A loud "hwoinch!" woke her up. Eilonwy raised her head, rubbed her eyes. The light from the window had the bright stark quality of high noon, confirmed by the hollow ache in her stomach. Several hours must have gone by. Hen Wen had risen and was staring at the door, from whence in a moment a soft knocking sounded.

It was a servant with her dinner, which she took back to the stool. Hen Wen sat at her feet and gazed upward with longing, so she dropped several morsels to the floor, and the pig nuzzled among the rushes for them, snorting. Eilonwy ate, and looked at Taran. He did not seem to have moved, but his eyes had lost their sunken quality, and his breathing was deep and even.

Leaving her remnants on the floor for Hen Wen, Eilonwy got up and crossed to the window. Outside was a grassy expanse, at the far edge of which alders began to cluster around a low stone building, elegant and beautiful in design. Cultivated rose hedges wound among the trees and climbed over walls and archways in sprays of pink, yellow and red.

There were people strolling under the trees and through the roses, singly or in groups of two or three. They were dressed in robes of light, airy colors. A few had books or scrolls in their hands. One was sitting beneath a tree with a harp, though if he was playing, she could not hear it from here. The scene was so peaceful and lovely she stared a long time, wishing she might step through the window and go explore it. But suppose Taran woke up while she was gone?

She turned and looked at him again. His couch was right beside her, the pillow at her right hand, and from this vantage point and angle his face was rounded, nose snubbed, eyelashes a dark tangled fringe over cheeks golden-freckled and sunburnt even through his pallor. How had she never noticed how long his eyelashes were? She had an odd fancy that this must be how he looked when he was very young, and wished, even more oddly, that his mother could have seen him.

A sense of common loss filled her with sadness. Mine never saw me either. But...whence came the images, then? Those flashes of slim white hands and fiery hair, that voice that sang of Llyr's white horses and wind upon the water?

She began humming to herself, that tune that she'd always known and couldn't remember learning, the one Achren had always scowled at and told her to be silent. She wished she knew all the words instead of just a few snatches of phrase; it had the frame of a lullaby, but there was a love story in it somewhere, too, with sea and sadness all mixed in, like colors in a dye pot, swirling together. Humming, gazing inward, she was unaware that she had reached out to the boy on the couch, did not know that her hand was stroking the hair back from his temple, would not have known it was what her mother had done for her while she sang the same song.

There was a break in the rhythm of Taran's breath; he stirred, and his movement brought her to herself. Eilonwy gasped, jerked her hand away as though she'd touched a serpent, and scuttled across the room, plunking herself onto the stool so hard she winced. She curled her legs up and hugged her knees to her chest, hiding most of her flaming face behind them, peering over at him as his limbs twitched. His eyes fluttered open once, twice...the third time they stayed open.

Hen Wen made a sound halfway between a grunt and a squeal. She got to her feet with what, in anything less bulky than a pig, would have been a joyful bound, waddled to the couch, and pushed her cold, bristly snout into the space between the boy's ear and bare neck. A wordless sound of surprise escaped his open mouth; his eyes were bewildered and round. Eilonwy forgot her embarrassment in a flood of amusement and relief. She laughed aloud. "You should see your expression. You look like a fish that's climbed into a bird's nest by mistake."

Taran looked at her, dumbfounded, tried to push himself up, and sank down again. Oh, he was awake – truly awake! Eilonwy was so giddy she hopped up from the stool and plunked herself down on the edge of the couch. "Oh, I'm so glad you've woken up! You can't imagine how boring it is to sit and watch somebody sleep. It's like counting stones in a wall."

At the word "wall" his eyes flickered around the small room and he found his voice at last. "Where have they taken us?" It came out in a hoarse croak. "Is this Annuvin?"

Oh, good Llyr, he didn't remember anything! She knew he'd been unconscious until their arrival at the castle but not the entire time. Still, how could anyone lie in this room and all its bright fragrant air and think that? "That's exactly the sort of question you would ask," she chided him, shaking her head. "Why does the most unpleasant possibility always pop into your head first? Do you really think any place in Annuvin could be as nice as this? Your wound must have done something to your head."

He was frowning a little now, that familiar furrowing of his brow, and she almost had to sit on her hands to keep from cupping them around his face at the sight. "That's better," she declared. "You look more like yourself now. But you still have that greenish-white color, like a boiled leek."

Taran grunted and threw back the bedclothes; he shifted as though to roll over, then put a hand to his head and fell back weakly. "Stop chattering," he growled, "and tell me where we are."

