Once Upon a Time

by LA Knight

Wolves in human skin. A Beast and a lost maiden. A sanctuary in a storm. A prince of Elven blood. Sacrifices, debts, honor, & oaths. Ten long, beautiful years, and all the stories that fall within. A collected fic series; currently on book 13. Updates when I can because hey it's a pandemic. Early access available on Patreon.

134. The Last Two Nights

Author's Note: here's the update for this next chapter. I would say "sorry it's late" but I thought people had stopped reading; no comments or anything, you know. Sorry for the misapprehension. I'm working on the next chapter already. Sneak peeks have been posted for my Patrons.

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Chapter One-Hundred-Thirty-Four

The Last Two Nights

that is

A Short Tale of Rejoicing, Decisions, Discussion, Madness, Monsters, Moundshroud, Stewards, Secretaries, Fealty, Fathers, a Letter, Love, Scrying and Spying, Memories, Misery, a Lesson, a Lost Lover, Delusion's Master, a Warning, and a Favor

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Nuada had to repeat himself twice before his lady was able to process what he was telling her.

"He's actually leaving?" She demanded. The tentative hope shining in her fey-blue eyes at the prospect struck the prince like a blow, but at the same time he understood. Of course he did. It should not be, that his beloved and his friends and his people yearned to see the back of King Balor, yet Nuada could not blame them. The king had done it to himself. So he only brushed back the rebellious curls lying against Dylan's brow and nodded. She whooped, throwing her arms around his neck.

"You're brilliant," she cried. "I don't know what you did but oh, my gosh, you're fantastic!"

"Keep your voice down, my love," Nuada said with a laugh, warmed by her praise - though he wasn't quite sure he deserved it. He hadn't done anything. "People might overhear and perhaps...form the wrong impression." He grinned down at her when a blush suffused her cheeks. Always so innocent, even now. "As for my suggested qualities, I thank you, mo duinne, for the compliments as always, but it wasn't my doing. I do not know what could have made him soften so."

Dylan rolled her eyes and tugged at his arm, a silent urge to come sit beside her on the edge of her bed. She leaned against him as soon as he sat down. She'd had a bath, he realized. The scent of lavender and vanilla coming from her hair soothed some of his ever-present tension. Nuada twined his fingers with her slim, delicate ones and kissed the top of her head. It was nice to be able to simply sit like this with her. Alas, that things demanded their attention.

"We have decisions to make, mo duinne," he said at last, reluctantly lifting his head from her hair.

"About where to go next?"

He canted his head. "That, yes. I've discussed it a little with Uilliam McBas and wanted your opinion. But before we can leave Lallybroch, we have to make arrangements for our household. For Iuile, Liam, and the others we have taken under our protection."

"Oof. Good point." With a sigh, Dylan flopped back onto the blankets. She didn't even wince, which told him her back was nearly completely healed. Good. "No way am I leaving Iuile here in the village. I don't care if her dad's in jail. Too many of the villagers knew she was being held prisoner up here and didn't try to help her or even tell one of us. They're prejudiced against Liam and his family for being gancanaugh, too. We can't just leave any of them here. I don't even think it would be safe for Liam's mom or his brothers."

It might have seemed high-handed and callous to discuss uprooting Liam and Iuile Uí Níall and sending them somewhere like a pair of packages, but both youngsters had pledged themselves to Nuada as his vassals. By rights, they technically should have accompanied him and Dylan to the next village, and the next, and the next, as Pauline and Wink and the ewah cubs would do. But Iuile had already endured so much hardship and only a fortnight ago given birth to a child. She needed rest and comfort, not a warzone. Liam deserved some time to be with his new bride without the fear of being torn away from her or attacked. He needed a chance to learn how to be a husband and a father, free from the fear of losing the ones he loved. And they were both so very young, despite all they'd been through.

And as much as Nuada would miss seeing the young parents and their little one - his godschild; he'd have to get used to that - the road he and Dylan meant to travel was no place for an infant.

Then there were the late acting-steward's children. Acting-Steward Gawain of the dullahan had lost his wife, eldest daughter, and youngest son to the bandits before Nuada and Dylan had arrived in Lallybroch, only to then fall himself to a bandit's arrow less than a sennight past. His wife's sister, a scarlet Fomori, lived in this village, and her home had not been damaged in the raids. But Dylan had already made it very clear to Nuada that she didn't consider the woman a proper guardian for the trio of traumatized Elven-dullahan children. Mistress Oonagh, the children's maternal aunt, had been one of the fae who'd not only known about Iuile's captivity, but had actively tried to prevent Dylan from interfering and helping her. The Elven woman ought to have counted herself lucky she hadn't ended up in a prison cell for that.

