the Western Shore

by khaleesian

979 A.D. Charles and Erik sail away to find Raven...and Sebastian of Sammelsberg learns that there are some people you just shouldn't fuck with. Sequel to 'Beloved of Ravens' and it would be essential to read that first.

The western shore

Never fault another for that which happens to many a man. No matter how wise, he may lose his wits when love comes, which renders weak Never fault another for that which happens to many a man. No matter how wise, he may lose his wits when love comes, which renders weak Never fault another for that which happens to many a man. No matter how wise, he may lose his wits when love comes, which renders weak.)

Never fault another for that which happens to many a man. No matter how wise, he may lose his wits when love comes, which renders weak.)

Charles bit his tongue to keep from yelping. He had been trying so hard to be careful, but everything was so miserably wet and horribly cold. His feet were numb. So it was almost inevitable that he slipped off Einar's sea chest on his way to the bow, managing to crush his foot, bark his shin and smack his kneecap all at once.

A drumming tattoo of light feet heralded Erik's arrival. Charles pulled himself off the inner strakes with a grimace. The Vikings pranced over their wretched boat like it was the only fixed point in the firmament, even when swells practically turned the deck into a staircase.

"That sounded like it hurt." Erik thumped down next to Charles and tugged him into a seat on the sea chest. "Let me see."

Charles hissed when Erik rolled his leggings back and pulled his shoe off. Not much blood, just a long pink scrape pointed at an already-darkening bruise. Erik sucked his teeth sympathetically and murmured down at Charles' feet while he pressed each of Charles' toes with his thumb. Nothing appeared to be broken.

Charles squinted at the top of Erik's head. "Did you just call me your poor little horse?"

"Uhm," Erik glanced up at him and thought clearly is there a correct answer? "Perhaps?"

Charles cocked his head. Erik hunched further over Charles' injured leg. "You know, like you are…valuable and attractive and…sturdy?"

"And you could ride me all night?" Charles volunteered dryly. Erik just grinned and tugged Charles' shoe back on with a delicacy he barely looked capable of. The pain was starting to soften to an ache. Erik captured both of Charles' hands in his equally-cold hands and cupped them in front of his mouth. Erik's steamy breath made Charles shiver.

"Ole's looking for you." Charles waited for Erik to pull back and stand up. But Erik seemed oddly reluctant, pressing little kisses to each of Charles' chapped knuckles. The glamour that hid Charles from the other sailors would cover Erik if he stayed close. Sometimes Erik seemed to like being invisible. It was a small boat.

Ole cast another puzzled look around the stern and Erik sighed and stood up. When Erik stepped away from Charles, Ole blinked and tugged on his beard nervously like Erik had just appeared from thin air. Erik chopped his hand left with an impatient flourish. Ole nodded and leaned gently on his rudder post.

Erik nudged Charles up onto the bow platform and pulled his cloak up around both of them. "He wants you a lot today." Charles remarked, unabashedly snuggling under Erik's arm. Finally, warmth. "I thought he was the one who knew the way."

"It's overcast." Erik didn't complain or even shiver when Charles slid both hands under his tunic. He countered by inching his hands down the sides of Charles' leggings. Einar was curled up not four feet away, snoring like a boarhound in front of a fireplace.

"I have no idea why that should be significant." Charles winced and let Erik tug him into the space between Erik's legs. He rolled his head back on Erik's shoulder. Covered with Erik's cloak, and shielded from the worst of the spray, he felt almost human again. "Maybe you could explain."

Erik sighed into Charles' hair. "I always know where north is. Even without the sun."

It took a moment for the significance of that to burst open in Charles' head. "How?"

Erik shrugged under Charles' cheek. "I don't know. I feel it."

"That's very interesting." Charles said gravely.

"You would think so." Erik snorted. He bit the top of Charles' ear, very tenderly.

"What does it feel like?" Charles continued. "Is it just…constant awareness? Does it radiate?"

Erik groaned and tightened his arms around Charles, but he did appear to be thinking. "It kind of…pulls at me."

"Like a rope?" Charles pinched the wool over Erik's thigh and tugged. "Or more like a thread?"

Erik growled wordlessly into Charles' ear and worked one hand down to Charles' crotch. "More like this." Erik gave Charles his own gentle tug.

"You're not even a little curious?" Charles tried to be strong, but Erik's breath in his ear was making it hard.

Erik cupped the hardest part and murmured, "Stop talking."

Vikings didn't ever actually sleep at sea; they napped in little piles of wool, fur and long hair, like particularly fierce puppies. Charles woke up from a deliriously seasick dream to discover that the warrior using his thigh as a pillow wasn't Erik but Gunnar Thorstenson and Gunnar was prone to drooling. Charles gave him a quick nudge and slunk down to the stern to piss and grab a dipperful of clean water. He managed not to slip and fall again. His foot and leg throbbed with each hesitant step.

Erik was leaning on the beitass, cupped in the sail like it was a hammock. He looked precariously close to the rushing water. Charles frowned at him. "I wish you wouldn't do that. You could fall in."

"Guess I could." Erik leaned over the side in a way that made Charles' stomach heave. "What would you do if I did?"

"Jump in after you." Charles folded his arms. The only way to deal with Erik when he got like this was to seem utterly unmoved by his fatalism.

"Can you even swim?" Erik grinned and tossed him a piece of salty dried venison.

Charles swallowed hard and then gamely tore off a chunk. "Well enough to drown with you."

Erik threw back his head to laugh and swung down off the sail. Gunnar sleepily asked him what was so funny and Erik called 'your face' in a jovial tone.

Erik gave Charles a squeeze as he sidled past to crouch in the stern with the impassive Ole. Charles half-heartedly smacked at Erik's wandering hand. He still felt surges of amazement and awe when Erik displayed his power, but Erik found Charles' own displays of power exciting in a very primal way.

Erik had insisted that the glamour was essential to the endeavor, since the smallest crew to man the smallest boat was a dozen men. And they never brought thralls apparently.

"Why not?" Charles had asked, frowning. Keeping a dozen people in very close proximity constantly unaware of his presence was not the kind of challenge he relished. "Is it unlucky?"

"No it's…" Erik had paused, considering. "Rude."

"Rude?" Charles wondered if he was misunderstanding something. "As in discourteous?"

Erik had nodded and gone back to scowling down at some silver pieces.

"Because you don't want to…make one thrall serve a dozen men?" Charles tried to analyze the source of the social impropriety. Surely Erik didn't mean rude to the thrall.

Erik had snorted and slapped a coin on the table with a click. "Odin's eye, think a little. Yes, you wouldn't want to make one thrall serve a dozen men. Or share a favorite thrall with a dozen men."

He had broadcast a mental picture at Charles that made Charles turn quite red even though the fire was low. "Ah, so, I guess they won't see me."

"Excellent." Erik grinned at him sharply, left off toying with the silver and pulled Charles into bed. Charles had woken the next morning with a deep red stain sucked into his shoulder, tooth marks on his neck and fingerprint bruises all over his thighs. He had thought about tartly suggesting a brand or a tattoo, but considering how Erik's eyes might glitter at the prospect, Charles held his tongue.

It had been easier than he'd expected to steal a boat and kidnap twelve Norsemen. Charles barely had to exert any control at all to make them follow Erik's lead. They were slightly troubled by the lack of other ships, but aside from Ole they were all young enough to be trusting. They were doing what they usually did. And the glamour worked well enough that Erik lost no opportunity to grope him publicly whenever the spirit moved. Not being distracted by that or the seasickness had been a test of his power.

"Land today." Erik said laconically and Ole nodded along with him. "The outer islands"

Charles felt almost weak at the knees with relief. Or maybe he was still a bit seasick.

He cast his mind Ravenward.

"So far north." Charles couldn't help but exclaim in wonder. They had run the prow of the ship right up onto the sand of this secluded bay. Charles pressed two fingers to his temple and felt for the bright core of Raven's consciousness.

"You're sure you feel her?" Erik shoved Einar out of his way. The young Viking was wandering around the deserted beach scratching his head, obviously puzzled at the lack of looting prospects.

"You don't have to push him around like that." Charles protested. Charles wrapped Einar's mind in thoughts of re-watering and re-victualing and Einar brightened and reached for his bow and a waterskin.

"Now you're defending the vikinger?" Erik sighed. "It's what he understands, Charles. Now quickly, where's your sister?"

"That way." Charles pointed. "I think two days walk, maybe three?"

"Hmmmm." Erik gave him the sharp look that meant that Erik was about to do or say something that Charles wasn't going to like. "How about instead of us both walking…" He gestured at Charles' bruised leg. "…how about just me, running?"

Charles was already shaking his head. "She wouldn't come back with you."

"She's been feeling you in her head for days." Erik argued. "And I know enough of your tongue to charm a woman, at least."

"Oh I'm sure you must have had lots of practice with that." Charles returned sarcastically. "I guess if you can't talk her round, you could always bash her over the head."

"Charles, this is rough country." Erik gestured up at the hills which did look forbidding, Charles had to acknowledge. Scrubby trees clung to sere patches of earth. This was the only bay they'd seen with sand; the rest of them had been fanged with jagged rocks. "You're already hurting; you'll just get hurt worse."

"I'm coming with you." Charles set his feet stubbornly, trying to ignore the flare of pain from his knee. He tried to keep his agitation from bleeding into the other men. He was keeping their minds so carefully blank that most of them were just staring at the surf, dazed.

"Charles." Unexpectedly, Erik swept up both of Charles' hands and placed ardent kisses on his palms. "Lille konen min, it would hurt me so much if something were to happen to you."

Charles bit his lip and narrowed his eyes. Outrage warred with affection in his chest. "Did you just call me your wee wifey, Erik?"

Erik blinked up from where he still pressed his mouth to Charles' hands. Erik tried hard, but he never really looked innocent. "Two days, I promise."

"Fine." Charles jerked his hands back peevishly. "As long as you never call me that again."

Erik just grinned his usual rakish grin and said. "Look, I'm leaving you a good karvi boat and twelve sturdy slaves." He thumped Gunnar's broad shoulder as if to illustrate just how sturdy. "It's a decent morning gift, if I do say so myself."

"Just go." Charles huffed. "Before you get yourself a headache that lasts all day."

Erik ducked in for a hard parting kiss and pressed his forehead against Charles'. "Anything happens, you know how to find me."

Erik wiggled his fingers while hitching up his quiver and donning his helmet. He had left his sword on the ship, content with an axe and a couple of short blades. Charles twisted his hands together, wishing irrationally that his gift was the ability to run all day.

"They'll keep you safe." Erik was jogging backwards as he shouted. It looked like a mile-eating pace. "I'll be back soon with the lady."

Young Vikings weren't exactly the best conversationalists, but they knew how to make a solid camp. He watched them haul a cask of ale down from the ship and gather wood for a fire. Each of them had thrust a sword in the sand in a semi-circle, like a half-made fence.

Charles amused himself by skipping smooth stones in the calmer water of the bay. The sun was high, but the breeze had an edge like a broad knife. It felt good to be on land again. He kept wanting to call out an observation or question to Erik. Charles sighed to himself as he knelt on the sand.

He closed his eyes and pressed the cold, damp tips of his fingers to his forehead. He was hesitant to vocalize thoughts to Raven, but he could make her think of him. He didn't want to scare her. With a slight effort he could see what she was seeing: high hills patched with shadows as the clouds moved over them. She was sitting on a sun-warmed rock, feeling grateful for the spring.

He had tried to explain to Erik how the mental connection worked. "It's like her head is a place. My head is the village where I live; her head is the village closest by. The way between, I know it so well, I could walk it in the dark. But they've moved the village, so the path is longer."

"But you can still find her." Erik had been doing something very complicated with two different colored disks of metal.

Charles found himself wanting to pluck them out of the air. "It took some doing, but yes." The price had been more than a few headaches. But it had felt like good pain, like muscles well-used and growing stronger.

Erik looked up at him sharply. "Because you were so close."

"She was the first person who knew me." Charles said simply. "I should have known it would take more than the sea to divide us."

Nodding, Erik looked away and his coins dipped an inch. "I guess since we have to cross that sea, it's lucky that she's the one who's easiest to find."

Charles stroked a hand over his mouth, hiding his smile. "Well, to be fair, she'd be the second-easiest to find."

"Then who…" Erik looked up and stopped. He quickly ducked his head, cleared his throat and scowled at his coins.

That was Erik's way. Punch him in the face, he would probably smile even as blood threaded between his teeth. Say something that amounted to 'your soul is my home' and he tilted his chin into something not quite a sneer.

Charles cast his mind out to Erik's and grinned. Erik's thoughts weren't unlike that of a wolf. He was focused solely on keeping aligned with Charles' directions, his eyes, feet and brain sought the path of least resistance. Erik was thinking only of the next place for each footfall, his breath shallow and even. Charles stayed with him for a long moment, feeling the pleasure of such effortless movement, such singular focus.

Charles knelt on the shore, feeling his knees dig hollows in the sand. He took a deep breath through his nose and widened his attention. He pushed his consciousness outward gently.

Out on the islands, hardscrabble minds were thinking about mutton for supper in a dialect not unlike Erik's harsh Norse. Closer in, the Painted People thought in a language Charles couldn't quickly decipher and the gist of their thoughts was supplication. They propitiated their gods more slavishly than any Christian priest, a prayer for every decision, every occurrence, every moment. Charles felt the gentle twitches of animals, and the distant hum of the crowded south. He pushed his mind out further, ignoring his damp knees and chapped fingers.

He blinked his eyes open. That felt strange.

He shut his eyes and pressed his fingers against both his temples. Somewhere out there, a singular mind hadn't droned along indifferent to his gentle touch. One mind had opened and reached like a grasping hand. Charles' eyes flew open as he gasped. He reached out again, but the moment of connection was gone. Try as he might, he couldn't find that clinging, clutching presence again.

Charles stared out at the surf, the distant haze of the horizon. He threw another stone, not bothering to skip it. He looked up at the sun which was only now overhead and wished for the hundredth time for Erik, smiling.

Charles hadn't expected that he would be able to sleep after a long, weary day of watching young sailors roughhouse and drink. But here caught between the highlands and the sea, it was exhausting just breathing the air. He'd finally settled himself between Gunnar and the fire, interrupting his doze just enough to keep it fed.

The morning dawned misty and chilly. Charles burrowed his head deep into the hood of his cloak and cupped a hand over his half-frozen nose. A light creaking drew him all the way awake. He sat up and blinked blearily at the smoking gray-orange embers. He leaned over to grab a few splinters of wood and squinted out at the bay, where their ship bobbed on the low tide.

Charles stopped and rubbed his eyes, straining to look into the dense mist. Gunnar rolled sideways and farted in harmony with his snores. The dampening curtain of gray fog seemed like it was seeping into his head.

Someone was walking along the shore toward them.

Charles scrambled to his feet and pulled his cloak straight. He struggled to focus on the solitary figure who seemed to pause at his gaze, swathed in a dark, hooded coat. Charles tried to shrug off any feeling of foreboding and took a few steps down to the beach, stretching to unkink his shoulders.

As he got closer, he kept expecting the shadowy figure to vanish. This felt like a dream, the heavy, quiet air and light shushing from the early tide. The dark figure seemed to beckon him when he hesitated until there were only a handful of steps between them.

A woman, Charles thought. An astonishingly lovely woman who didn't smile. Incongruously, she seemed to be dressed for a royal audience in a white gown under her dark coat. Charles found himself wanting to bow and then he laughed aloud. For all that she looked real, this must be a dream.

She had cocked her head in response to his laughter. She seemed to be waiting for something.

Charles felt a sudden flicker of apprehension. If she was real, there were a dozen Vikings behind him who would be anxious to ascertain just how real. He really had no business just standing here, rudely staring.

"My lady." He placed one hand on his chest and bowed. "My name is Charles Xavier, and I am at your service."

When she didn't speak, he sent out a tendril of thought to ascertain whether he was speaking to a shade or if they even shared a language. She smiled brilliantly then and said very clearly. "Yes, him."

Charles froze in astonishment when someone just appeared behind him and his last thought before a heavy blow laid him flat was ERIK!

Erik sat up and promptly bashed his head on a low-hanging branch. The vicious pain cut through any remnants of sleep. He blinked out at the tiny burn that was edged with fir trees. Mist coalesced on the tip of a leaf and dripped on the back of his neck. He shivered and gripped a hand over his axe.

He'd run until the light had been an uncertain, dusky glow and then he'd bedded down in the first place that looked like it would stay somewhat dry. He was sore now and full of uneasy dreams.

Charles had called to him. His head still rang with it.

Erik stood up and paced around the small clearing. He thought simply, Charles? Then he pictured Charles in his mind, the beach where they'd parted. He was vaguely uncomfortable. It was like someone had stripped away a pelt that had been keeping him vitally warm. He shivered again.

It was usually quiet inside his head. At the moment, it was silent.

"Charles." He spoke into the muffled dawn. At the other end of the burn, a bird chirped hesitantly.

He could feel his heart beating in his throat now. The voice in his head called out in a yell: CHARLES!

He noticed he was pacing, boxing north, west, south and east in a few tight turns. Breathing hard. He desperately wanted to run. But where?

Without Charles' guidance, he had no sense of where to find Raven. As the mist lightened and he continued to feel none of the warm, sleepy awareness that was Charles' usual presence dawning in his head, he became intensely conscious of how alone he was. He'd never been this far inland. This part of the island held nothing for his kind except spooky stories of the strange, dark folk who hadn't anything worth taking and fought like fierce animals when cornered. They were all rumored to be shape-shifters. It was no wonder that Raven had taken refuge up here.

He'd been so relieved when Charles had agreed to stay on the shore. He'd wanted Charles to stay home so desperately, safe in their fortified bay surrounded by people who knew the full measure of Erik's reputation. There was nowhere safe in the world, but Erik's chosen clan held their corner well enough. He could've left Charles at home and slept at night.

But of course, Charles wouldn't hear of it and he wouldn't even argue the point, he just leveled Erik with a steady blue gaze. And Erik wasn't a fool. There was no reward without risk and the way Charles lit up at the thought of his blue damsel made Erik want to be the one to bring her home.

Like the way one of his mates would bring a bauble back to make his woman's face glow, Erik sneered at himself. He was hopeless, helpless before the thought of Charles' pleasure. Some days it made him want to pull his hair out.

So he'd managed to quell his own need to keep Charles always within an arm's reach and left Charles on the lonely shore in the care of tractable young men who could turn into savage and bloodthirsty warriors in the blink of an eye. With a fast ship if a quick escape became necessary and enough swords and axes to hold a small army at bay.

But now, silence. Erik pulled his axe-head into an impossibly sharp disk of iron and caressed it uncertainly. He gritted his teeth against the indecision. He'd feel awfully foolish to run back empty-handed if Charles was just too momentarily distracted to reassure him.

But something told him that this wasn't the case.

It would be worth a day's run at this point just to see Charles' puzzled look. To put his hands on Charles' shoulders and squeeze him.

Erik tightened the lower laces of his fur-lined boots, stretched his toes out and rolled his shoulders a few times, preparing to run.

Of course, it was at that moment that the giant burst from the trees and attacked him.

Charles returned to consciousness in a creaking place that smelled strongly of ocean brine and wet sheep. His wrists were bound with leather thongs tight enough to be uncomfortable.

He swallowed a hot metallic mouthful of saliva and grimaced. His head was pounding and he could rub his knuckles along the swollen edge of a lump on the back of his skull.

There should be a name for this feeling, he thought, wrinkling his nose. The sensation was so wretchedly familiar. Fucking Vikings.

He blinked hard a few times, relaxed his jaw and cast his thoughts out. The consciousness around him felt odd, like glowing torches when he was accustomed to the rushlights of human minds. And there was an odd muted presence as well, life but no thought. It made Charles feel like he was itching under his skin. He was on a ship, a large ship…what Erik would have called a drekar.

He felt the sudden presence of that grasping, open-handed mind clutching his. The woman he'd seen, he realized with alarm. Her mind curled around his for a moment and it felt shocking like he'd been introduced to someone who had grabbed at his crotch instead of shaking his hand. It lasted for a moment and then a sudden blankness like the torch had been snuffed out.

Charles spat out another hot well of saliva and shook his head free of dizziness. He reached out for familiar thoughts, seeking Gunnar, Ole and the others and was dismayed to feel nothing but a sick, sluggish seizure of pain that was Gunnar's death throes. Charles had to press his fists hard against his mouth to keep from vomiting. Gunnar was blinking slowly, trying to press the silver-pink coil of his own guts back inside his belly. And Charles couldn't do a thing but brush a swift mental touch over him, stealing his pain and drifting him toward darkness.

They were all dead. Because of him.

He took a second to gather himself before reaching for Erik. Erik who was miles away and a whirlwind of frantic, white-hot anxiety, but still alive. Charles sagged back against a wooden cask almost more queasy with relief. He needed to find out what was happening, where he was and then he could allay Erik's biting fear and save himself.

Charles stretched his mind out to the brightest flame of consciousness he could feel nearby. A male presence was standing on the deck above his head and his brain was a dark fever unlike any Charles had ever sensed.

You, thought Charles grimly. Come to me.

Erik's usual experience of the Painted People was that they were…small. Among the fiercest fighters the world had seen, but typically tending to be compact and darker than their fair southern neighbors. This man, to use the term loosely, had festooned himself with the ritual paint of their tribes, but he towered easily two heads above Erik and he was broad as a wall.

And he'd launched himself at Erik without regard for any combat conventions. Erik barely got his axe up before the giant grabbed him and threw him into a tree. Erik managed to duck the heavy blow that would have followed, but it was a near thing. He lost his axe as he crouched and darted left just in time to avoid a kick.

The giant snarled in frustration. There were bones twisted in his hair and beard. Either the leg bones of a rabbit or the long bones from the back of a man's hand. He reeked with corruption; the scent made Erik glad he hadn't eaten anything yet.

Erik pulled the axe he'd dropped back to his hand and flung it at the giant's head, readying his blades. The huge man deflected the axe head with a speed that he should not have possessed. Erik hesitated for a blink and the giant shoved him hard enough to make him stagger. He barely kept his feet but he managed to make the far side of the clearing and bought himself a moment to regroup. The giant growled at him and for a moment the air seemed to shimmer.

The giant wasn't wearing a pin or any buttons or talismans, Erik noted grimly. And no one that big should be able to move that fast. Erik lengthened his blades, pulling each into two deadly shards. He was going to whip them out and take the overgrown beggar's head off at the shoulders. Typically just the sight of the metal yawning and stretching was enough to make men quiver, a second of gelatinous fear before the end.

The giant seemed barely to notice. With an odd, feline grace, the man ducked under the swooping blades to fetch Erik another dizzying blow which knocked his helmet flying.

Erik wobbled but he stayed on his feet, pulling weakly at his iron. He could not die here. Charles…

The giant looming in his vision seemed to shimmer and rustle. Erik looked straight into cat-like eyes, the woman around them a rich, gleaming blue. Unearthly. His body was momentarily too heavy, he stumbled to his knees and still those amber-yellow eyes followed him.

"Raven." His exhalation was more cough than word, but her eyes widened.

"I'll kill you, you fucking pirate." Her words didn't have any heat, which made them all the more frightening. "I don't care if you magicked up my name."

"Why don't you then?" Erik wheezed, showing his teeth. She wouldn't kill him now, he felt pretty sure. She was too curious.

"I've seen your face before." She shook her head slowly. "But I don't know you."

"Your brother sent me." Erik panted helplessly. He tried to get to his feet and swayed.

"You know my brother?" Her hands tightened and the air shimmered again. "Charles?"

"Yes." Erik swallowed and tried to stop panting. He surreptitiously pulled his blades closer. She had to feel the truth of his words; it was far too strange a story otherwise.

"How?" Those golden eyes pierced like daggers.

"He's my…"Erik coughed and scrubbed a hand over his mouth. My sun on the darkest days. My flame on the coldest nights. My slave. My lord and master. "He sent me to find you."

"You? Norsk?" She sucked the word through her nose, like the grunt of a pig. The insult almost made him grin. "Why would he send a Viking to find me? How do you speak my tongue?"

"Charles taught me." Erik felt the weight of all the whys and wherefores and his heart sank. He should have waited for Charles to stumble along beside him; he should have carried Charles. Raven's questions were going to sink him and he just didn't have time for charm or violence, not with this gaping silence in his head.

"You're not scared of me," she said unexpectedly. She'd cocked her head, birdlike.

"I'm a little scared of your big brother." Erik pulled the disk of his axe head out of the air. Raven grinned and shuddered back into her giant's form. "Nice trick."

"As yours." A quick ripple left her slim and blue again. She nodded at his blades which were twitching slightly with his breath, hovering at about shoulder height. "I always told Charles we couldn't be the only ones." She said this with distracted satisfaction, a hint of the younger sister proved right.

"He really wants to see you." Erik had imagined this differently. He had expected a sprite of a girl, not this menacing warrior woman. Maybe to Charles she seemed harmless.

It was hard to read the expression on her face. She looked down at her bare feet wistfully.

"Can you feel him?" She looked up and asked sharply. He got the sense that this was a make or break question even though her eyes gave nothing away.

"Not now." Erik looked straight into her eyes. He got the sense that Raven had nothing but contempt for deceit, perhaps because of just how easy it was for her. "I left him back on the shore, and…"

"And you're scared." Again, she sounded distracted, like she was just voicing her thoughts.