Eilonwy pushed the covers back over him and patted his good arm. "You aren't supposed to get up yet, but I imagine you've just discovered that for yourself. Stop that, Hen!" The pig had deposited her front feet on the couch, and gave every sign of an impending attempt to send the rear ones after. Eilonwy snapped her fingers at her. "You know he isn't to be disturbed or upset and especially not sat on." She pushed the bulky body back off the couch and turned back to Taran. "We're in Caer Dathyl. It's a lovely place – much nicer than Spiral Castle."

Comprehension and fear dawned on his face. "The Horned King!" he gasped. "What happened? Where is he?"

"Shhh." She pushed him back onto his pillow and fluffed it under his neck. "In a barrow, most likely, I should think."

He grabbed her wrist, his eyes wide. "He's dead?"

"Well, naturally," Eilonwy answered. "You don't think he'd stand being put in a barrow if he weren't, do you? There wasn't a great deal left of him, but what there was got buried." A shiver scurried down her back like spider legs. "He was horrible, Taran. Terrifying; worse than Achren. I thought he was going to kill you. Both of us. He gave me a dreadful tossing about just before he was going to smite you."

The knot on her head throbbed anew at the thought and she rubbed it absently, her mind on the memory; that black menace standing over them, the horrible shearing sound of Taran's sword breaking, Dyrnwyn heavy at her back. "For that matter you pulled my sword away rather roughly. I told you and told you not to draw it, but did you listen? That's what burned your arm."

Taran glanced down at his arm and back to her. "But then what..."

"It knocked you unconscious," Eilonwy explained. "You were lucky to miss the rest. There was an earthquake, and then the Horned King burning until...until he just...well, broke apart." She shivered again. "It was very unpleasant, and honestly, I'd rather not talk about it. It still gives me bad dreams, even when I'm not asleep."

He glowered at her behind those long lashes. Oh dear, they really were very long. "Eilonwy, I want you to tell me very slowly and carefully what happened. If you don't, I'm going to be angry and you're going to be sorry."

Oh, for goodness' sake – what had she been doing but telling him everything? All his going on about stopping chatter and what-all, the ungrateful nit. He didn't know what he wanted. She took a deep breath. "How—can—I—tell—you—anything" -dramatically- "—if—you—don't—want—me—to—talk?"

Taran rolled his eyes and shut them with a groan. Satisfied, she continued on. "In any case, as soon as the armies saw the Horned King was dead, they practically fell apart, too. Only not quite the same way, you know. They just ran away like...like a herd of rabbits." She frowned. "No, that isn't quite right. But it was pitiful to see grown men so frightened. By that time the Sons of Don were attacking. You should have seen the golden banners, and such handsome warriors." It had been a picture far better than a tapestry or story. "It was like...it was like...I don't even know what it was like."

Hen Wen grunted, and poked her snout into Taran's shoulder. He grinned in spite of himself. "And Hen Wen?"

"Hasn't stirred from this chamber ever since they brought you here," Eilonwy said, patting the pig's bristly back. "And neither have I."

She blushed, thinking of his hair sliding under her fingers. Thank Belin he needn't know about that. But now he was looking at her with an odd, searching expression, and the silence was suddenly uncomfortable. "She's a very intelligent pig," she went on, to fill it up. "Oh, gets frightened and loses her head once in a while, I suppose. And stubborn sometimes, which makes me wonder how many traits rub off between pigs and the people who keep them. Not mentioning anyone in particular, you understand." She looked sideways at him, relaxed as his mouth quirked into a sardonic curve. He opened it, and she prepared to retort to whatever snide response he had, but a rapping upon the door interrupted them both.

The door opened and Fflewddur's head appeared around it. "So!" he exclaimed, "you're back with us! Or as you might say, we're back with you!"

Taran gave a glad cry as the bard strode into the room, followed by Doli and Gurgi, who was hampered enough by a limp that Eilonwy was able to throw herself in front of him before he could bound onto the couch as eagerly as Hen Wen. "Oh no, you don't!" she cried. "No crowding! He's supposed to be resting!"

But the three of them were more than she could fend off, and Fflewddur was jovially clapping Taran on the shoulder. "Great Belin, it's good to see you, lad! A Fflam is optimistic, but I must say, it was touch and go for a while...though nothing like what you endured, or so I hear."

Gurgi was hooting with excitement. "Yes, yes! Gurgi fought for his friend with slashings and gashings! What smitings! Fierce warriors strike him about his poor tender head, but valiant Gurgi does not flee, oh no!"