There was little Siobhan Bean Sidhe, orphaned and now under Nuada's protection; and the unicorn foals that had formed such a strong attachment to A'du and 'Sa'ti. Perhaps, Nuada mused with a frown, things were growing too dangerous even for that duo of intrepid cat-children. And what of Uilliam McBas and his three young lieutenants? They had earned the same respect and consideration Nuada gave to adults who showed the same courage and sense, but they were still youngsters, younger even than Iuile and Liam. Was it right to let them stay in bandit-plagued territory simply because they insisted? They were children, whether he treated them like adults or not, whether they had done great deeds or not.

In the end, after an hour's discussing it, Nuada and Dylan were agreed - Iuile, Liam, their baby, young Siobhan, the unicorn foals, and the children of Nuada's late acting-steward would go south and west to the very thin sliver of Bethmoora that boasted a seacoast. From there, they would take the ocean ferry to the Island of Renvyle, where Nuada had lived as a child. It had been, Nuada explained in a carefully neutral voice that made Dylan shiver, "purged" of human habitation after the queen's death and now no one lived on or near the island save the estate staff and the native sea folk - mostly Deep Ones, selkies, and a very few merpeople.

"What does that mean?" Dylan asked. "Purged?"

Nuada closed his eyes and frowned, brow furrowing. "I do not actually know many details. It happened when Nuala and I were still recovering from...what had been done to us by Sreng and his family." Flashes of memory tried to hook claws of iron into his heart. Fingers pinching, probing. Teeth and fists, the sharp toes and hard heels of leather boots, blades. Nuada suddenly tasted blood, fey-sweet on the back of his tongue, and the grit of dust between his teeth. It brought a surge of bile up into his throat, burning. Distantly, he heard a little boy screaming, sobbing-

"Nuada." Dylan said his name sharply. He jerked. Blinked. Stared into her eyes like rainswept autumn lakes, dark now with worry and sorrow. She very gently cupped his cheek. "Come back to me, mo airgeadach," she whispered.

He let out a long, slow breath and laid his brow against hers. "Forgive me," he mumbled. "I did not mean to-"

"You don't need to apologize," she said. "It happens. Are you going to be okay? Do you need a minute?"

He swallowed. His throat still tasted of blood and grit, but he shoved the phantom-taste away and breathed in the scent of vanilla and lavender. Let that sit in his nostrils, in his mouth, cleansing everything else.

"I'm fine, beloved," he said after a moment. "You had…" He swallowed again, cleared his throat when he found it still oddly dry. "You had asked me about the purging. As I say, I know little. All I know of it, to be honest, is that my father issued a decree banning any and all humans from Renvyle, save those very rare few who received special dispensation - usually because they were wed to fae that already lived there. I do not know if any humans or fae protested the decree or what happened to any who did not obey. I...do not believe my father would have imprisoned or killed them, but I...I cannot say with all surety that this is so. There is no record of him punishing any dissenters in the Royal Archives. If any such record does exist, it would be somewhere else - perhaps in the underwater cities of the sea folk, where I am forbidden to go."

"Huh," Dylan said. Because it was Balor, who wouldn't have hit a human even if one were trying to hack his head off, she sincerely doubted anyone had actually died - or, if they had, it hadn't been at his order and likely had happened without his knowledge, which would explain why there was no record of it. Still, the mortal didn't know how she felt about random all-powerful governments just uprooting people for arbitrary reasons. On the one hand, sometimes the reasons actually weren't so random - like giving land the government had actually stolen back to those it had initially been stolen from. But that wasn't this.

She wondered suddenly if this was going to be a mess Nuada was going to have to deal with when he became king. She wondered how many such messes he might inherit when the crown finally came to him. And if they ever managed to finish up rescuing the northern villages and getting their hands on the silver apples of Avalon, and then get to the island of Mag Mell, she'd become immortal, and end up queen when Nuada was king. Any mess he got saddled with, she'd have to help him clean up. Kind of like this current one with Sreng and the bandits.

