then slit the front of Lygnel’s dress from bosom to belly. The
blade stung her skin just below the mark between her breasts, and she felt the warmth of her life’s fluid
spill onto bare flesh. Not a deep cut, no. Just enough to bring a flash of pain, a flare of anger, and a small
amount of the blood Lygnel warned Dylert against spilling.

The soldier holding her arms turned her loose.

Lygnel thought his fear of the fey might have gotten the better of him, but then she heard the heavy thud
of his body meeting earth.

Dylert leaned back and Lygnel ducked, allowing her savior a clear shot at the training master.

A gloved fist shot past her face, gripped the sword blade, and wrenched the weapon from Dylert’s
grasp. That quickly, the training master returned to being a drunken, naked, flaccid fool.

A shadow thundered past Lygnel.

As she watched, rooted to her spot, a large green-caped and hooded stranger took on the soldiers with
Dylert’s sword—only he held it by the blade! Using just the hilt, her dark savior bashed the training
master between his eyes.

Jack in the Green! Robin Goodfellow! Lygnel’s shock caused her to babble ancient names for the
sexually skilled and fertile god said to sometimes visit humans around Bealtuinn blazes. Could this be the
Old Jack, the renegade fey rumored to mate with humans on this sacred night?

Whether attacked by human or haunt, Dylert slumped to the ground, clearly out for the night.

The remaining soldier tried to run, but the stranger’s fluid speed outdid him. Another loud thunk to the
head, and the soldier crumpled.

It is Jack in the Green. It must be! Who else could be so skilled? Lygnel’s aches and pains faded
with the force of her surprise. She hadn’t seen fey in Briton proper across the last long years. Why now?
And why had this strange being of Bealtuinn lore come to her aid?

In only seconds, the powerful man—or whatever he was—had rendered Dylert and his warriors
unconscious around the Bealtuinn fire.

Lygnel gathered the halves of her dress, covering her breasts, and gazed at the green-clad stranger who

had completed the rescue Bertram tried so hard to begin.

She didn’t know what to say, but when he turned to face her, she couldn’t have spoken even if
commanded by the Goddess herself.

Her throat went dry as every ounce of water in her body converted to tears. Lygnel felt rooted as surely
as the ancient trees towering in the shadows around her. Dizziness threatened to force her to her knees,
and her heart fairly jumped against her chest. Each muscle, each inch of flesh burned, but not from the
bonfire.

Pushing back his heavy green hood, Davyd Krell stepped over the unconscious forms of the men he
easily bested. His blue eyes, dark and yet oddly bright in the night, never left Lygnel’s even as he took off
his cloak to reveal a bare muscled chest and green breeches beneath.

The texture of his clothes—were they moss and leaves? Woven grass?

Davyd gently fastened his odd cloak about Lygnel’s chilled shoulders. Then he crooked a finger under
her chin and lifted her face toward his.

“Please be real,” he said in a voice so low it gave Lygnel delicious shivers. “If you’re a haunt or a dream,
I’ll kill myself and be done with it.”

“Davyd,” Lygnel finally forced from her trembling lips, just before her long-missing love bent to claim
them.

The heat of his mouth, the rough yet soft feel of his lips on hers, the perfect pressure of his kiss left no
doubt in Lygnel’s mind that she had not imagined this man’s feelings for her.

Newly dizzy, she held tight, giving herself to his fierce lips, his man’s scent, and the simple reality of his
presence. He let go her chin and wrapped his heavily muscled arms around her.

Lygnel gloried in the firmness of his embrace. She tasted him as his lips devoured hers, running her hands
over his thick hair, which hung loose but for the small braids on either side of his ears. She touched his
stubbled cheeks, his sculpted shoulders, marveling at how little he had changed, but for more scars and
scratches, each one of which she wished to trace and memorize.

Her body blazed like the hilltops of Briton, alight in every peak and valley. In one heartbeat, her nipples
beaded and ached. In two heartbeats, her quim dampened and throbbed. By the third heartbeat, her
mind and soul ached to know everything about Davyd, his life since she had seen him last. His trials, his
dreams, his feelings—especially for her.

This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening!

Her knees felt weak and quickly gave, but Davyd caught her and held her tight against his hard chest. He
released her mouth, but only to kiss the top of her head, her neck, both of her eyes, drinking her flowing
tears like elixir.

“When last I saw you, you were my sovereign,” he said, filling Lygnel’s ears with his welcome rumble of
passion.

Lygnel shook all over despite his protective embrace. She could barely think for the crazy desire surging

through her veins. “I…am…no one’s monarch now, Master Krell.”

“You’re wrong, my love.” Davyd pulled back a bit and smiled at her. His blue eyes were just as wild as
she remembered, lit by the flames and stars. Wilder even, just like his rakish grin. “You’ll always be my
queen, and I’ve come to carry you back to my kingdom, where you belong.”

Chapter 5

Davyd studied his love with an intensity usually reserved for battle plans. The maddening-sweet scent of
roses, subtle yet definite, teased his senses even through wood smoke and the wet, earthy odor of night
in the woods.

Lygnel’s only response to his claiming was a warm, wavering sigh. Resistance or assent? Davyd couldn’t
tell, but he would convince her that her destiny lay in his arms.

His breath caught repeatedly, savoring her oft-remembered smell. His body responded to her delicate
softness with a fierceness he could scarce control. Blood hot and pounding. Muscles flexing of their own
accord. Cock taut and throbbing as if already touched and teased.

Thoughts became difficult. Words, even more so. Still, Davyd cradled his fragile treasure, his unlikely
prize, and his heart swelled to the point of fiery pain. She felt too warm, too perfect. Part of his mind
insisted he yet sailed off Briton’s coast, lost in dreams. Lygnel couldn’t be here. How had she survived
Mordred’s wrath?

And how could I have left her alone to face it, and never returned to see what became of her?
Curse Merlyn and every word the blighter ever spoke!

“The babe you charged me with, she’s grown fine and healthy,” he said in words so hoarse he barely
recognized his own voice. “At Chapel Down, Prator Castle. The Princess Ysbet. I mean…Queen Ysbet.
She’s married now, you know. Well, handfasted, to Eduard, her guard captain.”

Lygnel’s lambent eyes widened. Hundreds of emotion flickered across her finely-lined countenance.
Relief and joy seemed greatest, then regret and concern. Elation followed sorrow, giving way to a
hungry, enraptured stare.

“You got her clean away from Briton,” she said in tones so soft Davyd imagined he could feel the words
like warm breath on his neck. “And you have seen to her raising, her safety, even the approval of her
chosen husband. Without question, you are every bit the hero I thought you to be, and more.”

As Davyd held her fathomless gaze, he knew she rejoiced for the life of her daughter and Ysbet’s
escape from Onri’s forced marriage. He knew also that she feared for Ysbet, just as he did, for the new
queen would no doubt face the vengeance of Onri’s heir.

Even more, Davyd knew that his place in Lygnel’s heart could no longer be in doubt. Only one night
they shared, yes, but passion enough for twenty. For twenty score, and more.

Her hair seemed to catch firelight and moonlight, then play it back against his eyes in silver and golden
sparkles. For a moment, Lygnel continued her silence. She seemed to be weighing his realness as she
absently pinched his muscles and outlined his scars with shaking fingers.

Davyd stood still, allowing her to explore him as if she had no sight. Touching and stroking, prodding
and gripping, driving him to hot misery with each movement. His cock felt like a nocked arrow ready for
release, and yet he couldn’t—wouldn’t—take her if she felt the least bit unwilling or unsure. And he
certainly wouldn’t take her here, where one of the oafs he put to sleep might wake spoiling for a new
fight.

Lygnel’s trembling spread from her hands to her arms, then upward to her sweet mouth. Tears slid down
her cheeks, and she blinked furiously.

Instinctively, he pulled her yet closer so she might feel their hearts beating together. Perhaps she would
draw strength from that small joining and trust in his presence, his loving intentions.

“If you aren’t madness, finally descending,” she at last whispered, “then take me out of this clearing and
prove it.”

Davyd needed no second invitation. With a near-desperate rumble of joy, he swept his lady off the
ground and held her tight against his chest, intending to march into the woods until he found an unused
glen, lay her down, and make love to her until spring arrived on the morn. They would have time enough
to get back to the boat off the deserted shore where he anchored it, and time enough to be away for
Chapel Down and Prator.

“Wait!” Her grip on his neck tensed. “The lad. Bertram. He tried to defend my honor. We can’t just
leave him for the bastards to kill when they wake.”

Biting back curses, Davyd didn’t argue with his love. Her true heart, her sense of fairness and honor—at
least the years had not taken these innocent qualities from Lygnel.

Would that he could say the same for himself, if ever he possessed those virtues to begin with.

Lygnel kept her tight hold on his neck as he lowered her back to the earth. She seemed reluctant to
release him, and when she at last turned loose, she kissed him quickly, almost shyly, before turning away.

Davyd followed her as she ran to one of the fire-lit lumps on the ground. With deftness born of practice,
she examined the head and nose of a blond lad Ysbet’s age, or a shade younger. Davyd could scarce
make out the young man’s features in the shadowed glow, but he looked familiar. Perhaps, in that time
when Davyd was yet a carefree Saxon raider, he had known the lad’s family.

“His wounds aren’t grievous,” Lygnel said quietly, standing and leaning into Davyd. Just the brush of her
body made him ache from cock to teeth. It was all he could do to concentrate on her next words.

“Come. Let’s take him back toward the castle. He has brothers aplenty. We have but to find one, and
we can leave Bertram in safer care. On the morrow, perhaps you could…talk to him. He might enjoy
that.”

Grumbling inwardly, Davyd wondered what the lad might want with the likes of him, an old war horse
far past his prime. He shouldered the younger man like a sack of meal, but didn’t voice his concerns to
Lygnel about venturing too close to Castle Dore without proper preparation or disguise. After all, tonight
was Bealtuinn, and little attention would be paid to friend or stranger. Odd men about would be called
Jack in the Green or other names such, and Merlyn had seen to Davyd’s clothing so he might fit the myth.

Unfortunately, Lygnel now wore his fey green cape, and little good it would do him. Still, he had no
plans to be near Castle Dore come daylight. This short jaunt could do little besides saving the boy a
beating and pleasing his newly-found love. All in all, worth the slight danger on the balance.

Wordless and more than alert, Davyd trailed behind Lygnel as they reached a forest path. He matched
her hurried strides easily despite his now-groaning burden—until they passed beneath a canopy of
low-hanging tree branches.

The path.

Ah, Gods.

Davyd’s strength failed him, and he stumbled. He had traveled this route before, on horseback, at a
dead gallop…

The past assailed him suddenly and fiercely, as Mordred’s guards had done all those years before.
Seven soldiers, though the eighth, the coward, stayed hidden.

As Davyd struggled to keep up with Lygnel, flashes of memory near crippled him.

The thunder of Merlyn’s supernatural voice.

The wickedness of Mordred’s magik, hanging like an axe in the air.

Feints from swords. Lancing pains. Holding the babe close, near beneath his chin, desperate to save her,
shifting her just in time. Six down, the seventh charging—and then the blade from behind, piercing his
neck—

Davyd roared and dropped Bertram hard on the ground. He felt himself choking, as he had that night,
and fell to his knees.

Turning, sword in the throat. Grab at the blade, pull it out. Choking. A blade in both my hands.
Blood pouring into my mouth. The babe at my feet.

Choking.

Protect the child. Save the child!

Shouts…

The cowards tearing at my clothes, the babe’s blankets.

Swinging the swords.

Pain like a thousand knives in a thousand muscles.

Merlyn shouting…

And then, nothing…

Nothing at all…

Gentle hands gripped Davyd’s shoulders.

“Is he mad?” a lad’s voice asked, the tone unfriendly and sarcastic.

“Be quiet before I knock you senseless again.” Lygnel’s voice, commanding and concerned. “Have
respect, Bertram. This man is surely a defender of Avalon, among other things. Ah, come on, now. You
know who he is to me—and to you. Don’t deny it!”

Sweating, breathing hard, Davyd gazed up into Lygnel’s now tender blue eyes. He scrubbed his fingers
over the scar on his neck and swallowed the last of the memory-real yet insubstantial blood.

“She lived,” he managed to mutter. “Somehow, I woke, and the babe yet breathed. I packed the gash. I
took the child away…”

“Ssshh, my wounded champion.” Lygnel kissed his damp brow with whisper-soft lips. “We’ll have time
enough to soothe your old pains.”

Davyd struggled to his feet. He gripped her hand like she might escape him, turned—and found he was
face to face with a ghost of himself. A younger, unscarred version, at least.

“I know you by description,” the haunt whispered. “My mother spoke of Castle Dore’s first training
master. She said you were—that you’re—damn you, Krell!”

“Aye.” Despite his confused detachment, Davyd’s free hand found the hilt of his sword. “Do you intend
to shout my return from the battlements?”

Lygnel stepped between them and pressed her hands against Davyd’s chest. “This one is friend, not foe,
love.”

To Bertram, she said, “Go home. Tell your brothers what you’ve seen, but no one else.”

“No!” Bertram trembled as his hand fumbled against his empty sword belt. “Is he not Krell the
Betrayer?”

“Betrayer of Mordred? Aye!” Davyd made as if to draw his blade, but allowed Lygnel to halt his
progress with a gentle squeeze on his wrist. After all, the lad was addled and unarmed. “I’d double-cross
the evil bastard again if Lygnel asked it. As for Dore and Lygnel—”

“Stop, Davyd. He doesn’t understand. He’s…” Lygnel hesitated, turned away, and faced Bertram. “Go,
now, and finally talk to your brothers, please? They will tell you what your mother knew of this man if
you’ll allow it. They’ll tell you what Alla would have told you herself, had she survived to see this night.”

The mention of Alla stunned Davyd into silence and sobered him fully from his drunken visit to the past.
He stood stock still behind Lygnel, gaping at Bertram for new and deeply personal reasons. His age, it

would be right. And his looks—no. No! He would not consider such a cruel twist of fate!

“By sunrise, we aim to be far from here,” Lygnel continued. “All Grakor and the rest of Dore need know
is this: my second husband, Castle Dore’s long-faithful servant, returned to claim me. I have gone to help
him scout the forces gathering against Camelford.”

Bertram’s gaze flicked from Lygnel, whom he clearly respected and possibly feared, to Davyd. A mix of
disdain and wonder expressed itself on the lad’s moonlit features.

“As you will, Lady,” he said grudgingly.

Before Davyd could speak further, the young man wheeled about and stalked into the woods.

“If he’s Alla’s son, of the age I think—” Davyd began, but Lygnel faced him and held up her hand.

In that gesture, Davyd felt the dominion of her old station, and perhaps a twinkle of power from her fey
birth. Avalon’s Adepts bore their own authority, after all, and fool be any man who denied that fact.
Especially on a sacred night like Bealtuinn.

Against his own dominating nature, Davyd hushed his questions and gazed at the woman he had desired
too long to deny. “Husband, eh?”

Lygnel’s cheeks flushed red enough to be seen in the night’s low light.

He reached out and brushed his fingers against the softness of her cheek. “If you’re proposing, I’m
accepting. But, I would like to know about the lad.”

She turned her mouth to his fingers. “Must I be the one to wound you?”

The heavy weight of truth settled in his belly. “I knew the names of all of Alla’s brood when I left, and
there was no Bertram. This one would have been born, what, nine months after I left Briton?”

“Yes,” Lygnel answered simply, as if knowing there was no way to soften such a blow, when a man
discovered he’d fathered a fine son but left him stranded. “His brothers knew your name from Alla, but
they’ve scarce discussed it with the lad. Bertram has been less than willing to hear about you.”

Davyd’s breath rushed out as if he’d been struck. For a few long minutes, he could find no voice to
speak. When he did manage words, he knew they sounded choked and hollow. “I suppose you’ve seen
to him?”

“Since Alla died.” Lygnel nodded. “His brothers and their wives did a fine job of raising him, and I did
what I could.”

“For that, I thank you.” Davyd found his feet more interesting than the other scenery, as if his big toes
might pipe up and deny this new and shocking information.

Lygnel sighed. “If I could have taken him into my home and brought him up as my very own, I would
have been overjoyed to do so. Close association with me would have done him no favors, though.”

Unmoored, Davyd drifted through recriminations, mind spinning until his vision settled back on the face
of his lost love, the woman who had helped care for his son—the woman who had proposed to him only

minutes before.

“There will be a time to approach him.” Lygnel stepped back and appraised him, compassion and
frustration mingled on her pretty face. “Being bested by Dylert will sit poorly with him, I assure you. Let
him be for this night, and try on the morn to win him for conversation. Perhaps you will have fortune
where his brothers and I have failed.”

Davyd acknowledged the wisdom in her words, but the shock wore on, unchanging.

“Many secrets have awaited discovery these long years, my Jack in the Green.” Lygnel’s shoulders
shook beneath the oversized cloak he loaned her, and the fey fabric fell open. The split halves of her
dress offered a tantalizing view of bare flesh, the curve of her breasts, and a fine sheen of nervous
perspiration. A small nick and smear of blood brought back the reality of her assault, and a flush of rage
burned Davyd’s cheeks. He barely reined his anger as his love continued to speak.

“Of all those waiting secrets, I’m the least patient and most urgent. Before this night is up, I intend to be
your Flower Maiden. Take me now and show me your power, or leave me to wilt forever.”

At her not-so-subtle challenge, Davyd’s temper flared even as his cock surged against his breeches. He,
too, began to sweat, for reasons wholly unrelated to fatigue or heat. The night was, in fact, exceptionally
cool for Bealtuinn, and yet Davyd felt immersed in flames.

With a snarl, he once more plucked Lygnel from the ground. “Come then, you teasing wench. I’ll show
you pleasures even old Jack never thought to give.”

Chapter 6

By the Goddess. When he calls me “wench,” my insides melt.

Lygnel gasped from the force of Davyd’s grip and stride. He savaged her mouth as he walked,
seemingly blind, into the thick woods, knocking aside brambles and saplings like mere straw and sticks.

She couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to breathe. All she wanted was to feel him, taste him, belong to him
once again. His lips pressed harder against hers as his tongue delved deeper, twining with her own and
filling her mouth. His flavor and scent, so fresh and pure, like nature itself. Like he just might be Jack in
the Green.

Her thoughts whirled, and her quim ached.

Davyd tightened his embrace. When he pulled back from their kiss, his mouth twisted in a half-mad
snarl.

Thrill competed with a fine edge of fear, setting Lygnel all the more afire. Had she been daft to needle

such a powerful, explosive man? And yet his strange cloak clung to her skin, shielding her from scratches.
His arms took the brunt of all blows, as even in his haste, he protected her.

He would never hurt me. Not unless I wanted him to.

This thought doubled Lygnel’s blistering ache.

Would he throw her to the ground and take her in the dark, gliding hard and fast into her waiting
channel? Or would he lean her against a tree and ravish her standing? Either would be pleasing, but it
must happen soon. If she did not gain relief, she would burn to ash like a Phoenix but never be reborn.

Gazing forward, Davyd kept up his long, confident strides. Lygnel clung to him in passion, in need, and
still he walked. She knew they were headed toward the sea. The more distance between them and
Castle Dore, the better, though tonight’s danger was minimal. Grakor away, Dylert unconscious, most of
Briton cavorting about Beltane fires—indeed, who would notice one man and one woman drifting
through the night?

With a shaking hand, Lygnel caressed Davyd’s chest. The smooth contour of muscle interrupted by
jagged scars excited her beyond reason. He still felt rock-hard though like her, he neared his thirty-eighth
year. Gods, but she had missed him more than she knew, even with her many thoughts of a magik
reunion, just like this.

The air chilled as they plunged deeper into the wild wood. Few men passed here, Lygnel knew, and yet
Davyd blazed his trail like a bull.

He plowed ahead until she thought he must be near to dropping, until she thought she might scream with
frustration—and then they burst into a virgin clearing littered with leaves and limbs and yet pristine
beneath the moon’s crisp light.

In the center of the space stood a small mound. Grass, moss, and ferns coated its gentle swell, and it
was there Davyd took her.

Without ceremony or comment, he dropped to his knees and laid her gently on the ground, holding
himself above her like a dark god claiming his virgin prize. The cloak served as a blanket, but Lygnel
would not have cared if he dropped her into a sand pit.

Anything, anywhere, to have this man.

The heat of his near-weight drove her close to screaming

Davyd kept himself propped on one elbow, just to her side. He ran his hand along the split in her gown,
pausing over the scratch from Dylert’s dagger. Only the barest smear of blood remained, but Davyd’s
thunderous expression could not be mistaken.

Touched, yet annoyed and wishing nothing to disturb the moment, Lygnel moved against Davyd’s
fingers, sliding his hand toward her breast.

Davyd growled, clearly fighting his urge to rip off her clothing.

“Tear it.” Lygnel grabbed his wrist and pressed it into her chest. “Leave nothing between us.”

The moon’s silver beams splashed the dark centers of his eyes. He pulled free of her grasp, thrust his
hand into the split and seized one of her breasts.

Lygnel gasped as he squeezed her nipple, but Davyd captured the sound in a possessive, endless kiss.

Gods. So hot. His fingers felt like an iron trap heated in Bealtuinn’s blazes. His rough, sweet tongue
thrust against hers as her nipple ached and swelled beneath his rough yet gentle pinching. Lygnel wrapped
her arms around his bull-strong neck and held on as she had during their wild walk through the wood.

Her other nipple grew hard as crystal, waiting, waiting…

“Please,” she whispered as Davyd at last released her mouth, though she no longer knew what she
wanted most or first. Her body trembled to feel his full weight on top of her, his skin naked on hers. Her
quim throbbed, waiting for his touch, his tongue, the ample length of his thick cock. And her
breasts…damn. She wanted them both in his hands, his mouth. Now.

Now!

Davyd’s lips pressed against her cheeks, her forehead, her eyes. And then his voice, naught but a
spine-quivering rumble. “You’re more beautiful than I remembered.”

