Author's Note: Hi there! Thanks for clicking in. After years of reading fanfiction, I finally got my act together and committed to writing one. It's a post-movie King Arthur tale, AU in that all of the movie knights survived. I've taken inspiration from the myth of Eros & Psyche, although it's not a direct translation of the myth into the Arthurian world. However, if you're familiar with the myth, there should definitely be some elements that you recognize!

Many thanks to homeric, who is an incredible beta (if, by any chance, you haven't read her work, go read it now, stat—my story will still be here when you get back, swearsies).

And, of course, the obligatory disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize, either from King Arthur or from mythology. I'm not making any monetary profit from this venture. This is all in good fun.

So without further ado, here goes nothing. Enjoy and thanks for reading!

Prologue

In the days when the world was younger than it is now, and mankind less divided from his natural surroundings by machinations contrived for its subjugation to his will, there was communion unthought-of today between the physical and the spiritual realms. An act of heedless human violence against nature could trigger far-flung repercussions. So it was that when one ancient lord killed his kinsman over the claim to a silver mine that gutted virgin northern soil, the land cried out against the lifeblood spilt from both human and mineral veins.

For years afterward, the murderer continued his quest to rob the land of its richness. In retribution, the spirits of the defiled land visited him in a dream, placing him and his descendants under a curse. Because the land had been robbed of its treasure, so would the family be: they would bear only sons for a time, and, when a daughter finally arrived, she must be married off to a foreigner, never to see her home or her family again, before her seventeenth birthday. If this stipulation went unheeded, all of the males in the family would be rendered sterile, effectively killing the family line.

Generations passed, and the sons of a family that had used its wealth of silver to establish dominion over all surrounding peoples took wives who bore them more sons. It was only after seven generations of sons had been born that the eighth generation, after the birth of three sons, brought forth a daughter.

When the news reached the king from the birthing room, he hardened his heart against the child. When the news reached the kingdom beyond the fortress, he readied his troops for battle. Being the one through whom the curse came to fruition allowed him no easy throne upon which to rest. His kingdom was to be maintained or destroyed in the years to come.

Chapter 1

The bleak light of a late winter sun filtered coldly through skeletal trees as a pair of feet trod softly through days-old snow, leaving muddied footprints in its path. Only birdsong from winter's hardiest tenants and the muffled cracking of twigs signaled that all wildlife had not retreated in the face of such bitter weather.

Puffs of crystallized breath preceded the young woman as she wandered along the barest hint of a path through the woods, trying to ignore the cold seeping through her warmest shoes. She paused her wandering occasionally to pick up fallen pinecones or break small boughs off of evergreen trees, adding each new acquisition to the small store she already carried in her basket.

The snow on the ground was receding, the remnant of a rare winter snowstorm the previous week. The forest's trees were thickly grouped but their current snowless and leafless state gave an impression of unusual openness. She preferred the forest in summertime, she thought absentmindedly, when leaves, underbrush, and the thrum of life surrounded her.

She walked the familiar path without much thought and didn't notice that she had passed from forest to shore until the snow turned sandy beneath her muddy feet. In the transition, she lost her footing and tripped, catching herself before she fell but scattering her basket and its contents around her on the beach.

"Lady Bethan!" She heard Alden, the guard assigned to her for the day, call out and begin to run toward her.

Bethan smiled ruefully and waved him away as she said, "I'm fine, Alden! I tripped but I don't require your assistance."

Nodding respectfully, Alden again backed away to the habitual distance he kept while supervising his charge.

Cocking her head and sighing, Bethan knelt to retrieve her basket and greens. That task accomplished, she stood and walked several more paces forward. Some distance from the water, she stopped.

Bethan closed her eyes to the whipping wind for an instant, breathing in the scent of salt and cold, the clean, clear smell of a wintry sea. When she opened them again, she set down her basket—once again full of evergreen boughs—on the sand and sat beside it, pulling her cloak more tightly around her against the cold.