Stupid Balor, Dylan thought tiredly. Then something Nuada had said caught her attention.

"Wait. There are places in Bethmoora you can't go, even though you're the crown prince? Says who?"

Nuada leaned back against a bedpost, folding his arms across his chest. Getting Dylan's permission, he toed off his tall, black boots and stretched his legs along the edge of the bed. Suddenly, with a quick mischievous look at her, he dropped his sock-feet into her lap. Dylan shot him an incredulous look, though she couldn't help but smile. Nuada waggled his eyebrows at her and wiggled his toes.

"I suppose you want a foot rub," she said dryly.

He shrugged. "You do still owe me an act of service, if you recall."

She actually hadn't recalled, but he didn't need to know that. She just kept looking at him, still smiling. He sighed melodramatically.

"No," Nuada said with a curve of dark lips. "No, I do not expect such a favor from you, mo duinne, pleasant though it might be. It is simply more comfortable to sit this way. May I?"

In answer, she started massaging one foot. She'd expected the sock to be a least a little damp and sweaty, but to her pleasant surprise, it wasn't. It still smelled like fresh laundry, too, and not stinky feet. Dylan figured it had to be magic, like the silly socks her prince had given her a couple months ago.

Nuada groaned appreciatively. "Ohhh...Dylan. That...that is wonderful. Thank you - hey!" He cried out when she poked him in the middle of his arch. "Woman-"

"Answer my question," Dylan commanded with a prim sniff. "I rub feet, you talk. Besides, I thought you weren't ticklish."

Eyes like warm honey in sunlight narrowed dangerously at her. "We shall see who is ticklish later, my lady. Count on it. And yes, there are places in my kingdom I cannot go without forcing my way there, and those who dwell in such places have given me no reason to trespass so against them. The cities of the Deep Ones, the People of the Water, for example. Your specific temples to the Star Kindler that are built in Bethmoora. The Libraries of the Ravens, where women and others fleeing abuse can go, but men are not permitted. And do you know of a place called K'nyan?" Nuada asked gravely. "And the people there, also called K'nyan?"

Dylan's hands stilled for a brief moment, then went on with their messaging. Her voice was very soft when she said, "Yes...but I've never been there myself and I've never met a native, or even anybody who's seen the place."

"The K'nyan have a few cities underneath Bethmoora. We...have a treaty with them. We leave them in peace on three conditions: they stay in their cavern cities under the earth; they let any non-magical child present themselves at the gates between their lands and ours to be taken in and raised Bethmooran...and we never, ever try to go into their cities. It is a death sentence for anyone past adolescence to deliberately try to enter the cities of the K'nyan. That is a treaty I must obey, much as it shames and infuriates me, because it was sworn both on the Darkness That Eats All Things and on the very magical foundations of this kingdom. If I break faith with the K'nyan, everyone in Bethmoora would die and my country would sink into the bowels of the earth."

Of course, Dylan thought. A vow to the Darkness would not bind the royal family of Bethmoora beyond a generation or two, unless the vow was renewed every time a new monarch took the throne, so the Bethmooran royal family had sworn on the kingdom's magic. But the Darkness That Eats All Things was likely the only thing the K'nyan would respect enough to keep such promises, and their rulers didn't die except in the torture pits or on the experimenting tables, and that was very rare, from what she'd heard of them. More than likely, if the oath had been made by one-hundred of their leaders, at least ninety of them were still living now.

The K'nyan were not fae, and they weren't human - anymore. They were now like the Deep Ones, or the Elder Ones, or the Outer Ones, or the Ancient Ones - they had been human once, so very long ago that modern man likely didn't consider that to be human really, but what they looked like now was so different from their ancient roots, they didn't fit as human anymore.

The Ancient Ones, the great race of Yith, were only human in that they sometimes wore human bodies; most of the time they looked like weird tentacle creatures living in flesh-barrels, though that wasn't what they'd originally looked like, either. Dylan had never met a Yith, but John had told her about them. He'd only seen one in a human body, though. The Outer Ones considered all species to be the same, the flesh immaterial, and didn't care what body someone had been born into. To them, fae and human and eldritch being and monster and demon and lycanthrope and vampire were all the same. Dylan wasn't quite sure how she felt about that. The Elder Ones lived so far north, she had no idea what they looked like now, only what they'd looked like a hundred years ago when a few human explorers had run into a group of them, and they'd likely changed since then; it was, Moundshroud had once explained to her, their way.