The pressure on her nipple eased, then fabric tore. Lygnel thrilled as she felt the top of her gown give
way. She barely had a chance to meet Davyd’s starlit gaze before both breasts felt the chill of night
followed by the searing heat of his touch. Just like she wanted. Full, possessing caresses, covering first
one, then the other. He paused only to stroke her nipples with his thumbs, sending jolts of pleasure
straight to her well-swollen clit.

Coherent thought began to leave her as he lowered his head and clamped his teeth on one pebbled nub.

She arched up, involuntarily, losing herself in the sweet sting of his teeth, the scrub of his beard against
her tender flesh. Kindling. All Bealtuinn kindling. Fire and more fire.

Davyd handled her aching tips like the finest delicacies, alternating nips and flicks of his tongue with
sudden bites and deep suckling.

Lygnel thrashed, pulling at his hair, past words. She could only moan and move herself against his fine
body.

Fabric tore again, and Lygnel felt the ripple of air from her waist to her feet. She lay bare beneath him
now, cradled in the shreds of her clothing and Davyd’s fey cloak.

He paused to gaze at her, head to toe. For a moment, he seemed close to speaking, but all she heard
was another rumble of male delight. Fevered, driven to heights of desperation, she fumbled with the
waistband of his breeches until she freed his cock.

Davyd rolled closer, pressing the throbbing length against the inside of her thigh. She bucked and pulled
hard at his shoulders, wanting him inside her so badly she felt near to explosion.

“Tonight, Lady, we follow my commands,” he growled.

And then she felt his fingers, teasing the wet lips of her quim. Parting them slowly, then stroking up and

down with one finger.

Lygnel let out a moan of pleasure blended with frustration. “Please…please.” She rolled her hips higher
and closed her eyes, feeling only his languid touch.

Up and down. Then around her pulsing clit, and around, and around.

“Many years,” Davyd said in his low, sexy voice. “And I care not what has passed between me and
others, or you and others.” He kept up his agonizing trace of her clit, drawing her closer, pulling her
higher. “>From this moment forward, you will be only mine.”

His tongue flicked against one nipple, and Lygnel gasped, grinding herself against his finger until her body
shuddered with the first sweet waves of release. “I have been only yours since the first night you touched
me,” she whispered, battling a sudden urge to cry with the sheer force of her relief.

Davyd bent down and kissed her again, thrusting his tongue into her mouth as he slid his finger into her
hot channel.

Helpless, Lygnel rode his hand hard, wishing she could take him up to the elbow, possess him somehow,
as fully as he was possessing her. She came again, feeling blazing pleasure in sharp spurts.

She could take this torture no longer.

Even as she came a third time, rolling hard against Davyd’s rough knuckles, she plunged her hand
between them and captured his cock.

He groaned into her mouth, then broke away, slipping free of her quim and her grip at the same time. His
eyes, so dark they seemed part of the night sky. His breath, ragged like hers.

She watched, heart hammering, as he shifted until he lay directly above her, supported by his iron-strong
hands and muscled arms. His thighs braced between hers, and Gods, but they felt like solid marble,
carved and polished. His cock, harder still, pressed into her aching folds, teasing, teasing, teasing.

“Tell me what you want, Lygnel.” He nudged the opening of her channel with the soft, firm head of his
manhood.

Lygnel’s cheeks colored. She spread her legs wide, drawing up her knees, rolling back just slightly, to
give him full access to every part of her woman’s body. With shaking hands, she gripped the back of his
arms.

“Not good enough,” he purred. “I want you to tell me. Say it out loud.”

Again he slipped the head of his cock inside her folds and withdrew. His dark eyes seemed to lock her
to him, and somewhere inside, she understood the level at which he intended to possess her. Body, but
also mind. Mind, but also soul. He wanted her to give things she had never allowed another man, bind
herself to him in ways no other could claim. And he wanted to excite her in ways no one else dared.

I’ll show you pleasures even Jack in the Green never thought to give.

“I want you to take me,” she stammered.

He leaned forward, letting his cock slide down to her aching entrance. “Take you where, love? To the
boat? To the stars?”

Lygnel felt her blush burn across her skin. She moved her head back and forth, feeling like she would die
from desire.

“This is between us,” Davyd murmured in that voice she couldn’t deny, couldn’t bear to do without ever
again. “All ours, all us. I want no secrets, no shyness. I want you unbound from all you’ve known, all
you’ve held back. Do you understand?”

He eased forward again, penetrating her channel oh-so-slightly, and years of Avalon’s upbringing
shattered like glass. All vestiges of “proper” fell away from her spirit, shards of an old life she could finally
sweep away without regret. She dug her nails into his arms, met his gaze, and raised her head slightly.

When he kissed her, she bit his bottom lip.

His intake of breath pleased her, and when she turned him loose, still staring directly into his eyes, she
said, “I want your cock inside me. Now.”

And then louder, “Take me, Davyd. Hard!”

His teasing look turned deadly earnest. When he plunged inside her waiting quim, the stroke filled her
completely.

Incredibly deep.

Straight to her heart.

Davyd rolled forward, holding her with her legs bent and braced on his shoulders, so that her feet
brushed his stubbled cheeks.

Gods, so far inside. So full!

She moaned beneath his moans, throwing back her head and reveling in the perfect feel of fit, of
completion. She saw stars whether her eyes were opened or closed. She felt at one with the ground, the
sky, the air, and most importantly, with her Jack in the Green—her Davyd.

He rocked her gently at first, as if to prove they had all night, and indeed all of forever. His cock felt like
a god’s boon in her throbbing channel as she opened to him more, and more.

Only his powerful movement anchored her to earth, because the rest of her took flight again and again.

“Mine,” he whispered with each authoritative thrust. His hard thighs slammed into her exposed buttocks,
and his sac slapped softly against her open cleft.

Lygnel could but answer, “Yes, yes, yes,” as pleasure claimed her like Briton’s many bonfires, burning
her inside and out.

Davyd pumped harder, faster, drawing out her mind-melting orgasm until he joined her, spurting his
warm, welcome seed deep into her womb. But not enough. Never enough. Lygnel wanted this man to fill
her over and over, until he had not a drop left within him, until she had not an inch of space spared in her

woman’s core.

With her sigh almost a scream, she went limp beneath him, receiving his exhausted weight and wrapping
her legs and arms around him.

His cock, for the moment spent, stayed inside her, right where she wanted him to be.

Davyd rolled to his side, careful not to crush Lygnel beneath his bulk. When she tightened her hold, his
heart ached fiercely, as if it might burst in his chest. Her sweet, soft arms, her delicate thighs—Gods, but
she was splendid.

He held her back in the same fashion she gripped him, arms and legs cradling her, his cock still deep in
the warm paradise of her quim.

In minutes, he would harden again. That much, he could tell. But his love’s breathing had already settled
to that of satisfied slumber, and he needed to give her time.

Though how much respite he could offer remained to be seen.

Her soft scent of roses made his head spin as he gently kissed her hair. Like some besotted boy, he
muttered, “I love you,” time and again, and time and again, she murmured her assent and somehow
cuddled closer.

And then, when her sleep seemed deep enough, Davyd eased himself from her embrace, stood and
gazed at her for long, heart-gripping seconds as she slept with naught but his cloak for cushion, and then
slipped into the woods.

Chapter 7

Silvery mists folded back like papyrus, covering the mundane world and revealing less-traveled channels
known only to magik folke. Waves bore Lygnel’s wooden craft steadily forward along one such ripple in
reality. Avalon’s shores gleamed gold, filling her with inexpressible joy. The mark between her breasts
burned in a welcome, pleasing fashion.

Home. Home!

I’m dreaming. I must be.

She trailed her fingers through the ever-warm water surrounding the island. Avalon, the last sanctuary
where ancients and humans mingled, making halflings like Lygnel. Fey the halflings were called,
depending upon the powers they inherited from their ancient blood. Adepts, if such powers were lesser
but trainable.

Why do I dream of home now? I haven’t visioned Avalon in years. I haven’t seen the shifting of
the mists in twice as long.

That was the trick, the shifting of the mists.

To those on Avalon, the mundane world was naught but a dream in the fog. Only magik lands were clear
and whole and real. The mists, created by ancients even older than Merlyn could remember, made this
dual plane possible. Wherever human feet tread, just to the left or right, or just above, just below, coated
in whispers of magik fog—there lived the ancients, the fey, the Adepts—all the denizens of magikal
society. There waited the intangible gaits to the old paths.

In times past, humans drifted in and out of magik lands with impunity, with pleasure—or without even
knowing. So it used to be, before the coming of non-believers, defilers, and ruffians. Those who brought
violence and hatred and pestilence and man-tampered metals—all painful and sickening to ancients and
their children.

Now the paths had been hidden anew. Gates had become scarce and well-reinforced. Many, such as
the entrances to Avalon, moved or shifted on a regular basis to prevent accidental discovery. By the time
Lygnel and her twin left Avalon, the ways and worlds of older times seemed…smaller. More confined.

In this dream, however, the splendor of Avalon had been restored. The sanctuary’s many temples
looked pristine, polished ivory and granite, intermingled with gemstones but no burdensome metals.
Ancients blended with humans and halflings as teachers, friends, lovers. Some wore clothes. Many wore
nothing. And all, all were beautiful.

Morgain held court to the north, teaching the ways of earth. To the south, Merlyn patiently tutored on
the rites of air. Allad the Dark taught the virtues of fire in the east, deep in his furnace of a forge, while
Nimue commanded the island’s western quarter, initiating Adepts to the knowledge of water. Those four
were the last of the ancients, and reputedly the youngest. Other ancients had withdrawn to Beyond soon
after the first humans came. They didn’t believe humans worthy of teaching, or redeemable in any
way—though they did see fit to birth or father a number of powerful fey bloodlines.

Morgain, Allad, Nimue, and Merlyn believed differently about humans, but that was before Nimue went
mad and betrayed them all—if indeed she had ever been sane.

The mere thought of the Lady of the Lake brought Lygnel awake with a gentle start. “Nimue?” she
murmured, gripped by chills. And then, softly, less afraid, but with some annoyance, “Morgain?”

No taunts or teases answered Lygnel, and she tugged at soft folds of cloth beneath her. Pieces of a
dress. Of a cloak too soft to be human-made.

Davyd!

Lygnel’s eyes flew open and she bolted to her feet, naked beneath the moon’s cool light. A quick glance
at the heavens set the time at several hours before dawn. She had not been asleep long. Half an hour. An
hour at most. Davyd’s arms had been so strong and warm around her, but now, she was very much
alone.

Did he leave? Was he ever truly present?

Lygnel passed her hands over her breasts, and lower, into the damp curls between her legs. Her body

felt sweetly tender and well used.

Someone had been with her. Her heart told her Davyd, but it was Bealtuinn. Any manner of magik or
mischief could be about—fey or human.

“No.” Lygnel swallowed a scream of frustration. “It was Davyd. It was!”

Tears welled in her eyes as she glanced around the clearing. The ground showed no sign of travel but for
one path pressed into the otherwise untrodden loam. Lygnel followed the trail with her eyes to the point
where it disappeared into the trees.

So. He left, then. Simple as that. A single tear made its way down Lygnel’s cheek as heat rose upward
from her neck.

What had she expected? Some sort of perfect joining, after all these years?

She was older than when last he saw her, and a good deal less attractive. Perhaps she hadn’t been what
he dreamed of, though he had not left her disappointed in the least.

Her arms stole across her nakedness, and she thought about covering herself with the cape beneath her
feet. Fighting off a full flood of tears, she cast her gaze on the ground—and beheld a neatly stacked pile
of sticks, twigs, and limbs on her left. Her Adept’s senses ticked off the types of wood. Eight in all. Only
one was missing.

Hawthorn, she thought. The ninth type of wood necessary for Bealtuinn bonfires made by the old ways.
Hawthorn. A tree more magik than mundane, and almost impossible to find, except for those with trained
eyes or dedicated hearts.

“But who…why…?” Her questions trailed to silence as she heard the crackle and thump of someone
moving through the night-shrouded trees.

She had no time to mount proper fear, outrage, or anticipation before Davyd burst back into the clearing
along the path he had created. Half-naked and splendid, he moved with the fearsome grace of a stalking
cat. In his arms were unmistakable branches with tiny spring flowers along their woody edges. Gathered
offerings from the hawthorn, somewhere in the forest’s vast expanse.

Lygnel’s heart raced at the sight of her lover, once more returned, and the realization of his success at
hunting the hawthorn. Surely some blessing surrounded this man, or some fey hand assisted him.

He had not left her a second time. Perhaps he had not found her wanting. And yet she couldn’t drop her
hands from her body, which now seemed to her…less…than it should be.

Davyd approached, walking slower now that he had seen her, and smiling. “Your timing is true, my
Flower Maiden. I have need of your assistance.”

Wordless, still covering herself, Lygnel watched him deposit the hawthorn and complete the wood pile.

Then, Davyd stepped back, keeping an arm’s length between them. “I have no magik in me, even for
simple things. And, I have no proper spindle to make a fire without use of metal. Can you—would
you—light our blaze?”

Lygnel trembled. Her cheeks, still wet with tears, chafed in the air’s light chill. Her brain roved over what
Davyd asked, but the meaning refused to dawn. She still felt rattled, unable to focus her thoughts as she
needed to.

And then she realized her emotional state was only partly at issue. A presence hovered nearby like a
humming blanket in the air, physical yet not physical. Light laughter wove through the trees. A man’s
laughter.

Davyd’s shoulders stiffened.

“Merlyn,” he and Lygnel said at the same time.

“You…hear him?” Davyd sounded amazed.

Lygnel felt equal amazement. “Of course. But I’m surprised you do! Very unusual for one not of fey
birth.”

“Hmph.” Davyd’s rigid posture didn’t change. Clearly troubled, he glanced around the clearing, as if
waiting for the ancient to appear. He made no effort to cover Lygnel, which told her that he was more
than familiar with Merlyn. Perhaps even comfortable with him, or trusting in some odd way.

“Merlyn is here, yet not.” Lygnel forgot her doubts about her own body and reached for her lover. His
muscles were taught when she folded him in her embrace, but he lowered his head and pressed his cheek
against hers. “I can scarce understand how he’s managed any presence at all. Merlyn has been trapped,
unable to make contact outside the caves on Avalon where he’s—er, well, let’s say he fell victim to the
Lady of the Lake, and she took her revenge around the same time you left Briton for Chapel Down.
Have you heard him before this night?”

Davyd nodded. His chest, hot iron against her cool flesh, felt like an armor’s newly-tempered carapace.
In low, tense tones, he said, “I have heard the bastard a thousand times, and a thousand more.”

Lygnel’s gasp escaped her before she could quash it. To call an ancient such a disrespectful name—

He may call me what he wishes, and I would deserve it, Merlyn intoned.

Both Lygnel and Davyd flinched, but Davyd relaxed. Lygnel could not begin to halt the chilblains
galloping across her shoulders and neck. She didn’t loose her hold on her lover, nor did he release her.
They stood as they were, cheek to cheek, both breathing quickly, as if finishing some long and tiring race.

Fear not. I have no plans to stay. I have come only to gift you as befits twined hearts on a night
such as this.

With that, the small pile of wood beside them burst into a yellow-white blaze, then grew to proper,
towering flames—as if the Bealtuinn pyre had been stacked by all the men of Avalon, fey and Adept
alike.

Lygnel felt her body tingle like she’d had her fair share of ceremonial ale. Indeed, the light taste of
applewine filled her mouth.

Kiri. The elixir of release…

She could smell Avalon’s other fabled fruit drinks all around. Cherries, peaches, pears—and more
exotic fruits, known only to the island and lands far from Briton.

Pulling back from Davyd, she saw that a great feast had been laid upon a perfect altar, some distance
from the fire. A tickle on her chest made her look down, and lo, she was wearing a necklace of Avalon’s
finest bell-flowers. White and lacy blooms, so soft they felt like a child’s first breath—and now the
ground all around the fires had been covered with the white blossoms. They rained from the dark sky like
tiny snowflakes, completely missing the flames and stacking like drifts.

Davyd startled and looked down. In his hand, he held a bell-flower garland and a fresh-cut hawthorn
bough.

Lygnel’s heart near stopped. In older Bealtuinn festivals, a young man offered a young woman such
trinkets if he wished a “greenwood marriage”—a betrothal of one year, in which the couple lived as
married—to renew their vows upon the coming Bealtuinn if they still desired each other’s company.

Had he intended such before Merlyn interfered?

Did he intend to offer it now, if Merlyn departed?

Few men would have the courage to marry in May, which supposedly gave the woman all power in the
relationship. Not that Davyd needed to worry about power.

Davyd Krell, you sought to honor this Adept in ways chosen by the Goddess for this night.
Merlyn’s disembodied voice seemed to speak from the star-speckled sky. I merely wanted to give you
that which befits an Adept so loyal to her teachings, who has always acted for her lands and her
people, even at costs too great to bear. Once more, I pay on my debt, and now, I will depart.

A breeze stirred bell-flower petals into swirls, and Lygnel felt the ancient’s gradual absence.

“What on earth has passed between you and Merlyn?” she managed, words spilling fast as water from a
tipped pitcher.

Davyd, who was still glancing about with an annoyed expression, shrugged. “He…owes me, like he
said.”

Trying not to look at the flowered trinkets or the Hawthorn bough, Lygnel glanced instead at the fire
behind her lover’s muscular shoulders. The feel of the bell-flowers about her neck, the smells of the feast
and the smoke, the flutter of her heart, the way the sky seemed aglow with the season—by the Gods, if
she closed her eyes, she could almost be on Avalon now.

Almost.

Songs, the playing of the pipes, the sound of the goats and cattle and horses as they moved through
parted flames, heading from winter pasture to summer fields—and rampant moans of sexual
pleasure—these things were certainly missing, but her imagination easily supplied them.

In the old days, Morgain would be out riding on her white stallion, laden with bells, scaring all
the men of Briton half to death—except those who wanted to follow the fey queen back to Avalon
for seven years, of course. And in the old days, this night would have been dark as pitch—tied to
the change of moon and stars, not the newer practice of counting days.

“Lygnel.” Davyd’s quiet call shattered her reverie and her composure.

Lygnel focused her gaze on the man, feeling like her heart had changed to a rabbit, hopping hard toward
escape. His expression, grave though it was, also bore a certain lightness. A…happiness?

He stepped forward, knelt, and placed the hawthorn bough and the delicate bell-flower garland at her
bare feet. Despite the roaring blaze, Lygnel could feel his warm breath on her legs, then between her
thighs as he lifted his head, then finally on her belly. Delightful shivers traveled across her shoulders as she
gazed down into his fathomless midnight eyes.

“I have loved you for more years than I have the wits to count,” he said in his low, exciting rumble, still
poised only inches from her belly, like a herald at the start of a long run. “Stay with me this Bealtuinn
night, all night. Honor the coming season in my arms, and join your fate with mine. Give me your heart
until next the bonfires blaze. I swear on my life’s breath you will not regret it.”

Lygnel’s emotions ran as hot as fire-drenched cider. She wanted to scream some response, any
response—but her closed throat stubbornly thwarted all efforts. All she could do was wrap her trembling
arms around Davyd’s head and pull him tight against her belly.

His powerful hands eased around to stroke her buttocks, massaging, caressing, as if to convince her to
accept his offer. The way he submitted himself when he could have simply carried her off like claimed
chattel undid her further.

She knew there were no expected promises. Bealtuinn vows were as unique as each person speaking
them.

Speaking…speaking…speak!

“I love you like the sun, moon, and stars,” Lygnel murmured, her voice naught but a choked whisper. “I
need you like breath. It would be my honor to join you for this year, and any year after, should you
choose me.”

“Then prepare for many years at my side.” Davyd stood then and slowly removed his pants. Never
taking his eyes from hers, he rested his hands on her hips and pressed her naked length against his own.
His cock pushed hard against her belly, and once more, she thought about his size, his strength, his
warrior’s fierceness. He had gentled himself for her like a barely tame wolf, and she stroked the blond
hair spilling down his shoulders.

Her wild man. Her Jack in the Green.

“Come,” he said, and kissed her forehead. “Leave your necklace and the gifts I offered, so they will not
burn. Follow me through the flames.”

Surging with the thrill of impossible victory, Davyd lead his greenwood bride sunwise around their
Bealtuinn bonfire. Bell-flower petals swirled through the smoke, soft like Lygnel’s skin. Sweet like her
kisses. The tang of burning wood filled the air. Sticks cracked and popped.

I have died, in truth, and gone to a faraway paradise.

Davyd glanced at Lygnel, who held onto his hand tightly as they danced. Her expression showed joyous

excitement. The flush in her cheeks made him want to kiss her. His cock throbbed, painfully erect as they
moved, but he pressed onward around the flames until they reached the hawthorn bough, garland and
flowery necklace left behind.

Without speaking, they gripped each other’s arm, and with a great intake of breath, they leaped through
the towering blaze.

Davyd felt a firm slap of heat, a slight burn, but the sting faded instantly as they landed, ritually cleansed,
on the other side.

He pulled Lygnel to him and kissed her, tasting tart sweetness on her warm lips. Apples, perhaps, and
other unknown spices. The sensation made his head spin. A sort of instant drunkenness.

“What…?” he tried to ask, but his cock throbbed so fiercely he almost checked to make sure his
bollocks hadn’t caught fire.

Lygnel’s eyes glittered in the bonfire’s light. “What you taste is kiri. Another present from Merlyn.”

Davyd scarcely heard her. Lost in the sight of her full lips, her flushed cheeks, he kissed her once more.
Slowly, deeply, relishing her smaller body in his arms, her sweetly tart taste, the way her soft flesh
brushed against his scarred hide.

She groaned as he thrust against her, feeling the resistance of her fire-brushed belly on his straining cock.
Just the memory of her wet quim nearly made him come.

He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, plundering her mouth like he planned to plunder her other
wet riches. Gods, if he didn’t settle himself, he would throw her to the ground and fuck her until she
screamed.