It seemed to her that only a few minutes had passed before her youngest brother's voice interrupted her solitude.

"Bethan!" Cadell shouted, waving as he trotted past Alden toward her. "Bethan, Father sent me to fetch you. He says you'll catch your death of cold if you stay out here any longer."

"He wouldn't care much if I did," Bethan muttered as she stood and turned to face her brother, pushing her dark hair from her face against the wind's efforts. As her brother arrived at her side, she said, "I was just out gathering some boughs to put in my room. Everything seems so dark and dead inside in winter. I want something to remind me that spring will come again and I'm not going to be kept inside forever, like a caged animal."

Cadell smiled impishly and tweaked her nose as he replied, "Sister, everything's dark and dead outside in wintertide, too, but that doesn't stop you from wandering."

Bethan sighed and cast another glance at the crashing waves. "Here, at least, I can breathe free and be alone—well, mostly alone," she said, nodding wryly toward Alden, "with my thoughts."

Cadell stooped to pick up Bethan's basket, then offered her his arm. As they started walking back toward the forest with Alden trailing them, he said, "Have you so many thoughts that you need this vast expanse to exercise them? My, my, what are they teaching women these days?"

Snorting, Bethan withdrew her arm from his and pushed him lightly, replying, "Enough of that, Cadell. You know as well as I do that I'll be married off come summertime. Perhaps I simply wish to bid a fond farewell to the land of my youth."

"My apologies, then," Cadell offered, reaching out for her arm again. "But I do wish you'd stop wandering off. Then I wouldn't have to be out in this blasted cold searching for you."

Bethan looked up at her brother as they traversed the forest path. Birdsong filled the silence until she said quietly, "You only have to search for me because Father wants to protect me—even against winter's chill, it would seem. And Father only wants to protect me because he wants to protect himself—and you and the other men," she amended. "A daughter wouldn't be nearly so important if I weren't the key to breaking the curse, and, even now, I'm merely an obstacle to be overcome. He'll be glad to be rid of me."

"I wish I could say you were wrong," Cadell replied. A dark emotion flickered in his eyes as he returned her gaze but it quickly disappeared with a smile in its wake. "But we're almost home. Cheer up and think of all the lovely things you can do with these—" he paused and held up her basket of branches dubiously "—when you get back to your room."

Bethan laughed, then leaned up to kiss her brother's cheek. "I know you think I'm silly," she said, "and I'm sorry that you're always the one Father sends on these errands to find me."

As the pair crested a hill, a large rock edifice came into view. The fortress was old but well-maintained, and they knew it as well as any children would know the place that housed the hide-and-seek games of four young siblings. The setting winter sun cast a harsh shadow on its rigid shape, making it seem all the more imposing. Bethan shuddered for an instant, wishing she didn't have to go inside just yet.

"Well, we're here," she said abruptly, breaking the companionable silence that had accompanied the duration of their walk. "Let's go in, then, and no more of your complaints about searching in the cold to find me, for I can promise you it's nearly as cold in there as it is out here."

The siblings bid farewell to Alden as they entered the courtyard to find a flurry of activity and two unfamiliar horses being led into the stables.

"Dobbin!" Cadell hailed the stablemaster who was giving instructions to the two stableboys who led the horses.

The portly man, ruddy-faced from the cold, turned to the prince and princess, bowing politely. "Your highnesses," he began, then glanced over his shoulder to survey the progress of the stableboys before giving the royal pair his full attention and inquiring, "What can I do for you today?"

"You can tell us whence those strange horses came and why the place is busier than a beehive with what looks to be visitors at this time of year," Cadell said.

"They hail from Camelot, milord," Dobbin replied. "Two of King Arthur's knights rode in shortly before you arrived."

"King Arthur?" Bethan interrupted. "The one about whom we've heard all those tales? What business has he here? Surely Father poses no threat to his growing kingdom across the water!"