Many fae didn't realize any creatures outside the human-fae binary existed except the Deep Ones, who started off looking human anyway and so many thought they didn't count. Most humans without the Sight didn't know the fae-human binary was even a thing, because they'd had more run-ins with Elder Ones, Ancient Ones, Deep Ones, whatever, than actual faeries. The K'nyan, the Mad Ones Under the Earth, were the race that bridged the gap a little. No longer human, not quite eldritch, not monsters, not fae, but they were incredibly magical.

That magic carried a taint, though. Some experiment in sorcery thousands or millions of years ago had gone terribly wrong, and the K'nyan had begun to change, becoming obsessed with sadistic enchantments, medical tortures, and all sorts of cruelties that had made even Azrharn, the Night's Master, the Lord of Cruelty, turn up his nose in disgust. It wasn't a genetic madness, but it came from exposure to their twisted, tainted magic. The only K'nyan that weren't wholly insane by the end of adolescence were the ones who possessed no magic at all, or the ones who deliberately turned their backs on K'nyan sorcery and turned to other disciplines, like alchemy.

Dylan only knew of the K'nyan because of John and because of Moundshroud. She'd never known Moundshroud to be afraid of any being in either the mortal or Twilight Realms, and he wasn't afraid of the K'nyan...but he was wary of them, and that was enough to terrify her.

"There's a K'nyan city underneath Oklahoma," Dylan mumbled, keeping her eyes focused on her hands. "It's the only one...I think. I hope. John went out there for a government thing a while back, way before I met you. When he came back, he was...I don't know. I don't know what he saw. I don't think he saw anything, but he's psychically sensitive, you know? So he probably felt something. When I talked to Ickis and Oblina about it, in case maybe they knew something about whatever might have been going on out there - monsters can go anywhere via their own world, and it only takes them a few hours - they told me about some city under Oklahoma. We don't have any treaties with them, though. The only reason they don't spill out from under there and kill us all is...Oblina said it was some kind of monster, but not like she's a monster. Some kind of eldritch...thing. Living under the K'nyan city. It keeps them from leaving."

A frisson of apprehension shivered down her spine. She had an unusual number of connections among the fae, even without her betrothal to Nuada - in part because healing without magic and without chemically-processed mortal remedies that made faeries sick was an in-demand skill, and in part because adults with the Sight usually survived that long by, among other things, picking up in-demand skills, making trades, earning good will, and collecting debts from magical beings. She'd done all of those things. But even Dylan's connections - even her betrothal and eventual marriage to Nuada, even her patronage from fae kings like Moundshroud - would not have protected her if she'd ever followed John to Oklahoma and found her way beneath the earth to the K'nyan. They'd have cut out her tongue and thrown her in the torture pits or sacrificed her to one of the cavernous gods they worshipped before she could've spoken Moundshroud's name.

When Nuada didn't speak, Dylan looked up. He was staring off into the distance, face shuttered. An odd prickling at the nape of her neck made her poke him in the foot again.

"No," she said sharply when he looked at her. He lifted both eyebrows. "I know what you're thinking. No."

"What am I thinking?"

"You're thinking that maybe you can make some deal with whatever's underneath the K'nyan city if we ever have to go to war with the American government. You're thinking it might be willing to help us since it's keeping them from slaughtering everyone in the United States and Elphame."

After a long moment, he canted his head to her. "You do not think I should try to forge an alliance with this...whatever it is."

"No!" Dylan cried. "No, I don't! Are you out of your mind? We don't even know what it is! If the K'nyan are scared of it, we probably should be, too."

"Dylan," Nuada said gently, laying a hand on her knee. "Dylan, when I become king, I will be the last fae heir we need to take their throne. Once Bethmoora stands up as a defender of our people, willing to fight back against any human aggression - I do not speak of genocide, but we have the right to defend ourselves - once I am king, and you are my queen, it will be time to declare ourselves to humanity and the mortal world. And when that happens, we will need allies."

"I know," she said sharply. "Nuada, you know I want to help the fae. You know I do. You know I think this treaty as it stands is...freaking stupid. But in order to even find out whatever the heck is under that city, we have to go through the city! We'll die. Horribly. And that's if we're lucky. They might experiment on us. And anyone we send in our place will also die horribly. It's not feasible."

"There must be some way to...Moundshroud. What about Moundshroud?"