Yes, please…

She seemed to speak in his thoughts, as Merlyn had so often done. Her tone was urgent. Rapturous. He
saw himself doing as he imagined, taking her hard and without cease while she moaned and thrashed
beneath him. Only it was more invitation than fantasy.

Davyd’s vision blurred with the force of his want. He heard himself growl like an animal. Dizzy yet not
dizzy, drunken yet strangely sober at the center of his mind, Davyd once more grabbed Lygnel’s hand
and pulled her with him into the bonfire.

This time, he felt no heat. He had the strange sensation of flying up, or down, or sideways. Movement.
Yes. Colors, too-bright light, rushing wind, and…darkness.

“Lygnel!” he bellowed, gripping her with all his strength even as an unrelenting force tried to pull them
apart. “I won’t let you go!”

Do not fear, beloved. She held on to him fiercely. We’re only changing paths. Leaving the
mundane.

And then all motion stopped, as if a great hand had plucked them from the firestorm and set them neatly
on the other side.

They were still in the clearing, still beside the bonfire, and yet not. The air seemed too bright. Too
sparkling. The shapes beyond might have been trees, or sentinels. Davyd found he could make them into
either, just by squinting. His body seemed the same, though his thoughts still twisted and spun, and desire
raged within him like an unchecked tide. When he looked at Lygnel, she was draped head to toe in
bell-flower garlands. A tiara of hawthorn held back her hair.

The mere sight of her made his cock ache.

She smiled, as if reading this truth from his soul, then released his hand and dropped to her knees before
him. “We have entered the Gray World,” she said in tones strangely light and forceful. Her voice carried
like a lyre, drifting to his ears, and her eyes fairly gleamed when she looked up at him. “This is a great gift,
indeed.”

Davyd started to ease down beside her, but she halted him with the force of thought. Wordless, not
aggressive—just a definite stop. A feeling of wait.

When first we made love so many years gone, I was queen and you kindly obeyed me. Davyd
looked down to see Lygnel take the tip of his pulsing cock into her mouth. The sensation was beyond
perfection. Now, here, in our granted dream, you are my king. Truly, as you said earlier this night,
we follow your commands now. I give myself to you and await your instructions.

“Damn, woman.” Davyd ground his teeth, forcing his body to hold back as she kept him just inside her
lips, easing her tongue in a slow circle. To his surprise, his voice sounded solid, normal, and yet richer
and layered. As if he were speaking in a small space and somehow capturing all the echoes.

What do you want, Milord?

“Ah, Gods.” Davyd moved himself forward, sliding further into the damp recess, feeling her tongue flick
against his sensitive flesh. “Suck me. And don’t stop, not for anything.”

Yes, Milord.

He reached down and wrapped his fingers in her silken hair as she complied, sliding his cock almost to
her throat in one forceful movement.

“Mine. You’re mine, now and always.” His hips tensed as he moved in and out, feeling her draw him
deeper each time he pressed forward. Her fingers toyed with his bollocks, stroking and softly, softly
squeezing. Her teeth brushed against his taught flesh, just the right nip and pressure, as her tongue
worked his shaft and the tender vein on the underside.

Davyd had never known such sweet treatment, except at her hands—and mouth—those many nights
ago. He wanted to slow down, to take care not to overwhelm her with his size, and yet his restraints
melted each time he mustered them.

Because I want them to melt, she purred in his mind, yet somehow aloud. Her soft noises of pleasure
vibrated against his swollen cock. Follow your heart and your passion, my king.

She glanced up at him as she sucked, and the sight of his cock disappearing into her perfect lips, the
vision of his hands in her hair and how she enjoyed his control of her head, pushed him over the edge.

He came with a roar, thinking to pull out, but Lygnel held him fast, continuing his pleasure, until he

arched backward, spent. But not satisfied. Not even close.

No sooner had he ordered her to release him than he hardened again.

“Lay down,” he commanded, and once more felt the warmth of her pleased smile.

Lygnel lay on the ground beside the enchanted bonfire, which burned perfectly warm, perfectly high, but
smokeless and muted against the gentle sounds of night. She stretched and ran her hands over belly, her
breasts. “Does this please you?”

“Aye.” Davyd gazed at her milky flesh, lit by the flames and covered here and there by the bell-flower
garlands. “Do you know how beautiful you are?”

Lygnel made no response.

“Answer me, woman.” His voice seemed louder and possessed by a true tone of command.

At this, Lygnel startled, but smiled again. “I am complete if I am beautiful to you.”

“Any man would be daft to pass you by,” Davyd growled. He clenched his fists at the thought of
Dylert’s soldiers, who had harmed her. “And yet, if they do not pass you by, I will kill them with great
pleasure.”

She offered a contented sigh and braced herself on her elbows as he continued to stare at her loveliness.
Once more, his cock strained toward the paradise she offered. His eyes lingered on the blonde patch
between her thighs, and he thought about the moist silk within.

“Spread your legs,” he ordered.

Lygnel flushed, but did as he instructed.

Her quim looked pink and wet in the firelight. The outer lips were swollen with desire, and just then,
Davyd caught a piece of her thoughts. A vision of her touching herself. His mouth curved to a smile even
as desire hammered every inch of his flesh.

“Do it,” he ordered.

She blinked once, twice, then lay on her back and lowered her hand between her legs. He watched,
burning hotter than any bonfire in Briton, as she nudged aside the engorged folds and stroked the
glistening flesh inside. Her woman’s center looked plump and tempting, even from his higher vantage
point. He could imagine his tongue flicking against that soft mound, tasting her delicate wine.

Her eyelids fluttered as her finger traced a circle, slowly at first.

“That’s it. Yes.” Davyd felt his cock swell to immeasurable proportions. “Faster now. Faster!”

Lygnel obeyed. Her skin turned rose-red beneath the flower blossoms and the gentle yellow light of the
flames. Her hips moved of their own volition, arching against her fingers, and her breath caught in short
gasps.

“Look at me,” Davyd whispered, his words naught but a rasp. “I want to see your eyes when you

come.”

Again, Lygnel complied. Davyd could tell she was excited by his instructions, his interest. In seconds,
her body shook, and she moaned in the throes of orgasm.

Davyd felt her release like a long drink of perfect ale. It tingled down his throat, blazed across his flesh,
heated his already burning cock. For a brief moment, her sensations were his.

She seemed to share in this blending, as she came again, this time with a shout. Her legs spread even
wider, and she fell back. Her free hand pinched and tugged at one swollen nipple while her hand
continued its busy work.

Her need, her desire, Davyd drank it all in just as he had consumed her delicious orgasm. Without
further commands, he dropped to his knees and pressed his cock between her splayed thighs.

“I need you inside me,” she cried, both in word and thought. “Please, no more teasing, husband!”

Firmly yet gently, Davyd moved Lygnel’s hand from her clit, and the other from her nipple. He pinned
her wrists above her head, raised himself above her, and entered her hot, tight channel.

She groaned at his slow, deliberate movement. He knew he was groaning, too, looking at her helpless
yet so willing beneath him. Her wet warmth sheathed his length, reluctant to release him as he drew back,
and back, and back, almost out.

Lygnel thrust her hips upward, drawing him inside her quim again, bollocks deep. The dual sensation of
her pleasure and his own nearly maddened Davyd. Were it not for years of contending with Merlyn in his
thoughts, he surely would have lost all control—and all ability to savor the incredible sweetness of his
bride and her body.

“Take me, Davyd,” she pleaded.

Davyd smiled down at her, relishing the sensual agony of his languid movements. “You want me to turn
myself loose? Lose control?”

“Yes!”

“And yet you still won’t give me the same, even here in this enchanted place.”

At this, Lygnel’s blue eyes opened wide. Her look of confusion charmed Davyd, but didn’t persuade
him to grant her request.

“Speak as my wife now,” he instructed. “Tell me exactly what you want, as I demanded before—but
this time, hold nothing back.”

“I want your cock moving inside me,” Lygnel said immediately. “I want the full force of your warrior’s
strength.”

“Not good enough.” Davyd slid himself in and out, in and out of her wet slit, as slowly as he could
manage.

“I…want your cock in my quim.” Almost a question. Her hips now moved frantically, and her face was

a delectable shade of red.

Davyd continued to study her, easing his cock up and back.

“Gods!” Lygnel fought against his grip on her wrists. Her breasts bounced, tempting him to nibble at one
dark nipple. “Do you intend to take my sanity?”

“Perhaps.” He captured the tempting nub and sucked, flicking his tongue against the rock-hard tip. Still,
he kept up his unhurried penetration.

Lygnel grew still for a moment, then virtually exploded against his body. She drove her nipple harder into
his mouth, and with a wicked movement of the hips, covered his cock with her silken quim.

“Fuck me,” she whispered. Then louder. “Fuck me!”

Davyd rewarded her with a hard, fast thrust, and another, and another. He let go her nipple and claimed
her mouth instead—once more tasting kiri on his bride’s lips.

The strange feeling of shared pleasure grew and grew, until Davyd could scarcely separate his desires,
his sensations his very flesh, from Lygnel’s. With such a heady connection, he did lose all control.

Keeping her wrists captive, holding her helpless beneath him, Davyd slammed into Lygnel’s hot channel
again and again. The wet sound of flesh on flesh filled his ears as she received him, moaning and bucking.
When he pulled back from her mouth, he saw her hair fanned above her like firelight itself. Her cheeks
were red. Her kiss-swollen lips parted slightly, once more awaiting his.

“Yes, oh, yes,” she whispered, keeping rhythm with his forceful strokes, rising to meet each one. “Fuck
me harder. Harder, please!”

And he did, savoring the scent of their juices in the night air. Relishing the satin glide of her quim on his
cock. Glorying in what his bride felt each time he plunged into the depths of her hot channel.

She wrapped her legs around his thighs and rode him just as hard as he rode her. Faster and faster they
moved, blending, joining in every conceivable way, until they both came and came and came with low,
guttural shouts.

Davyd’s head spun. His cock hardened in seconds, and they began again. And again. Lygnel’s wanton
screams drew moans from his very depths.

The bonfire sparked and whirled around them. Belle-flower petals rained and swirled, and Davyd had a
sense of sinking farther and farther into Lygnel’s sweet recesses. Of fucking her deeper and yet deeper
as some magik whirlwind claimed them both. They were in the fire again, in the flames without burning,
prone and clinging to each other, moving together and falling, falling, falling…

Scenes flashed by Davyd’s fevered eyes. Lygnel, the first time they made love. Lygnel, now, head
thrown back, floating on a magik wind as he fucked her.

The Tor, mysterious and alluring. Chapel Down. Prator Castle. An owl, circling. Soldiers, led by a
redheaded demon, bearing a perversion of Pendragon’s standard.

And then Lygnel…nothing but Lygnel, mouth parted, still waiting for his kiss.

Davyd touched his lips to hers and gave one last masterful thrust, driving them both into thrashing
orgasm—and a bottomless darkness.

Chapter 8

Lygnel had a sense of leaving Davyd’s grasp and floating like a woman-feather on patient breezes.

Time passed, be it seconds or minutes, or possibly years. And then she was sitting in the sky, just above
a split in moving clouds. Beside her, one of Avalon’s white herons kept her close company, peering
down as if she should pay attention to what was below.

Lygnel’s knees ached as she leaned forward, brushing aside wisps to peer at the far-removed ground.
Landscapes flew beneath her blurred vision, from mountains to lake to river to plain. She saw a single
small sloop, anchored rowing distance off a tangled, woods-lined part of the coast. No doubt this was
the ship Davyd sailed to find her. Waves rolled against its hull, and she was struck by its paltry size. Such
a boat would hold the barest contingent. Thirty, maybe forty fighters, and no horses.

Grakor’s remaining fleet, even after the magik storms that destroyed his father, put the sloop to shame.
He had six sea-worthy ships, each capable of storing regiments with horses and catapults as well. They
looked like the boats she had seen in visions before, all but one being savaged by a herd of wild children.

But why do I care about this?

Her view shifted suddenly to soldiers, a great war force, perhaps three hundred or more, riding toward
Dore at an unforgiving pace.

Grakor. Instinct told her this even as she rejected the sound of rumbling hooves, the neighing and
screaming of war horses, and the loud shouts of bloodthirsty tribesmen and mercenaries. No! You will
not harm my daughter!

As if hearing her, the redheaded man at the head of the column cut his gaze skyward. With a maddened
shout, he drew his sword.

Light played off the blade and gleamed in Lygnel’s eyes. He might as well have struck her with lightning.

She gasped, covered her face, and pitched headlong through the opening in the clouds.

Her heart did not hammer as she tumbled toward certain death. Instead, she reached out her mind to
Davyd and to her child, praying that her warning arrived in time.

Darkness slammed into Lygnel with a force greater than her fall from the heavens.

Redemption…

Was it her thought, or Davyd’s?

Redemption…

Grakor’s?

Redemption…

The word had been whispered by many lips, in many languages, with the resonance usually reserved for
ancients. Lygnel opened her eyes, sensing sunlight before she saw it. Her cheeks felt pleasantly warm,
and her body, pleasantly unbroken by her dream-fall. A sense of peace eased her fears.

The morning’s gentle heat made her want to stretch and purr like a cat. Her body felt tender, yet strong
and alive. Each breath brought her the scent of passion, of unbridled sex and fertile earth. Beneath her, a
cloth as soft as down cushioned her better than a straw-stuffed mattress. She was tempted to stay in that
half-awake state, enjoying the moment of idyllic restfulness, but she knew she could not. The visions she
had experienced in the Gray World made that painfully clear.

When she at last lifted her heavy lids, the first thing she saw was Davyd, sitting beside her with one knee
bent. Dressed only in breeches, he cut quite a figure as his broad chest rose and fell slowly, and his scars
stood out like white tattoos against his golden-brown skin. His dark blue eyes seemed hawkish and
predatory as they roved about the clearing.

Her warrior was guarding her.

She smiled, feeling a rush of warmth at his fierce protectiveness. Likely most of Briton still slept, nursing
great hangovers and exhaustion from the night’s revelry. Still, a resident of Dore could come straggling by
at any moment. Fighting competing waves of passion and fear, Lygnel reached out and stroked Davyd’s
leg, feeling the rope of muscle in his powerful thigh.

He glanced down and favored her with a grin. “At last awake, eh? You slept like a woman well-sated.”

“I could never have enough of you,” she murmured, then added, “Milord.”

“Aye.” He chuckled. “I’ll be lord of Dore’s dungeons soon enough, unless fate favors the foolish.”

For a moment, Lygnel fell still, both horrified and touched, and then nearly overwhelmed with her
feelings for this warrior. He knew. He had seen some glimmer of her visions, or perhaps had his own,
and he knew Ysbet was in imminent danger from Grakor.

She sat up and draped her arms around his neck. The stubble of his cheeks brushed against her lips, but
her heart was pounding too hard to allow her full enjoyment of the sensation, or the beauty of Davyd’s
naked male body.

“We’re still here because you know what I do.” Her voice sounded shaky, even to her own ears. “That
Grakor sits before a mighty column of fighters, riding for home.”

Davyd nodded, his tawny mane rippling and tickling her face with each movement. “If we leave, the
bastard will mass his army and sail for Chapel Down before full summer. We’ve no way of building our

forces on the island. Though I would save you today by taking you away from here, in a few weeks, you
would be slaughtered with me—and Ysbet with the both of us. Gods. The man might even set my own
son against me, or those I’ve served these many years.”

“And if we remain, we’ll both reside in the dungeons, or worse, at the end of a noose.” Lygnel sighed.
“Our choices are bleak.”

“Mayhap. Mayhap not.” Davyd lowered his leg and gently levered Lygnel onto his lap. His cock, firm
yet soft, rubbed against her ass as she settled against his chest. “There’s naught to stop us from gathering
our own fighters.”

“Under whose banner? Arthur’s?” Lygnel traced her lover’s scars with trembling fingers. “One we
invent?”

Davyd caressed her breast, making the nipple bead, then slid his fingers across the mark of her birth. “I
was thinking of an older standard, one that might unite friend and foe for a cause more noble than
vengeance or profit.”

At this, Lygnel’s pounding heart threatened to burst. “You can’t be serious.”

“Faith brings men through worse treacheries than warlords and senseless battles.” His hand traveled to
her other breast, and he stroked that nipple until it grew hard.

“Your faith is stronger than mine.” Lygnel shivered from his touch and from her growing fear. “There are
precious few left in these lands who would answer a call to fight for Avalon.”

“But maybe enough to give Grakor fair challenge, assuming we can secure ships and beat him to Prator.”
Davyd now massaged her belly with a tenderness unexpected from such big hands.

Lygnel rested her fingers on his wrist. “You want only miracles, my love.”

“Aye.” Davyd bent down and claimed her lips, trailing his tongue along the outline of her mouth. After an
exquisite kiss, he added, “I’ve known a few miracles these last days. I’m hoping one more won’t strain
the patience of the ancients.”

Lygnel let herself fade into another kiss, losing herself in the strength of his embrace.

Can we possibly save my child again, after all these years?

She lifted her hand to the puncture scar on Davyd’s neck, and tears threatened. Had he come so far,
through so much, to die some awful death at Grakor’s hand? If so, Lygnel hoped she would die with him,
or shortly after, perhaps making one last attempt to protect Ysbet.

As their kiss ended, Lygnel wondered if she should kill Grakor herself. Surely the fine arts of poison
would come back to her if she practiced.

“What are you thinking?” Davyd’s bass whisper sent tingles across her shoulders. “That expression—it’s
fearsome, woman.”

“Never mind.” Lygnel tried to erase thoughts of murder from her countenance, though the effort was
great. “Do you have, perchance, a plan to achieve these mad but noble goals?”

Another chuckle made Davyd’s fine muscles ripple beneath her palms. “I was hoping you’d think of
one.”

“What I’m thinking of is far shy of a plan.” She ran her hand down his chest, reached into his waistband,
and fondled his swelling cock.

He grunted and held her tighter, and she could almost taste his salty seed in her mouth.

His salty seed…

“That’s it!” Lygnel scrambled off Davyd’s lap, leaving him bare. His shaft stood at full attention,
purple-red at the tip, and she stared at it with both delight and wonder.

Davyd, for his part, looked confused and slightly miserable. “I’m not sure I’m liking this plan. Come
back here, wench. We’ve work to finish!”

“That we do, but not here.” Lygnel paused to bite her lip—and bite back a flood of desire. No time to
satisfy it now. “That splendid cock of yours may have done the labor to save us years ago. Hurry. We
need to see your son and his brothers. Only a day at most before Grakor returns— and much to
accomplish!”

With that, naked like a true child of Avalon, she headed toward the forested edge of the clearing, almost
at a run.

* * * * *

Davyd labored after Lygnel wearing only Merlyn’s cloak, his breeches, and his sword. He could see her
bare flesh flashing ahead of him, and he caught glimpses of her soft, firm ass between the trees.

This did nothing to relieve his pained desire, nor did the thought of catching his fair maid and taking her
against the nearest tree.

Lygnel stopped to beckon for him. Her cheeks had a rosy flush, and her breasts stood out, nipples firm
and jutting between strands of her golden hair.

The hell with trees. I’ll just lift her up and slam her down in the right place. He ground his teeth in
frustration, and knew he’d have to rein in his want for his new bride. She was right. They had much to
attend to before the demon-bastard made it back to his gates—but what Lygnel might be thinking,
Davyd hadn’t a clue.

Something in the back of his mind told him he should know, but much had passed since he first landed
on Briton’s shores. At times, his mind still stumbled like a tired horse in the course of a long gallop. For
now, he’d just have to follow her, and try like hell not to trip and snap his rigid cock off at the root.

Now, that would be a true shame, said a feminine voice from deep within his mind.

Davyd lurched sideways and shook his head. Damn voice sounded like Merlyn, only without his man’s
jewels.

“I am no Merlyn,” the voice assured him, this time aloud, yet seemingly from all around him.

He tried to ignore it and searched the trees for another glimpse of Lygnel. A familiar feeling overcame
him, one of being slowed against his will, made to comply with an ancient’s magik demands.

“Seven hells!” he growled, even as his muscles tightened to immobility. “Let me be, whatever manner of
devyl you are.”

Laughter was the only response.

In seconds, Davyd had the sensation of being turned into stone. His clothing vanished, and he was
naught but a statue in the forest depths, his shaft still standing out like an unsheathed sword.

A woman slowly lowered between the trees, gliding on large, twinkling wings. Tall, she was, and amply
built, wearing only a black tunic tied at the waist by silver-leafed vines. Her hair seemed blacker than
night’s darkness, and her eyes were like green fields filled with golden flowers. The sharply pointed ears,
though—Davyd noticed those above all of her other features. If he could have moved his lips to groan in
frustration, he would have.

Fey. Be damned, must they always appear in my life when least I want them?

The woman laughed as her wings just…winked into nothingness. “Lygnel has been right to fancy you,
human. You have spirit, and a generous endowment. It would please me to share myself with the two of
you. Should I call her back?”

Davyd felt his skin blaze as the maddening bitch looked him up and down, and actually took a step
forward. “No,” he said flatly. “It would not please me. I don’t wish to share Lygnel with anyone, least of
all a horse-damned fey who breaks into my mind. Be gone, devyl.”

A flicker of surprise crossed the woman’s face, turning her smile into a subtle snarl. Ignoring his wish for
her to leave, she stroked his cock with her gaze. He could feel it like slender fingers, moving up and
down with a mind-altering slowness. The bitch seemed to have released only his manhood from her
magik prison. Ever the traitor, his staff responded by tightening, bowing beneath the satin sensation of the
fey’s touch.

Damn you. He felt the blaze of rage in his eyes. What would happen if Lygnel found him like this, naked
and erect before some strange female? Merlyn! Somehow, I know this is your fault. She’s your fault.
Well, no more!

Years of rage powered Davyd as he imagined himself picking up a sword and slashing the fey woman’s
enchantment. To his surprise, the magik loosened, allowing him a step backward.

The woman gasped.