Dobbin hesitated briefly before answering, "The rapidly growing rumor tells nothing of threats, milady. Rather, it is said that they come seeking an alliance…and you."

Bethan paled despite her wind-chapped cheeks and instinctively grabbed Cadell's arm for support. "Me? They seek…" Her voice faded as she began to process this new information.

"They seek to secure an alliance with your hand in marriage as the pledge," Cadell said frankly, putting his arm around her. "Thank you, Dobbin," he said, nodding briskly before turning toward the fortress with his sister. "Come, Bethan. Let's get you inside."

Bethan, deep in thought, followed her brother as he led her inside, where he grabbed a torch to light the dark stone passageways in the growing dusk, and took her to her room. Bethan sat down on her bed while Cadell positioned the torch in the bracket on the wall and then joined her.

"Little sister," he said gently, tipping her chin up so she was looking at him, "Don't look so downcast. You knew this day was coming. You turn seventeen this summer and you knew you had to marry before then as the sacrifice to prevent the fulfillment of our family's curse."

"I know!" Bethan muttered, irritated, turning her head from his grasp and biting back the sudden sting of tears. "I know, and I know it's irrational to get upset about the inevitable—after all, I've had nearly seventeen years to prepare myself for it. But I don't want to go, Cadell. I love it here; I love the cliffs and the sea and my brothers. It's my home. And I don't want to get married, either," she finished sulkily.

Cadell laughed at that, reaching out to wipe away his sister's tears. "You don't want to get married? Bethan, you're one of the most addle-brained women I know when it comes to matters of love. You would sit with our old nursemaid around the fire for hours at night when we were little, begging her to tell just one more tale of kings and queens and knights and dragons and wars waged for love."

Bethan sniffled. "You don't know very many women," she countered sullenly, although the corners of her lips turned up in a small smile.

"There, now, that's better," Cadell replied as he smiled in return, ignoring her slight. "It will be all right, you'll see."

"But how can you know?" Bethan protested softly, wringing her hands absentmindedly in her skirts. "What if it's terribly unpleasant in Camelot? What if the man I marry is a monster, worse than the dragons in those old tales?"

"You're not even sure yet that Arthur's knights are here to take you with them," Cadell said. He raked a hand through his tawny hair and sighed. "Although they probably are: Dobbin's rumors are usually uncannily reliable. And as for your husband, we can only hope he'll be a good man. But if he's not, you will be a dutiful wife anyway."

Bethan frowned at that and opened her mouth to speak, but Cadell continued, "You were brought up for this task, Bethan, and you can't run from it now that it's staring you in the face." He reached out to hug her and kiss the top of her head. "So stop your tears, stop your questions, put on a pretty dress, and come to dinner."

He had almost reached the door to her room when Bethan said quietly, "You're right. I know you are. But I think that, somehow, I always hoped something would happen to change my fate. I hoped that, somehow, I might marry for love."

"Most people of our rank don't have that privilege, Bethan, cursed or not. Your marriage, when it happens, won't start with love, but, with any luck, you'll find it someday." Cadell smiled at his sister, lighting a candle with the torch before he took it and left to ready himself for dinner and the night ahead.

Bethan let out a heavy sigh as she stared into the silent darkness that had quickly swallowed the echo of her brother's footsteps. After a few moments, she roused herself and rose to dress for dinner. One of the maids arrived to help her dress, and, from the wooden chest at the foot of the bed, she pulled out a dark blue woolen dress for Bethan, fancy enough to be suitable for state dinners (which tonight was going to be, apparently), yet thick enough to keep the biting winter cold that seeped through the fortress' stones at bay.

After donning the gown, Bethan re-plaited her hair to hide the evidence of her windblown afternoon excursion. Briefly, she wished she had a looking glass in which she might see her reflection, but the maid assured her she had attained the desired effect. Cadell would say I'm too vain, Bethan thought, smiling to herself as she ran her hands over her hair, checking again for any stray strands. When she was satisfied with her efforts, she followed the now-torch-lit corridors down to the dining hall.