Dylan eyed him. "What about Moundshroud?"

"Could he do it? Could he go to the city and find that creature, speak to it on our behalf? He would do it for you, surely, if it could be done. And if anyone could do so safely, it would be the Samhain Keeper."

She hesitated, nibbling her lower lip. "I...don't know. Maybe." She hadn't meant to open up this avenue of conversation with her questions, darn it. It hadn't occurred to her that Nuada would hear about whatever was living under Oklahoma and think they should make friends with it. "I don't like the idea, though. We don't know what it is."

"He could find out. He may already know."

That...was a good point, and she hated that it was. But Nuada was right. She agreed that once they had enough people, enough countries backing them, they needed to declare themselves to the humans. It had been her idea to ally with a few mortal governments and the leaders of her own Church, since the Latter-Day Saint prophet and his associates already knew about the fae (otherwise there couldn't have been any wards or branches of the Church in Faerie, no fae with the Priesthood, any of that). And while she would thank Heavenly Father every day for the rest of her life that Nuada no longer planned to exterminate the humans to save his people, she absolutely believed they would need the Golden Army awake and ready to fight (under the command of someone who wasn't a coward and an idiot like Balor), to establish themselves as a world power. But that didn't mean she thought something that scared people like the K'nyan were great potential allies.

Nuada must have seen something on her face, because he touched her arm. "I will let it lie for now, my beloved. Let us speak of more pleasant things, shall we? I did not mean to upset you. It was merely a thought."

Relieved, she said, "There is actually something I need to get your opinion on."

"Oh? I am flattered you would seek my counsel. Here, come to me, Dylan." He pulled his feet off her lap and she shifted so that she sat between his legs, her back to him. Careful of her almost-healed lash wounds, Nuada began to rub the tension from her shoulders.

"Ohhh...you are the best," she breathed.

"I do try. What was it you wished my opinion on?"

"Master Mac Essit wants to become my vassal."

The prince remembered the grizzled old Elf. Perhaps two-thousand or so years older than Nuada, the old soldier-turned-farmer had been tortured and left for dead by the human bandits, his right arm horribly mutilated. If not for Dylan, they'd have had to amputate the limb to prevent a spreading infection from killing him. At the time, he'd been desperate to save the limb because he'd thought his farm remained intact, only to learn later it had been salted and burned. Master Mac Essit had asked to ride out with Nuada when the prince had thought Dylan was dead and he'd planned to retrieve her body from the bandit camp.

"He is a good man, I believe," Nuada said. "He has cause enough to be loyal to you. You saved his arm and quite possibly his life. He is a widower, and his children are grown or dead. With his farm gone, there is nothing left for him here. Do you want him for a vassal?"

"I...I don't know. I dont want to offend him or hurt his feelings, but...but what do you do with a vassal that isn't a seven-year-old cat faerie?"

Nuada smiled. Tsu's'di was technically captain of Dylan's personal guard, but his relationship with his mistress was more mother and son than charge and guardsman, and his age and inexperience put him more in the role of Master Escort, sort of a vice-captain to Guardsman Uaithne. 'Sa'ti sometimes acted the part of a lady's maid, but more often than not, she too treated Dylan like her mother, as did A'du. A real, fully grown fae man for a vassal would be something else entirely.

"Well, you have five fiefdoms in Bethmoora to your name, my beloved, and no trusted servants to manage them while you are at court. Your current household is one maid, one page, and ten guards, but no designated Guard Master, no secretary, no Steward, no Master of the Accounts. Perhaps Master Mac Essit could fill such a role for you."

Dylan twisted around to stare at him. "Why would I need a secretary? I'm not a CEO or anything. It's not like we have ten million meetings to go to every day."

Nuada blinked. "Tell me - have you answered any of the mail you've received in Findias since our betrothal was announced at Midwinter?"

Now it was her turn to blink. "What mail?"

"Ah." He grimaced. "We need to get you a secretary, then. Someone you can trust to answer invitations, accept or refuse as you might wish and need, and to pass on important missives requiring personal replies."

"How come you don't have a secretary?"

At that, Nuada enfolded her in his arms, squeezing her in a gentle hug and chuckling. "But my love," he said with a low laugh, "I do. Wink is my secretary."