A flare of triumph powered Davyd’s resistance. It wasn’t hard, really, steeling his mind against her
influence. Merlyn’s…presence, interference…had been much stronger than this, and Davyd had years of
practice battling that bastard’s spells.

He felt the doubled pull of the woman’s magik on his body and mind, and still he fought. He refused to
be possessed again, by fey or otherwise, no matter what the battle cost him. Moreover, he refused to

share Lygnel with anyone, or subject her to the sorts of invasions he had suffered at Merlyn’s whim.
Besides, Lygnel was part fey at least, and Davyd had a bone-deep sense that her more magik relatives
might have treated her poorly.

Closing his eyes despite the incredible force attempting to keep them open, Davyd hacked at imaginary
magik chains with his imaginary sword.

Another series of gasps issued from the woman, each sharper than the one before, letting Davyd know
his resistance came as a surprise—and unfortunately, a challenge. He managed to grind his teeth, though
the effort cost him precious energy.

The hell with swords. I’d sooner use my bare hands. Into his mind’s eye came an image of a stone
wall surrounding him, and Davyd realized this was his truest understanding of the woman’s magik, her
attempt to take his physical will.

Why did I never see walls with Merlyn?

Keeping eyes firmly shut, Davyd chose a spot on the wall and imagined himself battering the rock with
his shoulder. The wall shuddered, allowing him another step back, but ultimately it held.

“What…are…you…doing?” The fey woman’s voice could have chilled a hot summer’s day. “It’s
not—how? How?”

The devyl with you! Davyd’s loud mental shout rocked the wall. Turn me loose!

Before the fey could speak again, Davyd imagined himself crashing into the barrier with the full might of
anger and ill-use he felt, and this time the would-be magik fortress burst and crumbled.

A shriek filled the clearing, and when Davyd’s fuzzy senses cleared, he saw the fey woman motionless
on the ground a few yards away from him.

“Davyd!” Lygnel’s worried cry sliced through the growing silence in the forest. He heard her rustling
through the brush, but oddly, that was all he heard.

“Here,” Davyd answered, shaking the spellcast languor from his limbs. A prickle of unease graced his
shoulders as it seemed even the birds deserted the area where he stood.

Lygnel rushed from the undergrowth, naked, flushed, clearly fearful for his safety. In her haste, she
tripped over the fallen fey and joined the woman on the ground.

Feeling something beyond a frustrated misery, Davyd hurried to his bride and attempted to help her up.

“Gods,” she was mumbling over and over again when he reached her. And then, “What happened?”

Davyd caught Lygnel beneath her elbows and gently set her on her feet. “I don’t know, in truth. Only
that yon bitch attempted to bewitch me, and I was in no mood.”

“Yon bitch?” Lygnel’s voice sounded like a choked whisper as she huddled against him, eyes fixed on
the fey. “Oh, Gods. Goddess. Arthur’s God and all his angels and ministers of grace. You’ve struck
down an ancient from Avalon. You’ve struck down Morgain!”

A ripple of disbelief coursed through Davyd. The menacing silence of the forest pressed harder against
his senses. Reflexively, he pulled Lygnel closer as if to shield her from whatever vengeance might come
from the magik realm.

They didn’t have to wait long.

In seconds, Morgain stirred from the ground, then snapped to her feet as if someone had thrown her
upwards. Her eyes—if they could be called eyes—seemed naught but hollows of blue-black rage, and
her teeth were bared. Davyd thought of wild cats and trapped animals, and he tried to move Lygnel
behind him. She refused to budge from his side.

“Human!” The leaves over Morgain’s head shook. A few branches cracked. Now Davyd knew why he
had heard no birds. The birds had possessed sense enough to flee. “I have never known such treatment!”

The fey woman’s countenance was nothing short of thunder and lightning as her wings reappeared. She
rose off the ground and raised both of her hands, clearly prepared to exact some horrid price.

“Whatever happened, he meant no disrespect,” Lygnel offered in a strong yet tremulous voice.

“The hell I didn’t,” Davyd countered with a wave of anger. “I meant every bit of disrespect you meant
toward me, but this woman, she had no play in it. Leave her go and deal with the one who angered you.”

Wind rose, whipping Morgain’s hair into a terrible frenzy. Davyd had a sense of the sky darkening, of
trees bending away from the force of the fey’s fury. Lygnel was pounding on his shoulder, maybe
punishing him for rash words, or trying to get him to flee.

He turned toward her, locking his gaze on her frightened face. “Go!” he shouted above the increasing
din, trying to convey the depth of his love and the depth of his resolve in that single syllable.

Lygnel shook her head, clearly conveying her own meaning through her expression. Not without you…

“You will look at me, human!” Morgain’s bellow curdled in Davyd’s belly. He knew he should fear for
his life, but as it was, he feared only for Lygnel’s well-being. The famed power of the fey brought no
terror to him. After Merlyn’s meddling, he felt he had suffered all he could suffer at the hands of arrogant
bearers of magik.

Once more, he tried to push Lygnel away.

Once more, she stubbornly held to his scarred forearm.

Sticks and rubble stirred from the forest floor pelted them now, and Davyd knew nothing else to do but
pull Lygnel into a tight embrace. As best he could in the howling, unnatural winds, he opened Merlyn’s
cloak and used it to cover his trembling love. His only guilt came from any pain caused to Lygnel.

As for his actions toward Morgain, Avalon’s ancient or no, he would not be bullied by the fey ever
again. And damn, but the capricious ancient seemed intent on beating them senseless for the wounds to
her dignity.

“Are you all so bloody arrogant?” Davyd shouted through the storm. “I did you no lasting harm, only
defended myself, yet you would harm one of your own to avenge your pathetic pride?”

Silence! Morgain’s howl near split Davyd’s eardrums, but the noise did not do damage enough to block
out the next sound: an ethereal, distant chuckle.

Morgain’s head turned left, then right. Her arms lowered a fraction. “Allad?” she called. “Nimue?”

Again came the chuckle, cutting beneath the wind and rubble as if no disturbance existed. At this,
Morgain ceased her tantrum so suddenly that stillness fell like a rock against Davyd’s mind. He actually
startled from the quiet.

“Why do you punish him when he speaks the truth?” Merlyn asked, seemingly from the newly-fallen
forest floor debris. “When he acts only to exert his own will over his own body, Morgain?”

Lygnel dug nails into Davyd’s sides, but her shock seemed minute compared to that of Morgain. The fey
woman first shrank back, then surged forward, casting about for the source of the noise.

“Where are you?” she demanded, her voice raw with indefinable emotion.

“Too far away yet to return, yet close enough to feel disappointment in you.” Merlyn sighed. “You were
always better than games such as this, Morgain. A pity you haven’t matured enough to know that.”

A new sort of fury bloomed in the fey’s expression, but she held her tongue. Davyd could have sworn he
saw tears, but he couldn’t be certain.

Morgain took a slow breath, seemed to gather herself, and then with a grace he associated with swans
or falcons, she spread her wings and lifted into the sky.

Davyd felt pants reappear on his legs and waist once more, and the comforting weight of his sword
flopped against him. Full sunlight slowly returned, warming his face. He kissed Lygnel’s head and gently
released her from his fierce embrace. “Are you all right, my love?”

Lygnel eased backward, regarding him with awe, perhaps a little fear. “I’m…fine,” she whispered. “But
you…what power do you have?”

“He has some of me yet within him,” replied Merlyn’s voice, this time from the treetops. “Unavoidable,
given the number of years he was kind enough to allow me residence in his mind. I hope, Davyd, that this
knowledge—the realization that no fey can overpower your will ever again—even me—will complete
payment of my debt.”

“Aye,” Davyd grumbled, feeling more peevish than he realized. “So long as you stop chattering at me,
and so long as you do what you can to help us save Ysbet.”

Another moment of silence ensued in the forest, and then Merlyn said, “Done.”

With a rustle of leaves and what sounded like whistling, the ancient departed. Lygnel rubbed her chest
and kept her eyes skyward, as if tracing his path through the clouds.

Davyd shook his head even as the tentative chirrups of birds and insects rose up from the surrounding
trees. “I know you grew up with this lot, my love. It’s amazing you escaped Avalon with your sanity.”

“I’m not certain I did,” came her shaky reply. “The mark of my birth, it burns like it once did, when my
magik was at full mast—but, no. That’s not possible. I’ve had no practice in years. I’ve been away from

Avalon too long.”

She moved toward him as if to take his arm, and once more, he appreciated her naked beauty. There
were no limits to his want for Lygnel, and no limits to the warmth she stirred in his heart.

His cock instantly strained its confinement, and he fantasized about relieving his misery there on the
forest floor. But he couldn’t, as recent events had so clearly demonstrated. No privacy, no safety, and of
course, the pressing issue of Grakor returning home to sail against Ysbet.

Still, he could take the time for one long, smoldering kiss.

Lygnel murmured her pleasure as he stroked her back, her hips. He felt entwined with her, flesh and
spirit, and for that, he could but give thanks to fate and yes, even the ancients.

Then, he pulled back from his bride and glanced at the clouds in the general direction of Merlyn’s
departure. Feeling a bearish irritation, he took off his fey cloak and draped it around her shoulders.

“Not that I don’t want to look, mind you.” He heard his own churlish tone, but couldn’t stop it. “I’m just
not of a sharing disposition.”

Lygnel ran her fingers across some of the many scars on his chest. “Nor am I. And I can now tell the
world you chose me over fair Morgain. Battled her, even, to stay chaste for my pleasure.”

“I would do anything to bring you pleasure.” Gods, but his cock felt near to bursting again. “For now,
though, I believe we should hasten to this meeting with…with my son. His home is likely a damn sight
safer than these woods.”

“From your lips to the ears of the ancients,” she murmured, taking his hand and pulling him back toward
the path she had been taking before Morgain’s interruption.

“What?” Davyd followed with some reluctance. “Anything but that. Watch your words, woman. Don’t
even jest about such nightmares!”

Chapter 9

When they left the cover of Dore’s forests for the wide berm leading up to the castle, Lygnel felt
unbelievably exposed despite the magik she worked. With one hand pressed to the heat of her
birthmark, she knew she was doing the impossible, casting such a spell with relative ease. What had
Merlyn done, back in the woods, when Davyd exacted his promise of the ancient?

I felt a surge of warmth, fire, and then the ancient said, “Done.”

With too many years of understanding the treacherous twists and turns the vows of ancients might take,

Lygnel felt wary beyond reason. She half-expected the magik to backfire and turn them into hairless pigs
or some even less seemly creature. And yet on they walked, bathed in the glamour she managed, with
nary a twitch, a squeal, or pig’s tail.

When he first came to me, he spoke of belief and hope. Did Merlyn give me back something I had
lost—or am I simply reclaiming it?

The three entrances to Castle Dore were open and lightly guarded in the wake of Bealtuinn revelries.
Lygnel thought the two guards at the side arch looked slack and useless, badly used by ale and no doubt
sexed to the point of a month’s satiation. Still, she felt she could barely maintain the glamour, that trick of
light and illusion learned so long ago on Avalon. She knew it must be wavering, showing any who might
glance toward her an image of a woman in a green cloak and a scarred man undressed to his waist. They
might even see Davyd’s sword, and if so, things would go poorly for Lygnel and her long-lost love,
indeed.

Their one hope was to make it to her cottage unobserved and clothe themselves properly, so as not to
draw attention. From there, they would seek out Bertram and his brothers and gather some sort of
alliance before Grakor gained the castle gates. To what end, and for what purpose, they had no idea as
yet.

Alla’s sons lived along the guard wall, however, as far from Lygnel’s hovel as was possible without
being outside Dore’s mossy, crumbling walls. That meant she would have to achieve this minor glamour
spell again, without much rest. The thought would have staggered her if she had dwelt on it.

Davyd seemed to understand how the magik drained her, and what she feared. They walked, side by
side and step for step, like twins in a strange dance. Every few steps, his arm brushed her elbow, Lygnel
felt a jolt—but not of distraction. Instead, she gloried in a brief surge of power, and knew it renewed her
concentration. Still, she dared not grab his hand for fear of becoming lost in him instead of the feeble
illusion she aimed to sustain.

A shadow caught her attention, and she realized a large bird had just flown overhead. On instinct, she
strained her ears for the chitter of a white heron, but heard nothing. Really, it was too much to hope.
Avalon didn’t send its guardians lightly.

“How far back in this miasma do you live?” Davyd’s grumble rolled beneath the clatter and splatter of
Dore’s expansive grounds.

Lygnel fought a gasp at the sound of his voice. “Do they keep Prator’s court so much nicer, then?”

“Aye.” Davyd sidestepped a mound of horse droppings. “Clean as Camelot. And a body can breathe
without choking on dung.”

“Spoiled, soft man.” Lygnel didn’t bother to hide her grin, but she worked not to turn loose a laugh. “We
will have to finish traversing the length of the grounds, to the back wall where all unfavored folk live in
servants’ huts.”

Davyd grunted. “My joy knows no bounds.”

A violent flash of desire struck Lygnel as she imagined giving her lover unbounded joy. Nearby, a
grubby child gasped and tugged on her mother’s sleeve. “A ghost! Mother, two ghosts!”

“Careful, sweet,” Davyd urged. “Wherever your thoughts went, bring them back.”

With a forceful sigh, Lygnel controlled her lust and focused on reaching her hut. As they put the main
courtyard behind them, the smells and chaos eased. Here, the well, and then the training barn, and at long
last, in a desultory jumble, Castle Dore’s most ancient servants’ huts.

“We kept breeding animals in these filthy sties,” Davyd groused. Lygnel sensed the rise of his temper like
sparks on his own skin. “Grakor put you in one of these hovels?”

“No. His father Onri had that honor after the Battle of Camlann. But, it was a kindness, Davyd. I had
known only the dungeon since your escape with Ysbet.”

He turned loose another mighty grunt as she turned them around the last corner and made for her
door—only to pull up short.

Davyd almost kept walking, but apparently saw what Lygnel did and stopped with a snort. Lygnel knew
that if his temper had been rising at her maltreatment before, it would now be near explosion. Standing
outside her hut was Dylert, the stupid and lecherous training master, along with three of the biggest,
ugliest home guard soldiers he could muster.

Clearly, the four brutes were waiting to teach Lygnel an unkind lesson about thwarting a “better” man’s
desires.

“Four on one,” she breathed, her chest squeezing with fear as Davyd’s muscles tensed. “You cannot
fight them!”

“The hell I can’t,” came his answering growl.

Lygnel rubbed her temples, battling to keep the glamour firm. “Don’t be an oaf, even a sweet and noble
oaf! Taking them on will reveal your presence before we’re ready.”

“So be it.” Davyd’s hand had already moved to the hilt of his sword. “We’ll have to make new plans.
Once I draw them off, take yourself inside and put on a proper dress. I’ll not give these bastards even a
second of the paradise they seek to pillage.”

“There, you!” A young male voice rose from behind them, and Lygnel and Davyd barely stepped aside
in time to allow Bertram unimpeded passage. The lad had his sword drawn, and he was flanked by two
of his more menacing older brothers. They also had swords at the ready. Bertram’s hair gleamed like
white-gold in the sunlight, and his brothers seemed as dark as he was bright. More like ravens, the two of
them, black-haired warbirds, with hard incisive eyes.

Lygnel didn’t know their names, but Alla’s offspring, all ages and sizes and shades, were more than
welcome in her sight. Her heart gave a leap as Davyd spat on the ground behind them, an age-old way of
passing luck and energy, a barbarian’s manner of wishing Godspeed before joining the fray himself.

“Stay close for as long as you can,” she urged. “I won’t be able to hold the glamour if you step away
from me.”

This and only this seemed to scotch Davyd’s desire to be the first to throttle Dylert. Lygnel could tell by
the tense ripple of his shoulders that he didn’t want her revealed as yet, until the bastards were under
better control.

Alla’s sons strode forward until they reached Dylert and his surly knights. The three ugly trolls drew their
own blades and held them forward in defensive posture. A few wretched citizens of Dore fled the paths
between huts, leaving the armed men alone to contend with each other.

Dylert didn’t reach for his sword, and Lygnel realized he thought he would have no need to fight.

“I’d have thought you learned better last night, maggot,” came the training master’s oily voice.

One of Bertram’s brothers chuckled. “By my kin’s report, you got a lesson of your own, and from a
dead man. Yet here you are, planning mayhem on the very woman Jack in the Green warned you off.
Shame.”

“Offal,” Bertram added in a low, menacing rasp. “You’ll not rape a woman of Avalon, nor any woman
ever again.”

Dylert’s cheeks colored an unpleasant orange. No doubt his drink-sodden innards couldn’t manage a
proper flush of rage. Lygnel ground her teeth in disgust.

“You’ll do well to learn to hold your tongue.” Dylert’s tone turned deadly as he squared off with
Bertram. “I’ll not train a mouthy bastard brat, skill or no!”

“I have no need for what you teach,” Bertram declared. “I’ll serve the master of this castle, and I’ll serve
Avalon, but not you. Your time here is finished.”

At that, Davyd started walking. Lygnel went with him, step for step, and he didn’t protest. She could see
his thoughts as sharply as the facets of a jewel, and she understood his intent to flank the training master
and put himself in a position to defend his son if need be. Her throat felt dry and tight, but the glamour
held close around them, doing its work as if she cast and maintained illusions all the day long.

Dylert shook his head, then dismissed Bertram with a wave. “Take ‘em down,” he ordered his knights.
“Hang their bodies on a limb outside the front gates. We’ve no room for superstitious, traitorous fools.
Avalon, indeed.”

His knights, naught but moving blocks of wood in Lygnel’s mind, brandished swords, but Alla’s sons
didn’t hesitate. In great clanking of metal, three met three, and the battle was joined.

For his part, Dylert slunk to the edge of Lygnel’s tumbledown cottage and leaned against it, watching
from a safe distance. She imagined herself creeping up and planting her foot squarely in his backside. No,
better yet, slinking forward instead, having at his pathetic manhood with Davyd’s seasoned blade.

Listen to me. She shook her head. I’ve spent too much time at Dore among these thieves and
wolves. Davyd and I must proceed carefully, lest our children be the death of both of us!

Another furtive glance at the sword fight told her Bertram was more than equipped to handle himself in a
man-on-man battle. The lad used his speed, agility, and wit to best his opponent at almost every turn.
Despite the situation, Lygnel smiled. Bertram and Davyd would one day have much to discuss and learn
from each other.

For the present, the time for action was at hand.

Davyd reached Dylert first, sword already drawn. He glanced once at Lygnel, who nodded despite a
sudden clutch of fear.

Still wrapped in Lygnel’s glamour, Davyd tapped the bastard on the shoulder. Dylert startled and
whirled about, and when her husband nodded to her again, Lygnel let fall the illusion and stepped away.

“Hello, you spawn of an arse pimple,” Davyd said smoothly as he advanced his sword with one hand
and drew back his unencumbered fist. “Remember me?”

Gods but it felt good to smash the weak, cowardly dirt-sucker right in the jaw. Davyd felt a flash of
welcome pain in his knuckles, heard the satisfying crunch of bone, and the even more satisfying yelp of
pain as Castle Dore’s current training master slammed against the rough-hewn walls of Lygnel’s cabin,
then crumpled to the ground.

“Damn, man!” Davyd strode forward and gave him a nudge with his boot. “Get up. I’ve only started!”

“And finished, it would seem.” Lygnel’s sweet voice made Davyd smile, though he thought it might look
more a snarl to the casual observer. He’d been accused of worse in the past.

The sun felt hot against his bare chest, and he felt relieved to be out of hiding, no matter how dangerous
that choice might be. Teeth bared, he wheeled on the sword battles and waded in, using the hilt of his
blade to crack against the skull of Dylert’s nearest knight. The lout fell like a tree, almost crushing
Bertram in the process.

“You!” Bertram shouted as he struggled free. “I didn’t ask for your help!”

“Aye. Didn’t need it from appearances,” Davyd conceded affably, no longer feeling nervous about
speaking to the lad. “You’ll have to forgive me, lad. I enjoy fighting too much.”

With that, Davyd took the risk of turning his back on his seething son. A rush of joyous rage powered
him as he plowed into another of Dylert’s minions. Davyd heard the big bastard’s breath leave in a
pained grunt as his head smashed ribs. They crashed together to the dry earth, and Bertram’s brother let
out a whoop as the knight rolled over, groaned, then fell still and silent.

“Whoever you are, well met. Forgive my younger brother’s rudeness. I’m James.” The young man, who
looked to be the eldest of Alla’s currently fighting sons, extended a hand and helped Davyd to his feet.
“Shall we deal with this last blackheart, or leave my other brother Marc to the task?”

Davyd spit out a mouthful of dust, resettling his sword in his palm. “Why let him have all the glory?”

“A man for my own thinking!”

Yelling like crazed bulls, they charged the last knight. Marc had the reflexes and sense to move aside but
keep the bastard’s sword engaged. Davyd felt another surge of inordinate glee as he and James bowled
the massive knight backward. Before Davyd could knock him senseless, James pounded him with his fist
three times in rapid succession, and the villain lay still.

Panting, sweating, feeling the satisfying sting of a few cuts, Davyd rolled to his backside, jumped to his
feet, and grinned at Marc and James.

“Are you really Krell?” James asked, clearly amazed by Davyd’s presence. “Alive despite the boasts of

Mordred’s guards?”

“He is,” growled Bertram, who was skulking in the shadow of Lygnel’s hut. Lygnel had him by the arm,
and one glance at his son told Davyd how it galled the lad to have a woman hold him back from battle.

Marc’s eyes narrowed and James took a step back. Both men shook their heads.

“He’s my husband now.” Lygnel’s voice rang over the fallen knights, turning all heads toward her. “We
need your help.”

Davyd noted the curve of her bare legs under his cloak, and his fight-roused blood pounded hard against
his temples. Gods, but he could take her now, just snatch her up, haul her into that excuse for a hut, and
make her scream her pleasure for the next hour, maybe more.