Taran, smiling, patted him on the shoulder. "I'm sorry about your poor tender head," the boy said, "and that a friend should be wounded for my sake."

Gurgi was wriggling all over, his amber eyes gleaming. "What joy! What clashings and smashings! Ferocious Gurgi fills wicked warriors with awful terror and outcries." He bared his sharp teeth in a dramatic snarl.

Fflewddur laughed. "It's quite true; he was the bravest of us all. Though my stumpy friend here," he nodded toward Doli, "can do surprising things with an axe."

Doli's face broke once more into the rusty smile Eilonwy had seen in the Great Hall. He harrumphed, as though embarrassed at his own congeniality. "Never though any of you had any mettle to show. Took you all for milksops." He glanced quickly at Eilonwy, red eyes twinkling, and then turned to Taran, laying his hand on his breast and bowing. "Deepest apologies." Taran, after a moment of open-mouthed silence, smiled at the dwarf.

Eilonwy squinted, displeased at how wan the smile looked. But curiosity overcame her concern for the moment. "How did you all escape the war band?" she asked Fflewddur.

"We held them off until you were well away," the bard explained. His face shone, eyes kindling. "Some of them should have occasion to think unkindly of us for a while to come." He took a step back from the couch into the center of the room, the better to dramatize. "There we were, fighting like madmen, hopelessly outnumbered. But a Fflam never surrenders! I took on three at once. Slash! Thrust!" His feet scuffled among the rushes and his long arms flailed in the air, miming swordplay. "Another seized me from behind, the wretched coward. But I flung him off! We disengaged when we could, and made for Caer Dathyl, but it was chopping and hacking all the way – beset on all sides!" He paused, panting for breath, and then straightened up with a shrug. "So that was our part. Rather easy, when you come down to it; I had no fear of things going badly, not for an instant."

There was a loud twang from the harp – which, Eilonwy noted, had been silent throughout his monologue to that point. Fflewddur flinched, and grinned sheepishly. He bent close to Taran's head and whispered, "Terrified. Absolutely green."

Taran tried to laugh, but it turned into a weak cough, and he leaned his head wearily into his pillow. Eilonwy pushed between him and Fflewddur, shoving the bard toward the door and herding Gurgi and Doli after him. "Begone, all of you! You'll wear him out with your chatter." They all went, chuckling, and she stood sentry in the doorway, arms crossed. "And stay out! No one's to come in until I say they can."

A deep voice over her shoulder made her jump. "Not even I?"

Eilonwy whirled around with a little squeak of surprise. Gwydion was standing there, his expression serious as usual; but his green eyes sparkled.

A cry and a dull thump made her turn back around. Taran had sprung from his couch and promptly tumbled to the floor; he was staring up at the prince, speechless, disbelief written on his face. Eilonwy scrambled to help him as he attempted to rise to his knees; he wavered, stammering. "Gwyd- Lord Gwydion?"

Gwydion strode forward, bent and lifted the boy to his feet as though he were a mere feather. "That is no greeting from a friend to a friend." He smiled his rare smile. "It gives me more pleasure to remember an Assistant Pig-Keeper who feared I would poison him in the forest near Caer Dallben."

Taran's face was still a mask of bewilderment, his eyes welling, his breath broken. With a stab of guilt Eilonwy realized that she hadn't included Gwydion's reappearance in her recounting of yesterday's events. Had she mentioned him at all? No, she hadn't; Taran was gasping out, "After Spiral Castle, I – I never thought to see you alive."

And then...oh, Llyr, he was crying, his face bent over the prince's hand, obscured by the curtain of his hair. Heart twisting, Eilonwy slid an arm around his back, berating herself. Fool. You might have thought to mention that detail and spare him the shock; it's not as though Gwydion wasn't completely crucial to the whole business. How could you forget? Her own eyes filled as she followed Gwydion's motion to guide Taran back to the couch.

"A little more alive than you are," Gwydion chuckled, settling him back down, and sitting upon the edge. Taran gathered up the bedclothes and wiped his eyes, staring at the prince as though he could not look long enough.

"The sword," he exclaimed, noting the black weapon at Gwydion's side. "How did…?"

"Ah, yes," Gwydion said, with a quick smile at Eilonwy. "A gift. A royal gift from a young lady."

"I girded it on him myself," Eilonwy declared, and added, to Gwydion but at Taran, "I told him not to draw it, but he's impossibly stubborn."