"I'm not…can you do what he does?" Erik tried to keep from snarling. He couldn't quite touch his usual hot, bright anger and without Charles' soothing presence, he felt dangerously adrift. And scared, yes, but she didn't have to say it.

"I can't read your mind. But I have eyes." She shook her head. "I've felt him for days now, but nothing since after sunrise."

He looked at her for a long moment. More amazing than her skin was the look in her eyes, it beat in his heart for a moment: kindred. He took a deep breath and she nodded at him.

Without a word, they began to run.

Charles was not expecting the man who came to his peremptory command. Having grown up with Raven, he managed not to flinch at the red skin, the tail. He'd seen something like this creature once before, a crimson drawing on the margin of a manuscript. Some exhausted monk's demon nightmare.

Both his appearance and the manner of it made the edges of Charles' wonder crackle with fear. This man was frankly amazing but Charles could sense his indifferent bloodlust. He'd killed Erik's shipmates, the men who'd been protecting Charles all unknowing. His blank, blue eyes were like moonstones, pale and empty.

This man was…not a Viking. His mind was like a deep chasm, old and wanting.

Charles steeled himself. Where am I? Where are we going?

The thoughts came back to him garbled in a strange language, he could see a ship, the beautiful woman, a hooded figure but it was all limned in darkness. A wide sandy spit that the tide covered, a long flat tongue of green land, no, an island. There was a ruin, arched windows that still had a little glass in them. Almost a fortress.

This man could be there and back in a heartbeat. He'd like to go, he doesn't like sailing. But the black bishop requires his help and he has a pretty, fecund one in the keep, holding her safe for…

"Azazel."

Charles looked up at the woman who lashed out with her mind as she spoke. He felt a mental press that strengthened as he resisted. Like she was tugging at his wrist as he clutched the…Azazel's mind.

He was tempted to yield…perhaps she would be more forthcoming if he let her man go. But then the tingling pain in his wrists and head made him set his teeth a little. He hardened his control and started pushing back at her.

Her face set as she tried to reinforce her own resolve. He could feel her edges where they wanted to fray and he teased at them gently while she ruthlessly cut at him for control of not just Azazel's mind but now her own. Charles blinked and frowned at the sensation of yet another presence, the odd one.

With a gasp, the beautiful woman burst suddenly into a living fountain of crystal. Charles recoiled in surprise and found himself pressed against someone who grabbed his shoulders and shoved a hard, hollow covering over his head. For a moment, Charles couldn't see. The sweat on his cheek stuck to the inside of whatever they'd muffled him with.

When he shook his head, his vision returned. His sudden blindness wasn't anything truly sinister. They hadn't even pulled a hood over his head; he was wearing some kind of helmet. He could feel the metal resting on his cheekbones, pressing hard on the bridge of his nose and he had a singular vision of Erik putting on his leather helm, how Erik always ran his finger down the nose guard to straighten it.

And then his mouth went dry because he could see, yes, but he couldn't hear. The presence of all the minds around him was stifled and distorted almost to silence. He tried to reach out with mental fingers and the crystal witch just smirked at him as she transformed back into flesh.

"Is that necessary?" She delicately dabbed at her nose which was bleeding. The red man grimaced and flicked his tail like an angry cat.

A voice behind Charles, an ordinary sardonic voice said, "You seemed to be getting overwhelmed."

Erik hadn't thought he could run any faster, but the fire of fear and uncertainty kept him going until his sides burned, his feet ached so deeply that could barely feel them at all. Raven had made him stop around the noon hour, insisted that they drink from every third stream they splashed over. She matched him for stamina at every turn, and she was matter-of-fact in a way that brooked no denial. They needed fuel to run. Some delay was inevitable.

He thought he'd managed to prepare himself for the worst. At every step, he steeled himself, even the final few stumbling strides down to the beach. But no scenes of smoking carnage awaited them. Somehow that was almost worse. The beach was smooth and untouched. He couldn't see their karvi ship, just the remnants of a fire burned out and a ring of swords in the sand.

Sand, water, sky. Except for a few gulls circling and screaming, nothing moved.

He stood in the middle of the curve of the bay and barely kept himself from howling with rage. Raven threw herself to the ground as the leftover swords spun crazily through the air. Wisely, she didn't say anything even as they stretched into improbable shapes that cartwheeled around impotently, striking each other hard enough to throw sparks.

He clenched his fists and gazed out to sea. He should have known from the first that this would be a mistake.

Gunnar had gawped at him. He remembered very clearly the moment last summer that he had shoved an unconscious thrall up over the gunwale with a shout at Gunnar to mind his fucking head already. Gunnar had slung the limp body over his shoulder, looking askance at Erik. "You're taking a slave?"

"What tipped you off?" Erik had snarled as he boosted himself over the side. He could have done it smoother with the aid of all his weapons, but he made it a point not to frighten his shipmates unduly.

"You're just so…fucking picky." Gunnar wasn't clever enough to mask his expression and it was clear that he thought that Erik's slim, pale youth wasn't worth the sweat it cost to haul him around. "You're gonna have to feed him all winter and he's probably sickly."

"I'll skin your carcass to feed him if I have to." Erik snapped as Gunnar dropped Erik's new-found prize into the hold.

"I'm just saying…" Gunnar was already reaching back over the side to grab a bundle of furs. "My old man has four. They don't always make life as easy as you'd think."

Erik had gritted his teeth against the temptation to cuff Gunnar around the head a few times just on principle. Gunnar wasn't too clever. No one usually burdened Erik with their opinions.

And it had gotten just gotten worse when they returned.

Hrafnkel had raised one eyebrow at the slim slave in front of him and said, "One for the sacrifice, Járnangan?"

Sometimes he couldn't resist shoving his difference in their faces, all his many differences. Erik stretched his bravado over a smile and said archly, 'Freya's got nothing to do with what I want this one for.'

And Hrafnkel had laughed because the chieftain was adept at reading Erik's face and it was either laugh or have blood flowing ankle-deep in the hall. They all laughed. And he had his first thrall.

And somehow it hadn't really occurred to him until he was crouched on his own bed, staring down at his new possession, that this latest prize could stare right back. Erik had felt oddly unsettled by that deep blue gaze. He'd contemplated beginning as he meant to go on. He could pull his new…Charles up off the floor by his hair and have him warming the bed this very night. Easy now, while he was still half-starved, bruised and stupid with fear. And those wide eyes wouldn't trouble Erik overmuch if Charles were face down in the furs.

But there was tomorrow and the day after and the rest of the winter to consider.

He couldn't quite put his finger on what made this creature so appealing. If he were very hard pressed, he would admit that he liked the way Charles' teeth were set in his mouth, the arrogant sweep of his nose.

"Don't be scared until there's something to be scared of, lille hingsten min." Erik had meant to be reassuring, but he thought later that it might have been a warning.

He liked that Charles had proffered his name first. Charles would duck his head against Erik's stare, but if Erik looked away for even a fraction of a moment, Charles' gaze drew right back on him. This one was stronger than he looked.

You're so fucking picky. Gunnar's words came to him when he rose in the morning, already hard and hungry. Looking down at the pale skin of his trophy, he thought now. Charles would be rested but still groggy. Erik's fingers itched for his sleep-warm and pliant flesh. Crouched next to the banked fire, Erik had the impulse to seize his sleeping slave, knock his knees apart and...

Charles gasped a little on waking and one of his eyes opened wide while the other stayed half-shut where it was swollen. The bruise on his face spread like a shadow out of his hairline. Erik watched the long tendon in Charles' neck tighten and tremble as Charles swallowed and raised his chin, waiting.

Erik stood back and poked the fire. He made porridge desultorily without remembering until afterward that he should be showing his new possession how it was done. There was an unexpected pleasure in watching Charles eat, his hunger and gratitude almost palpable. Erik was surprised to find that there were myriad small pleasures in getting Charles clean, warm, dressed in the best fashion for his status.

He supposed that knowing he could do as he pleased made him feel generous.

It seemed like a bare handful of days before Charles spoke like a native. Even the taciturn Gudrun had allowed that Charles had a clever head, which was gratifying. He supposed that it might be beneath a warrior's dignity to acknowledge the worth of his slave, but Erik didn't pay much attention to conventions like that. He supposed he was pleased that Charles made such an effort to fit in.

Some thralls never came in line. There had been that sad girl who'd strangled herself with her own long braid, that fiercely proud young man from Alba who'd stabbed Thorsten early one morning, selling his own life cheap. But most humans wanted to belong somewhere and Erik knew firsthand just how far they would go to adapt.

He liked the way Charles' ear was just at the level of his mouth. He liked the way Charles' eyebrows arched when he didn't understand something. He'd heard that the ones led by the black robes had funny ideas about their bodies, but he'd never experienced it firsthand. Charles' extreme shyness was amusing even as it made Erik's teeth feel sharper.

Almost all of Erik's sexual life had been paid for with gold or steel but it wasn't long before he knew that Charles was going to cost him awfully dear. He wanted it all. He wanted Charles' sweet, untouched smile just as much as his sweet, untouched flesh. And he knew that it might require skill he didn't have to enjoy both.

The day Charles had uncurled enough to smile directly at him….he'd felt a bit of the red haze of the berserker then. He only remembered in patches: how the scent of Charles' skin made Erik want to bite him hard enough to leave welts, the clear whites of Charles' eyes, his quivering lips, the hard wings of Charles' shoulder blades spread underneath his palms. But even as he clutched and tasted and buried himself in Charles' taut, gasping body, some potent imperative pulsed through him, gentle, be gentle.

Erik had woken up the next morning early, his fingers already tightening, his tongue tasting the edge of his teeth. Charles slept curled up with his brow still furrowed, breathing shallowly through his swollen mouth. Erik traced the air over the livid mark he'd left on Charles' shoulder. All his muscles already ached with the struggle of not simply giving in to his instinct for pillage and rapine.

But he stood up and laced up, waiting until he was out in the dawn mist before pulling on his tunic. He'd gone on a long walk, trying to let the chill settle into his bones. He hadn't felt this searing, nerve-wracking anticipation for years and then only before a fight. Stifling it was…hard.

It was natural, he guessed. He wouldn't have any respect for a man who let a blade rust or food rot. A slave was even harder to replace.

He walked until his feet were sore.

Perversely, he almost hoped that he'd sown a seed of hatred in Charles with his violation. He wondered if he'd find Charles' hatred and loathing as liberating as he did everyone else's. But Charles persisted in radiating more confusion than fear. And Charles' confusion infected Erik like plague.

Charles would flinch in the morning, but could be surprised into a smile by dusk. Erik couldn't quite believe that anyone was as innocent as Charles appeared to be.

Erik took to carrying a smooth chunk of iron, pressing it between his palms in his odd moments of leisure to keep from seeking too much ease on Charles' easily-bruised flesh. He had a vague sense that it was unseemly to want it so much from a thrall. And it was unnerving how much Charles just…pulled at him. There were moments (when Charles arched unconsciously into a touch, when Charles stroked his mouth to hide a smile, that amazing day when Charles had said, 'I can see your thoughts') that Erik felt a fierce flash of something not unlike rage…a sharp, hot feeling but fuller and more buoyant than anger.

Erik found it progressively harder to laugh off the verses of the skáld, sneer at his shipmates' woman troubles. Even food tasted different when he was poisoned with this reckless, restless hope. While he knew that pain could settle deep into the bones, he'd never believed that pleasure went any deeper than skin.

It was confusing. Trying to push the feelings aside just made them stronger.

It had come up upon him so slowly, digging in like tree roots. By the time he'd realized the depth of the trap, it was far too late to fight.

It had been the day before he'd left on the last raid. After a couple of practice rounds, sparring with his shipmates and with his blood up, he'd thought of Charles, of how outraged Charles would pretend to be if Erik took him while the sun was high in the sky. But Charles was nowhere to be found.

He'd feigned indifference when quizzing Gudrun but she'd given him an anxious, wide-eyed look all the same. It had been almost the limits of his will to keep walking, not running as he searched the stream, casting about up the hill, trying not to call out. He was already displaying enough concern to make his shipmates laugh at him. Not that he cared.

Erik tracked the few footprints he found with hot, dry eyes. He gritted his teeth and tried to tighten down on his own frantic breathing. Charles lost in the forest didn't bear thinking about. Charles was sturdy enough but…

He'd been just about to start shouting when Charles tripped out from behind a stand of fir trees. Charles tilted his chin down swiftly after giving Erik one long look that pierced like a javelin.

He'd wanted to grab Charles; he'd wanted to slap him. He'd wanted to twist his hands in Charles' hair and kiss him hard enough to cut his mouth and taste his warm copper blood. Erik stared until Charles dropped his eyes even lower. Erik felt like his heart was beating in a way that was visible.

Charles kept his eyes cast down and he had a higher color than usual. His eyelashes stood out against the smooth, rosy flush on his cheekbones. Erik twisted both hands over the hilts of his knives to keep from doing something unseemly out in the open.

When he regained a semblance of control, Erik just jerked his chin and Charles fell into step behind him, obedient as always. He let Charles deliver his apples to Gudrun and then ordered him back to the house.

Predictably, Charles had seemed eaten up with diffidence when Erik stripped his tunic off hard enough to rip the seam. But he'd arched up into Erik's mouth, gasped sweetly in Erik's arms at the end. Afterwards, Erik let him nap, pressing his nose into Charles' soft hair. Lolling in bed before supper, before the sun set, Erik felt lazy and warm and replete.

And abruptly terrified.

Erik remembered starving. He remembered having nothing but filthy rags to wrap around himself, the pelts of animals ineptly cured. He remembered eating flesh-warm entrails cracked out of the bodies of small creatures. He remembered vividly the ache of cold and loneliness as deep and wearying as sucking mud.

He had sworn to have nothing in his life that would lessen him when it was taken away.

But a man may swear and the gods will laugh.

They had arrived at their destination in the chill fog of another day. Charles squinted against the bright white of the sky after the dark of the hold. He tried to look as if he was paying close attention to his captors even as he scanned the shoreline for any details as to their whereabouts. Vexingly, the fog swallowed up the horizons.

He'd been given water and sufficient, if not plentiful, food. Which had been almost impossible to consume with his hands shackled to his waist. He'd tried ducking and shaking his head furiously to work free of the infernal helm that was like a small, exceptionally vicious prison. Pressing his jaw hard against any edges he could find just left him with bruises and a headache. The ship was built tight enough that no light filtered in and he could only gauge time passing by his own increasing hunger and exhaustion.

When they brought him up on deck he noticed for the first time that he wasn't alone. A black-haired boy who looked a bit the worse for seasickness and a pale, red-haired young man whose face was half obscured by his cowl minced behind him down the unsteady gangplank. The boy was almost in rags, the young man wore the gray robe and rope belt of a novice.

Charles clenched his bound hands together to keep from giving away his agitation. Hearing only his own thoughts gave him a sensation almost like vertigo, like he'd been unmoored from the earth. But these…people didn't need to know that. Erik had taught him the many virtues of not seeming afraid. Charles raised his chin enough to look down his nose as their captors ushered them up the low beach to a hulking structure of red sandstone.

Charles squinted at the high arched holes that had been windows. That had been a church or a chapel surely. This was the vision that he'd taken from Azazel's head. He looked north, up at a wide bay that shimmered like silver. The water couldn't be very deep, at a low tide it would be a broad sandy spit.

They were taken through a ruined courtyard that looked like it was being built up into a secure bailey. Portions of the outer walls had been repaired with darker and lighter stones giving it an odd checked pattern. Inside they were taken through a room big enough to echo and left in an antechamber that was almost comfortable with a couple of low benches and a fire.

The boy stared around at the faded painting between the two high windows. The young novice sat down on one of the benches gingerly.

"What's your name?" Charles fought to keep his voice even. The novice looked up at him with wide, terrified eyes.

"We're not supposed to talk to you." The black-haired boy said pertly. In the pale light from the windows, he still looked sickly and Charles felt a moment of sympathetic nausea. The boy pointed with his elbow at the young man on the bench. "He's not supposed to talk at all."

Charles squeezed both eyes shut briefly in an effort to stop himself from banging his head against the wall in frustration. "Hardly seems fair. Do you know why?"

The boy shrugged and grinned shyly.

"My name is Charles." Charles paced over to the fire and surreptitiously twisted his hands against the thick leather restraints. It was nice, almost comforting, to speak his own language for a change. "That's just me talking to you, which was not expressly forbidden."

The youth on the bench said softly, almost a whisper. "My name is Sean."

"Late of Whitby Abbey, Brother Sean?" Charles took a stab in the dark.

"How'd you…?" Sean gaped and then shut his mouth very abruptly. "They said you were a witch, like the other…I heard them whispering about you."

Charles groaned inwardly. "Sean, I'm just a merchant's son. And while your face tells me that your people hail from fair Eire, your accent is pure Northumberland. So it's a fair guess that a young man in monk's robes speaking like you do…"

"Huh." Sean sat back on the bench, seeming to forget his nervousness for curiosity. "I guess it seems obvious when you explain." He fingered his rope belt, almost looking chagrined.

The young boy peered up at Charles. "You're not a witch, then?" He sounded slightly disappointed.

At that age, Charles had relished a manageable scare. Charles bent down to face the lad as much as the eyeholes allowed. "Oh, I'm a fearsome witch. You'd better not catch me without this silly thing on my head. There's no telling what I would do."

"You can do things too?" The boy grinned, almost bouncing with delight.

"Wonderful things." Charles rolled his lip under his teeth, pondering that 'too'. "Amazing things. But this…" Charles tapped his head on the edge of the mantelpiece. "…is putting a kink in my rope."

"Does it itch?" The boy asked in an anxious tone. He scratched his own armpit sympathetically.

"Like the Devil." Charles said honestly.

The boy frowned and did a funny little jig in place. And before Sean could even squawk in alarm, he curled his small fingers under the edge of the helm and yanked it off.

"Hey!" Raven's shout came to him thinly over the breeze. She had hiked up to the palisade that fringed the north edge of the bay and was waving for him to come up.

"This looks like one of yours." She had crouched down close to the corpse, trying to turn it over without jarring the organs loose. Erik's throat tightened. Ole.

"Yes." Erik brushed his shipmate's blank eyes closed and pulled a spare sword up from the beach to place in his dead hands. Raven bowed her head and whispered to herself. Erik was surprised that she'd talk to her god on behalf of a strange Norseman. But then she was Charles' sister.

"This is strange."

Erik nodded. "It's like he fell."

"But from where?" Raven gestured around at the bay. They were at the highest point. He could see another body floating in a swirling eddy of water, bumping back and forth into the cliff side opposite. The long hair spread out like seaweed. Erik swallowed a mouthful of bile.

"Charles isn't here." Raven stood up straight. "We'd feel him surely."

Erik thrust both hands out, spreading his fingers. He'd left Charles with a seax and a circular cloak pin almost the width of his palm. And he couldn't feel either of them. But he did feel something interesting.

He braced himself and started to pull. Hard. The weight of the wood and water felt like it was crushing him. He huffed two deep breaths and started to pull again. He noticed that Raven was watching him doubtfully before he had to close his eyes.

"Knull meg i oeret." He ground out through gritted teeth. The water below was starting to bubble and foam.

"What are you doing?" Raven kept well back. Her voice sounded tight.

The figurehead had almost breached. If he let go now, it would all sink again. His eyes felt like they would pop right out of his skull and pretty soon his teeth would break. But he kept pulling, gently, steadily. Come on.

He didn't dare to breathe for long moments. And then the hull breached the water and Erik fell to his knees as the water poured out in silver showers.

When it stayed afloat, he fell back, gasping. Raven was looking at him with something that might have been concern.

"Impressive." She squatted beside him and looked down at the bay. "You're as red as a currant."

"Iron rivets in the keel." Erik gazed down at their boat, his moment of satisfaction waning quickly. "I guess it was faster to swamp the ship, rather than burn it."

"Or they didn't want anyone to see the smoke and come running." She mused. "But is it any good to us anyway?"

She paused and looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

You can bury me in it. Erik grimaced and started. "We'll just have to…"

And then Charles was in his head so fierce and sudden that if Erik hadn't started on his knees, he'd have ended there for sure. He choked on his own breath and coughed furiously as Raven clutched her own crimson hair.

Eriksofarnorthalivedonotbeaf raiditisotherswhotookmepower fuloneslikeussailedsouthmayb eadayiamontheHolyIslanditsaf ortressRavenbecarefultheyrel ikeusbuticannotsheiscomingdo notbe…

It stopped abruptly and after a moment, Erik managed to pull his hands off his face. He was shaking all over; it felt like Charles had just poured a stream of visions in his head like a cascade into a waterskin.

Raven was retching gently, not bringing anything up.

Erik closed his eyes again and tried to sort through his new memories. A red demon and a crystal witch?

"She is coming?" Raven said with a slight quaver.

"Did you see what I saw?" Erik pushed up to his feet.

"Red…with a tail?" She said much more steadily. She rose gracefully, shaking her head. "Trust Charles to find trouble…here." She gestured at the forlorn boat rocking in the empty bay.

"Do you know this place he …said?" Erik squinted down at the fringe of the scrubby trees on the far side of the sandy crescent. As an afterthought, Erik tightened his fist and drew the ship up high on the shore.

Raven shook her head, "I've heard of it, but as far as I ever knew, it wasn't a fortress, but a ruin. An old monastery."

Off his blank look, she sneered, "You know monks? Black robes? Your favorite prey?"

"It's not my fault that they have too much gold and silver and not enough iron and steel." Erik showed her all his teeth. "You don't expect a wolf to ignore the fattest sheep."

She raised one blue brow and snorted "I suppose not. I'm not exactly…" She trailed off with a shrug. "It's south of here, but I don't know just where…"

"Erik!" A shout came from the foot of the palisade. Erik snapped his gaze down at Einar who was waving up at him frantically. Erik started to scramble down until a consideration brought him up short. He looked back over his shoulder and suppressed a shiver.

"Why Erik, you look like you've seen a ghost." Raven's voice came wryly from Ole's mouth.

For a second, Erik's skin crawled even while his lip twisted. "Lucky that."

"How so?"

"Ole never said one word when none would do." He let Raven climb down alongside him. It was amazing. She even smelled like the crabby old sailor.

Einar tripped on a loose rock when he was still a few steps from them and he ended up clutching Erik's knees. He was practically gibbering when Erik pulled him upright.

"I was hunting!" Einar's hair looked like he'd let doves nest in it and he was hoarse like he'd been yelling for days. "I came back and everything was gone! Gunnar's dead, Erik! I didn't know what…where are we? I don't remember…Why are we here? Where are the others?"

Erik winced. This was going to be impossible without Charles. He had a brief flicker of an impulse to knock his shipmate over the head and leave him to lie here.

Einar grabbed Raven-as-Ole and squeezed her broad shoulders. She didn't flinch when he embraced her. "At least we haven't lost our kjentmann." Raven patted his back awkwardly.

"Did you see what happened?" Erik asked. Einar could still be useful.

Einar shook his head, his mouth solemn. "It was…I thought I was dreaming. I kept shouting for everyone and the ship was gone. It was…" He patted the side of the ship and looked out at the bay, saying quietly, "How are we going to get home?"

Erik remembered suddenly that for all his size and bushy ginger-blond beard, Einar had only seen 19 winters.

"Don't trouble yourself, brother. I have a plan." Erik clapped Einar's shoulder and shook him a little. Einar was a hammer, not a blade. Luckily, there was plenty to keep him busy and useful and hopefully not asking questions. "Gather up the gear. Ole and I are going to rig another sail. You catch anything?"

Einar blinked at him. "A couple of rabbits and…"

"Good, go roast them. I'm starving." Erik waved him away and Einar trotted off looking almost calm.

"Have you gone mad?" Raven looked up at the hull doubtfully. "Can three of us begin to hope to sail this thing?"

"If the weather is…absolutely perfect, then…maybe." Erik rasped. It was going to be some incredibly weary work to pull a sodden sail from the hold and reeve it over the mast and beitass. "You said it was south, and it's on the water…this is the fastest way."

"Until we all drown." She knocked her chapped, broken knuckles on the strakes.

"We won't drown." Erik snapped.

"Right. Iron rivets in the keel." Ole's face had never been made to smirk.

Erik pulled out his axe and used it to float over the gunwale. "We're wasting time. Do you want to see your brother in this world or wait for the next?"

Raven's face hardened and she grabbed a sword off the beach and gestured with it. Erik tightened his hand and pulled her up over the side. He lengthened and elongated his axe head and wrapped it around the rudder and the edges of the boom.

"Do you know where to find this…Holy Island?"

"No." She said honestly and his heart sank. "But I have a friend down south who will know and he'll help us."

"If these others…" The thought made him a little dizzy. "…are as powerful as Charles thinks, I don't think one man can help us much."

Raven squinted up at the sun which had just managed to burn through the low-hanging clouds. "I said 'a friend'. I didn't say he was a man."

His moments of freedom cost him a day of solitary confinement in a cell at the end of a long dark passage. Charles surmised that this had originally been the domestic quarters of the choir monks. No comfort or ornaments, but the cell was large enough and almost warm. He was fed twice a day. But he was still shackled and with the helmet…well, he felt it would have almost been kinder to be suddenly deaf, mute and blind.

It was hard to believe that he'd spent a great portion of his life trying to ignore the full range of his senses. Now he felt like someone had cut his hands off.