For a moment he was proud of the effect she likely had on all present, except perhaps Bertram, who
kept his eyes carefully averted. Then a black jealousy darkened his vision, and he felt new heat rising to
his face.

Before he could speak, Lygnel moved toward the door of her hovel. “If you’ll forgive me, gentlemen, I
must take my leave for a moment.”

She slipped into the shadows and through the door, which settled into its frame at a warped angle.

“It’s an honor, to be chosen by a woman of Avalon.” Marc turned to Davyd and gave him a small bow.
James did likewise. Bertram snorted, but he came slowly to stand by his brothers. The lad’s eyes
remained defiant, but a grudging respect marked his youthful countenance.

Davyd felt a mild shock, then realized these men truly had been raised with the old ways. Though Lygnel
was no longer a royal, they regarded her—and perhaps all women—as sacred vassals of the Goddess,
to be protected, cherished, respected, and never ever defiled.

He eyed the three before him, appraising stance, strength, power…and he smiled. “Would you help us,
then?”

“To what aim, Master Krell?” James used the term of honor as if it were no issue. Bertram flinched, but
Marc punched his shoulder and the lad straightened up—a little.

Davyd eyed the fallen knights and the unconscious excuse for a training master Dore had employed.
“Firstly, with ridding ourselves of useless bastards like this. Second, winning who we can to the cause of
Avalon in the next few hours. And third…” he paused, trying to keep his voice as sure as when he began.
“Third, to either dissuade Grakor from avenging his father’s death, or doing damage to his hired army to
give Prator a hope of survival.”

Alla’s sons shifted uncomfortably. “You speak of treachery to Dore’s rightful heir,” Marc said in low
tones.

Davyd couldn’t suppress the urge to spit harshly on the ground between them. “Heir to Dore, maybe.
But he has no right to the legacy we guard at Prator—all that’s left of good King Arthur’s men…and
blood.”

This drew three gasps, in unison.

“Arthur had no heir.” Bertram’s words were clipped, as if he were busy piecing together truths he could
barely grasp.

“That’s not true,” said Lygnel from the doorway of her hut. She had dressed herself in the simple garb of
a yard servant—white cotton dress with leather over-apron, laced up the front in a modest fashion.
“There is one heir to Camelot yet living on Prator.”

“Your babe.” James shook his head. “If they lied about killing one, of course, ‘twould be easy to lie
about killing two.”

“Aye.” Davyd nodded. “I took Lygnel’s child away at her request, to see her safe from the curse of this
dark place.”

“To fulfill the pledge of Avalon,” Lygnel added, almost whispering. Her words startled Davyd enough to
stare at her. “To ensure the line of Pendragon’s survival, upon the word of the ancients to Uther, King
Arthur’s father, rest the good man. But such intrigues aren’t worth our time as of now. Only Ysbet’s
safety matters.”

A rough grumble of agreement passed from Marc to James to Davyd, who resolved to himself to ask
Lygnel a fair number of questions this night, should they be lucky enough to be alive at sundown. Bertram
kept his eyes averted from Davyd’s gaze, but he nodded. It seemed the three brothers had joined this
hopeless quest, for good or ill.

“How many of you are there?” Davyd asked. “Alla’s sons, I mean, who might join the effort?”

“Nine.” James nodded in the direction of the battlement wall. “And the other six will come as ready as
we. I’m oldest, with Bertram youngest. We’re all a year apart.”

Alla, my dear, you bred a handy army, Davyd thought wryly. I owe you a debt should we meet in
the land of the dead.

“All right,” he said aloud. “Let’s hoist these buggers and take ‘em where they’ll give us no more
trouble—then, to work.”

James and Marc moved toward the first knight, but Bertram brought them up short with a quick, “Wait.”

The lad turned to Lygnel and lowered his head. “No disrespect, Lady, but if I’m to die for a girl I’ve
never met, I’d like to know, and rumors haven’t settled the issue even after all these years. Is this Ysbet
of Prator Mordred’s daughter, or Arthur’s?”

Davyd felt a coolness claim his muscles. He thought about being angry, but couldn’t muster it. After all,
he had wondered the same for nigh on two decades now. It had seemed indecent to ask, and irrelevant
in many ways, as either scenario made Queen Ysbet Arthur’s blood heir. Still…

He gazed at Lygnel, who seemed to have hardened into stone in her uneven doorway.

“That’s rude, brother,” James said quietly. “The lady was ill-used by Mordred, forced into bargains she
had no say in meeting—”

“I cast no aspersions on her honor.” Bertram met his brother’s gaze without flinching. “I simply want to

know for whom I fight.”

“You fight for my daughter,” Lygnel said coolly. “A daughter of Avalon, a daughter of Arthur’s line. Is
that not enough?”

“You will not answer?” Bertram persisted.

At this, Lygnel paled. “I cannot. In truth, I don’t know. Only one living being on this Earth could answer
that question, and I doubt he feels inclined at the moment.”

Davyd knew without asking who the being would be. Merlyn. Son of a whore! He could have told me
this much as additional payment for using my mind these many years.

“An ancient,” James said with conviction.

“Yes.” Lygnel was now the one with the lowered head, and Davyd felt a powerful ache in his chest. He
wanted to go to her and wrap her in his arms, but they had no time for such comforts.

“My love,” he began, uncertain, torn between duties.

“Go,” she said simply. “I will join you shortly.”

With that, she turned away and retreated to the shadows of her hut once more.

* * * * *

In under one hour, Davyd and his three helpers had bundled off their barely conscious captives and left
them bound and gagged in a waste pit near the castle walls. It would be days before they were
discovered—if they were discovered at all. Alla’s remaining sons had indeed proved a willing bunch, and
they gathered their families in one group and their few most faithful friends in another, beneath the trees
just inside Dore’s north forest. In hushed murmurs, they explained what they knew of Davyd, Lygnel, and
the long-ago lies of Mordred’s soldiers.

These whispers were met with raised brows and reddened cheeks, but no outright disbelief. The faces of
the women and children brightened notably, and a look of fevered hope broke out amongst true
believers. These were the people who would have resisted Mordred, if they could have done so and
lived to breathe another day.

Avalon, their hungry minds seemed to shout as one. Salvation. A way back to the true rhythm of the
world…Camelot, regained!

Some of the soldiering group was very young, naught but boys of schooling age. Some were very old,
uncles and cousins and sworn brothers. A few were of Grakor’s home guard, and they stood round with
swords drawn, scowling to a man. >From what additional conversation Davyd heard, it seemed Dylert
was no one’s hero, and it seemed Castle Dore had some good men in its employ. Ruthless, ambitious,
cold, but still honorable soldiers and adequate fighters.

Loyalties—now, those were anyone’s guess.

“Hear me,” Davyd bellowed to the soldiering group, perhaps forty in all, holding his sword above his
head and commanding a sudden silence. “I would not treason the rightful lord of this castle, lest he
menace those I have sworn to protect. In the name of Avalon, I ask you to persuade Grakor against the
vengeance he plans for Ysbet of Prator, the rightful heir to blessed King Arthur. Defend her in the name
of the sacred island, by words or by arms!”

James, Marc, and Bertram stood beside him, ready to draw blades if necessary. Alla’s other six sons
kept close proximity, forming a line between the soldiers and the women and children. A few older men,
faces Davyd almost recognized but not fully, offered raspy grunts of assent. In the age-old gesture of
swearing fealty, they placed their swords on the ground at his feet.

This seemed to start a flood, as all but two or three men did the same. Davyd found his breath shallow
as he studied the last few. They were of the variety Dylert would select, huge and gruff, and no doubt
surly. He was almost certain they would attack or turn and leave to cause treachery. As it was, however,
they stared at him with sullen silence. At last, grumbling to themselves, they drew their blades and placed
them on the ground, joining Davyd without a fight.

He turned to the women and children, and the line of Alla’s sons parted to allow him clear avenue to
speak to them. “You lot, we need you safe and out of the way. When my wife comes—”

“She most certainly will not stay safe and out of the way,” Lygnel interrupted from behind him.

Davyd turned, prepared to be angry—and caught his breath.

Lygnel had donned the blue over-robes of an Avalon Adept. Leather jesses adorned her hands and
wrists, and a leather belt secured the robes in a modest fashion. Her face seemed flushed, but her eyes
were bright and determined. The very air around her seemed to shimmer and crackle.

On instinct, the soldiers closest to her stepped back.

The women and children had an opposite reaction, smiling and stepping forward. “Here is our
champion,” one of the women muttered. “She sees our worth, even if you packers of pricks fail to do so
as usual.”

And indeed, Lygnel’s not-to-be-brooked expression insisted that she never would dismiss a willing
fighter and leave the men to do all the work. That was not Avalon’s way, and all the men present well
knew this.

No one spoke against her.

No one would dare, Davyd mused, taking full measure of his wild, magik bride and appreciating her at
yet greater depths. Why would any man want a weak, simpering ornament when he could have this…this
vision of strength, power, and the finest earthen beauty?

Lygnel studied the women and children with avid eyes, as if recognizing them from some distant dream.
Then she turned to Davyd. “We will need tools. Daggers, hammers—anything that will cut rope or
challenge wood.”

He gave her a small bow, risking only a quiet, “Aye.”

Chapter 10

The forest seemed to watch as Lygnel led her unlikely band of brigands down well-used paths toward
the docks. Her freshly-renewed fey senses nearly overwhelmed her, bringing her each bird’s chirp and
mouse’s squeak. She heard the flap of a hawk’s wings as it hunted, and the churlish snuffles of sleeping
boars. More ominously, and thank the Goddess still yet from a distance, came a rumble that could only
be the hooves of hundreds of horses, bearing an army toward Dore.

In the pit of Lygnel’s belly, a mountain of ice formed to lurch and stab at her insides. The source of the
inner freeze could not be denied, and it was the very woods around her. The forest held the imprint of an
evil, a darkness so bitter and cold she could barely stand it. She relished each streak of sun, each clearing
allowing fresh light and air. What Mordred had got up to in this place, Lygnel didn’t even want to know.
No doubt the wicked stain, coupled with the pain of Nimue’s betrayal and the loss of all whom she
loved, had conspired to keep Lygnel weak and too full of doubt to use her magik.

Well, no more. She had Davyd now, and soon, she would see Ysbet again. In time, fate willing, she
would regain Avalon and perhaps see Merlyn and even her twin Gwenhwyfar, if Gwen yet lived.

Bertram moved like a shadow at her side. They each carried swords at their waists and a dagger in both
hands. The fifteen women and three very elderly men with them also wore sword belts and wielded
knives rounded up from hut and arsenal. A few had kitchen cleavers. The children, about twenty in all,
had smaller knives and hammers, and instructions to stay to the center of the group. Four of the younger
boys carried hand-hewn training bows, and tiny quivers bore equally tiny training arrows. Toys, those,
and little use they would be beyond stinging, but these children would fight only if forced by the failure of
their elders—and if Lygnel, Bertram, and the elders failed, there would be little hope for the smaller
fighters.

Ahead of them, down the path and beyond the oppressive yet safety-giving cover of the trees, waited
the docks where Grakor’s ships stood ready for boarding, no doubt primed to sail on Prator by an
unknown number of stewards. Lygnel heard the lap of waves against rounded wood, counting five and
then six vessels, and even sensing how far apart they were moored. Once more, she felt the thrill of her
many visions about these ships and what was about to befall them. All the fighting men in Briton could not
harm Ysbet if they had no means of crossing to the small island where she hid.

With a quiet raising of one dagger, Lygnel brought the party to a halt just before they would have spilled
into the open.

Bertram edged forward and peered across the rock and driftwood, toward Dore’s long docks. Small
boats were lashed to the boards, and beyond that, rowing distance beyond the shallow depths, six great
warships waited.

“Our first hurdle will be the dock soldiers,” he murmured. “I don’t know how many—”

“Nine,” Lygnel said, distracted by the additional heartbeats of small mammals nearby, but doing her best

to hone her perceptions. “The rest are on the ships, or back at the castle, sleeping off festivities.”

Some of the children giggled, and a brief horror seized Lygnel at their age.

Am I a monster or a fool, to lead these babes into battle?

And yet on Avalon, when threat arose, all hands capable of picking up a weapon and all minds able to
cast a spell answered the call. Such single-hearted purpose lent the island a unity and a fearsomeness not
yet equaled in the world of man. Still, Lygnel felt more responsibility than ever before.

Her magik was yet unreliable, even if Merlyn had helped restore her confidence and renew her
connection to Avalon. How could she have thought that connection broken? It could never be severed,
she knew that now. The love for her home, of her home—it was like Davyd’s love for her and hers for
him, natural and filling and complete.

Nevertheless, Lygnel was too jaded by the years to believe in perfection and instant success. What if she
cast a spell that fizzled to naught at the wrong moment? All the fluids in her body seemed to dry, leaving
her to hack and struggle for breath.

“Lady?” Bertram’s young eyes, so like his father’s, bored into her. Lygnel felt the gentle pressure of his
hand on her arm.

“We cannot—will not—take on this fight like heavy-handed knights,” Lygnel gasped, her words barely
rising over the rasp of the surf. “Brute strength will not avail us. We must use wit over muscle, and
intelligence over might.”

“Treachery, more like,” said a girl of about twelve. She smiled as her mother smoothed her red curls.
“My father says women fight by stealth and treachery.”

Lygnel felt the warmth of humor, and knew she was smiling, despite all odds. “Indeed. And there is no
shame in stealth and treachery. Are we agreed?”

Everyone nodded, even Bertram, though his grim expression told Lygnel he considered himself the only
sane and responsible male in this company of innocents to be protected.

The lad would learn, and soon.

“All right.” Lygnel gestured to the docks. “You will make for the boats, no matter what you see or what
you hear. Stop only to defend your group, or the group beside you, if you are attacked by a soldier of
Dore.”

The group nodded, wide-eyed.

“Will you be using magik?” a very young woman asked. She held a toddler’s hand, and the babe, in
turn, held a small pair of shears, pointed prudently toward the ground.

Once more, Lygnel’s chest clutched, but she shoved angrily at her own reticence. Enough of this
puffery. She chastised herself in a voice that sounded stunningly like Morgain’s, or even her twin sister
Gwenhwyfar, before their chasm. I am a daughter of Avalon, and my daughter-of-the-flesh and
these people need me, not my ridiculous doubt and fear.

Screwing up her expression to one of solid determination and straightening her back and shoulders,
Lygnel met the young woman’s gaze. “Aye. I will be using magik to the best of my ability. It may work,
or it may fail, but it will not discriminate. What these soldiers see, you will see, but you must use wit and
wile to deny it, and above all, gain the rowing boats. When we’re all safely away to sea, we will
regroup.”

Everyone nodded.

“If I should fall,” Lygnel added, “follow Bertram. And if he should fall, follow the oldest, and on down,
until none are left. Do not surrender until none amongst you lives, for if you live in defeat after defying the
lord of your lands—it will be no life.”

This instruction produced grim nods, as well as expressions of pained understanding. Many of these
women knew and disdained what Lygnel had been through since Mordred’s furious return to Dore and
his subsequent defeat at Camlann. A few had suffered the same fate before being claimed by one of
Alla’s sons or their kin or sworn brothers. The lot of a woman or a child, or even an unclaimed son or
old one in this Briton after King Arthur—’twas no lot, indeed. There was no succor for clinging to the old
ways, beyond the distant hope of the light and love and fairness of Avalon and the Goddess. The
barbarians who now rode Briton’s moors and paths had forgotten the most basic tenets of decency and
respect. They had forgotten the Goddess, and the ancient belief that in times of strife, one hand, one
mind, one idea might turn a tide.

No one could say whose hand, whose mind, or whose idea, either. Lygnel knew her raiding party was
about to discover how hollow or how strongly this one truth would ring.

“On my word,” she whispered, and turned her back on the group, stretching her arms to either side and
using the daggers to help her balance them on subtle currents of air.

White heron of Avalon, if in truth you be near, now is the time to come. I could use such a
welcome sight.

But as usual, there was no answer.

Lygnel sighed.

With her extra senses, she reached across the desolate beach to the place where Grakor’s guards
congregated on the docks. The sea, barely disturbed by tiny whitecaps, glittered beneath them like a
waiting pit, and without knowing how she knew, Lygnel realized this was her best chance.

She sent forth a subtle wave of the fear she had felt in the forest, focusing it like arrows, striking the
hearts of the soldiers. She sensed rather than saw their nervous glances at the water’s surface.

Some of the children behind her whimpered, and she almost faltered. Bertram gripped her shoulder, and
the energy of Davyd in his blood strengthened her resolve. Mothers spoke sharply to their young ones,
demanding that they see the truth and shed their misgivings.

“She calls on the might of the water,” someone said, “as I’ve always taught you.”

“Aye,” said a quavering old voice. “The air, the earth, and fire. She will not harm you, nor will her magik.
Only you can harm yourself, with what you believe or deny.”

Sinking into these well-meant speeches, Lygnel delved into the minds of the men on the dock, reaching
for the things all seafaring souls might fear. Mythic creatures. Beasts of the deep.

Ripples in the sea told her the illusion was beginning, and she poured her energy into those disturbances.
Bertram kept his hand on her arm, lending her what energy he could. Someone else took her other arm,
this a strong female presence with some training in the mystic arts. Her energy rumbled like a bear’s roar,
and Lygnel’s focus tripled, then tripled again.

With an obscene bellow, something green with horrid purple tentacles rose from the shallows around the
dock. A blob for a head, rancid seaweed for teeth and a maw, and no real substance. Before her eyes
closed, Lygnel realized she could see through the damned illusion—but the soldiers did not notice this.

To a man, they screeched and flailed backwards. One fell in, to be immediately dragged under by a fat,
flopping appendage. He did not come back up, and Lygnel presumed he had struck his head on the
rocky sea floor and drowned.

Two drew swords, but the other six turned and fled, one screaming, “Demon-magik! The fey have sent
a monster to kill us all!”

The sword-fighters faltered, then dropped their weapons and clambered off the boards.

“Go!” Lygnel hissed, and the irregulars she commanded did her bidding—save for Bertram and the
woman holding her arms.

Like mad ants, the children and women and old folk toddled and ran and hobbled over the rocks,
swarming toward the boats.

It seemed to take them seconds and yet a day.

Sweat broke across Lygnel’s brow.

The soldiers who had fled their posts re-emerged from the trees as they saw mere children disregarding
the illusion to board and hack free the rowboats.

“It’s a trick!” a man yelled. “An illusion. I can see the docks through the beast!”

His seven fellows did not seem inclined to believe him as yet, but Lygnel knew the time had come to
resort to arms. As the last of the group made it aboard a row boat and set themselves free on the waves,
she dropped the illusion, sagging into the grip of Bertram and the woman, who quietly told Lygnel that her
name was Jallad.

“Come quickly,” she instructed, gathering herself. “There is yet one boat, and armed men heading to
take it in pursuit of the others.”

Across the sea came the unwelcome feel of waking minds, accelerating heart beats—the soldiers
guarding the boats, waking to the chaos of the shore.

“We may die here and now,” Bertram said under his breath as they rushed forward, swords drawn,
daggers in their waistbands and free hands.

“So be it,” Jallad growled, sounding twice as mean as any knight Lygnel had ever known. By the

golden-black caste of the woman’s skin and the bright ebony of her eyes, Lygnel wondered if she might
have some of Allad’s blood, as did the mighty Carallad killed at Camlann by Arthur’s side, or the fabled
Nallad, who vanished soon after from Dore’s shores, rumored to be seeking the spawn of Mordred, to
protect or kill the babe—no one knew.

For one step, she feared the woman, as the loyalty of Allad’s offspring often lay with strength rather than
rightness of purpose. After another step, Lygnel shed the doubt. It did not matter, after all. Jallad would
fight as she chose, and if indeed her blood ran back to Allad, woe be any fool who struck her down.

Allad the Dark was the most reclusive of the ancients at Avalon, but also the most fearsome if enraged.

One hand, one mind, one idea…

Bertram was the first to meet blade to blade, fending off two guards at one time. Jarrad struck next,
running a man through with a scream that might have terrified a rabid boar.

Lygnel cast a sudden glamour of invisibility and ducked, causing the two unarmed men and the two with
swords charging her to overshoot, slamming into each other. They crashed to the ground, lashing and
punching and slashing at each other.

The eighth man charged toward her even as she stood, let go the glamour, and stepped to the side. With
horror, she realized he would strike her in mere seconds. And then he stumbled, cried out, and fell hard
at her feet. His sword clattered across rock, and as she bent to snatch it up, she saw two small arrows,
one in each leg, protruding from his breeches.

When she looked up, two youths were standing at the bow of a rowing boat brought back close to
shore, hands raised, shouting with triumph.

“Go!” Lygnel shouted, waiving back to them. “Get a distance from the beach!”

The women rowing obliged, but not before the children nocked another two arrows and let fly at the
rabble getting to their feet behind Lygnel.

As the shafts whizzed by, she thought she smelled something unusual, a tangy, bitter odor—and
realization struck her with the force of a full-sized arrow.

The little trainers had been dipped and tipped with something brewed and kept for such an occasion.
Alternating snores and wretches from the three men who had received the otherwise minor stabs
confirmed this suspicion.

“Sorcery!” cried one of the two soldiers left conscious around her.

Determination and old knowledge, Lygnel wanted to counter, but fighting two armed knights took her
voice straight from her throat.

Bertram still battled at least one man from the sound of metal and metal behind her, and Jallad rushed up
to stand next to Lygnel, bloody blade dripping.

The two knights, pale with surprise and disbelief, couldn’t seem to decide whether to laugh, fight, or run
for their lives. They took hesitant steps forward, and Jallad didn’t wait. She raised her eerie keen again
and lunged forward, catching the nearest knight with the ragged tip of her sword, just below his ribs.

His eyes widened, and battle senses took over. Swinging, shouting, he staggered back, freed himself,
then charged.

Lygnel held up her sword, but she was no match for the blow her combatant dealt. Her blade sailed
from her grip, and her fingers felt near crippled from the force of the impact that tore it from her hands.
Her arms went numb to the elbows, and she barely dived to the beach beneath the next sweeping blow
the soldier offered.