Taran scowled at her and she smirked, satisfied to see some color return to his face. "Well," Gwydion noted, amusement in his voice, "fortunately you did not unsheathe it entirely. I fear the flame of Dyrnwyn would have been too great, even for an Assistant Pig-Keeper." He lifted the scabbard and ran a hand over the engraving. "It is a weapon of power, as Eilonwy recognized, so ancient that I believed it no more than a legend. There are deep secrets concerning Dyrnwyn, unknown even to the wisest. Its loss destroyed Spiral Castle and was a severe blow to Arawn."

Eilonwy started at this, and she and Taran exchanged glances. She had suspected it was the sword's removal that had destroyed the castle – felt it in the breaking of the barrier, in the dissolving of the web that held its stones together – but a blow to Arawn? And she had struck it herself. Unknowingly, but still. A flush of pride swept over her in a pleasant, giddy wave.

Gwydion stepped back and drew Dyrnwyn, holding the blade up. A shimmer of white flame flickered up its length; Eilonwy almost heard it crackle joyously, felt the hairs on her arms stand up as they did during a lightning storm. The metallic edge of magic threaded through her nose and mouth and she wrinkled both in distaste. Taran gasped, and clutched at his bandaged arm; Gwydion noticed, and quickly sheathed the weapon again.

Eilonwy shut her eyes; the prince and the sword made a shining white blaze in her mind, their wills and purposes so entwined they might as well have been one, as perfectly joined as the warp and weft of threads on a loom. She opened her eyes again, smiling, satisfied. "I knew Lord Gwydion was the one who should keep Dyrnwyn as soon as I saw him," she said. Dyrnwyn pulsed at her, a little smugly, and she added for measure, "I must say I'm glad to have done with the clumsy thing."

Taran made an impatient gesture. "Do stop interrupting. Let me find out what happened to my friend before you start babbling."

She was about to retort to this, but, noticing that he still cradled his limp arm, bit it back. One must make allowances for people who were ill and in pain, and besides Gwydion was talking again. She stuck her tongue out at him surreptitiously over Gwydion's shoulder; Taran pretended not to notice.

"I shall not weary you with a long tale," Gwydion was saying. "You already know Arawn's threat has been turned aside. He may strike again, how or when no man can guess. But for the moment there is little fear."

"But what of Achren and Spiral Castle?" Taran asked.

Eilonwy looked up quickly as Gwydion's keen green gaze flicked toward her and away again. "I was not in Spiral Castle when it crumbled," he said, in words that felt, to her, somewhat veiled. "Achren took me from my cell and bound me to a horse. With the Cauldron-Born, we rode to the castle of Oeth-Anoeth."

Eilonwy had never heard the name, but it formed itself into a writhing, formless dread in her mind. She shuddered, repulsed. Taran was repeating it curiously, as though it were just another word. "It is a stronghold of Annuvin," Gwydion explained, "not far from Spiral Castle, raised when Arawn held wider sway over Prydain. A place of death. Its walls are filled with human bones." He was silent for a moment, and she felt him searching for words, weighing the balance between hard fact and too much darkness.

"I could foresee the torments Achren had planned," he went on, "yet before she thrust me into its dungeons, she gripped my arm, and asked why I would choose death when she could offer me eternal life and power beyond the grasp of mortal minds. She ruled Prydain long before Arawn, and it was she who made him king over Annuvin. She gave him his power, and he used it to betray her."

Eilonwy snorted scornfully. Gwydion raised an eyebrow at her. "Do you doubt it? She spoke the truth – what truth she has. You know better than most of what she was capable, yet the Achren you know is but a shadow of her former self." He shook his head. "It was no bluff. She offered me the very throne of Annuvin, to rule in Arawn's stead."

Taran gaped. "Just like that?"

Gwydion looked grim. "She had her terms. There is no need to elaborate upon them. It is enough to say that I told her I would gladly overthrow Arawn, and use that power to destroy her along with him."

Eilonwy held her breath, picturing Achren's rage at being so refused. Gwydion, sensing her tension, cast her a knowing glace. "She was not pleased," he said dryly - an understatement if ever there was one. "She cast me into the lowest dungeon. I have never been so close to death."

He paused. The silence in the chamber was broken by the wheezing of Hen Wen, who had gone back to sleep in the corner. "How long I lay there, I cannot be sure," Gwydion went on after a moment. "Time in Oeth-Anoeth is not as you know it here. I will not speak of the torments Achren had devised. She is past mistress in the infliction of pain both in body and mind; despair was her greatest weapon. Yet even in my deepest anguish I clung to hope; for I knew this about Oeth-Anoeth: if a man withstand it, even death will give up its secrets to him."