He slammed his fist into the door, petulantly. No matter how much he bashed and ground and pulled, the clever little lock on the shackles did not break. Erik would make such quick work of this Charles thought ruefully. He couldn't raise his hands past the chain on his waist, though he pulled until he was breathless.

He spent an hour trying to work his chin into the sill of the small hole in the door. With enough of an edge, he could maybe lever this infernal thing off his skull. But the flare of the helmet was too wide, the sill was too narrow and he ended by scraping his head on the wall in frustration.

He hoped that he hadn't bled too much of his agitation over Erik and Raven. He pressed his hands together, saying a small prayer of thanks at finding them together. He felt like he was trying to warm his hands over a candle flame, poking at his memory of those two beloved minds.

He shuddered hard enough to knock his chin into the stone as he remembered the rest of it.

Having the helmet off, even for a moment, had been like sticking his face into hot embers. Pain and confusion had buffeted him ruthlessly as he'd reached out for the familiar. Vibrant flames of feeling raged at him, shame, anxiety, uncertainty, fierce joy. There were at least two people nearby who were in such a welter of panic and grief that Charles felt their minds like burning flesh.

He spent some time curled up on the platform that must have been a cot for some tired monk. This constant silence left a lot of room for echoes. The knowledge that there were others like him, maybe just steps away, but being unable to reach out to them hacked at his nerves with a dull blade.

Charles sat up and pressed his palm into the bruise on his knee. The pain throbbed up again, real and meaty. Salt sea air, crashing waves, Erik.

When Azazel came to get him, Charles made himself stand, move easily as he could with his bruised foot. Azazel seemed reluctant to touch him, not even a guiding hand on his elbow. After a long, stone-bounded walk, they came to a large room studded with chairs and a table. Not a refectory, but perhaps some abbot's former private dining room.

Charles paused just inside the door and swept his eyes around the room. He couldn't shake the sense that being blocked by the helmet meant that presences were hiding in the corners of his eyes.

The witch in white was there, idly fingering a chalice of something. Opposite her, a man stood under a ragged turquoise tapestry and smiled widely when Charles appeared. He spread his hands out as if Charles was a welcome guest.

"My name is Sebastian of Sammelsberg." The man in the black robe managed to look as if he were consecrating a cathedral instead of pacing the flagstoned floor of a chamber that was still half-ruined. Charles couldn't help looking at the marks that fire had left high on the walls, the whole place still smelled vaguely of old ashes.

"What is your purpose in kidnapping and imprisoning me?" Charles made his voice as imperious as he could, hoping he hadn't forgotten how in a year of being a slave. "What is the meaning of this?"

But Sebastian of Sammelsberg didn't seem to be paying close attention. "How are you called, my friend?"

Charles rolled his lip under his teeth and breathed out slowly through his nose. This man was polite like the hood on a hangman. "My name is Charles Xavier."

"That sounds rather grand." The black-robed man turned to his lovely consort as if to elicit her agreement. She quirked her lips up briefly, even while her forehead stayed furrowed. "A name fit for a king."

Charles set his jaw and knocked his bound wrists on the top of a heavy wooden chair. He noticed that the candelabra and sconces seemed to be exclusively wrought iron.

"We found you just in time." The man spoke Charles' language almost perfectly, but with a slight accent consistent with his Frankish moniker.

"I would beg your meaning, sir." Charles took refuge in politeness even while his blood boiled.

The man smiled again and for some reason, Charles found his teeth on edge. "They told me that the most common prayer in these parts was a furore Normannorum libera nos, Domine. Which is to say, of course…"

"Save us, Lord, from the fury of the Norsemen." Charles returned flatly.

"An educated man." Sebastian of Sammelsberg turned to face him. "I dread to think what those savages might have had in store for you. They have no art but new refinements of cruelty. You have heard, of course, what they did to that Northumbrian lord…"

As Sebastian elaborated on the unspeakable death of King Ella a century ago, Charles had a flash of intense memory.

"I think this is just willow bark and something." Charles frowned down into the cup. He winced when he tried to drink it and coughed again. It was so bitter that it almost hurt to swallow. He shut his eyes against the pain flowering behind his forehead. Late winter colds were the worst.

"What does it matter, if it works?" Erik was stoking up the fire after he'd paid the laeknir with two silver torques and ushered her out. It was sauna-warm in here. Charles threw off two of the furs covering his legs and Erik promptly replaced them, scowling anxiously.

"Expensive, yes?" Charles sniffled. "Two silver torques for some bark and…" He tilted the mug. "Dried mint."

Erik looked at him like he'd started speaking High Church Latin. "What? I could have all the silver in this village, if I wanted." Erik examined the bubbling stew for a long moment before turning back to Charles and snapping. "I don't even like silver."

"This is just a cold," Charles said softly. "Don't start sacrificing to Eir just yet."

Erik stepped over, cupped Charles' hot forehead and tilted his face up to beg. "Have a few more mouthfuls, yes?"

"…one could almost admire their spirit, if it wasn't eaten up by their mendacity." Sebastian of Sammelsberg paused as if he was waiting for Charles to thank him for the daring rescue.

Charles looked very pointedly down at his shackled wrists. "I am unsure that my situation is much improved, sir."

Charles cut his eyes over to the lady in white. She had to have been perfectly aware that he hadn't been enslaved by his Viking companions, much the opposite. The woman seemed adept at keeping her own counsel.

Sebastian of Sammelsberg made a gesture and a very handsome man with the look of an Iberian unlocked Charles' wrists and indicated that he should sit. The man even poured him some wine with an ironic smile.

Charles spread one hand across the table and considered his chances. It took all his willpower not to scrabble the helmet off his head. A glance at the crystal witch kept him still; she was looking at him with the assessing gaze that an owl gives a mouse.

Sebastian was pulling a scroll from an ornate box set on one corner of the table. He showed it to Charles with a slight hesitation like he wasn't sure which would mean more, the spiky Latin script or the heavy wax seal dangling from the parchment. Charles caught the first few lines before Sebastian of Sammelsberg tucked it away. "This is a directive from Otto II, our most gracious imperator Romanorum."

"Are we here now subject to the authority of some Frankish king?" Charles asked in what he thought was a very reasonable tone.

"Are you a lawyer, sir?" Sebastian smirked at him. "This little island seems fond of its lawyers. As to our most holy Roman emperor…one could say I am I am Belisarius to his Justinian."

Charles took a gulp of wine to keep from saying something extremely sarcastic.

Sebastian plucked a smaller scroll from the box and brandished it shortly. "This is safe-conduct from your King Ethelred. Thus speaks the temporal authority. And here in the north as elsewhere, we know that we act in accordance with God's laws as we gather the…others."

Einar, predictably, did not want to sail down the coast as the sky darkened to night. He tried arguing about it with Erik and even attempted to enlist Raven-as-Ole's support. He finally sat down and wrapped himself in his cloak while clutching his sword, obviously trying to hide his terror. Eventually he succumbed to human exhaustion.

Erik pulled at the rudder. They weren't going to move particularly fast. He could feel north and he'd reinforced their hull as best he could, so a clear night and an almost-full moon weren't for wasting. He had pulled them out far enough to be free of the shoals and promised sacrifices to all the gods he knew.

"Thought he was going to mutiny." Raven had shifted back into her natural form. Erik might have objected if he hadn't been quite confident that Raven could handle whatever Einar might do if he saw her. "He must be about ready to piss himself. What are you going to do, if he keeps wanting to argue?"

Erik shrugged. He pulled out a slim stitched leather cylinder packed full of sand and tossed it at her.

She examined the cosh and her teeth gleamed white in the moonlight. "So this is Viking persuasion, is it?"

"Useful, if you don't want to argue." He conceded shortly.

"I see." She brandished the primitive truncheon. "Were you going to use this on me, if I hadn't agreed to come with you?"

"Possibly." He ground a hand into his eye socket. His head was pounding.

Something nudged him gently. Raven was pressing the hilt of her borrowed sword on him. He gratefully made the hilt a broad disk and pressed it into the side of his aching temple. "Why did you agree to come anyway?"

She stroked her cheek idly. He could hear the rasp of her ridged skin. "You didn't flinch once. When you saw me. No one's ever…well, no one since Charles and he was just a child."

He nodded in the dark before he realized she probably couldn't see him.

"He showed me…you." Erik said clumsily.

He could hear her taking a deep breath over the slap and roar of the waves. "He has grown powerful, I imagine."

"Yes." Erik felt a thrill of something not quite fear flow up his back to his neck.

"You serve him." She asked without inflection.

"Yes." Erik leaned back and nodded slowly. That was true. Insofar as anything was true.

"Others?" Charles repeated carefully.

Azazel smirked at him and suddenly vanished in a mist of smoke.

"No need to play the fool." The lady toasted him ironically with whatever remained in her chalice.

"We would have you as one of us, Charles Xavier." Sebastian of Sammelsberg had an easy smile, but his pale eyes put Charles in mind of an animal. Despite the robes, the seals, the polite and careful words, Charles knew for certain that this was no man of God. This man had no thought of God other than supplanting Him.

"Are you offering me a choice?" Charles didn't let his voice shake. "Untie me, take this off and I will choose."

Sebastian just smiled.

"We're almost there." It felt like she'd been saying that for days. Time was starting to weigh on him. Erik felt every moment like it was a stone in his shoe. A branch hung in his face and he tore it down savagely.

He wanted to snarl at her but he was too exhausted to give it much edge. "I don't see how you're planning to find your friend…here."

"He'll find us." She returned confidently.

They were trudging deep into the forest having left Einar with the ship in a narrow bay south of the towering arches of Whitby Abbey. They'd given the monastery and village a wide berth but now Erik couldn't help but feel that they were just wandering around in a wood that seemed to stretch to the other side of the island. The trees put the landscape in a constant twilight so it was difficult to mark the time passing.

"Stop a moment. Rest." Without pausing, Raven dug her feet into the bark of an oak tree and hefted herself quickly up the branches and out of sight. Erik threw himself to the ground irritably, squinting up at her rapidly retreating feet.

"You see anything?" He called. He was so tired now that his vision was getting spotty. The trees were thick; he doubted that even a higher vantage point would be much of an improvement. This forest was so…empty, no signs of snares or remains of field-dressing and all the paths they'd seen so far were game trails. It was like nothing human ever ventured here.

Looking up at the tree again, he noticed a number of deep scratches laying the wood white and bare underneath the thick bark. Just the marking of some animal, but something about them seemed strange. He stood up and pressed his palm against the lowest of the gouges which were on level with his face.

Even through his exhaustion, a tiny surge of alarm managed to make his skin prickle. "Raven?" He called softly. He unsheathed two of the six blades he was carrying. He put his back to the tree and surveyed the forest, hunter-like, looking for movement.

Something was close. Erik listened intently, noting how the smaller forest sounds seemed quieter. He could feel or maybe smell something odd. His eyes strained to catch a shadow out of place.

"Erik." Raven slid down the trunk without pausing, letting bits of bark and dust mar her cerulean skin. "Don't be hasty."

"Hasty to wha-ha…!" Erik shied back and barely kept himself from loosing both his daggers into the snarling snout of a blue creature that had just appeared from thin air. The thing towered above Erik, standing on its hind legs and growling unintelligibly.

Or actually, perfectly intelligibly as his brain started to work again. The creature was barking at him in a perfectly understandable Saxon dialect, "Are you lost, you bloody brigand? There's nothing here to steal and even less to rape." It had him by the throat, claws tickling his jaw, ignoring the animated blades. Erik wrapped one knife around the broad blue wrist and the creature did nothing but tighten its hold. It bled red still, Erik noted dimly.

"Beast." Raven crouched on the lowest branch with her feet dug in, birdlike. "He's a friend."

"He doesn't look like a friend." Up close it was jarring, the creature…the Beast's eyes were vital and clever but his nose was almost a muzzle and his teeth were savage. He sneered at Erik and then turned his face up to Raven. Erik blinked as the brutish face changed, smoothing out to give Raven what might almost be a tentative smile. "It's good to see you."

Erik wheezed as the thing released him. The strength of it was incredible and Erik got the sense it…he hadn't even really been trying.

"And you." She jumped down from her perch lightly. "I would say you're looking well, but you are not, dear Beast."

Upon a closer examination, the Beast's fur was matted and dusty. He sighed and swiped a huge paw at a nearby tree which knocked off a branch sizeable enough to make Erik flinch. "You were lucky to find me, I was just…Have you eaten? I am forgetting my manners."

Erik snorted incredulously, and the creature growled at him again.

"That sounds good." Raven raised one hand, placating.

"Whatever brings you back down here must be important." The Beast turned to make its way up yet another game trail, watching Erik sidelong as he followed. "I thought you would never come back south."

"Never say never." Raven ran along lightly. After another dense patch of brush, a clearing opened out with one side edged in deep shadow, a break in two rocks guarding the dark opening of a cave. "What has you so troubled, my friend?"

"They've taken Sean." For a second, the Beast truly looked like an animal, hunted.

His cell had a small window cut in the door. It looked just large enough to stick a hand through. Charles spent some time wondering what it was for. He sometimes got the sense of someone looking at him while he slept, an eye pressed up against the hole. He spent what must have been hours pressing his own eye to the aperture, watching the shadows move around the dark passageway. Looking across at the other, now empty cells.

"You're not so scary." A voice came from behind him.

Charles wheezed with surprise, nearly choking on the breath he'd only half-taken. A little girl was standing on his sleeping platform, pulling on the end of one black braid.

He stopped himself from asking the obvious question. "Ah, what's your name then?"

She grinned at him appreciatively and stuck one skinny hand through the solid stone wall which answered his first question quite neatly.

"Katherine." She said, making a flouncy, exaggerated curtsey.

"Very pleased to meet you, Katherine…is that really your name?" He couldn't help but smile at her, her little nose wrinkled into such a funny face. "It's just a big name for such a little girl."

"I'm not so little." She cocked her head and frowned at him. "What's your name? You look nice, not so dreadful like they make out."

"My name is Charles and I am at your service. And Katherine, I feel obliged to tell you that some things that look nice really are quite dreadful." Charles made an abbreviated bow over his bound hands and then shrugged. "But I try to be nice, usually."

"Lady Emma says you're…in something. I forget the word. You scare her. I listen sometimes." Katherine tapped her cheek with her finger in an obvious parody of some grown-up's thinking face. "Why are you wearing that?" She pointed at her own head.

"I can read minds and control peoples' thoughts." Charles said. Equivocating at this point seemed foolish, when little Katherine could walk through walls. "But not when I'm wearing this."

"Oh." Katherine was hopping up and down on one foot, coming precariously close to the edge of the platform. She seemed unimpressed with his revelation. "So could you make Robert stop freezing my soup? He does it all…"

"Probably." Charles knew that all the questions he had would quickly overwhelm his young friend, so he tried to be delicate. "How many are there up…where you sleep, Katherine?"

"I think…maybe twelve?" She counted out on her hands.

"All about as old as you?" Charles asked and she nodded. She jumped off the platform and went ankle-deep into the floor. She grimaced and pulled herself up. Charles tried not to gawk.

"I don't know how many people stay down here. They say it's just for scary people. Me, I think Azazel is plenty scary, but he can go everywhere, you know." Katherine shook her head and clicked her tongue, trying another hop.

"Like you?" Charles asked.

"There are…things." Katherine stopped hopping and scuffed her foot against the wall. "They can do things so that I can't move, if I misbehave."

"Would this count as misbehaving?" Charles felt a touch of alarm.

"Probably." Katherine grinned at him cheekily. "But I like to visit Ann-Marie when she's not crying all the time. And you're just above her."

"Why does she cry all the time?" Charles thought of the agonized mind he'd felt, tearing itself apart from grief, hot as glowing coals.

"Her village…I…" Katherine looked uncertain. "She won't tell me what happened." Her little face was momentarily swallowed by her eyes. "Could you make her stop being so sad?" She climbed back up on the sleeping platform and reached for Charles' head. "I could just pull that off."

It took a tooth-gritting amount of willpower but Charles said, "I wouldn't want you to get into trouble, little one." He'd had a sneaking suspicion that all hadn't gone well for the boy who'd helped him last time and he remember how big her eyes had gotten when she'd talked about not being able to move. "Maybe I'll meet…Ann Marie myself sometime soon."

She looked regretful for a moment, so he said hastily, "Do you ever wake up at night and can't sleep again?"

She nodded hesitantly and then more firmly.

Charles said, "You could come and see me then."

She smiled and made an odd little half-curtsey. "I should go. It's almost time for supper."

"Katherine, one last question…how'd you come to be here?" Charles asked. "Not here in this room, but…here." He gestured out at the hallway, encompassing the wider world.

"My mother sold me." Little Katherine wrinkled her nose up into a frown and skipped through the wall.

"Your friend…"Raven started, indicating that Erik should sit again, rest and keep his mouth shut. He wanted to protest but he it felt like his head was full of rocks and his mouth was full of sand.

"He was postulant at the Abbey." The Beast had quickly skinned the limp carcass of a large buck and was now threading it onto a spit to roast. Erik reached forward to help only to be met with a snarl.

"He's the one who was keeping you in manuscripts?" Raven had ducked halfway into the cave and lifted what looked like a long scroll on vellum. "The one with the voice?"

The Beast nodded, intent on his task. Erik craned his neck to take in the fact that what looked like a badger's den was lined with paper that this creature was apparently reading. He couldn't shake the lightheaded sensation that he was wandering further and further into a dream.

Raven traced her fingers over the script and put it back. "What happened?"

"I don't know exactly. We used to meet on Mondays each week, dusk or dark, between vespers and compline." The Beast fed the fire until the roast started to darken and sizzle. "He'd bring me whatever he managed to…borrow and I'd bring him whatever I'd finished."

The Beast paused for a moment, lost in thought.

"Did you pass the Abbey, when you came?" He asked abruptly. Raven shook her head.

"Well, it's….Sean broke all the windows Sunday week. It was getting harder for him to control and they were singing and…." The Beast ducked his head. "And when I came to…see him, they were taking him away and it wasn't by choice."

"In a wagon?" Raven cycled quickly through a couple of bodies but the Beast didn't seem to be bothered by it.

"No, down to a ship. A big ship. I thought that it was…"

"Who's this 'they' who took him?" Erik interrupted.

"You speak our language." Beast quirked his head at Erik as if he were surprised.

"Yes." Erik didn't comment on the unexpectedness of this creature having a tongue to speak.

Beast gazed at him for a long moment, and then nodded. "You speak well."

"Once more." Charles leaned forward, elbows on his bent knees. Erik shifted under him impatiently, reaching out to shuffle Charles closer to him. "You almost had it that time."

Erik groaned and pressed his forehead against Charles'. "Kiss me." He'd meant it to be a command but it came out more like a plea.

"Say it right and I'll kiss you." But Charles was already cradling Erik's jaw in his hands. "Remember, put your tongue just behind your top teeth, then press the air out. Press out hard. Thh-."

Charles demonstrated until Erik could feel Charles' hot breath on his lips. Erik sighed but did as he was told, hissing slightly. "Th-thank you. I think so"

"Perfect!" Charles tightened his legs which were draped over Erik's and kissed him thoroughly, true to his word. "Now, almost the same with less air: this, that, there, those…"

"It has to be the same…surely there aren't many ships like that." Raven argued.

The Beast was chewing on a rib, looking unsure. "But I didn't see any like the ones you described…and I think I would have noticed. They all looked like monks to me; the leader had sandy hair."

Raven scoffed, "Of course they're not going to be taking that red one up to meet the abbot. It would be like if you decided to take in a mass yourself."

The Beast bared all his teeth at her, seemingly amused. "It's at least sixteen leagues to the Holy Island here, heading northeast. I assume it's faster to sail, if you can."

He cocked his head at Erik who shrugged. "Currents aren't good. And I think the bay has a vicious tide." He'd gotten the briefest of glimpses through Charles' eyes.

"Overland…" the Beast eyed up Erik. "I have no idea how fast you can move."

"Fast enough." Erik snarled back, rejecting the hint that he could be any chain's weak link.

"Save your strength for running then." Raven cut in sensibly. "And for whatever else we'll have to…" She trailed off.

"What?" Erik touched each of the blades on his person, willing them to give him strength. The air was starting to be too heavy. He scrubbed both hands through his hair, stifling the urge to go bash his head against a tree. Raven looked thoughtful; her eyes were deep amber.

"I am still…How long did you think you were alone?" She asked and Erik could no longer hear the fire, the wind rustling in the trees, the Beast's heavy, snuffling breath.

"We should be going now." Erik was on his feet even though scrambling up made his whole body ache. "You don't…we have to go now."

"You haven't slept for almost four days." Raven said gently. "And I don't think you're made to go without, either."

"Charles is…" He flung his hand out, there were no words. "We have to go now."

"It's getting dark." The Beast observed. "I'm going, but I'm not planning to carry you."

"Eat something." Raven coaxed. "You're like a half-fletched arrow."

Six blades he had. They trembled when he raised them to circle the fire and the Beast made a sound that seemed to be equal parts alarm and admiration. Those teeth snarled into an animal grin gave Erik a fleeting moment of calm. Now that he knew what he was looking at, he felt a moment of kinship with the Beast. The creature had been tearing himself in strips trying to figure out what to do.

"Are there villages near here?" Erik barked abruptly. "I need more iron."

The Beast stared at him, then glanced at Raven and started to make a gruff, rumbling sound that Erik realized was laughter. Raven joined in, covering her bright white teeth with her hand.

"What?" He snapped. He let one of his smaller daggers hover in front of the Beast's eye.

"I think we can oblige you, Erik Járnangan." Raven said, uncommonly formal and then burst into giggles.

"Around here, they're pretty respectful of the Sidhe." Beast cocked his head and plucked the knife out of the air to cut Erik a strip of meat. "They have plenty of iron."

"I hate it here," Lady Emma said to the mullioned panes of the window in her sitting room. "This may be the most miserable corner of the known world."

Charles bit his tongue, trying not to jitter with impatience. After another night watching the stone walls of his cell, it felt like he was full to overflowing of the constant silence, an empty vessel that someone was trying to pour more emptiness inside.

But this evening had been different. He'd been brought to the abbot's quarters, passing by the eating hall in the process. He'd managed a quick glance inside at the whispering shadows, flickering in the torchlight. Katherine shot a grin at him over her shoulder and it had provided a measure of calm. As she'd estimated, there were twelve children on benches around a table.

Being taken away, even under guard, to come and wait on the frosty pleasure of Sebastian's consort was almost a welcome change. Even though the only one of his questions that she'd actually answered was to give him her name. She floated around listlessly from the window to the fire and back again.

She had spent a good long while just staring at Charles. He wondered if she were pitting herself against the strange metal that surrounded him, if she were trying even now to touch his mind. She looked him up and down and twisted her lip with a look he couldn't place before inviting him to sit.

"Why do you stay, if you hate it so?" Charles asked. She looked at him sharply, as if the question was ludicrous.

"Have you never felt that small men were measuring you for a pyre, Charles Xavier?" She spoke coldly. "You are a lucky man indeed."

He'd seen that expression on her face before, that exacting frown. Like his mother's housekeeper out on market day, examining goods in a stall that didn't quite measure up. "Have you never wanted to be as you are without being afraid?"

"Why should I be afraid? Your assurances that you are on the side of the angels would mean more to me without this." Charles tipped his chin and opened his bound hands. "And your…Azazel. You could have just taken me and left…why did he kill all the Norsemen?"

"Why does the fate of a few human thieves concern you? Why would…" She stopped short with whatever else she'd been about to say. She started again more slowly, like she was crafting her words. "When you look like a god or a demon, you become accustomed to acting like one. And they would have killed him if they could."

And that was true, Charles supposed. He thought of Raven, and then tried not to think of her. Even with the helmet, he didn't feel safe around Emma's questing mind.

Of course, that was the moment that she came to stand behind him and curled her fingers delicately around the blunted metal edges. He only dimly felt the light touch of her hand on his neck when she lifted it from his head. The relief was immediate, presence and consciousness pouring in and filling him. His mouth felt very wet and he swallowed reflexively.

He was suddenly very aware of the woman standing behind him. It was like she'd traded her gemstone form for a cloud or miasma. She'd been preparing for him to turn on her when she freed him and she'd spread her consciousness thin, giving him nothing to grab onto. She'd armored herself in mist.

It was a clever strategy. He decided to play along, letting her drift around him. He made no sudden mental moves, just waited for her to begin whatever she had planned. But nothing happened.

He became very conscious that she was a woman. A very lovely woman.

Flesh so smooth to the touch, taste like no other. No salt, no bitterness. A flutter, like light fingers over his belly. He burrowed into the feeling, deeper, more visceral, less thought. He let her coil around him, serpent-like. Her mind caressed his lightly, then more firmly as his skin awoke.

Dimly, he could feel his own labored breathing, his thighs pressed hard into the oak chair. He opened further tentatively, tilting his chin up for her breath on his face. Her otherness swirled around him in a fog with no motive force, just an insidious occupation. He did not think; he made himself as passive as a dumb animal, a horse standing in a stable being stroked.

He caught the slightest thread of frustration, darkening the mist of her. He did not touch it, but he…coalesced with it gently. He eradicated all consciousness, even the feeling of her hands on his shoulders and merged with her vague annoyance, following it back to where she'd effaced her conscious thought. He'd never done this before and he almost let a feeling of admiration color the haze. Hers was such an elegant prison.