"Wait, really?" She thought of the silver cave troll with his rough hands and thick, almost shovel-like fingers, and suddenly an image of him popped into her head: the massive, craggy bulk the color of good stone, back bristles rising and falling as he scratched at a piece of fancy pink stationary with a peacock quill pen, a pair of tiny wire-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose and a string of pearls around his neck like women wore in the fifties. Dylan twined her fingers with Nuada's and showed him the picture in her head.

Her prince burst out laughing. "Not quite," he said, hugging her again. "Insolent chit. But aye, he's my secretary, among other things. He writes a fair hand and can read nearly as many languages as I can, though humanoid tongues can be difficult to speak for trolls. He is my valet, not only my vassal, and has been since I was a boy. What skills he lacked when he entered my service, he quickly learned so that my father would tolerate his presence."

She studied Nuada's face for a long moment. The words had been warmly spoken, but there was a shadow under them, one she didn't think she ought to poke at just yet. So she only said, "You love him so much. I can see it in your face."

Nuada nodded. "He is as dear to me as you are, Dylan."

Dylan leaned back against him and considered, mulling over her thoughts aloud. "It takes a lot to run a farm. You keep a lot in your head. Manage a lot. You'd have to be fairly decent at ledgers and keeping stock of things. I think someone who's good at all that would make a good steward." She tilted her head back to look up into his face. "What do you think?"

"I think Master Mac Essit would be honored to be the steward of your household, my lady."

"I hope so. Hey." She twisted around again so that she reclined in his arms, her own arms reach up to encircle his neck. "Prince Hot Stuff. You wanna know a secret?"

Nuada pulled her tight to him, suddenly very much aware of the warmth of her skin against his, the way her hair curled dark and silky against her lovely throat. He cupped her cheek, smoothing his thumb along the edge of her cheekbone. His smile turned wicked.

"I am acquiver with curiosity, my fair lady."

"That...sounds kind of…" She swallowed the rest of her statement when Nuada kissed her. Suddenly she couldn't remember what it was she'd wanted to tell him, or anything else.

.

To Dylan's surprise, none of the servants and vassals she and Nuada planned to send to the Island of Renvyle had much objection to going, especially when Liam found out his mother and three older brothers could come with him and Iuile was told she would be riding in a carriage. Acting-Steward Gawain's three children didn't object much either once they learned their aunt, the one Dylan detested, would not be coming along. Siobhan of the bean sidhe fretted at first until Dylan promsed that Pauline would come and visit and Nuada told the little girl that Renvyle was the last place in Bethmoora the king would ever go.

It was awful, Dylan thought, that Balor was so feared and despised that he'd become the monster in the closet for Siobhan. Dylan had pulled Maurice aside to talk to him about that, asking the young monster to keep an eye on the bean sidhe. Maurice would be going to Renvyle, too, acting as escort to the late steward's two young daughters. And if Dylan could convince Oblina to go with them, so much the better.

In the end, Dylan and Nuada would leave Lallybroch with almost the same retinue they'd arrived with, plus Uilliam mac Bas and his lieutenants and maybe Master Mac Essit. Dylan had yet to take his oath of fealty or offer him the job of being her steward. What if he said no? Maybe Nuada was wrong and the Elf would consider it an insult.

As if her thoughts had conjured the older man, right as Dylan turned to mention him to Nuada, she caught sight of the Elf from the corner of her eye as he stepped into the tavern common room. The moment he saw her, a grandfatherly smile spread across his lined face and he lifted a hand in greeting. Dylan beckoned him over.

"Lady Dylan! Your Highness," bowing to her and Nuada. "How may I be of service to you both?"

Dylan glanced at Nuada, unsure how to even broach the subject. Her prince smiled fondly down at her before addressing the other man.

"My lady and I would speak with you in private, Master Mac Essit."

It took mere minutes to explain the situation to him once they'd taken a private room; once Dylan actually started talking, the words came easily enough. Master Mac Essit was such an affable old man. He reminded her a bit of Mr. Magorium and a bit of Moundshroud in his manner, and it put her at ease. When she offered to accept him as her vassal and offered him the role of steward, his delighted shock made her grin.

"My...my lady, you…" He sputtered, his grin matching hers. "You honor me beyond words. Of course I accept! It would be my greatest honor, I…I am most pleased, humbled...honored." Realizing he'd said the word honor at least three times, he blushed a pale yellow. "I did not expect such a position when I offered myself to your service, my lady. I am very grateful."