Once again silence fell. Eilonwy, reaching out in mental sympathy, felt the prince blocking her, his iron will a shield against her probing, but even it had its flaws, cracks where the force of his experience leaked through: infinitesimal glimpses of unimaginable suffering. She gasped as one struck her; Gwydion looked at her sharply, and shook his head: a warning of which she had no further need.

"I withstood it," he murmured, almost to himself. "At the end, much was revealed to me which before had been clouded. Of this, all you need know is that I understood the workings of life and death, of laughter and tears, endings and beginnings. I saw the truth of the world, and knew no chains could hold me. My bonds were light as dreams. The moment I knew it, the walls of my prison melted away."

Eilonwy sighed without realizing she'd been holding her breath again. A new worry was prickling at her. She had not missed Gwydion's use of the present tense when referring to Achren, and she almost could not give voice to the fear it spawned. "What..." she broke off, and tried to clear the choking feeling in her throat. "What became of Achren?"

"I do not know," said Gwydion, looking at her squarely, though with regret. "I did not see her thereafter."

Eilonwy swallowed. It had never occurred to her that Achren might not have been in the castle when it fell. The thought of her roaming about, somewhere out in the world, like a snake hidden somewhere in a room...no. No, it couldn't be born. She wouldn't think of it. Achren was dead. She had to be.

"For some days I lay concealed in the forest to heal my injuries," Gwdyion went on, addressing Taran. "Spiral Castle was in ruins when I returned to seek you; and there I mourned your death."

"As we mourned yours," Taran returned.

"I set out for Caer Dathyl again, following the same path Fflewddur chose for you," Gwydion said. "I did not cross the valley until much later, and by then I had outdistanced you a little. I understand there were a few detours on your journey." His face broke into humorous lines. "That day, a gwythaint plunged from the sky toward me, and to my surprise it neither attacked nor sped away after seeing me. It fluttered before me, crying strangely. The language of any living creature is no longer secret to me, and I understood from it that a band of travelers was journeying from the hills nearby, accompanied by a white pig."

Eilonwy looked from Gwydion to Taran in shock, and the boy returned her astonished gaze. "The gwythaint!" both burst out at the same time. Taran sat up straight, his face flushed, hand thrown out to her in excitement. She grabbed it, exclaiming, "The one you-"

He was already babbling, "It didn't-"

She laughed, breathless. "I knew you did the right thing!"

He was laughing too, his eyes alight, and she thought, for the tiniest moment, that he was going to hug her. Before she could think about what she would do if he did, he had checked himself and flopped back onto his pillows with a relieved sigh. He did not, however, let go of her hand.

Gwydion was grinning, waiting for them to compose themselves. "Indeed," he said, "it had a tale to tell, and I learned a few other things of the ways of Assistant Pig-Keepers. But meanwhile I hastened to retrace my steps. By then, Hen Wen sensed I was close at hand. When she ran from you, she ran not in terror, but to find me. What I learned from her was more important than I had suspected, and I understood why Arawn's champion sought her so desperately. The Horned King realized she knew the one thing that could destroy him."

"And what was that?" Taran asked.

Gwydion cast a sidelong glance at the sleeping pig. "His secret name."

"His name?" Taran stammered; she thought he seemed a little deflated, as though he'd been expecting something more exciting. "I don't...how is a name so powerful?"

Eilonwy sat back, thoughtful. Of course. Names were the most powerful elements of magic; a name was the essence of a thing, and whoever knew and understood it had the ability to create or destroy at a word. You couldn't do a spell without them; for magical purposes a thing didn't even exist until it was named correctly.

Gwydion spread his hands. "When you have courage to look upon evil, seeing it for what it is and calling it by its true name, it is powerless against you. Yet even with all my understanding, I could not have discovered the Horned King's name without Hen Wen. She told it to me in the forest. I had no need of letter sticks or tomes of enchantment, for now we can speak as one heart and mind to each other." He looked affectionately over at the pig again, and she snorted and raised her head as though she knew they spoke of her. She beamed at Gwydion.

"The gwythaint, circling overhead, led me to the Horned King...where he was just about to make an end of two courageous young people," the prince concluded, "an act which was my very satisfying pleasure to prevent. The rest you know – or, at least, Eilonwy does, and presumably has filled you in."