Relying on instinct and training so distant she barely recalled it, Lygnel rolled to her back and kicked up,
landing a blow to the man’s groin. With definite malice, she drove her foot hard into her target.

Her attacker shrieked, but did not fall.

Wrong angle. Not hard enough. Damn!

With a settling dread, Lygnel struggled to sit up despite rocks holding her robes, pinning her to the shore.
She realized this would likely be her last mistake in life. Her thoughts flashed to Davyd, and the bitter
anguish of never seeing him again.

The soldier bellowed and stood over her, blade raised, poised to run her through.

“Think better of it,” said a cool voice with enough power that Lygnel felt a roil of nausea.

The soldier holding the blade hesitated, then screamed and flung his sword away. Before he could so
much as move another inch, he burst into flames and burned to ash too quickly to even give off a smell.

Two shouts from nearby told Lygnel that the other attackers had met similar fate.

As she struggled to her feet, simultaneously sickened and relieved, she came face to face with a tall, thin
man in red robes, his lanky form nearly covered in intertwined gold jewelry so finely wrought it might
have been tattoos. His skin had the dark and weathered look of a farmer, but Lygnel knew it was
seasoned by the forge in which he labored, day in and day out. His eyes were obsidian and unreadable,
as was his stern and ageless countenance.

To Lygnel, he said nothing.

To Jallad, who had lowered her gore-spattered weapon in shock, he said, “You do not know me. Drop
your defenses for no man ‘til he proves for certain to be friend instead of foe. Beyond that, you fought
passing well.”

He flung his arms above his head, and before their eyes, became a shrieking spout made of flame and
molten gold. Twirling, agitating pebbles and foam, he headed out across the waves.

“Don’t hurt the children!” Lygnel called in panic. “Leave be the innocents and your allies!”

And where might I find innocents or true allies in this world?

The ancient’s bass bellow shook ground and sea alike, stirring up waves that bypassed the smaller boats
but crashed against the six warships out past the surf-break.

Lygnel saw men leaping into the sea in terror. Some knelt and appeared to pray. Others who stood on
deck burst into flames as the fire spout passed.

“Who is he?” Jallad stammered. “What is he?”

“Not to be indelicate, but that would be your father.” Lygnel heard the sound of her own words, but
they sounded unreal, as did Jallad’s choked groan of shock and denial. “Allad the Dark, of Avalon. I did
not know you were unaware.”

“Goddess damn that showoff,” said a woman’s resonant voice, and Lygnel whirled toward the docks to
see Morgain perched in the remaining rowboat, wings resplendent in the sun and reflected surf. Bertram
stood beside her on the boards, frozen in the act of climbing into the small craft. “Fathering children every
which place, scaring them half to death when he chooses. Don’t mind him. He only bites the truly wicked
at heart. Unlike this one here.” She nodded toward Bertram. “Well? Don’t just stand there. Come
aboard! I grow weary of holding this boat in place.”

Wordless, Lygnel and Jallad hurried up the boards, bypassed the stone-struck Bertram, and stepped
into the craft.

“This lad would have left you here before the battle was finished, trying to be noble and spare you
further combat on yon ships,” Morgain explained. She pumped her wings once, as if to underline her own
annoyance. “He planned to come back for you once the boats had been destroyed or secured. Men. I
shall never understand them, be they ancient, fey, or human.”

She released Bertram from her spell with a flick of her delicate wrist, and the lad literally fell into the
small craft, swearing as he tried to sit up despite his sword sticking beneath a rowing bench.

Stirrings in the nearby waves caught Lygnel’s attention, and she felt prickles on the back of her neck. No
ancient moved in the water so skillfully. That figure, seeming a porpoise but emanating far more power, it
could only be—

“Nimue,” Morgain grumbled. Her green-gold eyes seemed uncharacteristically dim, and ringed with red
as if she had cried many hours. “Goddess damn! Am I to have no peace or fun this day?”

Before anyone could respond, she rose, spread her glittering wings, lifted into the air, and plunged into
the waves. Lygnel discerned her lithe form, streaking to intercept Nimue, whose purpose none among
them could have the slightest guess.

“Row,” she urged Bertram, helping Jallad drag him to sitting beside an oar. “Hurry. I fear the ancients
have battles of their own to attend. And if you ever again attempt to spare me from combat without my
asking, I shall unman you without ceremony.”

“Aye,” Jallad growled. “And I will hold you down for her purpose.”

Bertram rowed like mad, leaving Lygnel in silence to guess the distance of the still-approaching hooves
and army. She beckoned to the other boats, worrying after Davyd and those who remained on shore
with her husband, and she couldn’t help but wonder how many of the remaining heartbeats on and
around the war ships meant them fealty or treachery.

Surely Allad the Dark would leave no threat to the kin he had so brutally defended. Unless—were these
men so bleak and wicked that they could hide their true heart from an ancient?

Like Mordred? If indeed he hid his purpose from Nimue. She glanced back at the frothing waves
concealing the Lady of the Lake. Though my heart hates to admit it, I think Nimue knew everything,
all along.

She shivered hard at the thought.

Overhead, the skies grew dark too, too quickly, and a chilled wind blew in from the direction of spewing
water where Nimue and Morgain met.

* * * * *

The trees of Dore’s north forest seemed like sentinels, pressing hard on Davyd’s nerves. Light,
sound—everything was muffled, which could work to their benefit or detriment, depending on the
moment. As afternoon wore toward evening, he nervously paced the lines, giving instructions and fighting
mightily not to obsess about Lygnel. He feared his days of being a single-minded warrior able to absorb
himself in purpose had come to an end, for his mind stayed ever in two places—with his men, and with
his woman, wherever she was.

He hoped by now Lygnel had boarded a warship and smote it useless with her young charges, but he
knew he might be indulging in foolish dreams. To imagine a pack of women, children, and elders barely
able to walk without staff or cane capable of damaging or sinking such vessels as the remaining fleet of
Dore, it was almost too much to hope.

And yet, he sensed the workings of magik nearby. He could smell it in the over-still air like a tart
undercurrent, and it made him nervous. Would it be Lygnel, creating illusion to see her charges safely to
their destructive tasks? Or fey or ancients, come to interfere? He was but a mile or less away, yet the
distance seemed immeasurable.

Sometimes the arrogant ancient devyls mean to help and still interfere, he bitterly considered,
wiping the sweat from his brow with one cloaked arm.

No matter, he supposed. There was naught he could do but carry out the plans hastily made with Alla’s
sons, their friends and relatives.

Their ragtag bunch, now counted at forty-three heads and self-deemed Arthur’s Men like their brothers
at Chapel Down, had considered and discarded the idea of poisoning Grakor’s soldiers and horses when
they rode in for dinner and stabling. This would have necessitated slaying or disabling the cooks and
grooms, always the great neutrals in any war, having one duty no matter who they served. Such actions
seemed too extreme, even to the most militant among them.

The plan might have proven effective, but it offended everyone’s ethics. No doubt such perfidy would
have doomed their cause, as it had doomed that of Dore’s most wicked lord. Breaching common
decency had been Mordred’s bailiwick. The Black Prince thought nothing of feeding travelers and guests
poisoned food, slaying innocent mounts and beasts of burden, hunting or making hostages of weary
warriors simply looking for a meal and the route home—even sending properly wedded wives to the
beds of other men. Goddess damn the bastard forever for blighting Briton with his hateful presence! And
Goddess grant such dearths of human conduct had perished forever with Mordred on the blood-soaked
fields of Camlann.

Davyd sighed, studying his feverishly working crew. They were men, all of them, and not women and
children needing to rely on trickery and magik. They were warriors, come to challenge the rightful heir of
Dore on his own lands, and they would do so with honor in the eyes of the Goddess or not at all. First,
they would petition and give Grakor alternatives to his cruel vengeance against Ysbet, the rightful heir to
King Arthur’s legacy.

Then, if the blackheart refused their offer of peace, they would act.

“There.” Davyd deftly directed a fellow who was chopping one of the mighty oaks in the wrong
direction. The young man, Alla’s middle son, moved to the correct spot and began his frenzied hacking
anew. Ropes had already been slung from a dozen or more beautiful but now fatally damaged specimens,
secured firm to the ground with spikes. A bad wind could muck the whole scheme, but Davyd hoped for
the best.

The riders would no doubt approach Dore from this wide path, funneling down to three and four
abreast. If Lygnel had guessed the numbers right, the lead horses and riders should reach the forest’s
front edge around the time the back riders and mounts entered the trees. The brush alongside the path
was thick to impenetrable, especially for horse and rider, as was intended to defend them from ambush.

From human and beast, aye, but not from the trees themselves. Davyd held a wild hope that he
would not have to spring this trap he set. It might work grandly, or not at all, or something in between. If
the watch at Dore were roused and the Home Guard, such as they were, joined the fray, there would be
no redemption for this small contingent of Arthur’s Men.

As it was, many would die, and likely most of those his own soldiers. Even himself.

Would Lygnel sense my death and take the others on to Prator? She could at least persuade Ysbet
and a precious few to board the vessel and sail to other shores. That might delay the inevitable.

With a clutch in his chest, he wondered if he would sense Lygnel falling to wounds, or possibly worse,
into enemy hands. The thought of surviving the day only to lose his true love again nearly ripped his heart
straight through.

His fists clenched, and he blew out a long, tense breath. He wouldn’t fail Lygnel, and he wouldn’t lose
her, and more than that, he would find a way to protect Ysbet and all the sacrifices she represented.

Davyd pulled the folds of Merlyn’s cloak tight against him. Alla’s sons had loaned him a proper jerkin
and some stouter boots, as well as a clean pair of breeches. The cloak still gave him an unassailable air, it
was so obviously fey in design. Grakor was said to hate and fear the fey. Davyd hoped the fear won out
when he confronted the man—however unlikely with an army of mercenaries behind him.

Thunder rumbled from the direction of the coast.

“Damnation!” Davyd whirled about, fearing the worst—a storm from the sea to topple his hard-wrought
traps before their time!

But he saw no approaching cloud, only a line of darkness in the distance, like an unmoving nightfall.

“Sorcery, that,” said Alla’s eldest. James, covered with sweat and grime and woodchips, still clinging
hard to his double-headed axe, stared at the squall out over the sea.

Davyd grunted. “I have half a hope Avalon will stay clear of this, and half a hope Avalon will settle it.”

“The fey won’t strand Lady Lygnel.” James lowered his axe. “I won’t believe that, even of such a
heartless lot as the fey. The ancients at least must come to her aid. She’s more than paid her dues at the
hands of Dore’s stewards and kings.”

Biting back a comment twice as black as the sea-storm, Davyd glanced down the long path. “How are
the back ranks coming?”

“Slower. I’ve got the youngest ones at the path’s start, hoping we’ll have more time with them after the
vanguard passes.”

On the horizon beyond the forest, a great cloud of dust billowed high to rival the darkness over the sea.
A barely-perceptible rumble announced the coming of a legion of horses.

“I think we’re out of time on all accounts,” Davyd murmured. He turned, drew himself up, and gave a
whistle loud enough to send James ducking and covering his ears.

The chopping stopped.

Davyd imagined the message passing up and down the tree lines, and men and boys hurriedly finishing
what they could before taking to the branches and brush with axes and bows at the ready.

He took his position behind the cover of several hawthorns, deliberately felled to block the progress of
the onrushing army. They would have slowed to trots and walks by the time they reached him, and his
appearance would be calculated to halt them altogether.

One man against an army. Davyd shook his head, feeling his side braids tangle against his hood. With
any luck, they would hear what he had to say before riddling him with arrows or sending swordsmen to
dispatch him to the land of the dead.

Out over the sea, lightning flashed. Davyd felt another disturbance in the air, closer and more pressing,
and somehow knew the first of Grakor’s horsemen had entered the forest.

He imagined the young men and boys on the back flanks of the path, and mentally urged them to be as
still as stone, to hold, to maintain themselves like the seasoned fighting men they weren’t. Reflexively, he
rubbed the hilt of his sword and took a slow breath. The pungent loam of the forest filled his lungs, and
he felt a hint of afternoon light slanting down to warm his cheeks.

The world seemed suspended between real and unreal.

My love, came Lygnel’s voice, wending through his many thoughts. She sounded tense and threatened,
but somehow in complete control.

My heart, he answered, pouring the fullness of his adoration into the single response in case she could
hear him, on the small chance that her voice was more than a fancy of his desperate wishes to know she
was safe.

For a few long seconds, he gloried in the sensation of his bride beside him in spirit. If he closed his eyes,
he had no doubt he could reach out and pull her to him, feel her softness and warmth—but no. Not now,

and perhaps never again.

Grief mingled with wrath at the approaching lord of Castle Dore, who was causing such wrenching pain!

Focus, Davyd admonished himself as if he were Merlyn, stalking through his own thoughts. The
presence that was Lygnel gave a burst of warmth, then slowly lifted and winged away from him.

Yes, my sweet love, we’ve our own battles to fight this day. May both of us make it back to Ysbet,
and if not both, then one.

The hoof beats on the forest path drew nearer. From behind a mighty rowan, James nodded at him, and
he nodded back.

Davyd waited, feeling the pressure of his own held air build and build until his lungs neared explosion. He
managed to eke out a breath and hold another, and still, he waited.

The horses drew closer and closer. No vanguard, Davyd could tell. The army rode in tight formation,
and as he figured, they had entered Dore’s woods by threes and fours. Standard bearers would be first,
and then, if Lygnel’s visions were true, Grakor himself, arrogantly heading the swiftly moving column.

Rough curses broke out. They had seen the fallen trees and took them for Bealtuinn mischief. Grakor’s
voice rang out, ordering men forward to clear a path even as he halted the army’s progress a few yards
from the hawthorns where Davyd hid.

The moment had come.

Davyd gripped a stout limb and used it to swing up on a sizeable trunk. The splintered bark gave him
good footing, and he hoped he still looked the part of Jack in the Green.

Grakor’s standard bearers and advancing men called out in alarm, and Davyd heard the swift clank of
swords leaving scabbards, along with the sure click and hum of bows being strung.

He took little comfort in the fact that some of those bows belonged to his men, still hidden deep in the
foliage, both high and low.

Chancing a look, Davyd saw Grakor urge his horse to the front of the line. His red locks were matted to
his head from the rage of his ride, and his fine colors were soaked through with sweat. His sword in one
hand and his reins in the other, he forced his sagging, panting mount to a position not three lengths of the
blade from where Davyd stood level with him on the fallen tree. His expression shifted from curiosity to
fury to fear, then back to a sullen, tired anger.

“Who are you, there in the fey cloak?” he demanded. “And what do you want?”

Behind him, as his question was translated down his ranks, the horsed rabble grumbled and shifted in
their saddles. These were foreign men, Hun mercenaries and outlaws at best, and the scum of tribes and
nations at worst. They were not, however, true believers in anything, and mention of the fey caused
derisive snorts and some taunting laughter.

Davyd reached up and pushed his hood from his face, letting Grakor take in his features.

“I am Davyd Krell, training master of Dore under Mordred, and your servant, if you would have me.”

He forced himself into a semblance of a bow.

Grakor stiffened like a training dummy. “I saw you at Chapel Down, when my father took that hellcat
onto his ship!”

“Aye,” Davyd responded before the other man could shout to his bowmen. “I offered you no challenge,
though I commanded forces enough to repel your attack. Once more, I stand before you with no ill
intent, with only a plea to your better sense.”

A stallion bellowed in frustration somewhere near the front of the line. Davyd saw miniscule movements
in the trees as a few of Arthur’s Men startled at the unexpected sound. He refused to look full in their
direction and betray their positions, and prayed no one else had noticed the irregular flickers of leaves.

“I’m listening,” Grakor said in a voice like the scraping of jagged blades on stone.

Davyd looked his enemy in the eye and studiously kept his hand away from the hilt of his sword as he
wove the lies and truths he had practiced in his mind. “Ysbet of Prator is more than she seems. The Dark
Prince knew this years ago, when he bade me take her from these shores. He could not risk her killing,
but neither could he brook her beneath his roof.”

Grakor leaned forward, trying to seem disinterested, but clearly intent. “Aye,” he allowed. “And?”

“As Mordred knew and your father discovered, Ysbet is protected by magik greater than any man can
fight. Why, even now, the fey conspire to unseat you for your attack on her at Glastonbury Abbey.”

At this, Grakor’s standard bearers trembled noticeably. These young men were of Dore and Briton, and
might have had upbringing enough to fear Avalon’s ire. Behind them, the hired army snarled and muttered
all the louder. Grakor had become as still as grass on a windless morning, and almost as green.

“I’m a loyal man of Dore, and I beg you, learn from the folly of your forefathers and turn away from
your aims of vengeance before your men fall in defeat to fey trickery.” Davyd pressed his verbal
advantage like he might have pressed superiority in a contest of swords. “I have had years of experience
with the magik surrounding Ysbet. I will give my services in the building of your fine army, and I will help
your soldiers defend themselves from any fey tricks so long as your forces hold to Briton’s mainland.”

“And in return, for yourself?” Grakor’s voice was naught but a graveled whisper.

Davyd felt himself relax the barest of fractions. “I ask only the title I surrendered to do Mordred’s
bidding many years ago—that of training master, and the wage and privilege of that rank.”

Grakor nodded, then nudged his horse to the left of his great column of soldiers. Davyd thought he
meant to order him down from the trees, so that the soldiers could clear a path to the castle. He watched
with increasing relief as Grakor steadied his mount not an arm’s length from where Alla’s son Marc stood
fairly hugging the wide trunk of an ancient pine.

When the new lord of Dore once more leaned forward on his mount, Davyd almost leaned to hear
him—but there was no need. Grakor’s next words were clear, simple, and loud enough to be heard
through into the forest’s unnaturally quiet depths.

“Shoot him, then cut off his head.”

For a moment, no one moved, including Davyd. And then arrows flew, and Davyd leapt for his life,
falling more than diving behind the cover of the felled hawthorns.

Fiery pain tore at his shoulders and back. As he crumpled to the unforgiving earth, his mind cried out his
sorrow and regrets to Lygnel, and his lips drew together in a last feeble attempt to whistle.

Chapter 11

Lygnel faced off with a single soldier in the last ship’s hold. She stood directly beneath the opening to the
deck, yet a step back, to better her vision. Once inside the tiny room, she could smell nothing but sweat
and sour ale. The hold was hot, and stale air choked her like smothering hands. If not for slivers of light
filtering through the decking and the hatch, she wouldn’t have been able to see her challenger, much less
stalemate him.

They held their places, each out of weapon’s reach, neither certain how to proceed. Breathing hard,
almost retching from the foul stench of the eerie space, Lygnel clutched the hilt of her bloody sword in
both hands. She was considering using the blade to beat the leering expression off the face of Grakor’s
finest when Davyd’s mental shouts near overwhelmed her.

She flinched from the force of his psychic touch.

Sweet Goddess! What’s happening to him?

The urge to throw down her sword, dive into the ocean, and swim for shore nearly overpowered her. If
she could make the beach, perhaps she could find him before and—and what? Drag him from battle?
Evade rape and murder herself, despite virtually no support against an entire army?

“No,” she murmured aloud, blinking back tears. She had a fight of her own, and she’d best be paying
attention to it. There had been a few soldiers like this one on each of the five ships they had cleared.
Goddess only knew how they escaped the wrath of Allad the Dark.

Though it would be like the bastard to leave a few for us to fight, just for the challenge. No
victory easily won is honestly won, and all that honorable battle nonsense. Curses rose to her lips
as she realized that without Allad’s games, she might even now be on her way to find Davyd.

My love is angry or maybe wounded—nothing grievous, nothing permanent. It had to be that, only
that. She refused to consider any other possibility.

Smoke from the boats she and her band had left aflame drifted through the hatch and stung her eyes.
She felt stiff and crusted with seawater, soot, and gore. Above her, Bertram and Jallad locked swords
with four of Grakor’s loyals, burned and furious as they were after the ancient’s attack. The other women
and children were making their way up the riggings, taking control instead of destroying. With any luck,
this boat would be the one to take them away from Briton.

To my daughter.

“What’ll it be, bitch?” The soldier had apparently seized on some plan, because he backed away from
her, shifting his sword from hand to hand. “Want I should run you through before or after fuckin’ you
cross-eyed?”

“How original,” Lygnel muttered. “Your training master had similar ideas. He and his await you, in one of
the castle drainage holes. What if I burn you like a human torch? Would that suit your fancy?”

“If you could have burned me, you’d’a done it by now. And yer friends,” the man glanced upward,
“well, now, they be too busy to help the likes of you.”

Something in the soldier’s crazed eyes told Lygnel her sword would be of no benefit to her. This
blackheart was well aware that the other boats, and most of his fellow fighters, were naught but cinders
now. He had the look of a beast too wounded to think, and left with nothing to lose. Beyond reason.

Trouble.

As if in agreement, the man stopped shifting his sword. His rage-maddened eyes narrowed like a wild
cat, readying for pounce.

Lygnel calmed herself, centering, reaching for the energies of the world. Air, earth, water, fire—all things
natural, all things pure. If Merlyn had restored her connections to Avalon, refreshed her memories—ah,
yes. The flow of power seemed immediate and strong. The metal of the sword suddenly offended her
hands, and she threw down the blade as if it had burned her.

At this, the soldier twitched, then snarled. “I won’t be givin’ you mercy. Pick it up and do yer worst.”

“My worst is far beyond the wielding of crude weapons,” Lygnel warned as she lifted her hands. The
resonance in her voice was too great, amplified by magik. The sound startled even her, but the stubborn
lout in front of her only bowed up all the more.

“Sorcery and smoke—no match for real strength. All my life, I’ve been trained to that standard.”

“If you lay hand or blade on me, you’ll learn a new standard.” Lygnel spread her arms, casting a spell of
protection. She wasn’t at all certain what would happen when the soldier attacked her, as that would
depend on his heart and intent. Old training made her mind sing, reminding her that she must trust she
wouldn’t be harmed, that the Goddess and the benevolence of Avalon would protect her.