Unnoticed, he curled around, dissolving himself deeply in her cloud. And when it felt complete, when there was nothing to tell him from her anymore, he gripped his hands tightly and drew them both back into sharp relief.

Fear. Rage. Disgust. Doesn't even want…this was doomed to fail, was too much to ask, was this a test, was the need so great, so dire, that she must enslave herself further to the begetting of a new generation, breeding the power up, but no, it wasn't just the power, it was the control that he wanted, even if it meant her body closed to him, her mind betrayed, resentful and this one not even…

Charles pulled back into his own mind, clenching down on the instinct to heave huge breaths of air. Her hands were rigid, twisted into the neck of his tunic and she was hard and chilly where she straddled him. He couldn't really tell, but he thought she was grimacing. He could see his reflection in the planes of her face.

"This seems a bit…undignified." He carefully curled his hands under her elbows and she obliged him by sliding off his lap. "I would have thought your lord would have more imagination."

"He has a very practical turn of mind." She said icily. "All the simplest avenues must be explored."

Charles wondered for a moment which had come first, her adamant nature or form. "He requires too much of you."

"I owe him much." She shimmered into her human flesh again. "I find it very difficult to refuse him."

She made to press the helmet back on his head and he pushed the chair back to look up at her.

Charles held up his hands, pressed together as if he would pray. She stilled for a moment and then shrugged one graceful shoulder in acquiescence.

He reached out to Erik and Raven, conscious of Emma's scrutiny, her awareness clinging to his lightest thought. They were closer, it didn't take as much seeking but their consciousness felt…thin. So weary, so footsore and Erik's mind circled and tore at itself like a rabid dog. He tried to project as much calm as he could, inducement to sleep the night through. Hopefully, they weren't too exhausted to feel him.

Considering the style of Emma's stealthy assault, Charles veiled any startling revelations about the two who sought him with more prosaic revelations. He hoped that she wouldn't delve much deeper if she thought she was uncovering some secret shame.

It worked.

"Not very dignified." She smirked slyly. "These feelings you have for the one who..."

"I don't really think you should be casting the first stone on that account, my dear." Charles returned, mildly. She went silent at once and tilted her face down, looking almost girlish for a bare second. Like he had managed to embarrass her. She placed the helmet back on him delicately and he didn't quail at the sensation. It put him in mind of another question that she would probably refuse to answer.

He pointed at his head. "Did someone make this for you? Did you wear it when you were young?"

He caught the slight twitch in her chin that hid the fact that her whole body had tried to shudder. She sat back and traced a finger over the inlaid table.

"There is an eastern tribe…Sebastian would say they are just part civilized. Refined skin, but savage underneath. But they are very clever, the Kievan Rus. They make wonderful things. Their knyaz, their chief, Vladimir, his mother is…like us."

She opened the lid of a carved wooden box and pulled out a large necklace made of silvery links. The metal had an odd sheen, set with opalescent moonstones. "They made the helmet for Sebastian in exchange for the secrets of Greek fire. They made this for me. It never grows dull."

"So he wears this? Not you?" Charles leaned back into his chair. "So he trusts you…just as much as you trust me?"

He couldn't tell if it was genuine irritation that made her frown, or doubt. "He doesn't wear it often."

"I see." Charles tented his fingers together.

She let the silence stretch. This woman was so cold, so hard. And guileful. He was going to need a little guile of his own.

"It's very beautiful." Charles leaned over to admire the shining links of her necklace. She held the chain up against her throat. "You should wear it all the time."

"So why can't you do that all the time?" Raven asked, panting lightly. They had skirted the village at a jog-trot, the better to be quickly away from the shouts and shrill screams of surprise.

Erik tried not to look as blank as he felt. She made a pulling gesture and indicated his new collection of bizarre weapons. He had unconsciously shaped his stolen iron into fantastical hybrids of blade and spear. One of the pieces he'd called to him was still glowing from the forge. It felt good, more alive that way. He shaped it into a sphere while they plodded onward.

"She means when you and the rest of your pirates row up to shore, why don't you just…"the Beast made a similar pulling gesture. "…and save yourselves all the blood and sweat?"

Erik snorted. "Yes, well…why don't you walk up to the gate there and ask for some ale and a room for the night?"

Raven looked at him reproachfully and shimmered briefly into a large-breasted woman with flushed cheeks and a stained apron. The Beast snorted a rueful laugh.

"What you can do, it's…useful." Raven started, uncertainly. "Surely…"

Erik sent the cooling sphere weaving through the trees ahead. "Nothing is so useful that it can stop them being afraid. And that's poison. Like you said, I've got to sleep sometime and stones will still crush my skull."

Raven rustled back into her usual form, looking vaguely chagrined.

After half a mile's glum plod, Erik spoke again, surprising himself. "They wouldn't let me anyway. There's no honor in it. Doesn't make for a good song."

"There's so much more honor and romance in burning a house of God and killing everything that moves…" The Beast started.

"Not my god." Erik snarled. The Beast snuffled a sigh and Erik felt abruptly ashamed.

"If it is hard work to take something or…defend something, at least you know it's worth having." Erik continued lamely. "Where we come from, it's not like…here. The land is good enough, I guess, but there's not a lot of it and winter is long. One late spring, too much rain over the summer and we all go hungry."

"You could trade." Raven said.

"Sometimes we do. But then…" Erik couldn't remember speaking this much to anyone except Charles. It was an odd sensation, being called to account, conversing with equals.

"Less than a pound of silver is enough for a bride price. If you can afford a wife, that's…" Erik trailed off, unsure of how to explain. That's a start. A place to come home to, a family. Some happiness that's not in the bottom of a tankard or the riveting story of other men's deaths. Nothing he'd ever particularly cared for himself.

Raven was still looking at him sharply, her steps unerringly sure-footed. The Beast was looking somberly down at his own feet. It occurred to Erik that human ideas of 'bride price' and the cooperative existence of a village wouldn't mean much to them.

"It doesn't matter anyway." Erik changed tack quickly. "Look."

He had some silver, a pouch for the unlikely event he'd need coin. He held it out on his palm and showed them how sluggishly it responded. "The more precious it is to a human, the less it means to me."

He jerked his iron sphere back through the trees. It was cool and dark now. He let it hover over his head, enjoying its purity. "I find iron more…responsive."

"That's very interesting." The Beast said and Erik thought of Charles and winced.

"That one is the most valuable defender. It can move any way that I have showed you so far."

"The queen." Charles cut his eyes over to the window. Lady Emma barely acknowledged his glance.

"You learn so quickly," Sebastian chuckled. "It's delightful. Shall we try?"

Charles spared a quarter of his attention for the game. It seemed relatively straightforward and the carved pieces were quite cunning. They had loosened his bonds as if for mealtime; he could rest his hands on the edge of the table. He had found that having something in his hand, even if it were only a small chunk of stone or piece of wood, helped him to focus and keep his mind from constantly seeking the comfort of other.

"I do apologize that I have been much in absence these last days…" Sebastian said idly.

"I haven't missed you." Charles returned and then was vaguely ashamed of being so rude. But the man opposite just smiled his usual sardonic smile.

"I hope you have been comfortable enough." However peculiar and ultimately insincere it was, Sebastian seemed to take his duties as host seriously.

It was dark outside. Charles realized that Emma couldn't see out, but was instead watching them in the black mirror of the mullioned pane. When he looked back at Sebastian, the man looked purposefully innocent, like he was trying to make his face the opposite of a smirk.

"The lady is not very happy here." Charles said, placing a piece with care.

"Neither are you." Sebastian grinned and leaned back on his stool. "I am hoping that you will both be happier when we return south."

"Why should that make me happy, particularly?" Charles moved one of the smaller pieces experimentally. "Going to a place not my home, completely against my will?" It made him feel odd, saying it out loud. He wondered at himself for a moment.

"I wonder what I can say that would persuade you." Sebastian reached forward to take a piece and brandished it at Charles.

"You need to persuade me?" Charles hooked a thumb under the thick leather cuff around his wrist.

"Imagine it, Charles." Sebastian spoke over him. "I myself do not care much for riches, but there is such wealth across the Narrow Sea. Not gold or silver or stones, much better. There is a wealth of us. The others."

"What makes you one of…us?" Charles asked, surprised. He wondered at himself for being surprised. Everyone else seemed so very forthright with their talents.

Sebastian continued as if he hadn't heard. "Imagine a woman with wings, as delicate as a dragonfly's and strong enough to bear her aloft. Imagine a young man who can shape fire the way a potter shapes clay. Like Janos shapes the wind." He nodded at his squire who kept a station by the door.

"Have you collected them as well, like coins? As you have me?" Charles asked slowly. "Which am I, gold or silver?"

Sebastian smiled broadly. "A price above rubies, I'm sure. You may feel pent up right now, but I'm sure as soon as you come south with us and see the depth and breadth of God's plan for you, all will become clear and you'll forget this resentment. It's far better than being some brutish Viking's thrall, surely?"

Depends on the Viking. Charles stayed silent, blinking down at the board. As an afterthought, he moved a piece.

"Do you doubt that God has a plan for you?" Sebastian moved a piece, still smiling.

"No." Charles said softly. "I only doubt that you are the arbiter of it."

"Do you know what I see when I look at you?" Sebastian leaned back and cupped his knee with linked hands.

A man going slowly mad because he doesn't hear voices in his head? Charles thought with an edge of hysteria. He didn't bother to respond.

"I see a man holding himself in abeyance." Sebastian sat forward and said earnestly. "I can show you so much, Charles. We could do so much together."

"I have one question for you." Charles said slowly. Sebastian held his chalice up expectantly.

"Why are you only taking children?" Charles leaned forward and dug his fingers into the edge of the table. Who are the people who hurt so much?

Sebastian's cheerful smile never wavered. "They're much more than children, Charles. I am like Noah…gathering the animals, two by two, because there is a new world being forged and the Lord has bade me populate it."

There was a shine in his eye that Charles did not like at all.

Sebastian gestured to the four walls. "But in this poor world everyone gets put into a harness and told to pull."

Charles absentmindedly moved a figure in a way that won the game, even though he didn't realize it.

Sebastian continued, running his fingers lightly over the ebony figurines. "Is it too much to ask that we might all pull together? I am saving them from harsh fates, I assure you."

This was the Devil's weapon, surely. Honeyed words. Sweet, unctuous and sticky.

"I think you should let me go." Charles said clearly. He spread his palms as best he could in their loosened bindings. "It's a mistake to keep me here."

"As you wish." Sebastian said unexpectedly. "There is someone I want you to meet first."

Beast scented the smoke a good mile and a half from the remains of the village. From a mile away they could see it, not billowing and black but wispy gray. It hovered low to the ground. A raven cawed suddenly, near enough to make Erik flinch. They were all jumpy this morning. An arrow had whizzed out of the dawn mist close enough to ruffle Beast's fur, but they had seen no one and found little trace after a short pursuit.

The forest seemed muffled, quieter than it should have been. It was hard to fall into the rhythm of their quick trotting pace when they were all shying at nothing like nervous horses.

They edged up to the village clearing cautiously, even though it was easy to see that the only residents would be corpses. There wasn't a structure standing more than hip height and the smoke was petering out because the fires had obviously been burning for more than a week. The smoke blotted out the deeper reek of putrefaction.

"Vikinger?" Raven shimmered into Ole's body again for a moment.

"No." Erik shook his head. He stepped gingerly around the body of what had been a very small person or more likely a child.

"How are you sure?" the Beast's muzzle was wrinkled with disgust, showing off all his canine teeth.

"It's too…complete?" Erik tried that word, but they both still looked puzzled. He took a deep breath and tried to order his thoughts.

"We use fire just to make it easier to take. A few torches will make people pull out whatever they've got hidden." Erik paused. "But whoever did this didn't just want to cause chaos. They wanted…they didn't leave anyone alive."

"How do you know?" Raven's eyes seemed to get darker with distress, but it might have just been the smoke obscuring the sun.

"Because anyone left would have buried these people." The Beast volunteered and Erik nodded agreement.

Raven startled suddenly and dashed into the forest. Before Erik and Beast could follow on her heels, they heard a shriek and a thrashing of branches. The Beast snarled with alarm, but Raven quickly reappeared in Ole's guise, dragging a woman by her hair and the collar of her kirtle.

"One alive." Raven grunted, trying to move her captive without hurting her overmuch.

The woman put most of her energy into struggling free, not wasting any breath on screaming. When Raven shoved her to her knees in front of Erik and Beast, she still didn't scream or faint but Erik could see quite a lot of the whites of her eyes. He supposed that two Vikings would have been scary enough, but the sight of the Beast made her go limp with too much fear even to shriek.

She was of medium height and build, young and strong. Auburn hair and a smooth oval face, smudged with charcoal streaks. She muttered constantly to herself, some incantation that had an even cadence.

After listening a moment, he realized she was importuning her god. He stepped closer and her words came faster, and her eyes flicked between them, darting like sparrows.

"What happened here, do you know?" He tried to speak clearly.

She just looked at him, swallowed and seemed to jut her chin out with some hidden resolution. She kept mouthing the prayer.

"What are you called?" The Beast asked gently and she gaped at him.

"A-a-are you…?"She blinked and muttered softly. "Demons."

"No." Beast crouched so he was level with her face. "Just curious."

She exhaled suddenly in a rush and just looked back and forth between them. Erik was struck with a grudging respect. He could practically see her squashing her fear in the face of Beast's deep, measured voice. Whoever this woman was, she had a stronger, quicker mind than most.

"I must be dreaming." When she spoke, Erik noticed a soft burr to her accent. Compared to Charles' dialect, she had a funny way of speaking. "The smoke, the…" She gestured around. "This must be stealing my wits. But either you're from the fair world or I'm only talking to myself. I might as well tell you. You're the only ones as might believe me."

"What happened here?" Beast prompted again.

"Comes this bishop." She paused. "At least, he said he was, and he looked the part. He was real interested in Eadyth's youngest. I forget her name, and she was just a shy girl is all I ever knew. No telling how this la-di-dah bishop heard of her and him foreign too. Eadyth's a stubborn one…"

Raven looked aslant at Erik and rolled her eyes.

"…and she didn't hold with just giving her girl over to the Lord like that. Lord took…" the woman counted on her fingers. "Four from her already. So she was real polite, but she says, big honor your Holiness, but look elsewhere. And he goes."

The woman looked out at the smoking remnants of her village. "But he came back. And I don't know how exactly, but everything burned. And…no one got out. Far as I can tell, no one even tried."

Erik glanced around. It was true…from the vague outlines of ruined cottages, it looked like the inhabitants had mostly slumbered through the fire consuming them. A few bodies lay prone in doorways, some with outstretched arms.

"Where were you?" The Beast asked in his softest, gentlest voice.

"Visiting my close-cousin." She paused. "It was half a day's walk. I came back and found…this. Eamon was still alive…" She glanced toward a body that looked marginally more whole. "I stayed with him while he died, but after, I didn't know what to do. My father was a hunter…"

She bit her lip hard and squinted one eye shut. After a moment, she continued. "So I followed the trail as best I could. All the way to Estonbrook. There they said that a bishop and his people had passed that way and they had a girl. They've taken others too, I've heard tell. And down in Corbridge…"

The Beast growled involuntarily, thinking. The woman shrank from him and he stilled.

"No one will believe me." She looked down and rubbed the hem of her dress absently, worrying at the dried mud. "It all sounds mad."

"I believe you." The Beast said. "I don't think you're mad."

She blinked at him and her breath started hitching with painful little chuckles. Erik cut in before she could get hysterical.

"You should go…far from here, if you can." Erik advised her. She looked at him sharply, examining his face. He guessed that she wasn't accustomed to getting advice from a Viking.

"My brother's the shire reeve over in Durham." She nodded but there was again that stubborn set to her jaw. "He's right close with his lord. It's not right what they done here, bishop or no."

Erik rocked back on his heels. Her bravery was…unexpected. "You stay away from them. They're..." ours "…dangerous."

She looked at him like he was simple. "I know. I've seen. But you think that he should go around calling himself a bishop, stealing children, murdering people? The Lord won't stand for such blasphemy in his name."

"Leave it to us." Raven cut in sharply. Her Viking form seemed to hulk into an even-more-menacing shape. It didn't invite questions or rebuttals.

The woman still looked defiant, but then she nodded stoically. "This is just a dream, isn't it? I'm asleep in a fairy ring and I'll stay with you for a thousand years."

"No." The Beast said firmly. "You'll go and live with your brother. Stay on the road and fare well."

She kept her eyes on Beast's as she rose hesitantly to her feet. It was as if by virtue of his sheer oddness, he was the only thing she'd let herself trust. She took one cautious step sideways, then backwards as if she didn't truly believe she'd be allowed to go. They watched her as she backed up slowly.

When she got to the edge of the clearing where the trees broke for a well-trodden path, she called toward the Beast. "I didn't tell you my name, blue creature."

"You didn't." He returned as he also rose to his full height, towering well above her.

For a moment her teeth gleamed in her coal-smudged face. "It's Moira."

There was water coming from somewhere. He could hear it dripping and there was a rotten, gritty scent of mold. They'd only gone down very shallow stairs so he had to assume that this section of the building faced the sea. He fancied he could hear the rush of the surf through the thick wall.

"You are so calm." Sebastian stood opposite him, half in shadow. "I quite admire how you keep your temper always. I think the phrase in your tongue is 'self-possessed'."

Charles, as was so often the case when his host spoke, felt no need to respond. Janos had untied him and he was still relishing the sensation of movement and watching both his captors out of the corner of his eye, waiting for a moment to doff the helmet.

"But are we ever truly possessed of self?" Sebastian mused aloud. "It is written that the Lord knows our ends, even the meanest of us. And there are some heathens who believe that we are born again and again, merely to die. That our bodies are vessels for long-lasting souls. Have you ever felt that your body was a vessel, Charles?"

Luckily at that moment, the door opened and Azazel shuffled in with an almost obsequious mien. He was escorting a bare-headed young lady, guiding her gently without touching her.

Charles regarded the young woman in front of him with dismay. She'd been weeping and wiping her eyes so much that she'd worn thin scrapes across her cheekbones. They were dark in the faint light and made her eye sockets look frighteningly large and deep. She seemed to recoil from Charles and Sebastian, to huddle even while she was on her feet.

"Go on my dear, you should greet our guest." Sebastian purred. A harder note entered his voice. "Properly."

She sobbed aloud once and drew off the long gloves that Charles had failed to notice until that moment. She stretched out a shaking hand and Charles could do nothing but reach for it, not simply out of politeness, this child should not feel such despair…

Agony spread through him, radiating out from her soft hand quickly and completely. It wasn't a moment before he sucked in a breath to scream and found that he couldn't exhale. It was like burning alive and plunging into freezing water all at once. His body was drawn taut as a bowstring with anguish.

All that was life and strength in him was being sucked away by a cold, inexorable maelstrom that was the brush of this girl's fingertips. It was so much pain that he quickly wondered if death would end it. And he realized that he could only hope that it would.

If he could somehow bear the boundless pain, he could read her mind through the touch. It opened up a whole new excruciating spasm of mental misery. But there was some kind of interchange, he could feel the moment when she realized that her wretched grief and guilt was just causing him more pain. She began thinking more constructively and he clung to it, even as it felt like the last of his lifeblood was draining away.

He was too far gone to realize that he was on the floor; the cold of the stone was nothing compared to the deep internal chill that made his bones feel brittle like they would shatter like icicles. He barely had the strength to draw his eyes up to Sebastian's face, the smiling face of a man who has discarded faith in the face of proof.

"Am I to keep calling you 'Beast'?" Erik grumbled over some slightly-burned grouse. "Don't you…have a name?"

The Beast growled to himself and ruffed up the fur on his huge shoulders. Raven looked over the fire at Erik and made an abortive 'shut up' gesture. It was cloudy and the moon was waning. They could no longer run in the fuller darkness.

"I did." Beast said quietly and Erik squinted one eye shut. Of course.

They all lapsed into silence. A breeze stirred up the forest momentarily and Erik hunched closer to the fire. In the painful clarity that came with extreme exhaustion, he realized the Beast had made one just for his benefit. The Beast's pelt was thick and Raven never seemed to feel the spring chill.

"I never knew my father." Erik kept his eyes on the dancing flames as he spoke. "I assume I had one."

Raven looked at him and then quickly away. The Beast seemed to settle tighter into a crouch.

"My mother barely scrounged a living for us from a village far south of where we- I live now. She could make water bubble up out of the ground, dry meat with a touch of her hand. All very useful." Erik tilted his chin at Raven. "When I had twelve winters, there was a bad year, very wet. She did what she could to save the crops, but it wasn't enough and they decided they needed a sacrifice."

"Stoned?" Raven asked softly.

"Burned." Erik twisted his knife into a disk and then back into a blade. "After they killed her, the whole village slowly turned into a bog, but she couldn't save herself from their…fury and I nearly died too. The only thing that kept me from starving was that I didn't need an arrow or a snare to hunt. Just this…" Erik flung the blade into the nearest tree and pulled it back.

Their steady amber regard was comforting. He didn't need to explain any more.

"With our people, it's not enough that a woman bears you into this world…once you're here, a man has to choose you and give you his name. Nameless boys don't find too warm a welcome anywhere." Erik ran his thumbs over the middle knuckle of all his fingers. In this spring chill he could feel each and every time they'd been broken.

"It's the same here." Raven said quietly.

Erik nodded. "I guess I could have called myself Erik Erikson and had done."

"But those were their rules." Raven leaned in until her hair gleamed in the firelight.

"Yes." Erik agreed.

"What does it mean then, Járnangan?" The Beast's accent was surprisingly good.

"Járn is iron." Erik made his blade a disk again and made it spin. "Angan is 'pleasure'."

Raven hitched a quiet laugh.

"A good Viking has two names. The one his father gives him and the one he earns from his shipmates. Since I didn't have the first, I fought even harder for the second and now they call me Erik den Uroerlige. Erik the Untouchable."

The Beast made a snarling sound that Erik was learning meant approval.

"So what did he call you?" Erik asked. "Your father before he took back his name?"

"Henry." The Beast flicked one long claw out and examined it in the low light. "I didn't always look like this. My family was…or is…prosperous. And I was a clever boy until I was…about twelve winters."

"You can make words from the paper." Erik started uncertainly.

"I can read, yes. And write." The Beast bared all his teeth. "I was the third son, weak, clumsy and only good for books."

Erik tried to imagine it, the huge, vigorous Beast as a small and sickly human.

"But that just meant that when I….changed, my father kept me locked up until he found some woodcutter to take me so deep in the forest they thought I'd never find my way back and…." He trailed off.

"They were too cowardly to kill you outright." Erik was unsurprised.

"Even as I am now." The Beast said softly. "I would have thought it would have been easy enough. But maybe his conscience pricked him."

The silence grew until Erik felt vaguely sick with it. He tried to imagine how Charles would do this, what Charles would say to dispel painful memories.

"If you were Norse, I would call you 'Hákon'." Erik said impulsively.

"What does it mean?" The Beast's eyes were unfathomable.

"It means 'chosen son'." Erik said and the Beast growled again with what Erik thought was surprise and pleasure.

He coughed his first conscious breath. His throat felt thick, sore and coated, like he'd almost drowned. Even now it felt like he was only slowly fighting his way upward out of the darkness to a faint, flickering light. He pressed his fingertips together and it was shockingly painful. His second breath was a soft yelp.

After a long moment spent blinking, he realized that he had a visitor. Little Katherine was crouched next to him, perched like a very anxious-looking little bird.

"She didn't mean to." Katherine said without preamble. "She can't control it, it just happens."

She patted hesitantly at Charles' face. He wished she would stop, because at the moment even her light-fingered caress felt like a blow. He was too exhausted even to wince.

"I know she didn't." Charles rolled onto his side heavily. He had to move slowly because he had the sensation that he might start leaking at the seams; his whole body felt oddly insubstantial. Just the idea of sitting up made his stomach heave.

"Do you think you're going to die?" Katherine asked forlornly.

"No." Charles managed to say. Then he amended it to, "not today."

"The last man they took to see her, he died." Katherine blurted and then clapped her hand over her mouth.

"I'll be fine, Kath..." Charles tried to sound reassuring, even if he wasn't quite sure that he would be.

"She's very nice really with the gloves on." Katherine tried to push hair off his face. He was still slick and sticky with cold sweat.

"I know, little one, I could read her mind." Charles tried to piece the ragged edges of Ann Marie's memories together but he felt stupid with exhaustion and sucked dry. There was something else, something important at the back of his mind, but it would take a while to sift the barest remains of thought out of a crucible of sensation that he'd much rather forget.

He noticed with a quick lurch of vertigo that his hands were free. He slowly stretched fingers to his temple and almost sobbed aloud when his hands slid into his hair. Free then, but so weak he couldn't even feel the glimmer of Katherine's mind and so wretched that it felt like his hair hurt.

It was gone. Blotted out. Taken. He squinted his eyes shut and tried to draw breath. He wasn't prepared for this fresh hell and it left him gasping.

"You should rest. And think of something else." Katherine volunteered hesitantly. She sounded very far away. "Think of something nice."