The room she entered was lit at one end by a large fireplace and additionally by several torches mounted along the stone walls. Small niches with benches carved into the wall lined one side of the room and corresponding windows looked into the central courtyard. Bethan had spent countless hours daydreaming—or, less pleasantly, sewing—on one or another of those benches. Tonight, however, the stone benches were empty, and the chairs surrounding the long, sturdy wooden table running down the center of the room were full.

Bethan curtsied to her father, who nodded in return, and then she took her seat next to Cadell.

"Slowpoke," he whispered.

"Hush," she whispered back, turning her attention to her father, who was rising to speak.

King Caerwyn was a sturdy man whose grey-bearded, careworn face spoke of years of military hardship. In the early years of his kingship, he had crushed several fledgling rebellions against his family's right to rule and had since maintained a firm grip on his domain, exerting his authority where necessary and levying taxes and tribute as a show of strength. The people of the realm, mostly farmers, lived comfortably enough under his rule but would not mourn his loss when another man took the throne. His heir, they hoped, would be less exacting.

Now, in the torchlight, Bethan had to admit that her father cut a commanding figure. He had never treated her cruelly, but neither had he been kind. To him a daughter represented weakness: sons were a sign of strength. She knew, too, that the superstitions surrounding daughters—and daughters of her family particularly—had been part of the reason her father had had to quell so many rebellions in her youth, after the death of her grandfather made him king. She thanked whatever gods there were that she had been born fourth, not first, and that her brothers had appeased her father's pride before she arrived.

Her mother had died giving birth to her and her father had never remarried; Bethan knew he would never admit it, but she suspected that he had loved her mother very much. Theirs had been an arranged marriage too, rather similar in circumstance to what she had heard of the marriage of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere of Camelot: a monarch marrying into the ruling family of a surrounding people group in order to secure his borders and expand his domain. But sometime during the course of her parents' marriage, they had fallen in love. At least, Bethan thought they had, because they seemed so pleasant together in the stories she'd managed to pester out of her brothers when she was a little girl.

The thought of marriage reminded Bethan of the knights they were entertaining, and when she began to listen to her father's words, she realized that he had finished the preliminaries of politesse and was introducing their guests.

"Tonight, we welcome Sirs Galahad and Gawain of Camelot. They come at the behest of King Arthur of Camelot." He turned to the knights. "Sirs, allow me to introduce the court."

When her turn came among her brothers and other members of court who were in attendance that night, Bethan inclined her head and smiled politely at the foreign knights. As the others were being introduced, she took the opportunity to study the visitors. Sir Gawain, who appeared to be the elder of the two—although he was by no means old—looked rather like she'd imagined a lion from the tales of her youth might look with his long, tousled blond hair. And he certainly appeared to be more at ease at a stranger's table than his companion, Sir Galahad, did. Galahad, she thought, looked nervous and twitchy, almost like a newt that would scuttle away on spindly legs at the slightest touch. She had to stifle a giggle at that thought, earning a jab in the side (and a "tell me later" look) from Cadell.

Dinner passed quickly with little comment from any of the parties present and Bethan was surprised to hear Gawain address her father as they all rose to leave the table.

"King Caerwyn, by your leave, Galahad and I would like to discuss our business with you this evening before we retire. Time is pressing; it is for that reason that we traveled from Camelot when first the winter weather allowed rather than waiting for spring. King Arthur desires that we return as soon as possible."

King Caerwyn paused, weighing for a moment his guest's request against his own desire for rest on a cold winter's evening. Finally, he nodded, beckoning the knights to follow him. To a manservant he passed on the way out of the room, he said, "Burl, bring wine to the study for me and these gentlemen." With that, he led Gawain and Galahad away from the gathering.

Bethan was just about to follow them when Cadell grabbed her arm. "Don't even think about it, little sister," he hissed in her ear so that none of their companions could hear. "It may be your future that they are discussing, but you will not eavesdrop. Not tonight."