The man snorted his disgust, but hesitated. It was always the same. No matter how they spoke against
the old magik, Briton’s soldiers yet feared such powers.

And yet, Lygnel hesitated as well. Trusting her flesh, soul, and spirit to Avalon again—to anything or
anyone—it was almost beyond her to consider, much less accomplish. And yet if she doubted, she would
surely die for her disrespect.

In a contest such as this, only the true believer would prevail.

Grinding his teeth, the soldier tensed. Lygnel tensed with him. She sensed her spell dissipating like smoke
in a fierce sea breeze.

“I do believe,” she whispered, but without conviction. Once more the thick air choked her, and her
hands started to shake. The power she had felt receded, and the emptiness of abandonment overtook
her. Who was she kidding? She would never go home again to Avalon, never see her child, perhaps not
even Davyd…

Davyd.

The shaking in her hands steadied. The spell—was it forming itself anew?

My love. My redemption.

An image of Davyd, naked and magnificent, flooded her senses, chasing back the darkness in her spirit.

The soldier chose that moment to charge, shouting like a speared boar. His sword flashed through
streaks of light as he raised it above Lygnel’s head and brought it down hard.

Lygnel barely saw the blade coming closer, closer, as she wrapped herself in the thought of Davyd’s
love. Ysbet’s young face, just as she had seen it in the vision bowl, passed before her eyes, as did the
gleaming white and gold of Avalon’s temples. She even heard the distant, gentle laugh of Merlyn
unbound, freed once more to roam the heavens and earth.

Mere inches from contact, Grakor’s man struck an invisible barrier. He jerked backward and slammed
against the hold wall at the same moment his sword transformed into a single white heron. The rare bird,
Avalon’s friend and emblem, rose with a great flapping toward the hatch, almost blinding Lygnel as sun
played off its alabaster plumage. Its chittering cry stabbed and thrilled her ears, driving her adversary to a
paroxysm of terror. Then, in a mighty burst of feathers and wind, the heron gained open air and swept
out onto the main deck.

Heart and mind tied to the bird, Lygnel felt her senses and emotions lift into the light above. She heard
shouts of surprise and the clatter of dropped weapons. For one moment, she saw the world as the heron
must see it—stretching out to endless horizons, reaching forever in all directions, utterly free and clean
and open. In that one moment, she knew an innocent, total joy she hadn’t felt since running along
Avalon’s wind-kissed beaches. She felt whole again, and new, and strong.

Breaking away from the bird’s consciousness, she turned to the fallen soldier, intending to offer him
conciliation. Before she could speak, however, he struggled to his feet and staggered away from her.
Shouting incoherently, he threw himself up to the lip of the hatch. Like some tropical monkey, he swung
his legs upward and scrabbled out of the hold.

“Sorceress!” he finally managed, thundering across the deck. “Avalon is on this ship! Flee! Flee!”

A pronounced splash told Lygnel he had thrown himself overboard. Several other splashes echoed in
short order, followed by the cheering of tired children and exhausted women.

Bertram’s fair face appeared in the frame of the hatch. “Did you make a bird, Lady? Because we saw a
fine bird come up through here—”

“Later, my sweet boy.” Lygnel’s heart was beating harder and faster with each passing second.
Goddess, but her life was back in her own hands! She couldn’t lose it, not even the slightest piece of it.
She wanted everything, now and always, forever—and by her own blood and the blood of everyone

who had suffered or died for Avalon’s dreams, she would have it.

“Put us to sea and sail us to Davyd’s ship, as I mapped for you. We must get it aflame, then get to
shore. Something’s happened to those we left behind.”

Showing his great respect and deference, Bertram neither questioned her nor wasted a moment in
heeding her command. By the time Lygnel replaced the hold’s fallen ladder and made her way to the
deck, they were underway.

Anxious, but quelled by a determination she never thought she would feel again, Lygnel scanned the
rocky and tree-lined shore.

“Take heart,” she whispered, willing her words to carry over the waves, straight to Davyd’s waiting
ears. “Hold tight to all that we mean to each other. I’m coming, love. I’m coming.”

* * * * *

I’m coming…

Davyd heard the wind murmur in the voice of his beloved, even as he crawled through the dirt and
debris of the forest floor. He tried to stand again, stumbled, then lurched forward, bleeding from too
many punctures to count.

Around him, men shouted. Horses bellowed. Arrows flew. The copper reek of blood, fear, and rage
made his blood simmer. Battle fever powered his limbs, his mind. The bastard Grakor had tried to have
him killed, but he had leapt to safety. Merlyn’s cloak had taken the worst of those first shots.

“Where are you, you diseased spawn of a dog?” Davyd barely heard his own unsteady roar as he
struggled toward the ocean side of the trail. Here and there, he lifted a prone defender of Dore to see if it
was Grakor.

No luck. The devil-taken ass must have retreated or taken cover.

Davyd’s hands, his arms, his blade—near every inch of him bore the spatters of his wound-drunk charge
and challenges. Many had fought him. None were still standing.

Arthur’s Men seemed like green and brown ants, swarming, then disappearing to regroup, and swarming
again over the heap of fallen trees, downed horses, and flailing soldiers.

The trap had worked as perfectly as it could. At Davyd’s whistle, ropes all along the trail had been cut.
Towering trees had crashed to earth. Much of Grakor’s army had been pinned, crushed, or at least
unseated. War stallions thrashed about in branches, and Arthur’s Men were doing what they could to
free them, all the while engaging soldiers who managed to fight clear.

“Leave the rest,” Davyd ordered, directing his command at the nearest of his fellows. “To the beach.
Hurry!”

It was slow, bloody going in the mayhem. Surprise, their greatest weapon, had played itself out. They
had won the moment, but new moments were at hand. Davyd knew it was time to cut losses, pull their

dead from the fray, and run for their lives. A handful against hundreds—those odds wouldn’t be friendly
twice.

“Abandon the horses,” he instructed a youth of no more than fifteen, though he hated to say the words.
“Grakor’s bastards will see to them as much as can be done.”

To another boy, sobbing over a dead mount even as he locked swords with its rider, Davyd said, “The
horse died as he lived—a warrior. There now, leave the man be. His legs are pinned, and he won’t be
giving you trouble.”

One man at a time, one step at a time, Davyd urged himself and his meager followers through the chaos.
The treeline—almost within reach, and beyond that, the woods, and north to the beach, where Lygnel
and her charges were to meet them. His chest clenched at the thought of his love and all the many things
that might have gone wrong.

Please, by all the Gods and Goddesses ever praised, let her be well and waiting.

“Faith has no place and every place on the battlefield,” he muttered, then grunted as he stumbled over
yet another toppled horse and crushed rider. From the corner of his eye, he saw Arthur’s Men beside
him, hacking at branches and Grakor’s mercenaries. Some carried fallen comrades. Others did well to
carry themselves and splintered swords.

A horn blew from behind them, seemingly at a distance but in truth close. The hairs on Davyd’s neck
prickled, and he cursed for a full breath without stopping.

“Haste—” he began, but one of Alla’s sons, redheaded and younger in years, raised the alarm.

“The Home Guard has been roused! Grakor has reached the castle!”

At this news, many of the fallen soldiers shouted or laughed. Arthur’s Men grew twice as grim and three
times as determined to gain the woods between the onrushing reinforcements and the beach.

Almost as one, Davyd and his followers fell into the underbrush, first wading and hacking—then simply
running.

“Fly!” Davyd urged, his head spinning and light from loss of blood, the nearness of catastrophe, and the
risk to mere boys under his command. They had to move faster! “Fly! Fly!”

In only a handful of minutes, hooves thundered anew behind them. No one looked back, but Davyd
knew their thoughts as well as his own. Each envisioned the fresh-legged mounts of the Home Guard,
bedecked in armor and bearing doom in the form of seasoned soldiers armed with lances and
longswords.

Sweat stung Davyd’s eyes as he chanced a glance farther forward than his own stumbling feet. The
woods seemed endless, and yet he caught great glares of light between branches. Surely the sea could
not be too far ahead.

The thundering of hooves drew nearer.

Like a moving wall of flesh, Arthur’s Men plunged through the last stand of trees and brush. They broke
into the clear, half-blinded by the gleam of light on waves, just as Davyd sensed a lance bearing down on

his back.

Acting on instinct, he whirled and grabbed—the oldest defensive move he knew. His eyes saw but a
blur. The shock of moving wood in his hands almost toppled him, but he dropped hard to his knees,
directing the lance between his arm and torso, straight into the rocky beach. It split with a loud crack,
and a rider shouted in surprise, airborne over Davyd’s head.

The rider’s horse passed so close that foam splattered Davyd’s cheek and the beast’s tail lashed his
cheek. Almost at the same moment came the heavy thump of body hitting earth—and more swearing.

As if some command had been shouted, the other riders pulled up sharply. A horse near Davyd
narrowly averted impalement on the half of the broken lance he still held.

“Get to your feet, you dreg of a whore!” Grakor’s wounded bellow could scarcely be mistaken, and
even in his dizzy state, Davyd took some satisfaction in knowing who he had unseated.

Grinning, spilling blood and sweat like water from a bucket, he struggled up, using the piece of a lance to
support some of his weight. A little at a time, his awareness returned. As he turned to face his challenger,
he could see mounted, armed soldiers lining the beach between the rocks and the trees. Arthur’s Men
had only one choice now—the sea or certain death.

More swearing from Grakor, and Davyd managed to raise his head enough to look at his foe. The man,
not ten feet from him, looked almost as bloody as he imagined himself to be. The bastard had drawn his
sword—and in the distance, beyond the surf break, the ship Davyd had sailed to Briton was burning
brighter than a Bealtuinn bonfire.

Beside her sailed a much larger vessel, clearly peopled with women and children. A lone blond male,
larger and broader than the rest, stood at bow’s head, shading his eyes.

Bertram! My son. Davyd’s grin widened as his followers stumbled and crawled into the waves. Grakor
paid them no heed, nor did he seem to notice the lone figure standing behind him. She wore
grime-streaked blue robes, and her own blonde hair was barely visible beneath soot, grime, and spatters
of blood from untold battles.

Her bright eyes—narrowed.

Her jessed arms—raised.

Her salt-stiffened expression—unreadable.

Davyd didn’t know whether to cheer or shout with rage and worry. He wanted to cry out to Lygnel,
order her into the sea and away, safe for now at least, to Prator Castle. And yet, he didn’t dare alert
Grakor to her presence.

A quick glance left and right told Davyd that indeed, none of Grakor’s men seemed to see the strange
vision of an Avalon Adept so besmirched and furious.

They cannot see me, whispered Lygnel’s voice from some deep cavern in his mind. They cannot see
the ships. They think our men cowardly, to walk into the sea rather than face the blades at their
backs.

Davyd silently thanked the Goddess for years of contending with Merlyn, for he did not startle. He did
not so much as twitch, and neither did he betray his love by staring.

Walk into the water with them, my love. Her words sounded strong and certain.

Tensing, Davyd refused. I will not leave you.

Then you will die here, and me along with you. Now Lygnel sounded weary and irritable. You are
one man against fifty or more. Walk, or I shall scream like Nimue’s Furies!

It seemed to Davyd that Lygnel spoke with two tones: that of a woman and his lover, and that of
someone…other. Older, wiser, and infinitely more powerful.

Still, he hesitated. Walking away from combat, allowing a woman to fight his battle—trusting anyone to
fight for him—it felt impossible. Yet, his men had done so without question. Even now, they were
swimming for the waiting ship beyond.

And so, there stood Lygnel, the embodiment of impossibility. An Adept who left Avalon, now clearly
returned to the magik fold. A woman who should have been dead, scarred, or broken, now clearly
whole and vibrant. A love lost, now clearly regained, and offering him one more chance at redemption.

The spinning in his head eased, and now Davyd wanted only to go to Lygnel, take her into his arms, and
carry her into the waiting sea.

My love…

His mind reached out to hers, and like enchanted threads spun into the strongest rope, their thoughts
intertwined.

“So, will you be joining your merry fools, Jack in the Green?” Grakor’s derisive laughter punctuated his
question, startling Davyd back to his immediate peril. “Seems your fey friends have abandoned you!”

“Now, there you’d be wrong.” Davyd felt his grin turn into an easy, relaxed smile. He managed a step
toward his enemy, and then another.

Grakor menaced him, swinging his sword to and fro. “Stay back!” he commanded a few of his
advancing soldiers. “This jackal is mine.”

Half-walking, half-dragging himself on the ruined point of Grakor’s lance, Davyd hurled himself forward.
Instead of falling toward his foe, however, he leaned to the left, so that he crashed to the rocky beach
beside Lygnel.

She stepped forward, cloaking him with her, and Grakor shouted in surprise. “Where did the bastard
go? Oy, there! Do you see him?”

Whispers broke out in the ranks at the forest line.

“It’s sorcery…”

“Old magik…”

“Avalon. Could it be…?”

“Avalon? Do not mention that blighted myth within my hearing!” Grakor’s wrathful curses rained like
arrows, but Davyd ignored him. He forced himself to crawl. If he could just reach the water, his
remaining strength might take him to the waiting ship.

It is not wise to cast aspersions upon that which you do not understand. Lygnel’s mind-voice rang
like bells, blotting out Grakor’s foul spouting.

At first, Davyd thought she was speaking in only his mind again, but then he realized the soldiers had
gone silent. Rustles and scrapes told him a few were backing their horses into tree cover.

They heard her, too. She was speaking to everyone!

A moment passed, during which Davyd managed to drag himself into tidal pools, and then farther, into
the sea itself. Salt stung his wounds. He ground his teeth until his jaws locked.

“Where are you, you evil, ruined bitch?” Grakor’s hoarse noise was almost a whine now. “Show
yourself!”

Lygnel laughed, and Davyd felt a chill. He hoped she never laughed at him in such a fashion. By all the
Gods, he had a powerful urge to swim as far away from that sound as he could get. Obviously, a number
of Grakor’s faithful felt the same, because as he turned over to float on his back, Davyd saw them wheel
their mounts and bolt into the forest.

“Show yourself,” Grakor demanded again. “Lygnel of Dore, naught but a conjurer, mistress of smoke
and nothing. Do not run from the likes of her, you useless fools!”

Your father was a wiser man than you, Grakor. Lygnel’s words were positively scathing, as if years
of rage underscored each sound she uttered. Even Mordred had more sense, for he recognized the
old powers even as he tried to twist them to his own dark purpose. He paid for his disrespect. Now
you will pay for yours.

Strong hands seized Davyd’s shoulders.

“We’d best make haste,” Marc said.

“Aye,” James agreed. When Davyd looked up at him, he had gashes across both cheeks.

“Lygnel—” Davyd managed to sputter, but this only brought snorts and grunts from his helpers.

It was Marc who made the final comment. “In case you’ve failed to notice, that one can well take care
of herself.”

Protests rose and fell in Davyd’s mind, but the waves also rose and fell—and began to broil. Out of the
depths, on either side of the swimming, kicking, and gasping figures of Arthur’s Men, marched two huge
white dragons. Straight out of myth were these creatures, horned and winged and bigger than ships,
alabaster scales reflecting the surf in rainbows and shimmers. Oddly, they seemed to have a few feathers,
and instead of roars, they offered chittering cries not unlike the legendary white herons of Avalon.

On the shore, Grakor’s whines and wheezes transformed into a shrill shriek. Horses snorted and

trumpeted, and the sounds of disorderly retreat became unmistakable.

“She can take care of herself. Aye.” Davyd coughed as his battle-bloodied vision dimmed. He held onto
consciousness just long enough to see the dragon on his right open its maw and spit out a stream of
smaller palm-sized white dragons. The tiny beasts swarmed Grakor and his men, pecking and clawing
worse than a thousand wronged women.

“Goddess grant I never wind up on her surly side,” he murmured, then saw nothing but darkness.

Chapter 12

When Davyd next woke, he felt the unmistakable rhythm of the open sea. He knew he was on a large
vessel, and that the vessel was moving faster than reason would allow. The room he was in was large and
dim, lit only by two candles in wall sconces, bracketing the cabin door on his left. The bed, it was of fair
size, and middling-comfortable, no doubt of accursed Saxon design.

His body ached with even the slightest movement, but in truth, he felt less sore than he expected. He had
been bathed spotless, and his wounds had been cleaned and dressed. A few were bound with cloth
strips, and the aroma of healing herbs filled his senses.

With a grunt, he made to sit up, but gentle hands restrained him from his right.

“Be easy, my love,” Lygnel whispered. “There’s no fighting to do, at least for now.”

“Ah, Gods, woman, the sound of your voice—like music.” He turned to her, biting back a groan of pain
from the movement. In the dancing candlelight, she seemed a vision, free of her previous soot and soil,
her blonde hair like the sea itself, spilling about pillows and the sheet.

Beneath the sheet, if he didn’t miss his guess, she was as bare as nature made her. He thought he saw
her nipples jutting against the coarse fabric. Already his cock was responding, though he couldn’t fathom
how he would relieve the ache and pleasure his woman without dying in the process.

“Morning or night?” he managed, his voice husky with desire.

“Night. Everyone’s sleeping but us.” Lygnel’s voice rasped like his own, betraying her excitement.
“Those not making merry, that is.”

Davyd ran his only unblemished knuckle across her forehead. “How long have I slept?

“Hours only, but you need days.”

“What of the men—and the children, the rest of your band? How did they fare?”

“My group suffered no casualties.” Lygnel caressed his cheek, causing his gut to contract. He grinned
instead of shouting as the muscles ached and burned. “You lost two old ones, name of Thames and
Garund. Their kin carried them aboard, and we buried them as befits warriors at sea.”

“Only two.” Davyd felt amazed and deeply saddened. Two lives, when it could have been twenty—and
yet, two good men dead at Grakor’s hands.

Lygnel leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. “You fought brilliantly, my husband.”

He closed his eyes as their lips met again, savoring her soft mouth against his own. She smelled of herbs
and ocean breezes, and like everything pure and clean. His love, his wife, his life—his sorceress of
Avalon.

“Tell me, dearest,” he murmured against her neck as she wrapped him in a tender embrace. “Were those
dragons I saw attacking Dore’s heathens?”

“In theory only.” Lygnel kissed his ear and settled her warmth against him, comfort and torture all at
once. “I’m afraid they ended up hybrid dragon, heron, and sea serpent. Instead of fire, they spawned a
thousand smaller beasts, then evaporated. Magik requires…practice, and admittedly, I’ve had little these
last decades.”

Her giggle was girlish and more beautiful than songs to the Goddess. Davyd felt grateful there was no
trace of the cold, rage-filled laugh she gave before setting her beasts on Grakor. Ignoring lancing stabs of
agony, Davyd rolled to his side and took her full into his arms. She felt delicate and small, not at all like
the towering presence he’d sensed on the beach. So much power and wit, the beauty and grace of a
queen mingled with wiles of the hardest, cagiest soldier—this woman was incredible, and even more
incredible, she had chosen him to love.

“Damn the sheet between us,” he grumbled.

“You’re in no shape to do without it,” she returned. Once more, she kissed him, this time hesitantly, as if
she wished to spare him discomfort.

Davyd ran his hand over the curve of her hip. “The devyl with that. I need you.”

To his surprise, it was Lygnel who groaned. “And I you.”

She gave herself fully to the next kiss, parting her lips to welcome his tongue. For a long, sweet minute,
he forgot his aches and pains, and knew only her softness and the warmth of her mouth.

Beloved, she sighed in his thoughts, then startled and made to withdraw from his mind. We cannot do
this now. You need much healing.

As she broke away from their kiss, Davyd imagined holding her thoughts as gently as one might hold an
infant. Don’t go. You’re more than welcome here.

After Merlyn’s intrusion—

You’re no intrusion. His chest ached, but not from insult or injury. He cupped Lygnel’s face in his
hands and kissed her again, slowly, sampling the contour of her lips. I would join with you in any way
fate allows.

Warmth suffused him, and he had a sense of Lygnel sinking into all that he was, becoming one with all
that he had been and could be. Heart-deep. Soul-deep. Even into the rivers of blood that gave him life.

This is Avalon’s way, she told him, and her voice resonated through his every inch and ounce.

Something akin to battle fever gripped Davyd, and his discomforts vanished. He moved just enough to
pull the sheet out from between them, then felt the heat of her satin skin against his. His cock found
temporary sanctuary between her legs, pressed against the damp lips of her quim. Squeezing his eyes
shut, he tried to focus his mental energy and reach out to her mind, delve into her as she had so skillfully
entered him.

He had none of her grace, however. With a clumsy thrust, he blundered into her thoughts and felt her
catch him as if he were a staggering drunk. With a body-warming sigh of amusement, she directed him
like a man might direct a frightened virgin.

Here, not there. No, beloved. Relax. The first time is always most difficult.

His cheeks reddened.

Only Lygnel could reduce him to the state of an inexperienced boy—and only Lygnel could raise his
desire to similar levels. Like a buck approaching his first time, he followed her lead, sinking deeper into
her, through her—and he was there, suddenly, wonderfully, inside her though his cock remained
throbbing and as yet unsheathed.

Intoxicated by her essence, Davyd stroked her nipples. They hardened under his touch, and he had the
joy of his own excitement coupled with each bolt of pleasure she experienced.

Yes, she said, at first with gasps and recriminations about his needing to rest, and then like a prayer,
matching his strokes and pinches and the gentle rocking of the ship. He lowered his head and took one
nub in his mouth, acutely aware of the hot pebbled flesh, the light salt taste, the way his cock bowed and
bucked from the contact. Lygnel moaned and pressed his head closer, blending her pleasure with his.
Each time he nibbled, she jerked. He felt each ripple and flash, and wanted only to give her more. More.
Still more.

Moving to her other breast, he fastened his lips on the nipple, first flicking his tongue, next biting it
tenderly as she writhed and sighed in his arms. She threw her head back and thrust her breast farther into
his mouth, and it took all of his remaining control not to spill his seed between her legs.