By the end of winter, they were both worn thin and bony. When they rubbed against one another for a long time sometimes it got…tender. Right now Erik's elbow was digging into his thigh but it wasn't unpleasant. He relished the ache truly; he stretched a little to feel it better. It occurred to him that Erik had taught him this, how to leaven pleasure with little nips of pain; the contrast would make the good feeling sweeter, fuller, deeper and richer.

Erik's bearded chin prickled his belly and it kept him from drifting off into a warm cloud of sleep.

He brushed a long wisp of hair over Erik's shoulder. "What are you smirking at?"

"Smirking." Erik repeated with a smirk and Charles blinked slowly and realized that he'd spoken his own language.

"Like this." Charles said, Norse this time, tracing a fingertip over Erik's lips. He made his best approximation of a smirk even though he doubted Erik could see his face clearly in the firelight.

But Erik chuckled and crawled up to burrow in deeper, nose in Charles' armpit. "Good word," he mumbled into Charles' ribcage.

"So tell me." Charles circled a thumb around Erik's ear, gentle enough to make Erik snort and twitch like a horse plagued by a fly. But Erik was radiating too much smugness to be annoyed.

"I like it when your hands talk." Erik said nonsensically.

Charles squinted up at the ceiling beams. He knew what all those words meant separately, but that usage was new to him. Maybe it was some common expression that had some deeper meaning than the simple…

Erik stroked light fingers over Charles' palm and Charles' fingers tightened involuntarily against the tickle. Erik thought clearly in the way that invited Charles to see through his eyes and called up a vision of Charles in extremis. Charles saw himself with his head thrown back, too close to the edge to moan, or even to breathe. His chest flushed, his back arched and his hands clenched and relaxed unconsciously, like he was beckoning.

"Your hands talk to me when you can't." Erik rolled his eyes back in his head and gasped exaggeratedly in an obvious parody. Charles might have felt embarrassed if Erik's feelings hadn't been much more love and desire than jest.

Charles tightened his fingers in Erik's hair hard enough that it had to hurt a bit. He yanked Erik's face up to bite him viciously on the jaw. "I could just grab your hair, you know. Maybe your ears."

Erik just tilted his chin up so that Charles could gnaw on his throat more easily and muttered, "Mmmm, I'm so very delicate. Like a flower."

Waking chilled and stiff on a bed of leaf mold, he tried unsuccessfully to recapture the gorgeous warmth and peace of his dream. Sleeping outside for days at a time left him hollow; a million tiny noises and worries were there to rouse him at the slighted provocation. But last night he'd been so deep under for a few bare hours that now it felt like he was cracking himself out of an egg. Erik squeezed his dry eyes tight shut and gave his head a quick shake. He took a deep breath and let it out quietly.

Passing another ruined village had left them all silent and moody the day before. It had been more haphazardly destroyed than Moira's, but the deep scent of charred wood and bone seemed to stay with them for hours. Unsettling. As they got closer and closer to their goal, it seemed like those they sought had left out signposts, challenges for the battle to come.

Closer they were, yet closer to what? Erik always felt for his weapons before he even sat up. He hadn't felt Charles in his head for long days and if he allowed himself to think about what that meant for too long, his heart would start to pound so hard that he would come over all dizzy. It made him want to stab things.

He hated having a moment to think. Was this to be the rest of his life then? If they didn't find Charles or worse…Erik saw himself wandering the earth like a shade, half-dead with misery that would dog him no matter how far he sailed. He'd heard tell of a land far to the south where the men were dark and hard as iron and as cruel. He'd go there, maybe.

He rolled over to wake the….Charles was lying next to him, snoring softly with his hand curled under his cheek. Erik froze, he didn't even breathe. Then he bit his own tongue so painfully hard there seemed little doubt that he wasn't still asleep.

"Oh." Erik exhaled softly.

That dizzy, upside-down feeling rolled over him again. His heart felt like it would burst from his chest. He just managed to hold himself back from his first instinct which was to clutch Charles until he squeaked. Erik reached out and brushed a curl of hair off Charles' forehead.

This vision did not dissolve; Charles just rolled over and smacked his lips in a way that was heartrendingly familiar. It was easy to sink down next to him, until their faces were level. Erik was grateful to be flat because suddenly the earth felt unsteady, like he was on the deck of a ship without his sea legs.

How young Charles looked in sleep, his face so smooth and slightly flushed. And then Charles blinked awake and Erik couldn't help kissing him, just a quick brush of lips, painfully sweet. He pressed his nose into Charles' hair, breathed him in. Charles smiled tentatively up at him then cast his eyes down and bit one corner of his lower lip. Erik bit down on the sob caught in his throat.

Charles gazed at him and smiled. His hands curled lightly around Erik's wrists and he leaned into Erik's hands so Erik could cup his jaw and stroke his cheekbones. Erik could kiss his eyebrows, his eyelids, taste the faint salt of a tear. He pulled back to fill his eyes some more.

"Vær så snill, vær ekte, elskling." Erik begged. Please be real.

A frown passed over Charles' smooth face. Wherever he'd been imprisoned, they'd certainly been keeping him well-groomed. Charles had started affecting a more Viking look over the winter; it had been a longish while since Erik had seen him so clean-shaven. He couldn't resist brushing his knuckles over Charles' jaw again. Charles looked so young, so innocent, like…

…the day I took him.

Erik tried to keep breathing normally.

"Du forstår meg ikke i det hele tatt, gjør du vel?" Erik asked conversationally. Charles didn't say anything just rolled his lower lip under his teeth. The expression was deeply familiar. It clutched at Erik's guts even as he shoved Charles back into the leaves, even as he jerked away with his flesh on fire. He closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see her skin ripple scaly and blue again, but he heard it.

Erik quickly embedded all his steel and iron into the earth or nearby trees. He shoved his hands hard between his knees and kept his eyes shut until the ferocious urge to strangle her passed. After a moment, he leaned forward and bashed his head twice on the bole of an ash tree. "Raven, that was not…"

"I had to know, Erik." Raven's voice was thicker than usual. Huskier. "I just…had to know why."

Something twisted under his ribs, like a cramp or a stitch in his side. He found himself wheezing in pain, pressing his cheek to the cold earth.

"What's going on?" Hank uncurled and sat up, leaves and brush in his pelt. He looked between the two of them, wide-eyed.

"How much further?" Erik snarled as he staggered to his feet. He felt the tickle as blood trickled from his hairline to his eyebrow. Dawn was breaking in earnest now. He could see an odd light in Raven's golden eyes. Remorse, maybe.

Beast stood up warily and gazed northeast, scenting the air. "Tomorrow, I reckon. By dawn, if we push it."

"Then let's push it." Erik was already running.

Charles lay on his stomach so he wouldn't choke on the saliva that kept welling up in his mouth. He couldn't tell if the hurt was lessening, or if he was just growing used to it. He rolled his shoulders back, shuddering with the sharp jabs of pain. There was a low throbbing ache in his head that felt like it was building to a crescendo. Like he would soon start bleeding from his eyes.

I'm so sorry.

Charles covered his forehead with his hands and vainly burrowed deep into the straw-filled pad on the platform. The voice in his head made it ring like a bell.

He took several deep breaths through his mouth and thought a little gentler, please.

There was a long pause….I'm very sorry. The voice was quieter but the remorse still buffeted him like a strong wind.

Charles gritted his teeth and thought can you separate what you are feeling from what you are thinking? He felt churlish as he thought it, but her emotions still hurt. After a moment he could tell that she was trying to contain herself. He almost shivered when she gave herself a mental shake.

Forgive me, I'm not…a small thread of humor wove into her thought…used to speaking like this.

Charles blinked up at the ceiling. He couldn't quite shape a thought for her; it was quite a bit of effort to hide his own dismay and self-pity. That she could communicate with him in his blinkered, blanked out state…you must be very powerful.

You are very powerful. I am just a good thief.

It took Charles a moment to grasp the significance of her message. He tried to sit up and almost retched as dizziness overtook him. But now he could almost feel her drinking in his thoughts and ideas.

Yes, she responded to his unasked question it usually just lasts a few hours. I let him…here Charles just got a blast of her feelings about her captor, a swirling storm of black rage and grief…think that I was losing the power, but I can still Charles got a vague flash of wonder and envy…feel you and the others.

At Charles' unvoiced warning she thought, yes, I can…shield? That is a funny way of thinking about it, but yes, I feel how to…she sought for the word and then just sent the idea…close off other paths?

You are doing well, Charles tried to give his thoughts a hint of reassurance.

He got a sense of wistfulness in return. Yes, she thought, usually just as I master it, it goes away.

Charles shut his eyes and tried to stretch his mental fingers toward her. He could feel…something.

She responded quickly, you see? It's half gone…this is…pleasant, actually. I will be glad when it's back to you, I don't know how you bear it. Charles felt her shuddering. All those…voices and the…feelings, it was like I was drowning at first.

I've had time to get used to it. Charles knew the feeling she spoke of and his sympathy for her grew. How old are you?

Fifteen. Her thoughts turned glum. He didn't ask but he felt a brief flash of the pain and isolation of her past three years bereft of touch.

You can take any power, any gift? His curiosity refused to be stifled even when he could barely raise his head.

So far, she thought reluctantly. And real people just die.

Real people, Charles thought, surprised, I never thought of them like that.

She returned, you say 'power' and 'gift'. I never thought of it like that either.

Charles bit his lip, chagrined. Of course. She felt cursed by God and who was he to say otherwise?

For a moment, the connection between them grew stronger and he felt her despair, her fear, her conviction that she was responsible for…so much suffering. He saw the day her power manifested, the dying boy she'd had to run from and the long weeks of his recovery. Her retreat into one room of a tiny hut, how hard it had been to sew gloves with her eyes full of tears and her longing for death. For release. The day that Sebastian had come, looking at her in her mother's house through a chink in the wall. Hopeless frustration as she shook her mother who would not wake, even as flames roared around them. The memory was thick in his throat and made it hard to breathe.

Her very essence, her awareness was soaked in a deep bog of helplessness. This was the way of things, she was convinced. Sebastian's many trials confirmed this daily. His relentless curiosity about her power meant that she had no respite. The weak were tools for the strong.

Charles swallowed that with a mouthful of bile. He took two deep breaths, three, then cleared his mind and sent back the conviction that they were the strong ones.

We will leave here. We will go far away, where no one can hurt us. Charles thought. It might be a rash promise, but he couldn't help it. I will get us out of here.

How? How will you? She sent him a vision of Emma, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. A vision of himself, unable even to gasp in pain.

Someone is coming to help us. Charles thought firmly. He tried to reach out to confirm his assertion, but he was still only feeling faint glimmers of his power. But he found he didn't need it. The conviction was there, the faith that Erik would find him on this earth if they still walked it together…and if they didn't, Erik would storm Hell.

I know about the iron worker. And the shape-shifter. Ann Marie's thoughts were still rife with anxiety. And now the black bishop does too.

Charles blinked and pressed his hands together. It still hurt but the pain helped him focus. Explain.

She didn't explain with words but she called up a startlingly vivid memory. Sebastian interrogating her, even while Charles lay senseless on the ground between their feet. Sebastian's face was in shadow and the shadow looked…odd. He had had several very pointed questions to ask about Charles. When she'd told him about Erik, he'd leaned forward with interest, further into the light. In the memory, Charles noticed that Sebastian wore the helmet. Which made sense. How else could he use her new ability and not be threatened by it?

Charles could sense her deep unease, she had gotten the feeling that the only reason that Charles was still alive was as bait for a trap. She had a vague impression of Sebastian's plans for a shape-shifter and Charles found it hard to keep his thoughts muted from her, even with just a hint, a vague intimation. And Sebastian's glee was stifling; his plans for Erik had been detailed, many and various.

Charles pressed his fingers lightly in the hollow of his eyes. He became aware that what he'd been feeling up to this moment had been nothing more than annoyance. Vague pique. He'd refused to believe that anything bad could truly be happening to him.

But oh, to feel like this all the time. Rage was such a powerful, masterful friend, clearing his mind of all other considerations. Deepening his strength like breath on a flame. This was Erik's usual tool, and now Charles grasped it eagerly. His usual calm….what had Sebastian called it…'self-possession' didn't leave him. But now it kindled with his fury and he sat up, blinking away his dizziness.

He pressed his thumbs to his temples and there was more than a vague flicker for a moment. A stab of power bolted through him and he breathed harshly through his nose.

Ann Marie's voice was fainter in his head, she wasn't able to push out as much. He sent her waves of reassurance, calm and certainty. What is Se…the black bishop's power, my dear?

She told him. He nodded to himself and thought, Katherine?

In the faint dawn light, the postern was almost invisible at the far end of the causeway, but he could feel it like he was standing beside it. Erik smiled at the gate. The iron was old and rusting, but there was plenty of it.

"I don't like this." Raven's voice filtered down. It was sheer luck that an alder thicket scrubbed up almost to the marshy spit that bordered the monastery. Raven was balanced precariously on the largest branch that would bear her weight. "Just rushing up with only the element of surprise. Who's to say it will be a surprise?"

Erik jerked a buckle tight, so hard that the leather squeaked. It was particularly vexing to have to shout up at her. "Don't think I remember asking you."

"Maybe you should've." The words came in Charles' voice and when he looked up, she'd done it again. He growled up at her and sent a rotating blade to menace her, but she just looked at him with round blue eyes and his red haze faded until he felt cold all over. "Are you done?"

The Beast swore as he ducked to avoid one of Erik's stray slivers of iron. He'd been looking back the way they'd come, luckily.

"Think, Erik." She shimmered into her natural form. "Even if you had half a hundred of your most brutal brothers-in-arms, I don't think a direct approach will get us anything but dead. That crystal woman can withstand Charles, for pity's sake. She's holding him somehow. And then there's that red demon who can vanish…"

"Not to mention that we have no idea what…or who burned those villages…" Beast chimed in. His nostrils flared and he turned to look back at the deep forest.

"I am going," Erik said icily. "To pull out every scrap of iron in that place, every door hinge, every horseshoe, everything down to the toasting forks and then…."

"We came a long way to die, because you think that they'll bleed just like humans do." Raven folded her arms.

"Let's find out." Erik snarled and heated the blade above his head to slice through the branch right below the one where Raven was standing. She glared at him as her perch jittered.

"Let's be clever just for a change." She jumped down on light feet. "It's been days already, we can spare a few hours for reconnaissance."

"Just how do you plan to do that? Change into a…" Erik paused to think of something suitably vile.

Raven shimmered into a fetching little girl with white-blonde hair and green eyes. She looked like she'd seen seven soft or eight harsh winters. She smoothed her pale blue gown and looked up at Beast imploringly. The Beast made a startled whuff that Erik recognized as his 'uncomfortable' sound. She looked so fragile and adorable that Erik felt if he touched her she'd break.

The Beast said something in the odd, awkward language that Charles sometimes spoke in when he was quoting something he'd studied. Raven looked at Beast quizzically and Erik found it oddly gratifying that he wasn't the only one left out. The Beast repeated softly. "…and he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Corinthians."

Erik snorted and jerked his helmet off. This was surely some of their black-robe-one-god nonsense. Raven looked askance at him and he made a just go hand wave.

"Charles taught me a little about how to keep my thoughts hidden." Raven pulled her skirt back to examine her shoes. "I'll keep well away from the white witch."

"For now." Erik grunted and Raven jerked her chin in acknowledgement.

"I'll be back as soon as I can. Before sunset at the latest." It was unnerving to see a little girl with Raven's unblinking, unhurried self-possession. "If something goes wrong, if I have to send someone, the password will be…Corinthians."

"Be safe." Beast said, clasping her hand delicately.

"Be quick." Erik floated her a newly-made knife which was small enough for her tiny hand.

She nodded at them, tucked the knife in her sleeve and Beast watched her trudge up the causeway to the marshy ground at the edge of the outer bailey. Erik hunkered down against a tree and began braiding his hair.

Emma came to him before sunrise. He'd been expecting her as his strength returned. She was crystal before she stepped in the door and when Charles brushed his fingers over Janos' wrists as he was bound tight, she actually slapped him.

"Hardly necessary." Charles kept his eyes fixed on hers as she adjusted the helmet tight on his head. He'd never really noticed over other considerations, but it was genuinely uncomfortable, made for a bigger man's skull. She'd dismissed Janos with an impatient wave. She must be feeling quite anxious, he thought. Charles knew that she hated to appear anything but smooth and unruffled. "It's too bad there aren't two of these."

The look she gave him could have frozen the ocean. He knew that his words echoed the last thing that Sebastian had said as he'd ruefully handed over the helm. Charles just looked at her innocently and let the words do their work.

"He said you would be happier when we returned south." Charles continued.

"You should eat something." Emma pointed at the plate Janos had left him.

Charles ignored it. "But is that true?"

"Is what true?" She shifted into her fleshly form and sighed. She looked tired and he realized that she was older than he'd thought previously.

"Will you be happier?" Charles asked.

She shook her head at him in disbelief.

"Has no one ever asked you that?"

"Have you gone quite mad?" She asked with excessive courtesy. "You think that we will see happiness outside of paradise?"

He clasped his hands and looked up at her, trying to make his sincerity shine. "You'll always love the first person who recognized you. The first person who knew you were…more. When he took you from your sisters, it must have been magical. The world grown larger, but not frightening for it."

She stared at him.

"But then, he became…jaded perhaps. You were too reliable, always strong and ever present. He stretches out his hand and expects to find you at the end of it. He hasn't actually looked at you in years. He doesn't realize that you aren't the scared child that he took. And you are stronger than he is, Lady Emma, you have no need of him and his mission anymore. You can be happy, if you have a chance to consider and discover what you want."

She shifted to her crystal form. "Can you reach through that…" She gestured at his head. "…now? I haven't felt you in my head…"

"My dear, I don't need to be in your mind." Charles murmured. "I can see it in your face."

Slowly, she shimmered back to flesh, glowing in the faint light. She shook her head and turned to leave.

"I'm sure he thinks he's very clever." Charles said softly as she put her hand on the door. "But it's a short-sighted strategy, isn't it? Children may be helpless and easy to influence…"

Emma sighed deeply and squared her shoulders.

Charles continued. "But they grow up, they grow powerful and they remember."

She was still wearing her necklace, he noted. The odd metal with the white sheen. His lips twitched but he managed not to smile.

"It's like that game of his…have you played?" Charles caught the corner of her gown for an instant. "The queen can move any way she wants."

The Beast was preternaturally patient. He stood so still in the shadow of a tree that even a talented hunter might find him easy to overlook. It was Erik who circled the clearing like a hungry wolf. He tried to draw some calm from watching the Beast exercise what seemed to be limitless patience but it didn't quite work.

They both watched the wall with a predator's unrelenting attention.

Occasionally, the Beast's nostrils would flare and he would look around without seeming to turn his head. He didn't say anything though, and Erik didn't ask.

After they had waited until the sun was almost overhead, the Beast said, "You know, considering how far you can stretch steel, you could probably build a cathedral twice as tall as Whitby Abbey."

That was so bizarre that Erik actually stopped pacing. "Build with steel?"

"Maybe three times as tall." The Beast mused, obviously not talking to him, just talking.

"Ridiculous." Erik snorted in his own tongue. He squatted down for a moment and discovered that he simply couldn't stay still. The Beast lapsed into silence, or he didn't favor Erik with any more harebrained notions which was just as good. As the day wore on, the Beast grew slightly more agitated. His nostrils flared wide.

"What?" Erik was moved to ask, mid-pace.

"Can you hear that?" Beast was facing the wrong way again, looking back at the forest.

"No." Erik said, just as the shrieking started.

The Beast was gone so fast that Erik didn't have time to voice a protest, even if he'd been able to. The sound seemed to shatter the very air and he futilely fisted his hands over his ears. Trees were shaking, the water was rippling, nothing could withstand the noise. When it stopped, Erik stood up again, dazed. The Beast was just a blue streak on the edge of the causeway in front of the gate. But then he was galloping back, uncannily fast. "Pull this door apart, Erik, it'll take me too long to break it down."

Erik ground his teeth as he disassembled the gate. The echo of the shriek was only now fading from his ears. The Beast made quick work of the remaining beams and they were through to an empty courtyard. It was distinctly anticlimactic. Erik was accustomed to facing several dozen bellowing opponents wielding swords and swinging axes. The silent emptiness inside the walls brought him up short.

Charles could hear Azazel cursing before he turned the corner to Charles' section of corridor. It seemed that Azazel had trouble concentrating well enough to vanish if the person he was trying to transport struggled like a fish out of water. Azazel could barely keep hold of the child Charles had met on his first day here, the sickly little boy who had pulled off his helmet without a thought of consequence.

The child thrashed around furiously, using his feet and hands with equal determination. Silently, Charles cheered him on as the boy stuck his foot under Azazel's chin and attempted to push free without a care that he was upside-down. Charles grinned to himself as the boy almost slid out of Azazel's grasp and slithered to the floor.

Azazel growled and scooped the boy up long enough to shove him into the cell opposite Charles'. After a quick contretemps with the boy's grasping fingers, Azazel managed to slam the door shut and lock it and then vanished in a huff.

The boy grasped the sides of the small hole cut in the door and drew himself up to stare out at the corridor. Charles considered that he must be extraordinarily strong and agile. Perhaps that was his gift.

He noticed Charles almost immediately. "Hello."

"Hello. I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name." Charles started, glad of the distraction.

"I never told you." The boy returned sullenly and didn't volunteer anything further.

Charles shrugged to himself. He should be charitable, the lad was obviously ill. Or perhaps it was a trick of the faint light in the corridor that made him appear almost green.

After a long silence, Charles continued. "I never got a chance to thank you."

The boy looked puzzled. "What for?"

"You helped me…when we first arrived." Charles suddenly considered that that had been just ten or twelve days ago. It felt like a whole season.

The boy squinched his face up in a scowl. "Oh, you. I was expecting more to happen then. You just went quiet until the…" he seemed to glance around furtively, not wanting to take Emma's name in vain.

"Yes, well. It was very…helpful." Charles finished lamely. "What did you do that brought you here?"

The boy seemed bored, he let go of the windowsill and thumped to the ground. "I was showing off for the new girl."

Charles stifled a grimace. Yet another innocent for Sebastian's collection. "What makes her…" Words failed him. Charles would have said different, Erik would have said more. Luckily, the boy knew what he meant without having to explain.

"I don't know. She was so pretty though." The boy's voice seemed to be echoing off the ceiling of his cell. Now Charles couldn't see him through the tiny window. "I didn't mean to pull her hair, I just wanted to touch it."

Charles smiled to himself. It felt like stealing something to snatch a moment of normal conversation like this. "Tell me about her."

"Oh, I dunno." The boy seemed to veer wildly between loquaciousness and diffidence. "Nice, you know?"

"I guess I can imagine." Charles said wryly.

"Well, I mean….she was just normal pretty, right?" The boy said clumsily and for some reason, the simple words made Charles feel odd. Like he didn't quite fit in his skin.

He almost didn't hear as the boy continued, "But then she smiled at me and for a second her eyes were yellow." He sounded enraptured.

Charles straightened. He was deeply conscious of the weight of the helmet on his head for a moment. He wasted a moment hoping he had regained his strength, then he breathed out slowly. Whether he had or not, the time had come.

Suddenly, a high-pitched shriek pierced him like a sharp blade jabbed straight through his head. The helmet afforded no protection from the noise which felt like it was replacing the air. It didn't even seem to come from one direction or another, it was just the most penetrating, painful sound in existence. Faintly, Charles could also hear the tinkle of breaking glass.

It felt like the noise was pushing him to the floor, holding him motionless. It finally stopped and Charles just panted for a moment. "What was that?"

"Sean." The boy was trying to sound unafraid, but it wasn't working. "Something bad must be happening."

"Where…" Beast started and Erik shushed him.

They were half-consciously circling the room back to back. They'd moved quickly through an antechamber, the nave of a chapel to a room lined with tables, the old refectory. Erik noted vaguely that his ancestral brethren had plundered this place and had done a proper job of it. Nothing precious remained. But he could feel the hinges in the doors and the spits in the fireplace which was comforting. There were fire marks high on the ceiling, charred beams overhead that were unsteady.

The Beast muttered at him, "Perhaps they've gone…"

"No." Erik muttered back, even though he recognized that it was pointless against this particular opponent. "This is a trick. They're here; we're just not seeing them."

The Beast growled and swiped a bench out of his way. "How can we fight what we can't see?"

"We don't fight." Erik stood still and let his weapons go. Gently, so that they didn't clatter on the floor.

"Then…" Beast sounded bewildered as Erik shushed him again.

"Charles did this all the time." Erik spoke barely moving his mouth. "The easiest thing is to keep people from noticing…"

He gathered his wits, allowing himself a moment to breathe, a moment to think. A moment to remember.

"So how did you do that?" Charles propped his head on his fist, absorbed in the story.

"What?" Erik rolled over onto his back and stretched. "Climb the wall with an arrow in my leg?"

"No, how'd you reconquer the Holy Land?" Charles rolled his eyes and traced the scar on Erik's thigh with his thumb again. "Yes, of course, how could you climb? It must have been bleeding like crazy for starters…"

"I didn't feel it." Erik shrugged. "I was berserkr."

Charles frowned elaborately. "Wrapped in a bear skin?"

"It means more than just…" Erik tilted his chin up to the ceiling, deepening the stretch. "This is hard to explain to someone who won't even stab his seax into a post for practice."

"It hurts my wrist." Charles returned with an excessively winsome expression. Erik gave in to the temptation to kiss him on the nose.