"Mostly," Eilonwy answered, blushing again at forgetting to include him. "Where is the gwythaint now?"

Gwydion looked grave. "I do not know. I doubt she will return to Annuvin, for Arawn would rend her to pieces once he learned what she had done. I only know she has repaid your kindness in the fullest measure."

Taran's smile lit his face once more. Gwydion rose from the couch. "Rest now," he ordered. "Later we shall speak of happier things."

He was so tall his head nearly brushed the beams of the ceiling as he stood up. Eilonwy thought of that first glimpse of him in the woods, the proud, straight bearing; thought back further to that strange, unintelligible sound she'd heard just before the Horned King had burst into flames. His name…

Pure morbid curiosity made her call him. "Lord Gwydion." He turned. "What was the Horned King's secret name?"

Gwydion cocked an eyebrow at her and grinned. "It must remain a secret." He patted her on the cheek. "But I assure you, it was not half as pretty as your own."

The door shut behind him, and she sighed dreamily. Taran snorted, and she turned to see him smirking at her. "Did you really think he'd tell you that?" he said.

"You never know until you ask," she retorted, "and he's already told me more than Achren ever did – though of course that was about things that actually concerned me."

A chill swept her, and she fell silent, brooding. Taran, who still had her hand, squeezed it comfortingly. "You're worried about Achren," he murmured, a statement rather than a question. She bit her lip and nodded, tears pricking at her eyes.

"I...I'll be all right," she said hastily, blinking them away. "It's just...I've been so sure she was dead. It's rather a shock to find out she might not be. I'll always be looking over my shoulder now."

"She might be dead, though," Taran said. He tugged at her hand. "Gwydion didn't say she wasn't. And if she is you'll have wasted all that time looking for nothing. I'd just bet she is dead. She'd have found some way to stop us if she weren't."

"Maybe." She sniffed, and gave him a watery smile. "Anyway we got here, didn't we? And I'm sure Caer Dathyl is quite safe from her, even if she is alive."

"Yes, no doubt," he said. His gaze wandered; he stared down at the blanket and picked at a stray thread with his free hand. "Even Achren wouldn't take on the Sons of Don in their own fortress. You're safe enough here."

Eilonwy narrowed her eyes at him. Something in his manner was making her heartbeat do odd things. "Isn't that what I just said?"

His gaze flitted back to her and away again, and the flush in his cheeks darkened. "I was just thinking," he stammered, "that she wouldn't take on Dallben either."

Eilonwy blinked.

Taran cleared his throat. "If...if, you know, you ever wanted to see...I mean, I know it wouldn't be very exciting compared to Caer Dathyl, but I thought you might...you know, just for a visit..." He let go of her hand, suddenly self-conscious, and ran his fingers through his hair. "It would be safe there. Dallben's the most powerful enchanter in Prydain. He might even be able to teach you; I mean, if you wanted to...of course it isn't anything like so grand as...well, never mind. Forget it…I only..."

"Taran," she blurted. He shut his mouth with a snap, and stared at her anxiously. Eilonwy bit her lower lip to keep from laughing. "Are you inviting me to Caer Dallben?"

He let his breath out in a whoosh of relief. "I just thought perhaps you'd like to see it."

She grinned. "I was going to invite myself if you didn't. So thank you for sparing me from such bad manners."

Taran's chuckle was weak and he laid his head back again, as though the exchange had taken every ounce of his strength. His eyes closed and he took a deep breath, let it go in a long sigh. "You'll like it," he murmured. "It's quiet. Peaceful. It'll be near midsummer by the time we get there...less work in the field. You wait until the first storm, when you smell the rain on the crops. And there's fishing at the spring...an' strawberries and raspberries'll be ripe." His voice was trailing away into a drowsy slur. "Fresh milk ev'ry day, an' butter 'n' cream...Coll moves the cooking spit over the firepit outside, and we sit out and watch the...fireflies in the evening, 'n' hear the crickets singing...s'lovely."

"I'm sure it is," she whispered, tucking his covers around him, pausing with her hand hovering over his face, which had sunk into stillness once again. She hesitated, fighting an impulse; how could you want so badly to do something and be so completely terrified to do it?

Hang it all. Impulse won; her hand moved; she smoothed his hair back from his pale forehead, bent, and kissed the dark line where the two met.

Taran twitched, and mumbled something unintelligible. Eilonwy rose, feeling warm and strangely elated, sat on the window ledge, swung her legs over the sill, and dropped to the grass outside. She gathered up her skirts, kicked off her slippers, and ran.