Between…legs…

Their thoughts and desires mingled, and he eased lower, pushing her up as he went, kissing between her
breasts, down her belly, over the silky strip above her slit. His lips knew the path, and his mind knew her
every whim. A nip here, a taste there, and all the while kneading her back, then her ass, massaging with
just the right pressure.

Lygnel lay back and opened her legs, resting them on his shoulders as he continued his descent.
Following both her mental urging and the raging heat of his own desire, he buried his face in the soft hair
of her quim. She cried out and arched her back as he parted the swollen lips with his tongue, immediately
rewarded by the heady flavor of her woman’s juices.

Slowly, he tasted each fold and crease before coming to rest on the sensitive swell at the apex. Lygnel
squeezed her thighs against his head, and they sighed together as he teased her clit, flicking it, nibbling it
as he had her nipples, then finally sucking it and stroking it at the same time. His tongue alternated with
pressure from his lips, and he felt her muscles tighten. Her mind moaned his praises even as she spoke
them, moving her hips against his relentless attack.

With a cry, she melted, dissolved—or at least it felt so to him—as if all her sensation had pooled at the
point where his mouth met the ring of fire her clit had become. Once, twice, three more times he moved
his tongue against the spot, and she screamed out loud.

No sooner had the sensation finished than she wanted more. He felt her ache for his cock as if she were
missing some essential piece of her being. She imagined how he would feel, driving into her, pushing past
what she thought she could stand.

Davyd felt completely lost in his love for her, in his wish to satisfy whatever she might desire. The future,
so unstable and so uncertain, felt distant. All that mattered was the moment, Lygnel’s happiness, the fact
she was in his arms wanting him as much as he wanted her.

Surely, in all the world, there was no ecstasy greater than knowing such pleasure, in the giving or the
receiving.

My wife, he repeated finding his own prayer. My love. Mine, mine, mine…

Lygnel could barely think, much less react. The man was wounded near to death, and all she wanted
was to feel him inside her, so deep he might never extract himself.

Biting her lip hard to keep her wits, she sat up, heart pounding.

From between her legs, he gazed up at her, wild, enraptured. The joining of thought and sensation had
claimed his mind as surely as hers, but sweet Goddess the poor man was going to regret this in an hour!

“Come here,” she whispered, and he did so without question.

As he drew even with her, Lygnel urged him onto his back, kissing him as he stretched out his muscled
frame. She sat up, rubbing the well-defined ridges of his arms and chest. He was hard as a rock, every
inch of him, and bruised and cut over most of his exposed flesh. Running her hands over his scars and
new battle wounds, she instinctively knew which cuts would mark him anew, as champion and hero.

Past the sexy taper of his waist, his erection begged for her hands, her mouth. Without further hesitation,
Lygnel bent down and kissed the salt-sweet drops of fluid off the tip. She loved the way his cock felt
harder than stone, yet soft and pliable.

Davyd groaned, and she caught a forceful wave of his want, his almost drunken need, and felt it surge
through her own body.

“Lie still,” she urged. “Let me do the work, my warrior.”

You will be the death of me, woman. Even now, I’m burning to ash!

“That would be quick relief.” She captured his cock in her mouth and lowered her head, taking him
deep, to the back of her throat.

He groaned again and pushed himself upward, and she used her leverage to push him back into the
straw-stuffed mattress.

Three more times she sucked him as hard as she could, savoring his strong flavor and the drive of his
desire. He was on the edge, he couldn’t bear another moment, and neither could she.

Still pressing him down with all her strength, she lifted her head, sat up, and smiled at him.

Killing me…burning…burning…

Goddess, what a once in a lifetime experience. She straddled him slowly, holding herself just above
his straining cock. If it weren’t for a thousand injuries, you’d throw me on my back and fuck me ‘til
tomorrow.

“Aye,” Davyd growled, gripping her hips fiercely, his gaze, his maddened passion blazing into her. “And
I still might!”

Keeping her eyes on his beautifully damaged face, Lygnel brought herself down hard, taking his length in
one breath-stealing plunge.

All at once she felt the joined perfection of being filled and filling, of thrusting and receiving. His rigid
flesh felt like sun-burnished steel, plumbing her core. The walls of her quim tightened each time she slid
herself up and back down, grinding her ass against his thighs.

Not the sort of man to leave control too long in her hands, he gripped her hips harder, lifted her faster,
and slammed her back down again and again.

“Yes,” she cried, rocking even as the ship dipped and swayed. Instinctively, she leaned back, taking him
deeper still.

Thoughts and sensations still joined just as deeply, they came together, moaning as his seed flowed into
her, shouting as her quim gripped his cock and drained it.

Lygnel rode her stallion until there was no buck left, until all she could do was slide free and collapse at
his side, draping her arm across his chest to feel the comfort of his steady, even breathing.

* * * * *

At dawn, still exhausted and sore from the battles—and a night of passion—Lygnel stood on the bow of
their stolen ship and gazed westward. They would reach the islands many hours before they should,
thanks to the steady rush of fey wind in their sails.

Despite knowing she would soon see her Goddess-blessed daughter, Lygnel could muster only meager
elation. Her dreams had shown her Grakor. She had seen how he ignored his wounds and how he rallied
what was left of his rabble. And the worst of it, something that none of them could have foreseen at the
time, she had seen him take that remnant of an army out to the docks. There, they met an incoming ship

of hired soldiers, a boat that had clearly been sailing for Dore’s coast even as Grakor took the bulk of
the force by land.

The bastard was still a threat and a menace, and he would be coming. Fate and the forces of nature
would not make his trip swift, but they would have little time to prepare.

Lygnel felt more than weary of battles, treachery, and despair. Unbidden, a scene from her distant past
stole into her thoughts. She saw herself standing in Avalon’s main temple, in the chamber reserved for
petitions to the goddess. She was there with her twin Gwenhwyfar and a dozen other young Adepts.

Two men stood before the dais where Morgain and Nimue were seated. One of the men was dark,
young and vibrant. The other had fair hair and weathered skin. He was older, yes, but no less formidable
and lovely to look at. Mordred and Arthur, as they had presented themselves, petitioning the ancients to
bring peace between them.

“You shall wed kin,” Nimue had decreed, with Morgain’s apparently hard-won agreement, judging by
the winged fey’s frown. Allad was not present for the pronouncement, and oddly, neither was Merlyn.
Nimue held his staff, however, and therefore his proxy. Morgain held the sword of Allad for similar
purpose.

“By marrying sisters,” Nimue continued, “you will be joined by a second bond of blood, and by Avalon
herself. If not out of respect for each other, then out of respect for your wives will you cease your endless
hostilities.”

Both men had stepped back, heads bowed, arms clasped behind them in a gesture of acceptance.

Nimue turned her fathomless blue eyes on the Adepts. “Gwenhwyfar and Lygnel, come forward.”

Lygnel had grasped her sister’s hand. Together they moved to the front of the dais, hearts pounding as
one.

Morgain spoke next, in a tone heavy with ceremony. “Will you give yourself in marriage, in the service of
the ancients and Avalon, to these men?”

Lygnel felt words desert her, and she knew Gwen had been struck dumb by fear as well. They had been
chosen for such an honorable task! And yet so terrifying. These men were warriors, father and son—and
bitter enemies. Could such fierce killers be honorable? Could they possibly treat a bride of Avalon with
the gentility befitting her station?

“Consider carefully,” Nimue warned. “Once made, this decision cannot be unmade. You will leave
Avalon and go into the service of man and the mundane world.”

“You will bring honor to your people and hope to many,” Morgain added, “but the price is high for you.”

It had been Lygnel who found the courage to speak first, all the while wondering at Merlyn’s absence.
Merlyn was always present for affairs related to King Arthur. Why now would he desert the temple? She
could have used the counsel of his serene expression.

“Will these men…treat us well?” Lygnel managed to speak the old words, squeezing her sister’s hand

tightly. “Do they have good hearts, true and befitting the gifts of Avalon?”

At that, Nimue’s eyes had narrowed. Morgain’s expression didn’t change, and she seemed to be
awaiting the ritual answer.

With one word, Nimue then betrayed Merlyn, Nimue, Gwenhwyfar, Arthur, Avalon, and the world of
man.

“Yes,” said the Lady of the Lake, in tones too firm to argue. “Yes.”

Lygnel drifted back to the present, stung by the old pain. She had given herself up to good cause, as had
Gwenhwyfar, neither knowing how Mordred would tear them in two—how he would tear all things
asunder. Merlyn had guaranteed the line of King Arthur, but Merlyn had been trapped by Nimue only
hours before that fateful temple meeting. Nimue later swore it was for the world’s good, that Merlyn had
been blinded by his love of men, of Arthur, losing a grip on the larger picture and the greater good.

Morgain and Allad had been furious, but they could do nothing. The affairs between two ancients were
between those two alone, and no ancient could contravene another’s magik. To this day, Lygnel could
not determine if Nimue was confused, misguided, insane—or indeed evil, or allied with evil. Such a thing
seemed impossible, for an ancient to turn to darkness. Mayhap she had been tricked, the Lady of the
Lake. Or perhaps her tendency to see past, present and future had placed too great a burden on her
mind.

Lygnel didn’t hate Nimue, but she despised having dealings with her now, even out of necessity.
Lyngel’s one goal, past securing her daughter and husband, had become returning to Avalon to see
Merlyn, and perhaps mending her relationship with Gwen, wherever her twin might be. It seemed time for
Avalon to confess her secrets and mistakes, her treacheries and triumphs. It seemed time for healing and
resolution, once and for all.

Heavy arms encircled her from behind, and she startled.

“Davyd! You have no business out of bed.”

He nuzzled her neck, sending thrills of pleasure up and down her body. “I couldn’t have you watching
the sunrise without me. Besides—what wicked nightmares you had, woman! I was almost quaking to
stay in that bed alone.”

His teasing-earnest tone told her he knew the dreams for the visions they were. Once a connection was
forged in love and honor between an Avalon Adept and her true love, it would not be severed or
silenced. From now on, her husband would share her worries and concerns, her joy and her pain, and
even bits of her magik knowledge—for better or for worse, until death took them on separate journeys.

At the moment, he was sharing some of her health and strength, or he would not be standing at all. She
didn’t mind. She would give him her very breath if he needed it.

“You’re not making this wind,” he added absently, and she felt him fishing through her thoughts.

She sensed his question and answered before he asked. “It’s not Morgain or Merlyn’s ghost or
consciousness, or whatever part of him borrowed your mind. And it’s not Allad the Dark, nor the

daughter of Allad’s currently aboard. All of Avalon seems…preoccupied. Something’s happened, though
I couldn’t say what.”

Silence ensued, but for the incessant hum of the breeze. Davyd held her closer as the answer formed,
first in her mind and then in his.

“Nimue,” they said together.

“While I was sleeping, you struck a bargain with the Lady of the Lake, the witch of the waters.”
Davyd’s voice trailed away in a sigh. He kissed the top of Lygnel’s head, and she snuggled into his
embrace, thanking the universe for each second she had in his arms. “She’s…not all together stable, is
she?”

“No.” Lygnel couldn’t bring herself to say more. Somehow it seemed wrong, or disrespectful. Besides,
Nimue might hear her and break their agreement.

“And there will be a price.”

“Yes. Always.” Lygnel tucked her head under Davyd’s chin. The man felt like a human shield, blocking
all that might harm her and casting a charm of protection around her daughter as well. If only that were
true, life might be easier for all involved.

“What will the price be?” Davyd’s question sounded genuine, though Lygnel suspected he already knew
there was no answer.

“If fortune favors the foolish, more than we wish to pay but less than what we couldn’t.” She laced her
fingers through his, trying hard not to think of her last agreement with Nimue. “Do you think we might
have one more miracle due?”

“Aye. Maybe even more than one.” He shifted and nipped at the hollow behind her ear, making her gasp
and shiver at the same time. “I think we’re getting fair-skilled at redemption, don’t you?”

“Goddess grant.” Lygnel couldn’t help a smile. No matter her mood, this man could lift her spirits.

For a moment, in the distance, she thought she saw sunlight reflect off the wings of a great white bird.
Was it one of Avalon’s herons or an accursed albatross? Good fortune…ill luck…who could say?

Laughing and ruffling Davyd’s mane as he once more tried to bite her neck, Lygnel let out a loud,
chittering call.

With all her heart, she believed she heard an answer, clear and shrill, drifting back across the glittering
waves.

GLOSSARY

The legend of King Arthur has been retold across many generations, in many languages, and through the
eyes of many cultures, beginning as far back in time as the 5th Century. Literature, legend, myth,
history—”Arthuriana,” or the study of Arthurian lore, comprises all of those things.

Understandably, the characters and locations vary in spelling and personality, based on the teller of the
tale, time period, and purpose for retelling. Writers take liberties. Recorders of myth and legend take
notes and notice of almost-forgotten tidbits. Historians take great pains to be accurate, though little of
Arthuriana can be “proven,” excavated, or examined.

As society’s viewpoints shifted, so, too, did Arthurian legend. Once benevolent magical deities became
wicked and evil, or simply unconcerned. Women were often disregarded, or portrayed in less than
flattering light. Sexuality became almost absent, until Marion Zimmer Bradley took up the challenge of
reawakening the ancient elements of Athuriana in The Mists of Avalon.

The Legacy of Prator draws upon these more ancient elements, including Celtic and Welch
viewpoints—and mixes in a liberal dose of little-known but fun side myths. The following glossary is
intended to help readers less familiar with Arthuriana learn the basics—both of the timeless tale itself, and
of Prator’s cast and setting. Items marked with an asterisk are actual pieces of Arthuriana, which the
reader can easily research in the many online references, and in numerous sources such as the New
Arthurian Encyclopedia, edited by Norris Lacy.

AllaServing wench at Castle Dore, brief paramour of Davyd Krell.

Allad the DarkOne of the last remaining full-blooded ancients on Avalon, guardian and teacher of the
rites of fire. Dark and temperamental, he remains mostly in his forge. He does, however, father many
children, mostly daughters, and he takes pride in their strength, fierceness, and skill in honorable combat.
He is a creation for this tale, and not a part of the original Arthurian myth.

AndrusFather of Eduard, former Captain of King Roland’s guard before a dreadful injury.

Arthur*Also spelled Artur and Arthour. Legendary King of Briton. In this tale, cousin to Roland,
possible father of Ysbet.

Arthur’s Men*A group of soldiers or “war-band” who continued Arthurian ideals after King Arthur
died.

AvalonMystical island at the center of Arthurian lore and much of Celtic mythology. Considered a
paradise and possibly an allegory of Heaven, Avalon would require a novel unto itself to describe its role
and power across the many retellings of King Arthur’s legend. It is a magik isle located somewhere to the
west of Briton, shrouded in mist and free to drift and float on the sea (so that its location may change).
Home to Morgain le Fay and other magik beings, and for this tale, also home to Merlyn, Allad the Dark,
and Nimue, as well as many halflings. Some myths hold that King Arthur was brought to Avalon to die
following the battle at Camlann.

Avalon AdeptA priest or priestess trained in the ways and magik of Avalon, a term used for this tale and
not typically part of legend.

BealtuinnBeltane, in an older spelling. The rites of spring, renewal, changing of the seasons to the
growing time and the celebration of life.

Camelot*Legendary home of Arthur and the Round table, more a feudal city than a castle.Thought to be
located near Cadbury-Camelot, close to Glastonbury (Ynnis-Witrin).

Camlann*Also spelled Camlan. The battlefield where Arthur and Mordred died. Probable location is
around Camel in Cornwall, or Somerset Cam near Cadbury-Camelot.

Castle Dore*Located in Cornwall, near Camelford on the southwest tip of Britain, and the site of
possible 5th and 6th century ruins. In this tale, the home of Mordred, the Dark Prince. Possible
birthplace of Ysbet.

CorseOne of many medieval undergarments worn by females. Tight, laced, and full-bodied, it differs
from the corset, which doesn’t come into play until around the 1300s.

EduardSon of Andrus, current Captain of King Roland’s guard.

False Gwenhwyfar*In legends, the half-sister and double for Gwenhwyfar, Arthur’s wife. Apparently
born the same night, to her father’s mistress. The False Gwenhwyfar eventually tricks Arthur into
believing she is the woman he married, at least for a time (see Lygnel).

GrakorSaxon lord, son of Onri of Dore, heir to Castle Dore and Mordred’s legacy, though not by
blood. Created for this tale, not a part of Arthurian legend.

Gwenhwyfar*Also spelled Guinevere, Guineivre, Ginerva, and many other variations. Wife of Arthur,
focus of Mordred’s obsession. In some tellings, lover of Lancelot. Gwen begins in the legends as a noble,
strong female character, but degenerates to “fallen woman” in later versions. She is mentioned in this tale,
but mostly in relation to Lygnel.

HeronThe white heron and the white swan were often used as the crest of Avalon in various myths.

HostMedieval term for army or group of soldiers.

Krell, DavydScarred but handsome Saxon training master to Arthur’s Men, who defected from
Mordred’s camp just before the flight of Arthur’s Men to the Scillies. Most of his men consider him mad,
because he hears voices.

The Lady of the

Lake*(See Nimue)

LygnelIn this tale, the wife of Mordred, the False Gwenhwyfar, and true love of Davyd Krell.

Mordred*Also spelled Modred and Medraut. Originally, Arthur’s nephew, and not necessarily his
enemy. In later tellings, Mordred evolves into the child of Arthur’s sister, who is jealous of him and
challenging for the throne and the hand of Arthur’s wife. Eventually, legends hold that Mordred is the
product of unknowing incest between Arthur and his sister Morgain (or Morgause), and that he is a villain
and a traitor. Most accounts hold that Mordred died on the battlefield of Camlann, along with Arthur,
and many tellings hold that Arthur killed Mordred, but in doing so, received his own fatal wounds.

In this tale, Mordred is a villain and the son of Arthur, though by unknowning incest with Morgause (a
separate entity from Morgain). His lust for Arthur’s wife drove him to marry a woman who looks just like
Gwenhwyfar. He ruled his subjects and his wife with a cruel hand, and forced his wife into a deceit where
she pretended to be Arthur’s wife while the real Gwen had been kidnapped (see False Gwenhwyfar,
under legends). He may be Ysbet’s father. As in most cycles, Mordred died at Camlann, by his father’s

hand, even as he attempted to take Arthur’s kingdom. His men pursued Arthur’s Men (see entry for
Arthur’s men) as they fled, but a great flood washed them into the sea at Land’s End.

Morgain le Fay*Also spelled Morgan, and in later cycles, blended with Morgause (Arthur’s half-sister,
also spelled Morgawse, Margawse). Essentially a representation of the Celtic goddesses Morrigan,
Macha, and Modron. Early tellings have Morgain the most beautiful of a set of sisters living on Avalon.
She’s a healer who can fly and shapechange, and despite her mischief, she’s known for her kind heart.
Because of the blending with Morgause in some earlier tales, some writers consider her Arthur’s sister,
or at least related to him. In later tellings, she’s powerful but her character begins to deteriorate. Some
writers portray her as a vapid mortal. Others maintain her as a disinterested diety. In later tellings, she
becomes Arthur’s lover instead of his sister (or in addition to being his sister), and the mother of
Mordred. In this tale, I remain true to Morgain’s original characterization and powers.

Myrddin*Also known as Merlin, Merlinus, Merlyn, Lailoken. Legendary wizard/magician, guardian and
counsel to King Arthur. In this tale, Myrddin is more in his ancient form, a godlike and powerful Pagan
deity. He is immortal in most tales, Prator included, though in some modern stories he lives backward in
time, knowing the future but failing to recall accurately the past—thanks to the treachery of Nimue. This
element is also used in Prator.

NalladYsbet’s African handmaiden and best friend, occasional paramour of Davyd Krell.

Nimue*In this tale and many versions of Arthuriana, the Lady of the Lake. She is known by many
names, including Vivian, Niviene, and Éviene. In most tellings, the Lady of the Lake gives Excalibur to
Arthur, then later takes it back as he’s dying. Her origins are unclear, but in most versions, she is a deity
of sorts. In this tale, she is sister to Morgain and former lover of Myrddin, who betrayed him and sealed
him in the Crystal Cave so that he could not prevent the death of Arthur. Nimue’s motives are at best
cloudy, at worst, treacherous. However, she might surprise you.

Onri of DoreSaxon leader who attempts to take Ysbet in marriage by force of threat.

PratorCamelot-in-Exile, located on the Scilly Isles.

RolandCousin to Arthur, leader of Arthur’s Men, possible father of Ysbet. King Arthur’s successor in
exile.

Scilly Isles*Also known as the Isles of Scilly, or the Sun Isles. Approximately 200 small rocky islands
off the far southwestern coast of Britain, known for mild weather and beautiful scenery. In this tale, the
Scillies are the final hiding place for Arthur’s Men, and they are hidden from/unknown to the mainlands
because of perpetual fog.

StandardFlags or colors of medieval armies.

TorPart of Glastonbury. A curious rounded hill, visible from great distance, along with the ancient ruins
on its crown. Thought, even in modern times, to be a center of great spiritual power, or a gateway to
some other (perhaps fey) realm.

TwyllianWife of Roland, possible mother of Ysbet.

Ynys-Witrin*”The Glass Island.” Glastonbury. Location of the legendary and mystical Tor, and possible
burial site of King Arthur in some legends. Other legends consider this the true location of Avalon, dating
back to a time when the land around the Tor was swampy and mostly under water. Still other legends
note Glastonbury to be the place where Arthur’s wife and, eventually, Lancelot retreated and retired,
remaining solitary ever after. Claimed by Pagans, Celts, and Christians as a holy site, it does hold the
ruins of an abbey so old that no record exists of its founding.

YsbetWoman of mysterious parentage, fair but not of the Fair Folke, heir to both Prator and King
Arthur’s legacy, and the focus of this trilogy.

* Primary Source:Lacy, Norris J. (1996): The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. New York: Garland
Publishing.