"Berserkr is…why we can do what we do. How a few dozen can take a whole village. It's easiest to fight when you're not…thinking."

Charles had inched his way over until he was lying on Erik's hair. "Like an animal?"

"Exactly." Charles never needed a lot of explanation, it was very satisfying. "You've never hunted a bear, I guess?"

Charles' eyebrows went up. "Not recently, no."

Erik grinned. "They die hard. Even blinded with blood, they'll still come at you. They'll snap off a spear in their guts and keep coming. It's like they don't realize they're dying, so they don't."

Charles blew all his breath out and twisted a lock of Erik's hair around his index finger. His eyes were dark in the low light. "What does it feel like? To be berserkr?"

"It doesn't feel like anything. Your sight gets very clear and it's like time slows down. You don't think about anything, you don't feel anything, just…" And Erik tightened his fist and thrust, stabbing an invisible opponent.

Charles was quiet for a while breathing into Erik's shoulder.

"You know, I can't control animals." Charles confessed finally. "Sense them easily, but I can't turn or alter their minds. Because it's God that tells an animal its nature, so they won't listen to me."

"That makes sense." Erik picked his tooth with a fingernail until Charles grabbed his hand and bit it lightly.

He traced a finger over Erik's forehead and murmured, "I wonder what your mind would feel like when you were…berserkr."

Now he could feel…something. Not iron. Not pure steel. Steel…blended with something he'd never felt before. The odd alloy called to him and he bit his lip and reached out to caress it. He could feel the shape, even halfway across the room. He tightened his grasp on the thing and started to twist.

He could feel the slight recoil, even though the alloy wasn't pressing against flesh, but something like stone. Stone that twitched and convulsed. He squeezed gently, but inexorably. The Beast growled when the light in the room started to flicker. Erik ignored his eyes and focused on his sixth sense.

Erik had broken enough bones, both his own and others to know the point of no return. Whatever he was squeezing was cracking and just about ready to snap.

With a shudder, the crystal woman transfigured to flesh and the room brightened, back to real. Her necklace was cutting into her throat and she clutched the red imprint he'd left in her flesh. Three children stood huddled in a corner, a handsome, black-haired man brandished a curved sword. The red devil smirked at Erik warily. His sword was straight and the edge caught the light. Erik was already advancing on the woman as she held her throat, but she flicked her gaze upward.

"Azazel." A man in a black robe stood on the landing of the room's sole staircase. "Take that piece off the board."

The red devil curled his lip and strode three quick steps to put his hand on the Beast's shoulder. They disappeared in a coal-black cloud and Erik was alone.

Charles lay on the floor and tried to wrestle out of his bonds. He lacked a bare inch to move and it made him groan in frustration. Emma must be keeping Katherine from…

The boy across the way called, "Hey, sir…I…your…Charles!"

Charles cursed under his breath. "What?"

"What are you doing?" The boy was peering out of the tiny opening, looking like he needed some reassurance.

Charles stood up and looked across at the boy's dark eyes and jade-tinted skin. "I think my friends are in danger and I'm trying to help them."

"By lying on the floor?" The boy blinked once, deliberately.

Charles wondered why he was bothering to explain himself to a child, but apparently he was. "I really, really need to get this thing off my head."

"Oh, well." Unexpectedly, the boy grinned at him. "Why didn't you say so?"

He put his face up to the gap and opened his mouth. Charles was left open-mouthed himself as the boy reached across and snatched the helmet from Charles' head with his long, agile tongue.

"You should have burned the ship." Erik felt the tendrils of the iron-wrought sconces and the heavy weight of the chandelier above him. The room was large and empty with a faint echo. Bereft of decoration, the beams of the ceiling looked like the ribs of an enormous animal.

"Ah, your little Saxon taught you to speak properly." The black-robed man smiled brilliantly.

Some small part of Erik recognized that he was supposed to feel insulted by this. Thrown off guard, perhaps. But that kind of warfare could go both ways. He filled his mind with a picture of how the beautiful woman would look with her throat slit, how very fast blood would spurt down her bodice and dye her white gown red. It'd be soaking past her knees in the time it took to blink.

Erik could imagine it very vividly. Nothing he hadn't seen before.

Behind him, she gasped faintly. He had fused the links of the chain around her neck together; he imagined it was more than a little uncomfortable.

"I am Sebastian of Sa…"

"I have seen what you've done." Erik cut him off. "Two villages, rumors of more."

Sebastian smiled and spread his hands. "Well, we aren't above taking a page from your book, in service of a higher purpose. Those we took are far better off with us, whatever their people might have thought."

He misread Erik's silence. "I have a bigger life planned for them than being some village's pariah. Those peasants would have turned on them eventually, as you well know."

"You talk a lot." Erik tapped the leather around his sword hilt impatiently. "I said I've seen what you've done. I didn't say I cared."

Sebastian purred, "Why should you? It is not for us to fraternize with the unchosen, insofar as we must in service of our purpose." He gestured toward the ceiling. "The one-eyed god for you, perhaps or do you wear a hammer?"

Erik grunted at this presumption, raising his weapons with a light touch. One of the children in the corner moaned with fear only to be shushed by another one.

"Don't your gods require sacrifice? Placation?" The bishop spread his hands and arms like he was giving benediction. "Why should we not also? We know that we are more than human, who is to say that we are less than god?"

"You know what I want." Erik said calmly.

"Take your thrall, certainly. It was not my intent to offend." The bishop continued. "But I would offer you a place in my pantheon. I could use a man like you."

Erik noticed that the dark-haired man was a few steps closer than he had been. Erik snaked two sconces around his torso and snatched his sword away. He could feel the white witch's desperate maneuvers in the odd corners of his head, but his mind was clear and his resolve was unshakeable.

Sebastian did not seem overly alarmed. Erik threw the chandelier at his smug face.

He was a little surprised when Sebastian threw it back.

"Right." Charles was so delighted to have the weight off his head for a moment, he forgot that he was still bound at the wrists and locked securely in his cell. "All right then."

He took a deep breath in through his nose and closed his eyes. He was stricken at once by a welter of bright minds, swirling in a storm of panic. Katherine was…high up, on the very ramparts maybe, and it would take her long moments to run to him.

There was nothing for it. He thrust his command out like it was a blade, "Azazel."

When Azazel materialized in answer to Charles' imperative, he brought a little bit more than Charles expected. Azazel staggered when he reappeared under the arch of the passageway, even in the low light Charles could see that he was bleeding rather profusely. An enormous blue creature snarled over the red man's body, its claws slick with gore.

Incongruously, the creature said "Drop me, will you?" in a cultured voice.

Charles coughed in alarm.

The blue creature looked up and blinked for a moment and then bared all his teeth. "Charles Xavier, I presume?"

Charles blinked and cleared his throat. "Ah…I'm afraid you have the advantage of me, good sir?" He realized that the creature was smiling at him.

"Henry, formerly of the clan McCoy. I name myself Beast." The Beast sketched a gracious bow. "Your sister and I are long acquainted."

Charles pressed himself to the door. "An honor and a pleasure, truly, sir. Would you happen to…"

"Please, if you would allow me." The Beast spared one glance for Azazel who was still gazing, blank-faced down the hallway and not bothering to stanch his wounds. He gestured for Charles to step back and smashed the door handily. He shook Charles' proffered hands and then sliced the thick leather of Charles' bonds with a swipe of his claws.

"Ah, my young friend here is also in a somewhat…" Charles paused as Beast broke down the green boy's door. "Oh well done."

The Beast ducked his head modestly. He gave Charles an assessing gaze.

Charles sketched his own bow. "I'm deeply grateful and at your service, Henry. Where shall we…"

He didn't get the opportunity to finish before the Beast snarled at the corridor behind him and thrust Charles behind his broad, furry back. Charles peeped around him to see that Emma was advancing on them rapidly with Katherine, Sean and a few other children in tow. The green boy had climbed up on the ceiling, looking wary and confused.

"Wait, please." Charles sent a calming thought toward the Beast and ducked around his flank to hold out his hands as the Lady Emma shimmered from white to azure blue. "Raven, Raven!"

She was as tall as he was now and so strong, he thought as she squeezed him tight. He could feel her body shuddering in his arms and he was breathing hard too, panting in an effort to keep from weeping with joy.

"Charles." She whispered into his hair, kissing his temple. He rubbed his cheek against hers, feeling the slight dampness. She pulled him back and shook her head in wonderment at him and then said, "We've got a problem."

Charles looked down at Azazel and said, "I imagine we have more than one."

He dropped his mental hold on Azazel for a moment. Just long enough for the man to blink and shake his head. Charles tightened his grasp when he felt Azazel attempt to escape again and Azazel's light eyes went blank.

"Where's Erik?" She spoke to Beast over Charles' shoulder.

"This one snatched me out of the refectory." The Beast nudged Azazel with his foot. "Erik is there with the white…lady and the black bishop."

"That's bad." Charles leaned down and spoke to little Katherine. "Can you take me to the refectory, fast as fast?"

She nodded at him, reaching out to give Raven's hand a squeeze.

Charles straightened and said, "There's a staircase around the corner and one floor down, a girl who must be freed. She won't want to touch you and you definitely shouldn't touch her. And there's another one…" He closed his eyes and then shook his head. "A boy, a little further down. Get them and meet me upstairs."

He gave Azazel a mental nudge help them.

"Charles, there are…" Raven started. He leaned in and kissed her cheek. "Later, my dearest. I've got to help Erik."

"What's the black bishop's gift?" the Beast growled.

Charles turned back just as Katherine grabbed his hand and pulled him into the wall. "Blows make him stronger."

The wound between his ribs was…fairly serious, Erik thought dispassionately. He was having a little difficulty breathing. He dragged himself up off the wall and pulled his two nearest blades into long, oversized scythes.

He thought that Sebastian might be bleeding under his robes, but it was hard to be sure. There was rather a lot of blood festooning the hall right now. A stray sliver had caught Emma under the ear and one side of her hair was sticky with blood as she watched warily. She had obviously realized that they'd made the walls and ceiling dangerously unstable and she had pulled Janos back to the leading arch.

"Why are we doing this, Erik?" Sebastian called from the far side. "These gifts of ours put us beyond any clan or tribe. Why should we live in fear of them, when they could so easily fear us?"

The scythes wavered as his breath caught. Pain was starting to penetrate his consciousness, tear through the veil of his red haze and that was bad. He aimed another slice at the bishop's smarmy face but Sebastian deflected it infuriatingly well. "I don't wish to hurt you, my friend."

Erik drew a hail of nails from the ruined ceiling beam above them. Sebastian sustained a few cuts but managed to duck out of the way and come up on Erik's blind side. He grabbed Erik to strike him and the blow seemed to throb through Erik's broken ribs.

"Perhaps I could tempt you with riches beyond what you have ever seen?" Sebastian crooned in his face. "Sammelsberg sits on a sea of silver, the largest mine in the Frankish lands…"

He wrapped his hands around Erik's shoulders and momentarily, Erik couldn't even pull away. His body's weakness was bitter in his mouth. Sebastian held him, lover-close. His fingers were hard; it was like being caught in a bramble.

But then…Erik blinked at the far wall. He must be worse off than he had thought. Hallucinating some fever dream. A little girl was stepping out of the wall and with her...

Erik took a deep breath and the pain cut into him, but he let it recede. He caught Charles' eye. Charles looked pale and sick, his eyes in dark hollows, his mouth a pressed-thin scarlet slash across his face. But definitely Charles, alive, if not well.

This was so…unlooked for. An island of tranquility in an ocean of blood. Now he could snatch his own blade from Sebastian's hand and step back. Charles had obviously twisted his tendrils around Sebastian's mind and was holding him motionless. Now Erik had the clarity and time to temper his burning, charring welter of rage.

"Idiot." Erik pulled himself from Sebastian's frozen grasp. "I don't even like silver."

Charles spared a glance for Emma and the struggling Janos. Emma gave him a wry look and dropped an ironic curtsey. He bowed back at her and she lost no time in disappearing through the archway.

"You can't hit him, Erik." Charles felt the pulse of his heartbeat in his throat and swallowed. "Or even stab him. Any blow will make him stronger."

Erik seemed to have realized that, he had already wrapped a number of long coils of iron, snake-like around Sebastian's legs, arms and chest.

"I have no intention" Erik tightened the dense black iron very gently. It had been so long since Charles had spoken Norse, it felt strange and almost formal. "…of striking him."

Charles yearned at him. This was like and so very unlike his Erik. This creature's mind was almost empty but for the throbbing pulse that demanded blood. But he seemed to sense Charles' unease; he titled his chin and blinked the sweat out of his eye.

Erik turned to Charles and his eyes were wide and bright in his drawn face. "You should probably leave now. You aren't going to want to see this, or hear it. And you definitely won't want to feel it."

Charles opened his mouth, torn. His head ached terribly now and he wanted nothing more than to be safe, to curl up in Erik's arms and let the world burn. The pummeling of Sebastian's mind trying to break free and the frantic uncertainty of the others in the keep left him brittle and unsteady.

"Don't…" He couldn't conjure up words for a moment.

"Let me be who I am, Charles." Erik tightened the iron fractionally more and Sebastian's mind shrieked in agony. "Let me be what I am. Leave this to me."

"I can't…leave you," Charles said softly. "He might hurt you again."

The iron around Sebastian began to get marginally hotter, then hot enough to scorch and still Charles held him silent and motionless. This was going to hurt, but surely he'd been hurt worse. And if it required a sacrifice to turn Erik from an animal back into a man, well…

"Charles." The voice that came from behind Erik's shoulder was young and feminine. Ann Marie was peeling off her glove. "They need you outside, up on the wall."

She cocked her chin at him and stood with her bare hand hovering over Sebastian's extended, frozen palm. It looked bizarrely like a wedding ceremony. Charles looked into her mind and saw that even as young as she was, she was fully woman-grown now and her sense of righteousness was almost blinding. He blinked and let Sebastian of Sammelsberg's mind free at the same moment that Ann Marie clasped his hand.

Erik watched until Charles was beyond the arch before looking back at his victim. He didn't know this chit of a girl, but already he liked her, she had an artistic sense of pain. Whatever she was doing, she would stop just long enough for the bishop to get his breath back. His veins were coursing black under his skin and his eyes were starting to bulge.

Erik created a flock of needle-sharp iron barbs. They darted around him like birds until he found places to lodge them. Sebastian couldn't do much more than gurgle at this point. Erik took a fistful of his hair and turned his face so he could take the lesson with him to Hel.

"Why should we live in fear of them, when they could so easily fear us?" Erik repeated and Sebastian, surprisingly, grinned up at him. "It's a good question."

"Perhaps you are right. You are most certainly right." Erik nodded once, very deliberately.

Sebastian seemed to smile more broadly even as his mouth filled with blood.

"But you hurt someone who's mine." Erik smiled back, and it was bright, sparkling mayhem. "Draugadróttinn eigi þik"

He repeated in Charles' language. "May the corpse king own you."

It took Charles a moment to realize what he was looking at. On the far side of the shallow bay, it looked like the shore was fringed by a flashing, undulating silver dragon with spined scales and the occasional wisp of smoke. Beast and Raven were staring out at the massed crowd of soldiers and Charles noticed that even Emma had claimed a corner behind the parapet.

"What is that?" Charles addressed Raven but Beast answered. "I imagine that it's the combined muster from Durham and Corbridge."

"They obviously didn't think Moira was mad." Raven said.

"Who's Moira?" Charles asked faintly. He'd never seen so many angry men in his life. Their minds were humming like a beehive.

"Never mind." Raven shrugged, looking at Emma balefully. "I guess you can't burn too many villages before they start to notice. I don't suppose you could convince them that Erik is taking care of their problem and it's planting season, so they should all go home?"

"That must be over 500 men." Charles looked at Emma, pale and resolute. She frowned and shook her head. His own head felt like it would split open like an over-ripe melon. At the moment, he could sow confusion, but that could end up making them deadlier.

"The tide's in right now, but when it goes out…" the Beast shrugged. "There's nothing to stop them between there and here. I'm sure Erik can rebuild the gate, but this place relies too much on the water for defense."

"So we're trapped until the water goes down enough for them to storm us?" Raven seemed to shimmer unconsciously into her giant body. Katherine looked up at her, eyes shining with adoration.

Erik joined them, out of his battle trance. His hands were faintly pink and his leather braces stained dark. The toes of his boots were soaked. Ann Marie stood behind him, white-faced but calm as she pulled on her gloves. Emma and Janos edged farther down the rampart.

Erik seemed to recognize what he was seeing instantly and he didn't look surprised. "Been hearing them all morning, Hákon?"

"We saw them coming up behind you from here." Raven indicated Sean. "I was afraid I couldn't warn you in time, but Sean figured out a way to let you know."

Sean looked unhappy. "I think I could make them go away…"

"That might hurt us more than them," Charles said hastily.

"I have enough." Erik said shortly.

"Enough what? For what?" Charles asked, not letting his apprehension show.

"Enough iron to shape a bolt for every man down there" Erik sounded frighteningly impassive. They all turned to look at him and then all turned back to look at Charles.

"No." Charles breathed out and folded his arms. "I don't think we'll do that."

Erik looked at him sidelong and Charles amended, "Unless we have to."

"We shouldn't be standing like this, out in the open." Beast said nervously.

Erik snorted. "There's no way they can hit the…"

An arrow whizzed between Erik and Beast, clattering against the stone of the far wall.

"Longbows." Charles and Beast said in unison and everyone ducked under the parapet.

One of the younger boys down in the courtyard started to cry until an older girl hushed him.

"How long do we have before the tide turns?" Beast asked Charles but it was Janos who answered. "Until the sun is there." He pointed the angle.

"Not so very long then." Charles muttered and they all lapsed into morose silence, except for Raven who had crawled over to the far side of the wall and was gazing out at the open ocean.

"Erik?" She called over her shoulder. "Any iron rivets in that keel?"

They all crawled over and Charles' spirits soared. He'd forgotten all about the drekar. It bobbed in the deeper water at the curve of the bay. Then he realized that there was quite a vast expanse of ocean between there and where he sat.

Raven was giving Erik an expectant look. And Erik was scratching his beard and looking a little paler than usual.

Raven started, "Just like…"

"No." Erik was shaking his head. "Four times the size, not just like."

Raven looked like she would argue for a second and then she turned around abruptly, "Charles, tell him he can lift that boat."

Erik had bowed his head and was looking at Charles out of the corner of his eye.

Charles, for once, knew exactly what to say. "It's not a boat, it's a ship. And I don't have to tell him, he knows."

Beast had sensibly pointed out that they'd need supplies for a sea journey, so the young ones had gone to raid the larders for whatever they could carry. Raven was binding up Azazel's puncture wounds while he stared at her appreciatively. And Erik was reinforcing the ship's hull from the outer wall and arguing with Charles.

"We can think of something else, if you don't think you can get us out of here." Charles surreptitiously rubbed his temples. His head was still pounding like a smithy.

"Of course I can get us out of here." Erik snapped. "And I'm glad to do it for you and Raven and Hákon, but I didn't plan on hauling a dozen Saxon brats around."

"Raven and… Hákon … are friends, right? Don't you think that they could become friends too?" Charles muttered, feeling that he was being very reasonable.

"They're children." Erik gestured down at them with a flourish.

"They'll grow." Charles argued.

"Weak, Charles. Burdensome." Erik seemed vaguely pleased at coming up with that Saxon word.

"Like me, then?" Charles started, noticing that one of Katherine's friends had climbed up to the parapet next to them and was watching the swarm of humans down below. "Hey! Stop! What's your name…Peter!"

Erik turned as the boy made his way to them. "Get down, you fool, those longbow…"

Between one step and the next, the youth's flesh transformed to a steel finish. An arrow pinged off his shoulder as he looked askance at them.

Erik was silent for a long moment and then he turned and snapped at Charles. "Get them to the sea gate. Quickly."

Charles nodded and dashed down the steps, grinning.

"He won't come out." Beast frowned into the faint, watery light of the corridor. Nothing on the Holy Island went too deep underground, but they had come to the furthest depth of the fortress, any further down and it would be a well or a sewer.

Charles didn't waste time peering in, he just walked as best he could from the half-light into the fuller darkness. The pale young man crouched on a rough-hewn bench recoiled from him.

"Alexander, come out now, please."

"How do you know…you know, never mind." The pale young man scowled at him fiercely and then looked away, feigning boredom. "There are enough witches in here to fill Purgatory to overflowing."

"So you believe this is where you should stay?" Charles sat on the bench like he had all the time in the world. "Locked away with the witches?"

Alexander glared at him, "You don't know what…"

"You've done?" Charles finished. "I know your name, your brother's name, your parents, the name of your village…doesn't it stand to reason that I might also know what happened to you? You don't seem to think about anything else."

Alexander opened his mouth and then shut it again.

"Alexander," Charles said gently. "People have died for my sake, too. It's not a good feeling but I believe we can still redress the balance somehow. There are men coming right now and if you don't come with me, some of them will probably suffer, even if you don't mean to hurt them."

Alexander looked hunted, even as he sneered. His bravado seemed worn thin.

Charles continued, even more gently. "So come with me now. I promise that no one will treat you like a weapon."

"And if I don't?" Alexander countered, cracking his knuckles.

Charles shrugged. "Well, I could always send you to sleep and let Beast carry you out."

He looked over at Alexander and raised his eyebrows. "But I'd rather not."

The Beast stopped so suddenly that Charles walked into his back. "Uhm?"

Alexander, who was almost dazzled by ordinary sunlight, had nearly tripped over Charles and he glared at the Beast but didn't say anything.

Charles looked around Beast's shoulder, "Is that ice?"

"Any day now?" Erik called from his perch on the prow. The ship was balanced delicately on what looked like a frozen waterspout. There was even a frosty staircase up over the gunwale.

The Beast shrugged and trudged out onto the ice, digging his claws in. Charles and Alexander followed him more gingerly.

"I thought Azazel…" Charles started.

"Azazel's lost a lot of blood." Erik was frowning hard with his brow knit up. "And…Robert wanted to help."

"Are we all aboard?" Charles scrubbed a hand over his face. He was so tired now; he could easily believe this was all a dream.

"You're the last." Erik said almost absently. He closed his eyes tightly, then opened them and the planks groaned as the ship broke free of its icy mooring and floated over the shallow water of the inlet and out to the open sea.

A couple of the younger children screamed and a few of the older ones as well. Charles was glad to see that Raven had her hand clamped over Sean's mouth. Emma was slightly green. Charles looked over the side to watch the shadow of the drekar move over the water. It felt like they were rising and falling, as if they were carried on waves of air.

He looked back to ask Erik about it and realized that they were rising and falling in the rhythm of Erik's breath. And Erik wasn't watching the horizon or the shoreline or any other landmark. He was watching Charles.

Charles couldn't help smiling, feeling the wind in his hair and the sun on his face.

"Brace yourself." Erik called and Charles just had enough time to clutch the mast before the ship slid into the deep water. Erik had judged pretty well but it was still a jolt. Charles gave it a long moment while the water churned and settled before climbing to his feet.

Erik was directing the older boys as they unfurled the sail when Emma approached Charles with Janos and Azazel in her wake. "I thought about what you said."

"I'm grateful." Charles returned shortly.

She smiled at him ruefully. "I think I would be happier, heading back south again. But I don't think that's your intention. And I hate to trespass on your hospitality almost as much as you hated trespassing on mine." She arched one perfect eyebrow.

"I assume this means you feel, ah, strong enough to travel?" Charles addressed Azazel, who shrugged.

"You know Whitby Abbey." Erik said unexpectedly.

Emma looked at him dubiously. "We moored there for this one." She gestured at Sean who looked even more alarmed than usual.

"There's a bay a little south of there and a karvi ship." Erik said slowly and Raven exchanged looks with Beast. "One of my brothers is…waiting."

"And you think he might be…convinced to take us south?" Emma said, equally slow. "I had never heard that Vikings were such generous men."

"Consider it wergild." Erik showed her all his teeth. "A blood tribute from the north."

She smiled back at him, equally feral. "What do I call my benefactor?"

"Erik Járnangan." Erik said, glancing awry at Charles. "But I prefer Erik the Untouchable."

Janos looked up to where the sail had finally gotten tied down and raised his hand. "A parting gift." He said and the wind rose.

"That was very generous." Charles said after they'd gone. "I'm not sure whether Einar will thank you."

"It will be good for him." Erik leaned on the beitass in his favorite position. Then he shifted uncomfortably and leaned on one of the inner strakes. Janos' wind had them northward bound at a good clip and Beast was guiding the rudder, assisted more or less by Alexander and Sean.

"You're so pale." Erik said softly. Charles noticed he was breathing shallowly in light pants.

"Yes, I was…" Charles pushed himself off the sea chest and went to sit beside Erik. "…spread a little too thin for too long there. I will…"

The slanting sunlight off the water lanced a fiery pain through his head and he wasn't able to complete his thought. His mouth was almost too dry to make speaking easy anyway. But it was all right. It was done. They were all safe.

"Charles." Erik murmured. Erik was blinking a lot more than he usually did and Charles frowned a little. He reached out to pat Erik's shoulder and suddenly realized that the blood on Erik's tunic hadn't dried. It had been hours and it still wasn't dry.

Erik cupped one hand under his ribs and reached out with the other one to touch Charles' face, but his hand kind of hung in the air like…his eyes wouldn't quite focus.