"Why not?" she hissed back. "If it is me they're talking about, I want to know what's said firsthand. And if it's not, what's the harm in my knowing? I can be discreet."

"I don't doubt your circumspection," Cadell replied, guiding her away from the dispersing group headed toward conversation or bed. "But if you are to become a married woman, you need to stop childish habits like eavesdropping. You will be told what you need to know at the appropriate time."

Bethan pouted but complied with her brother's order. Reluctantly, she went upstairs to her bedroom, where the scent of evergreen boughs lulled her into a restless sleep.

Downstairs, in the king's study, the flames sparked and hissed in the fireplace as the three men drew ornate wooden chairs close to it for warmth.

A few minutes of silence passed, during which the king stared into the flickering flames and Gawain and Galahad exchanged glances, waiting for permission to speak. At last, King Caerwyn leaned back into his chair, and said, "Well, gentlemen, what is your mission?"

Gawain cleared his throat and clasped his hands together before he began to speak. "King Caerwyn, sovereign of these lands, we bring you a message from King Arthur of Camelot. As you may have heard, Arthur has established the kingdom of Camelot in the wake of the retreat of the Roman Empire from Britain. He has already battled the Saxons to the north, allied with the Woads, and has expanded his domain in all directions. He is a good king, well-loved by his people, but the Saxons and other tribes continue to pose a threat to his rule." Gawain paused, cleared his throat, and continued with the brunt of his message: "Arthur wishes to ally with you, King Caerwyn, in a pact of mutual peace with the promise of mutual aid should the other need it. He additionally proposes that one of his knights take the hand of your daughter in marriage as a token of this alliance."

King Caerwyn sighed. "You have heard of my family's curse?"

"We have, your highness." Gawain spoke and Galahad nodded in assent.

"So you know that she must marry before summer comes. I have heard good things about this Arthur. An alliance would not be unwelcome, and the riddance of my daughter would be most welcome. Who would be her bridegroom?"

An uncomfortable silence filled the room for a few moments before Galahad spoke up. "I'm afraid we're not at liberty to tell you that, your highness."

The king's eyes narrowed as he eyed the pair of knights suspiciously. "And why not?" he asked.

Galahad glanced at Gawain, then took a deep breath and said, "Yet again, I'm afraid we're not at liberty to reveal that information. For reasons of his own, unrelated to you or to the alliance, King Arthur has ordered that the identity of your daughter's future husband be kept a secret."

"We can assure you, however," Gawain broke in, "that the man she will marry is a well-respected knight of the realm and that she will never meet harm in his care."

"If he is of such fine stock, why can I not know who he is?" King Caerwyn persisted. When he was once again met with a polite refusal to divulge the information, he sat back in his chair and stared into the fire for several minutes. Gawain and Galahad waited anxiously in the silence marred only by the crackling fire.

"This King Arthur of yours is a strange man, to come with such a request—that I bequeath my daughter to the care of a man he refuses to make known to me." He sighed, running a hand down his beard. "But he is a clever man, too, to make such a request at my time of need. He knows I have no other offers and cannot risk keeping my daughter longer than I already have."

He stood and turned to face the knights. "Gentlemen," he said, "It seems I have no choice other than to accept your king's offer. You will take my daughter with you when you return to Britain and she will wed the knight of your king's choosing. But the marriage must be accomplished by midsummer or else the curse will come upon my family. And if we discover that your king has been false in his promise, the alliance is nullified. Do you understand, good knights?"

Galahad and Gawain stood and bowed. "We do, King Caerwyn," Gawain answered. "You have our word that all will take place as we have spoken here this night."

"Let it be so." King Caerwyn nodded, dismissing them, as Burl came to lead them to their chambers for the night.

Outside, the wind howled a wintry lullaby as the inhabitants of the fortress slept, waiting for the meager warmth of dawn.