"Erik, I think you may be…" and Charles sat up, thinking Raven! And Beast! And help! And then the hollows of Erik's eyes got darker, the bright sun dimmed and the last thing Charles saw was the sky, blue and cloudless.

They had piled rocks on his corpse.

After what felt like forever, after he'd passed through the red and black fog, the darkness and the roaring water. He guessed that he would wash up on the Náströnd soon; surely he was on his way to Hel. He knew he was dead because the pain had gone.

Sometimes it returned in a flicker of flames. Ache thrummed through him like a phantom or an echo. Once he had felt gentle tugs on his scalp and his mind had coalesced long enough for him to realize that someone was loosening his hair from the tight braids. Some small part of him had prayed that they would clean him well, that whatever Saxon ritual they undertook would be right enough to send him to the fate that awaited him and not leave him a draugr.

The voyage to Hel was fraught with strange dreams. He'd expected huge serpents, trolls and half-men to populate the space between the worlds but the gods had conjured up a talkative little girl who nattered on at him unceasing over the creaking rush of water. Sometimes blue creatures swayed in the edges of his hallucinations. Long, dark times passed dreamlessly. And once he'd had a beautiful vision of a midwinter celebration with his mother. The memory was sharp-edged and perfect like he'd journeyed back in time instead of to the afterworld. His mother's face turned toward him apple-gold in the bonfire's light and she stroked a hand over his hair and said, 'Min lille mannen er så høy nå'.

If he hadn't been dead, he would have wept.

But he was dead and they'd obviously put him in a stone cairn. He could feel a stone pressing sharp into his ribs, underneath the left side of his breastbone. And more general pain now, like they'd poured water on his burial cairn and it had frozen around him. Which was clever, certainly, keep him safe from scavenging animals until the ground thawed and they could bury him properly. He frowned to himself. They should have just burned him, grave goods be damned. And surely it had been well into spring when he'd…

"I rather imagine…" the familiar voice seemed to come from inside him. "…that Hel doesn't reek of spilled ale and wet sheep."

A presence shifted next to him and suddenly the darkness wasn't quite as complete. Something creaked open and Erik's eyelids squinted hard in rebellion and involuntarily he groaned. The pain was so heavy that he could barely breathe.

Between one breath and the next, the ache that his whole body was steeped in ebbed and he could breathe and blink. The shadows solidified into a vague blur that looked like Charles.

"I'm sorry." Charles scrubbed a hand over his face. He looked exhausted and he immediately said something nonsensical. "Sometimes it gets away from me when I sleep."

Erik shut his eyes and opened them again. He wanted to swallow the awful taste in his mouth, but he thought that it might make him cough and that might potentially be damaging. It occurred to him that he hadn't expected to have these niggling considerations as a dead man.

"You're not dead." Charles reached over slowly and traced two fingers over Erik's collarbone. "But it was…a near thing."

Something powerful clutched around Erik's spine, filled his belly with hot liquid. Fear and desperation that weren't his own; hope that stumbled and barely dared to blossom. Emotions that seemed too large to be contained in the pale man kneeling so quietly by his side, looking at him like Erik was almost too delicate and precious to be touched. It made Erik feel very strange. Charles usually kept his feelings so carefully wrapped up.

"Fucking Saxon." Erik growled hoarsely. "You smell like a goat."

After a startled moment, Charles grinned at him broadly. "Well, I have better manners than a goat. And better by far than a Viking."

He settled down close, so Erik wouldn't even have to turn his head. "You don't exactly smell like a bed of lavender yourself but notice how I'm not complaining."

"Hmmph." Erik let his eyes fall shut and then cracked them. Charles was still there. He discovered that he could twitch his fingers without too much effort and almost slide his hand…

Charles spread his palm over Erik's knuckles and squeezed his thumb. He held Erik's hand unmoving on his chest as Erik muttered, "What did for me?"

"Glass." Charles sighed over Erik's shoulder. "He was a clever one, that Sebastian. Sean broke the windows, remember? They pulled a shard as sharp as a dagger out of you…" Charles trailed off, blinking into the dark shadows around them. After a moment, Charles seemed to come back to himself. "But you know who is really clever is Henry. Read Galen in both Greek and Latin and he…"

"Henry?" Was all Erik could muster.

"Hákon." Charles said after a moment. "Beast."

"Oh." Erik nodded. Of course, the Beast was a clever one.

"He cut a reed." Charles said dully. "He stuck it in your…" Charles traced a finger over Erik's ribcage around the edges of a thick bandage. "Blew you up like a bladder."

"Hmmph." Erik grunted again. He supposed he'd heard stranger things. His eyes had fallen shut and he opened them. Charles was still there.

I'm glad you can do what you do. Erik forced his eyes to stay open. I'm too tired to talk.

Yes, well. Charles radiated a kind of grudging satisfaction. Times like these it's more curse than gift. What you've been feeling would keep most people shrieking aloud but you've been so quiet, it made me…

The thought cut off abruptly. Luckily, Erik found he was also too tired to grin. Charles would have taken it amiss.

"You're supposed to be 'the Untouchable'." Charles said in the same flat, dull voice and Erik knew that Charles' anger would grow apace with his hope. More than anything, Charles' anger proved that he wasn't dead.

Starvation, thought Erik wryly. Exposure. Drowning, falling. Blood sickness, the coughing sickness, the plague, a bit of glass, a flint-tipped arrow…

"Yes, yes, all right." Charles rolled onto his back and folded his arms. "It's stupid. I know you don't even want to die in your sleep, I just…"

Are you…? Erik cut him off quickly with his own upwelling of concern.

"Oh, yes I'm…" Charles turned slightly and almost grinned. "…strong as an ox."

Charles was so pale that his lips were livid and the lavender hollows under his eyes seemed like they would swallow his whole face. Erik wanted to chide him for lying but he was far too tired.

"I was just lying here thinking how delightful it was…not to be tied up." Charles lolled back and raised his eyebrows at Erik.

Erik snorted and felt the vague echo of what was probably supposed to be pain. "I guess that is nice."

"Katherine said he was awake." Raven strode over the deck as easily as if she'd been born to a race of seafarers. Charles struggled out of the hold, wry in the knowledge that such perfect grace would never be his.

"He is awake." Charles closed his eyes against the powerful sun and breeze. He still felt slightly faint and transparent, like a shadow of himself. Raven seemed very solid in comparison, the bright light seemed to deepen her color as she raised one ridge of her brow. She handed him some salted bread and he started chewing it gratefully. She'd been indulging him since he'd fainted, more practical and patient than he remembered her.

She also kept her natural form now and she didn't wear clothes. He wasn't sure which of those facts made him watch her out of the corners of his eyes, catching her only in glimpses. Now that the panic of keeping Erik alive was subsiding, they were growing slightly shy of each other.

Raven was regarding him now, her head cocked sideways.

"Are you going to let us move him?" She asked bluntly, tilting her head toward the shore.

Charles sighed. The debate had been raging for almost a day ever since they'd moored in this empty inlet. He didn't quite know when he'd started feeling so Viking-like, so much safer at sea. Perhaps after watching Erik nearly pierced by an arrow.

"Not yet." Charles said, trying not to be too brusque. Raven paused, then nodded acknowledgement.

"If he were in the camp it would be easier to keep him warm." Raven said in a deceptively idle tone. She gestured out to the enormous fire pit Alexander had built. The bright sun made the flames invisible but Charles could see how the air above it shimmered with heat. The little girls were playing a game that seemed to involve lots of skipping while an older girl helped Ann Marie slice the rotten parts off their store of turnips.

"I'll…" keep him warm. Charles bit off the end of his words so abruptly he thought that she might not have realized that he'd spoken. It had been days and he still wasn't quite sure how he was going to address some of the details of his existence with his sister.

He had the sinking sensation that she'd heard his unspoken words. Raven curled up to sit on the deck and he slumped beside her. She rocked her head back and gave him a look that was almost, but not quite a smirk. "He's not feverish anymore?"

Charles hoped that his blush would be construed as sunburn. In the throes of his fever, Erik had moaned some mightily embarrassing things that had confused Beast utterly. Luckily, it had been mostly Norse, but the word 'Charles' was always wretchedly easy to distinguish.

"You seem to be feeling better too." She said lightly. He wasn't trying to read her-in fact he was at pains not to read her-but he felt a deep channel of feeling underneath her casual words.

Charles was still grateful that he'd been deeply, deeply unconscious while Beast had practiced his medical art on Erik. He wished he could have remained blissfully ignorant altogether, but it had been in the forefront of Beast's mind for several days now and Charles couldn't help but glean all the details from him, clear, grisly and vivid. Henry would want to know that Erik had awakened, even if only briefly. Charles sat up a little and pressed his fingers to his…

"Never mind that now." Raven cut in on him with all the exasperation that a little sister could muster. "I want to get re-acquainted with my brother, the Viking."

"I'm not a Viking." But Charles had the sudden strange thought, where is my seax? Had Azazel taken it?

"Aren't you?" Raven reached out and gently scritched her fingers through the short scruff of his beard.

Raven shifted into Einar's lanky frame, then Ole's broad-chested form. "Are you sure?"

She shifted again abruptly and he saw himself as he was now. It was startling enough to make him blink. His face was thinner than he realized; his cheekbones looked sharper against the shadow of his beard. His eyes, usually so guileless and open, looked back at him fierce and hawk-like. Under his tunic, his shoulders were broader, his hands hard and capable.

"Not a Viking." Charles swallowed hard as her skin began to ripple again. He recognized what she was doing before the change was even fractionally complete and he almost reached out to stop her with a thought. But he stayed still until Erik smiled at him with an incongruously benign look that Erik never wore. "A Viking's lover, then. He wouldn't ever call you his thrall."

"Raven, please, not so loud." Charles begged her and then wondered at himself. The ship was moored a bowshot from shore. But this caution was so deeply engrained it was almost instinctual. She guffawed bitterly and shifted back to blue.

"You think to spare our feelings…" Raven said idly. "And not confront those young ones with the abomination you believe yourself to be?"

Raven raised one brow and looked pointedly at the shore where Beast was showing the little green boy (who actually liked to be called Toad, much to Charles' chagrin) how to pull the skin off a deer in one piece. "Ah, yes, I can see how that would be important. Wouldn't want them to have to experience anything…outlandish."

"Raven," Charles started, chiding.

"I love you, my brother, but you are a fool sometimes." Raven sighed. "Clinging to a world that has been anxious to see you dead from your first breath. It's no wonder you were so easily enslaved, you were always so coy and obliging."

Erik could never have sharpened a knife to cut as cleanly as her words. Charles was struck dumb by how hateful they were and perhaps, how true.

"I did what you did." He said icily. "What I had to. To survive."

She opened her mouth and then snapped it closed. He could feel her simmering anger now, her bitterness that he didn't understand, of course, he couldn't, he'd never had a hundred-weight of horrified eyes on him and if he thought her words cruel, God's blood, he'd never seen cruelty like the terror of being on the wrong side of a hunt, the dark nights outside, the winter mornings, alone in the frost…

"Raven." He reached out, unthinking and grabbed her shoulders. He clutched her to him like he could soak it all up, all the world's fear and malice. She was unyielding under his hands, stiff and aloof. He sent her something of his deep sorrow, his horror that he'd let her run without following so long. He felt that he'd only now truly grown worthy of her and he tried to express that even though the feeling was complicated. It felt like they had both spent time adrift in the wilderness and they were come upon each other as children again.

After a while, she relaxed into his arms and squeezed him gently.

"So tell me." She sat back and hiccoughed a chuckle. "How did you enthrall Erik the Untouchable? Pulled a thorn from his paw?"

"I don't think I can talk about this with my little sister." Charles retorted, equally wry. "You know everything, anyway."

"Oh, I imagine I don't know nearly everything, Charles." She looked at him sideways, her expression rueful.

"You know what's important." Charles said softly. He leaned hard on the strakes, rolling his head back. He could already feel his cheeks prickling with heat; summer was well on its way. Raven was quiet beside him before speaking.

"I was so worried, you know. I can't imagine that the story of your meeting was a blissfully happy one."

"No." Charles said, hoping that she'd look away. "I think they killed Cain."

He hadn't thought about that since the turn of the year. How quickly his concerns had become that of a Norseman.

Raven pursed her lip and shook her head. "I'd say a prayer for him, but it would be pure blasphemy."

Privately, even though he knew it was a great sin, Charles also found it hard to mourn his step-brother. He hadn't really ever noticed before how little there had been to attach him to his former life, how faint had been the affection without Raven by his side…

"It wasn't anything…it wasn't as bad as you'd think." He started lamely.

Raven's whole face balked. "He made you a slave, Charles."

"And he set me free." Charles exhaled one long breath and folded his arms around his bent knees. "I can't ever expect you to understand this, perhaps, but there is something incredibly liberating just having one other person tell you that it's all right. That what you are is nothing to be ashamed of." Charles leaned his chin on his knee. "And he's done that for me, Raven. Twice. "

Her lips parted a bare inch, but she didn't speak. She looked off toward the horizon for a long moment and then murmured. "Why wouldn't you think I'd understand that, Charles?"

He felt her love for him surge around him, bearing him up in the same way the water cradled the ship.

He took refuge in a mordant joke. "We haven't talked about this enough for you to draw all the conclusions you have. So either Erik's been gossiping like a fishwife or you've grown unaccountably clever since you left."

"I was unaccountably clever before, boyo." Raven jostled his shoulder gently. "You were just too stuck in your scrolls to notice."

"Erik's not really the gossiping type." Charles acknowledged with a shrug.

"No." Raven was toying with one of the coils of rope, watching Beast as he shared a joke with Sean. They could hear the peal of Sean's laughter across the water in counterpoint to the rumble of Beast's voice. Charles wished he could read more from her face as she stared at the shore. He felt her longing lapping at him in tiny waves, but for what he wasn't quite sure.

"I figured it out just by listening to him speak." Raven said, sounding suspiciously nonchalant.

"How's that then?" Charles asked, genuinely curious.

Raven said, "He knew the word 'responsive' but he forgot the word 'to read', Charles. One could easily begin to wonder just what kind of language lessons you'd given him."

It was odd to become re-acquainted with someone that you thought you knew well. It was delightful to know that his sister, for all that she'd changed, grown up, grown strong in hard times, for all that she hadn't lost her sense of humor. He looked at her seriously and said, deadpan. "Very thorough ones."

And they could still collapse into chuckles together.

The next time he woke up, two little girls were sitting across from him. Their conversation had penetrated his dreams so he woke full of thoughts of a frozen ocean and a doll made out of wool.

The talkative one stood up when she noticed he was awake. "I'm going to go tell Charles."

Her friend grabbed her skirt apprehensively. "Just wait Katherine, you know that Charles already knows."

Katherine didn't seem to think that that was sufficient argument to keep her from the pleasure of informing Charles herself, so she shrugged off her friend's hand and bolted through the wooden partition that separated the cabin from the broad inner deck.

Erik blinked after her. He wondered briefly if she could pass through a sheet of iron as casually as she did wood or stone.

Her friend was regarding him uncomfortably, twisting her little hands in her apron. He had no idea of her name or how old she was and if he should speak to keep from drowning in awkwardness. He had never had much to do with children since he'd been one himself and that had been a long time ago and felt very far away.

Without thinking, he pulled the inner ring off the hatch. It was only as big as his palm, but large enough for him to fashion a little man, a wiry homunculus for her. She didn't laugh but her eyes grew large as he glided the toy her way. She cupped it reverently as Erik released its weight into her palm.

"So cunning." She pressed her fingers against the little man's outstretched hands. She ducked her head and said, "Thank you" to her apron.

"It's nothing." Erik wished he could have made something larger, but every other piece of iron he could feel was doing important work holding the ship together.

"It's not…" Her eyes got even bigger. "It's not nothing, it's wonderful."

Erik felt the foolish urge to duck his own head. "What are you called?"

"Rahne." She balanced the little man's hands on her palm until he stood on his head.

"And what can you do, Rahne?" Erik wondered if her name was common where she came from. She had light, sandy hair; she could've come from his village easily.

Immediately, she squirmed and her face fell. She bit her lip and looked so troubled that a sudden fury surged into him; he wanted to skewer the person who'd made her ashamed.

"Tell me, girl." He tried to make the Saxon words gentle. "It won't scare me."

She hugged her hands around her knees, still cradling her metal man. "Sometimes I'm a wolf."

A shaft of light fell on her hair as she sat back. In the faint light, he could see her pale quartz-colored eyes regarding him, both fierce and fearful.

"That's funny." Erik blinked and then smiled at her. "Sometimes I am also a wolf."

Her mouth fell open and she almost gasped but it turned into a laugh when he chuckled.

Hank came into the cabin cautiously, like he was afraid to interrupt. Or he wasn't certain he could fit in the cramped space, particularly considering how Charles was shadowing his elbow while Erik could see Raven craning her neck outside.

"Feeling better?" Rahne gave up her perch so that Charles could watch as the Beast huddled next to Erik's pile of furs. Erik shrugged one shoulder and let the Beast hold his wrist and smell his breath. In this close proximity, Erik had a sudden giddy appreciation for how soft Beast's fur was and how he smelled faintly of fir trees.

"Where are we?" Erik asked and it was Beast's turn to shrug.

"Further north than I've ever been." Beast had peeled back his bandage and was sniffing at him delicately.

"Alba, I think." Raven said quietly, looking at Charles for confirmation. Charles didn't appear to hear her; he was watching Beast's expression with raptor-like intensity.

Beast seemed pleased though; he patted a new dressing in place and Erik didn't feel anything but a very bearable ache. "It's a pretty lonely spot."

Of course, they'd moored. He felt a moment of anxiety, hoping they'd set both anchors. And done some reconnaissance before they built a fire. And set up watches for the hours of darkness…

"Yes, yes, yes." Charles sighed. "We're not all knock-kneed fools, you know."

Raven and Beast looked at each other and then frowned at Charles and Erik respectively.

Charles rolled his eyes. "If anyone gets close, Raven will not hesitate to sow confusion in their ranks while Henry cuts them to ribbons. Or Sean will deafen them or I suppose Robert could make an ice-wall. As an absolute last resort, we could always give Alexander or Ann Marie free rein. But no one is going to get close, because they've all forgotten that this place exists."

Charles looked around at their dismayed faces and muttered sheepishly. "I'm sorry for yelling."

Beast hefted himself up as best he could under the cabin's low ceiling. "Think I'll go see how that roast is getting on."

Raven didn't say a word, but she sketched a small salute at Erik as she left.

Erik spoke in his own language. "Grumpy."

"Yes, well." Charles swayed slightly as the ship rocked on the waves. "I've had a rather trying fortnight."

Erik felt his lip quirk at that. He shifted down a little deeper into the sheepskin.

Charles didn't seem inclined to make a move toward him. Erik cupped his hands over his bandaged ribs and kept his mind carefully blank. Living with Charles did not always encourage normal forms of communication. His mouth felt dry and he felt kind of empty and foolish. If he said 'Come here' and Charles didn't oblige, what would Erik do then?

He closed his eyes and shaped a thought. He conjured up a recollection of an early morning hunt he'd done last fall. He colored the memory with all his skill until it was not just the colors of the trees or the damp feeling of the air, but also the quiet drip of dew and the faint notes of birdsong. He gave it to Charles, offered it with open mental hands: the vivid awareness of how it felt to stand on a ridge and look down a valley as the sun lightened the sky, breathing air so pure that it tingled under his breastbone.

He'd made a habit of these gifts over the past year. Charles loved it when he shared things that Charles (both reluctant to either hunt or rise early) was unlikely to experience on his own.

He cracked one eye open to watch Charles. Charles had pursed his lips until they almost disappeared and he was slumped over in a crouch, blinking very rapidly. His hand was so quick and the light was so poor, Erik almost missed it when Charles drew his thumb across his cheek, furtive as a pickpocket.

Erik couldn't quite muffle the sound he made when he tried to get up and of course, Charles could hear his bloody feelings so it was a short-lived effort. Charles was so startled that he did something that made Erik flop back like a rag doll, frantically trying to keep from pissing himself.

"Don't do that again." Erik gasped when he had control of his tongue.

"Same to you." But Charles sounded a bit shamefaced. At least, Charles was now crouched beside him and not an arm's length away. He could feel the warmth of Charles' knee on his calf.

"You are so…." Erik squinted, feeling cross as two sticks. "Discourteous."

Charles raised one eyebrow incredulously. "How am I discourteous?"

Erik closed his eyes and sketched the hunting scene across his mind again. The implication was obvious. In both of their cultures, gifts were supposed to be reciprocal. Erik followed his reminiscence with the unfettered yearning of what he wanted from Charles.

"I can't." Charles was biting his lip as he shook his head. "I'll hurt you."

"This hurts worse." Erik said honestly and Charles looked up to stare at him open-mouthed. Charles' eyes were still a little red and he sniffled and cleared his throat.

Charles reached over to pull one of the sheepskins straight. Then he straddled Erik's thighs and inched up to spread his hands over Erik's collarbones and rest his cheek in the hollow where Erik's shoulder met his neck. Erik felt the even pressure, the delicious press as the warm, welcome weight spread over him and blissfully slid his bandaged hands over Charles' back.

"You can breathe, right?" Charles asked, raising his head a little.

Erik stuck his nose in the unruly locks above Charles' ear and took a deep breath. "Oh yes."

The salty wetness in his mouth had no tang of blood. He choked a little and coughed and realized that he'd almost fallen asleep again. Someone was dabbing at his mouth and shushing him.

"Wake up, elskling." Someone was tapping a light finger on his lower lip. "You haven't even had half of this."

He could smell it now and his stomach yearned. Soup, then.

He blinked and Charles became clearer in the low light. Still pale as alabaster. "You have some too."

"I'll have some later." Charles returned patiently. "There's plenty."

The spoon pressed gently against his lips and he opened for another mouthful. It was delicious, onion and sage with a hint of marrow. He looked up at Charles' eyes. He had to stop this now, this careless drift. He had to come back to himself for Charles' sake.

Erik grimaced and pushed himself up on his elbows. Charles put down the bowl and hurriedly tucked a stuffed sheepskin behind Erik's shoulders. Erik stopped and looked at him. "You need to get out of my head."

Charles was close enough that Erik could see the tiny, involuntary twitch in his lower lip. Erik modulated his words hastily. "I need to know if I'm…hurting myself and I can't know that unless I can…"

"…feel your pain." Charles finished under his breath and spread his fingers in acquiescence.

Erik felt it when Charles left him completely, but it wasn't nearly as awful as he'd anticipated. Whatever Beast had done appeared to be working. He could even slowly inch up into a seated position and look at Charles triumphantly. He opened his mouth for another spoonful.

"You don't want to do this yourself?" Charles offered him the bowl and spoon.

Erik lifted his right hand which was almost completely swathed in bandages. He didn't even remember what he'd done to the hand…he had a vague memory of being gouged by slivers of bone…but it was now more of a paw than a working appendage.

Charles lips twitched, but with amusement this time. He fed Erik without another protest.

"I should have killed that woman in white." Erik said offhandedly between mouthfuls. "I wanted to."

Charles paused, "Why?"

"Why do you think?" Erik scowled. "She took you. She hurt you. They couldn't have done that without her."

Charles raised his eyebrows as he delivered another spoonful. "But she was just…his thrall. She was just doing what he'd told her."

"If the hand offends me, I cut it off." Erik swallowed quickly so he could glare. He felt words well up in him suddenly; he'd been silent for so long. "That one was no one's thrall. As soon as it suited her to be elsewhere, she was gone."

"Why didn't you kill her then?" Charles asked and then grimaced. Charles had sometimes lauded the respect that Vikings had for females which was far more pronounced than in his own culture…however, sometimes he felt that respect manifested itself in odd ways.

Erik tried to keep his scowl from turning sulky. He muttered into his beard. Charles held the spoon to his mouth and he swallowed petulantly.

"I didn't catch that?" Charles asked even though he must have already known what Erik had said.

Erik frowned and enunciated. "Because. You. Didn't. Want. Me. To."

"Adequate reason enough." Charles said archly and Erik had to fight not to grin.

Charles woke up suddenly and completely. It was pitch black in the tiny cabin at the rear of the ship. No light filtered in from the broad crack next to the hatch. And he was alone.

The other half of the nest they'd formed was cold. Erik was on the deck, gazing at the shore and his thoughts swirled around the question that occupied all of Charles' waking thoughts what now?

Charles frowned ruefully as he laced up his leggings. After the fever subsided, Erik clawed back a fair measure of health every hour. Charles had promised him they would go ashore as soon as he could walk without wincing and this afternoon Erik had spent hours pacing the deck. But he seemed reluctant to make the last little journey, quickly agreeing when Charles had suggested another night onboard.

Erik was fine when things were out-and-out bad but he despised uncertainty. Now Erik was staring up at the familiar stars, looking out at the familiar sea and realizing that getting home was going to be…difficult.

Out on deck, the moonlight seemed bright and the breeze was such that Charles reached down to grab a pelt. It was growing warmer during the day, but without the sun this land was cold. He'd expected Erik to be gazing out to sea, but Erik was looking west, brooding at their shallow inlet and broad spit of beach.

"Are you cold?" Charles reached up to clasp Erik's shoulders but Erik shrugged away from him before he could get a good grip. "You're shivering."

"I'm not cold." Erik's eyes were pale and blank in the faint light. They stood awkwardly for a long moment. Erik, normally so clear and easy to feel, now churned with so many different emotions it was almost nauseating.

Charles leaned against the solid wood of the prow and cast a quick net out to the thoughts on shore. Alexander was having a nightmare that Charles could dissipate. Sean was nodding off while alone on watch and Charles could strengthen his alertness. Raven and Henry were having a whispered conversation in very close proximity and….Charles felt his face get pink while he mentally looked away.

He was so occupied with this that when Erik spoke it surprised him.

"Why didn't you free yourself?" Erik looked up at the waning moon. "You could have, don't tell me different."

"Perhaps I could have." Charles wrapped his arms around himself; it was chilly out here on the water. It was hard to articulate what had been almost instinctual. "Tried harder."

"They shouldn't have been able to take you in the first place." Erik leaned on his hands hard against the high gunwale. "I would have thought that if I'd taught you anything, it would've been that if you talk to a stranger, even a beautiful woman, you keep your blade out in front of you."

"I suppose I learned the first lesson best." Charles shrugged. "That I am a thing. A take-able thing."

It was not a very worthy thing that he said next. But Charles had never claimed to be a paragon and he liked reassurance as much as the next man. He continued in a tone precisely calculated to enrage, "I'm surprised you didn't just go sack some other village and find yourself another blue-ey…"

And that worked, naturally, Erik was on him at once, hands gripped tight in Charles' hair, all hissing fury. "Yes. I should have." Erik dragged his teeth over Charles's ear and into his hairline. "One a little more biddable, I think."

He turned Charles' head to bite him underneath his ear. Charles couldn't help gasping and when he did, Erik hooked a thumb in his mouth. Erik stroked the pad of his thumb over Charles' tongue and Charles felt his own hips twitch, unconsciously seeking more pressure, more heat. Erik let go of his hair and mouth long enough to strip Charles' tunic off and drop it on the deck with the discarded pelt.

The deck was hard on his back and his skin was cool except where a furious Viking pressed between his thighs. Charles reached up to snag his hands in Erik's leggings, only to have them batted away, his wrists pinned down and his shoulder bitten so hard that one side of his body went slack, limp and tingling.

Charles breathed hard through his nose and arched up to press his nipple against the edge of Erik's mouth feeling the light catch of teeth. While he hadn't been expecting this, he couldn't say it was unwelcome.

Erik was now suckling the hard curve of Charles' collarbone, tonguing the delicate skin above it. Charles rolled his hips to make Erik gasp, spread his legs a little more to better cradle Erik's thighs. Erik's teeth gleamed in the moonlight as he dragged himself back, fumbled with the ties fastening Charles' leggings for a moment and then just turned a boathook into a blade long enough to sever the thongs cleanly.

"Are you…ah."Charles didn't get much of the thought out before Erik reached down and unceremoniously cupped his balls. Erik was examining him intently, peering in the low light and Charles was quite sure that Erik would have gladly stripped Charles naked at noon to stroke and scrutinize every inch of his flesh in daylight.

His hands were free. He could do some stroking of his own, tangle his fingers into the long waves of Erik's hair as it tickled his belly. He sank into Erik's mind seeking assurance that Erik wasn't hurting himself overmuch, but if Erik felt any pain at all it was subsumed by a flood of angry, selfish lust.

That supreme selfishness was kind of a gift, Charles thought. It left no room for shame and even less for fear. He gave himself up to it and stroked his hands up the back of Erik's thighs, loosening his laces, digging fingers into the taut curve of his ass. Erik rocked down for another kiss; he fondled the curls at the nape of Charles' neck while Charles' breath shortened. Erik stroked him relentlessly, tilting Charles' head to suck whatever Charles moaned into his own mouth.

"I'm…" The pleasure made his gut twist and he almost keened into the still dawn air. The feeling swelled as Erik watched him, heavy-lidded. Erik sat back panting, still stroking Charles' thighs, dabbing up the drops on his fingers to taste lightly. Charles shut his eyes as Erik spent on his thighs and belly, one hot spurt shot up to his nipple. He was still breathless when Erik collapsed on his chest, heavy, uncomfortable, sticky and delicious.

"So you feel better." Charles said when he got his breath back. Erik groaned and his hand crawled up the deck like a clumsy spider to clamp over Charles' mouth and chin. Charles couldn't help chuckling as he nuzzled it gently and Erik's palm spread over his cheek, his thumb traced the curve of Charles' eyebrow.

"What are you thinking about?" Erik had followed Charles up to the bow platform after grabbing another worn sheepskin. A thin white line was widening in the east, the wind was picking up. Charles liked the feeling of the breeze and the silence broken only by the waves.

"I was thinking about Gunnar, Ole, Ragnar, Broddi, Thorkel, Kjell, Karsi, Hallfred, Magnus and Leif."

Erik raised both eyebrows. "Don't forget Ingvar."

"I was actually trying not to think about Ingvar." Who'd been three years younger than Charles which was to say, seventeen.

Erik muttered something, either a prayer or a curse. Charles didn't catch it over the creak of the ship as the tide tugged the anchor. They watched the sunrise spread.

"That's why I didn't try harder to…get free." Charles said softly. "I was curious, yes, but more than that…I just didn't want all of them to have died for nothing."

Erik looked pointedly away.

"I know." Charles continued. "I know what you believe. Your lives are hard and your heaven is harder."

"I won't mourn them." Erik shifted to get comfortable. "They wouldn't have mourned me."

"That's not…" Charles started.

"If I hadn't taken you last summer, I think they might've killed me over the winter." Erik said almost casually. "I could feel how…I could feel their fear. I was their talisman as long as I brought them luck, but they knew what I was and it scared them."

Charles blinked. "Why didn't you leave?"

Erik shrugged, "Where was there to go? I was kind of waiting to see what they'd do. But then you…they liked you. And if I liked you too, I couldn't be some kind of demon, you see?"

Charles flashed through a host of memories that suddenly had a different tenor. He remembered vividly the free-floating anxiety that had swirled around Erik everywhere he went save the smith. It had lessened over time, even though it never really went away.

"A lot of ships don't come back, Charles." Erik said. "It will be a few tears, a few drinks and a song."

"So…" Charles said slowly. "You're fine with not going back."

"I didn't come here for treasure. I didn't come to build a better life for myself back there." Erik pointed toward some distant fjord with one long finger. "I came here for Raven, I came for you. Because you are mine."

Erik said it so matter-of-factly that Charles couldn't help but smile. Erik reached out again and pressed his finger to the corner of Charles' mouth. "That is mine, right there."

Charles was silent for a long while. The sun was a deep pink crescent now, brightening to white. "If I am truly yours, then that means everything I make or do is yours. Everything I want is also yours, everything I dream."

Erik raised his chin from where he'd been leaning on his knee. "What do you dream?"

"Being with you. In some place where we aren't hiding."

Erik snorted. "We'll be hiding in Hel."

Charles tried another tack. "Do you remember the first time I got angry at you?"

Erik snorted and reached to stroke his upper arm where he still had a crescent-shaped scar. "Like it was yesterday."

"In my life….before." Charles started awkwardly. "I never let myself feel angry or sad or jealous or…"

Erik was looking at him strangely. Charles continued hurriedly before he lost his nerve.

"So when I first got angry, that's when everything changed. Before, I didn't even know what I was feeling half the time. But as soon as I got angry, that's when I started…being myself. I started wanting things and I was furious because I couldn't have them. And that's when I understood it for the first time. That anger can give you the strength to reach for something that everything in the world is insisting you can't have."

Erik bowed his head momentarily; it was almost a nod.

Charles finished. "I'm angry now, Erik. Help me get what I want."

"What is it you want?"

"I want a place set apart. I want a place free of nightmares."

"You think I can find that for you?" Erik seemed puzzled. "You want me to… I'm the nightmare, Charles. I'm how the mothers here frighten their children."

"That's why I'm asking you." Charles said dryly. "You don't ask the miller where the game is. And you've seen far more of this island than I have."

"What in th-"

"Ideally, like the place we just left." Charles continued. "Not too ruined. Easy to defend. More remote, possibly."

Erik gazed at him incredulously for one more moment and then his eyes unfocussed slightly like he was looking at something very far away.

Charles grinned, "You know a place like that."

"I might." Erik folded his arms over his chest. "What'll you do for me if I find it?"

"The same thing I always do." Charles reached over and tugged at a lock of Erik's hair. "Whatever you want."

Charles could've been a skáld, Erik thought to himself. He had a nice voice and a way of speaking that made even these recalcitrant brats sit up and listen. Of course, it might have something to do with how he was standing next to Charles and glaring at all of them, but it was a beautiful morning and he was inclined to be charitable.

Charles had explained his goal and his plan for getting there. He'd also explained that he'd make every effort to re-unite all of them with their families if they wanted. He'd apparently spoken to Beast about this at some point, because the Beast had offered to chaperone anyone back south. One of the older girls had looked very tempted, and then amused when Katherine had loudly declared that Beast would go nowhere without her.

"Do you want to go back, Lorna?" Charles asked gently.

"Well, I-" She steadied herself as Katherine wrapped her arms around her waist to cling like a limpet. "Hush, Kitty. No, no, sir, I'd like to come with you." And she petted Katherine's hair, casting a surreptitious look toward Alexander.

Charles looked around, frowning. "So we're all in agreement? It is unanimous?"

"What's unanimous?" Toad called over their heads from his perch halfway up a tree.

"You all want to sail north with Erik and me." Charles called back to him.

There was a loud murmur of agreement and Charles' 'stern' face dissolved in a grin. "That was much easier than I expected."

Raven was muffling her chuckles in Beast's shoulder while Rahne vainly tried to comb his fur.

Erik sighed. At least Robert, Peter and Ann Marie were marginally useful. "I'm sure more battles await."

After eight days at sea, he'd revised his estimation of who was useful and who was not. He had a healthy respect for Alexander's fits of pique and he practically wanted to adopt Lorna. He taught her all his tricks of navigation and while Erik slept, she kept them firmly pointed north.

They had a rota and his turn was most definitely over. He pulled himself up on the broad bow platform and growled at Raven, "Your turn."

"But you were doing so well." She said in her deceptively un-inflected voice. It was almost impossible to tell when Raven was being sarcastic until she grinned. "It was only their strength of numbers that brought you down."

Beast snickered appreciatively, but Erik couldn't get mad at him. When it was Beast's turn to entertain the children, he spent half his time wrestling with the boys while the girls wanted to pet and comb him and put ribbons in his fur. Sometimes both at once.

"They won't have that advantage after I drown a few of the impudent imps." Erik projected his voice to carry. He slumped down next to Charles. He could hear the chorus of giggling behind him. For some reason, those brats thought that Erik yelling at them was the funniest thing ever.

"I mean it." Erik pointed at the youngest boy who squirmed delightedly. "We'll just see how far I can throw you."

"You're very scary, I'm sure." Charles glanced up from the map he was tracing. Ann Marie had scrounged a few pieces of parchment and Charles hoarded them jealously. He smoothed a line of charcoal with his thumb.

"I'm serious." Erik grumbled. Raven descended into the gaggle, transforming herself rapidly into her giant's form. The children cheered.

"Of course you are." Charles nodded at him seriously. "Do you forget that I can hear your thoughts?"

Erik sighed and grinned at Charles wryly. "I guess they can…"

But Charles wasn't paying attention and he followed Charles eyes to where Toad was trying to terrorize Katherine and Rahne. "What's he got on his head?"

"I rather thought that that had been left behind." Charles said cryptically. Charles looked so troubled that Erik frowned. He'd been feeling slightly odd for days now and he'd thought it was just a relic of his injury. But now that he was alert to it, he realized that there was a bit of that odd metal humming in the corner of his awareness.

Erik didn't feel any compunction about reaching out to gently pull the helmet off Toad's head. Charles had sometimes wondered aloud if Erik would ever get over the idea that all the metal in the world was his. Toad looked chagrined for a moment, but then Katherine tagged him and he forgot his toy.

Erik held it by the flaring lip and traced his fingers over the noseguard. "Ugly thing."

"Yes." Charles was watching him with a suspiciously blank face.

On a whim, Erik pulled it over his own head. The sensation was odd. The feel of the metal was nice, but it had a curious dampening effect and it made him feel strangely cold, even in the bright sun. And Charles' eyes had gone from blank to completely empty. He spread out a sense of reassurance, but Charles' expression stayed immobile.

"I prefer mine." Erik pulled the thing off, carefully, so the faceplate didn't scrape him. Really, the metal was nice it was a shame that this thing was so, "Ugly and uncomfortable." He was tempted to throw it over his shoulder into the sea. Next to him, Charles took a deep breath.

Erik had an idea. He pulled gently at the fascinating alloy, shaping it until it was a short blade that could cut and stab. He cut a length of a leather thong from his leggings and wrapped it around the tang for a sturdy handle. He balanced it in his palm, sculpting it until it was a perfect replica of Charles' seax.

He handed it over with a flourish. "I'll make a sheath for you later. Don't lose this one."

Charles stared at him and then raised two fingers to his lips, kissed them and pressed them to Erik's mouth. "I won't."

Even though it had been Sean's watch, it was little Rahne who spotted their destination first. The cheer that went up was faint; they'd had to row for two days, cutting through the many channels and empty islands that bounded the western shore. The old monastery was a squat, grey building, but Erik was pleased to see that it still had a roof. And Charles was positively delighted.

"Deo gratias." Alexander said at Erik's shoulder. "I was beginning to think this was a dream you'd had, Norseman."

Erik grunted. If Alexander stepped any closer to the gunwale, Erik was going to shove him over. It had been a long voyage and the ship seemed a little smaller every day.

"What do they call this place, anyway?" Sean leaned over the side in a way that Erik found very tempting. Just one little push…

A voice in his head said pleasantly please don't. He looked up at the bow platform. Charles caught his eye and grinned.

"It was a few years ago the last time I was here." Erik scratched the back of his head. "I call it 'the place where I gutted a fat man and the steam rose off him in clouds'." They were all looking at him now and Sean was more than a little green. "What? It's cold here in the spring."

Alexander swallowed and asked faintly, "What do-did the people who lived here call it?"

Erik frowned and tapped his hand over his axe's handle. Sean shrunk to stand behind Alexander.

"Iona." Erik smiled at the boys; he'd thought the memory completely gone. "They call it Iona."

"This…is…perfect." Charles was getting breathless as he pushed out the heavy shutters. Erik flicked his hand and scoured the rust off the hinges. The glass in these windows was…more of an idea than a fact, but at least the shutters were solid.

"You keep saying that." It felt strange to be moving through this place slowly. And unarmed.

"It's not meant to be pretty." Charles was looking out the window with satisfaction. The overgrown kitchen garden looked like it had completely surrendered to either currants or blackberries. "They built it to be warm."

Erik snorted. "Yes, well, I don't know how your tortured man feels about freezing to death, but once that autumn wind kicks up you'll be glad of it."

"By tortured man…" Charles was rooting around under the bed platform and Erik took a moment to admire the view. "You mean Jesus Christ?"

Charles recoiled suddenly, brushing his hands off. "Beetles." He explained and Erik nodded and reached down to pull him to his feet.

Charles looked at him sharply. "These monasteries…what do you think they're for? Why do you think they exist?"

Erik frowned at him. "You keep your god here, right? Your black robes…keep him safe until you…" he tried to keep the revulsion off his face. "…eat him and drink his blood?"

Charles was surprised into a bark of laughter. "No…that's…we don't…" Charles sighed. "It's kind of complicated."

"I imagine so." Erik said sourly. "But I thought that was why they were so grand and full of gold, because that's where your god lived."

"Well." Charles had uncovered a chest that looked far too heavy to easily move. Someone had conveniently smashed the lock. "Someone wrote down everything the tortured man did and so we keep it as kind of a…guide. And they make copies of the guide in places like this and sometimes other books too. Aha!" He brandished a waterlogged, worm-eaten tome at Erik, who couldn't do anything but frown skeptically.

"De Gradibus." Charles held it like it was his first born child. "Where's Henry?"

"Probably sleeping. It's getting dark." Erik pointed at the torch that he'd wedged into the sconce. "He did most of the rowing, remember?"

Charles was already at the three-legged table, examining his find.

"This is a nice room." Erik mused. It had a generous fireplace and enough space so that the large canopied bed didn't fill every corner. The fittings and mattress had mostly rotted and what was left was extremely musty.

"Probably the abbot's." Charles didn't raise his head.

Erik sighed and pulled all of the nails out of a half-broken chair which he then threw in the fireplace. He wondered how it would feel, living in stone.

Erik used the remains of the decaying cloth to brush the hearth clean before feeding it to the fire. It drew fairly well. He spread the cloak that Ann Marie had made him out in front of the flames. He'd done a lot of rowing too, and it was late, the summer sun was just now setting.

"You know what's best about this room, don't you?" Charles said softly, sliding to the floor beside him. Charles tipped his chin over Erik's shoulder. "That door is so heavy."

"Not to Katherine." Erik returned wryly. Charles chuckled and looped an arm around his neck. Erik wrapped his arms under Charles' pressing his fingers into Charles' ribs. Charles was so perfect, so sturdy and compact and made for…

"You're very tired." Charles combed a hand through Erik's hair and leaned up to press kisses to his eyelids. "Rest now. We're safe."

"I found it." Erik reminded him as he stretched out, listening to the faint hiss and pop of the fire.

"I knew you would." Charles whispered, or maybe he just thought it.

It took over a week to make the ruin habitable. A week where the sun didn't seem to go down before it came back up again. It was eased immeasurably by the new uses for each of their hidden talents. They kept discovering new ways to make their lives easier.

Or rather Charles kept discovering new ways to make their lives easier. He and Henry (almost no one said Beast anymore, using Henry, Hákon or some amalgamation of the two) had just rigged a complex system of pumps that pulled well-water up to the second floor with Sean, Alex and Lorna's help.

Ann Marie had stripped the kitchen garden of anything vaguely edible and she had a surprisingly large haul of the vegetables that thrived on neglect. Raven and Erik had spent the last three days showing Toad how to hunt until the cupboard was no longer bare and they could all relax a little.

He dragged himself up to the abbot's bedroom which had been transformed into a more comfortable version of itself. The table had four legs now, the straw ticking on the bed was fresh and Erik wanted nothing more than to unlace his boots and leggings and sleep for a week.

Well, he wanted to see Charles and sleep for a week. He hadn't actually seen Charles since breakfast yesterday when Charles had kissed his wrist and asked him to craft a very sharp blade. And then vanished.

Erik sighed and consoled himself with the notion that eventually it would be winter and it would be winter for a long time. And there would be fewer places for Charles to escape to and much more time to sleep in this generous bed.

I don't 'escape'.

Erik turned quickly as the door creaked open. Charles stepped in and Erik helped him close the heavy, iron-reinforced door. Charles seemed to be thriving on his relentless schedule, there was a spring in his step and his eyes sparkled.

Erik realized at once what he'd wanted the blade for. "You, uh." Erik gestured at his face.

"Shaved, yes." Charles stroked his chin. "It's kind of the fashion here when it's hot."

Charles seemed to turn shy under Erik's keen regard; he looked at the floor and murmured, "Maybe you should try it."

Erik was reminded suddenly of how painfully shy Charles used to be just being undressed, how he'd nervously pluck at his clothes after bathing, how pink he'd get under the slightest scrutiny.

He was pink now. Actually, he was scarlet.

The color bloomed over Charles' face and he ducked his head when Erik stepped toward him. Erik was certain that whatever would make Charles turn that color must be very interesting indeed.

"What can you be thinking of?" Erik stood close, but he didn't touch. He reached with two fingers to delicately straighten Charles' tunic. Charles shivered.

"Tell me." Part of Erik wanted to coax and tease a little, but the hungrier part of him turned those words into a demand.

Charles thought. It's just what you said...

"Use words." The more peremptory his tone got, the more Charles' eyes darkened. He was still flushed and Erik wanted to kiss that skin, lick it. It looked hot, smooth and yielding.

"It's just what you said, ah, earlier." Charles blinked and lifted his chin. "What you thought."

"What did I think?" Erik didn't give an inch. Charles shifted his weight uncomfortably.

"You thought I'd have fewer places to escape to, but I've never…"

Erik stopped circling Charles and looked at him sharply. It was possible that he was misreading this utterly, that Charles was genuinely troubled and not fiercely aroused.

Charles spoke faster, like he needed to make Erik understand. "…never tried to escape from you."

Charles wet his lips and dared a glance up. "Except that one time."

He bit his lip and looked at Erik from under his eyelashes.

Erik smiled and ran his tongue over the edges of his teeth. Charles knew exactly what he was doing.

"Do tell." Erik said softly. He leaned close so he could whisper in Charles' ear. "Tell me about that one time."

"I only got as far as the ridge." Erik could see the goosebumps spreading over Charles' neck. "Before I lost my nerve. I just couldn't imagine…what you'd do to me."

"Did you spend a lot of time trying to imagine…" Erik couldn't help himself, he snaked an arm around Charles' waist, down over his belly to where his tunic was hiding a multitude of sins. "What I would do?"

Charles gasped and let his head fall back on Erik's shoulder. "Yes."

"Well, first." Erik tightened his arms until Charles was struggling to keep his feet on the floor. "I'd have found you and brought you home."

It was three steps to the bed. Charles didn't even put up a token resistance. He looked like he was going to turn over from where Erik had flung him, but then reconsidered the notion. Erik grinned and reached down to pull off his shoes. "Harder to run without shoes."

"Or clothes," Charles volunteered. Erik barely kept himself from ripping anything other than one seam.

"Did you think you'd get a beating?" Erik grabbed his chin, cupping the smooth skin, turning Charles to look at him.

"I wasn't sure." Charles' eyes were almost black.

Erik stroked his hot cheek, "But I'd be a fool to risk your face."

He leaned back and smacked Charles hard on the ass. Charles yelped and ground his pelvis into the bed. Erik gave him another smack and ducked down to taste the sweat beading up on Charles' spine.

"I could keep you still." Erik drew half of the old iron from the door and let it snake over Charles' wrists, pulling him onto his back. Charles moaned and his lips trembled. His cock was so very hard and already dripping little pearls into his belly button.

Erik spread one broad palm over Charles' taut stomach. "But I guess the best way is to make you not want to leave in the first place."

He rubbed his face luxuriously in the hollow of Charles' hipbone. He could do this for hours, days maybe. He might've been tempted to spend the night just mouthing Charles' flesh but Charles hooked an ankle around his thigh and pulled him down hard.

He had done this all unthinking so many times before. So selfish, but also selfishly needing Charles' canted hips and choked moans as Charles tried so fiercely to hide that he found it at all bearable. Erik stroked the pad of his thumb gently under Charles' sac and Charles twitched involuntarily, unsure if he'd rather be back or forward.

Erik sucked him as he stroked until Charles was panting and his clenching hands fiercely demanded more. Erik crawled up the bed, wincing as his cock dragged against Charles' hot flesh. It was a struggle to breach him…Charles pushed back mindlessly, even as Erik struggled to be gentle. Charles drew his knee up and Erik fucked him lavishly while the sky slowly darkened to night.

He slept pressed against Charles' shoulder blades and woke briefly when Charles rolled onto his back.

"Can you stay for a while?" Erik noticed that the sky was light again. Charles probably had a dozen projects to complete before noon. I know you have important things to do.

Charles shushed him and tightened his arms around Erik's shoulders. I'm doing something important.

3 months later: the epilogue's epilogue

"What are you doing?" He leaned over Charles' back and tried to figure out why Charles had carved a square into their table. Charles had obviously been at work for a while; he was frowning at the surface which was now scored with light and dark spaces.

"Raven's always accusing me of turning Viking." Charles sighed, digging the knife deeper into the wood.

"Do you think you're talking sense right now?" Erik reached around to touch Charles' forehead. Not feverish.

"Maybe I am a Viking now." Charles seemed to be putting the finishing touches on his carving. "I stole something. From Sebastian."

Erik stared at the back of his head until Charles turned to look at him. "I can promise you that he's not missing it."

"Well, my excuse is: winter is coming. And you like games."

Erik peered down at what Charles was holding up to him. "This is a game?"

"A Persian game. They're reckoned to be great warriors. It's a war game."

"These are curious." Erik turned the piece around to admire it from all sides.

"That's the queen. Those are yours" Charles started arranging the pieces across the table. "These are mine. What's that you've got?"

Erik held up the skin that he'd momentarily forgotten. "Sean found a full cask in the under-cellar and he says it hasn't been ruined. It's…" He shrugged and just poured Charles a generous cupful. "Go slowly."

The warning came a little too late and Charles choked and coughed. It didn't stop him from taking another sip though. Erik grimaced and poured himself some more. "I like it."

"Oh, I do too." Charles raised his eyebrows and sniffed at the cup.

"Sean called it…uisge beata? I'm glad we found it. As you said, winter's coming." Erik settled himself on the bench opposite Charles and regarded all his warriors. "This game looks very easy."

"We'll see." Charles returned with the smile that belonged solely to Erik.

The end.

Suil, suil, suil a ruin
Suil go sochair agus suil go ciúin
Suil go doras agus éalaigh liom
Is go dté tú mo mhúirnín slán

Go, go, go, my love
Go quietly and go peacefully
Go to the door and fly with me
And may you go safely, my darling