"We need people we can trust," Dylan said. "And I can trust you."

He bowed low to her. "Aye, my lady. That you can."

.

The next morning, Nuada woke to a message that his father requested his presence in his private rooms for breakfast. The prince dressed quickly, refusing to let unease make his fingers fumble the knots of his sash or the positioning of the golden crest at his waist. What could Balor want the day he was supposed to leave?

Wondering if he were about to walk into a trap, Nuada knocked on his father's door. A glowering Captain Saruit let him in, but at the king's insistence, she left the room so that there was only Nuada, the king, and a breakfast tray heaped with small, portable pies.

"Ah, Nuada, my son. Come in, sit down. Join me for breakfast before I take my leave of you."

Surprised but cautiously pleased, the prince obeyed, sliding into the chair opposite his father. Balor invited him to try one of the breakfast pies. Biting into it, Nuada was further pleased to find scrambled eggs, crumbly goat cheese, and diced baked apple. To his great surprise, the king himself poured them both large cups of sweet, lightly spiced pear cider. Technically royal protocol dictated Nuada ought to pour out, which meant Balor was in a generous mood. Nuada hated to add shadows to the morning, but he couldnt help but wonder why his father was being so...fatherly.

Yet only the day before, his father had actually apologized to him, declared his love, embraced him, and kissed his brow. So perhaps…

"Do you wish me to look in on Ledi Polunochnaya when I return to Findias?"

Nuada had to study Balor's face for a long moment before he realized it was, in fact, a sincere question. He considered. Would he try to go and see Naya today? Perhaps, perhaps not. If he did not go, did he want Balor near her? Did he trust his father's promise not to pass judgment before Nuada had the chance to confront her over her treachery?

No, he wasn't sure the king could rein in his temper enough. But if he refused an offer kindly meant, it might make his father suspicious or angry.

"That is kind of you, Father," he said at last, "but I know thinking of her causes you much pain. If you wish to see her, of course I shall not object, but for my own part, you needn't trouble yourself." He hesitated, thinking of a thorn that had begun to prick at his thoughts as he lay in bed the night before. If he brought it up, Nuada had no idea how Balor would react. In truth, Nuada didn't quite know how he would even intend bringing it up. An attack? A plea for explanation? But the king seemed in such a good mood, surely there was no better time than now to ask him. And if the asking went well, he could broach another subject afterward.

"Father," Nuada said softly. Whatever was in the prince's voice had Balor setting down his cup and fixing aged amber eyes on his son. Nuada swallowed hard, mouth suddenly desert-dry. "Father, I...I need to ask you something."

A dozen emotions flashed across the weathered face too swiftly for the prince to name them all. Yet Balor's voice held no ice or anger when he said, "Ask then, my son. Perhaps I will have an answer for you."

"Do you remember when Dylan came to you in Findias, near Christmas, and revealed that I thought you blamed me for...for all that had happened back then?"

It was a brief eternity before Balor murmured, "I remember."

Do not accuse him, Nuada reminded himself. Do not attack. Guard your tongue. Guard your tone. He may simply have...forgotten? It did not seem likely, but he didn't want to believe his father had lied. That time in the king's study, that heartwrenching and cleansing conversation, had been a soothing balm. If it had all been false…

"You said then that you did not know I had ever believed such a thing, but…" Another hesitation. How to phrase this? "Do you remember when I ran away for that fornight after Mother's death?" The words burned his mouth like salt, like human blood. Only once before had he and his father spoken so candidly but calmly about the queen's murder. He wanted to preserve this fragile peace for as long as he could.

"Yes, Nuada. I remember that, as well." There was an odd edge to Balor's voice. Not anger. Some...tension.

Careful to keep his tone as neutral as possible, Nuada said, "In the note I left for you then, I apologized for failing Mother, failing Nuala. For shaming you with my...cowardice. How could you not know, after reading it, that I felt-"

"I did not read it," Balor said.

Nuada stared at him. "You...you didn't? But...why not?"

"Well...at first, there was no time. I was in the saddle every day from before dawn until the middle of the night while you were gone, searching for you, scouring the entire island. I scarcely slept. Lord Iriall had to force me to eat. I was frantic to find you, terrified you had been taken or that you would be harmed further. I only knew you still lived because your sister still lived.

"When I received word that you had been found and brought back to the palace, I raced back to see for myself that you were safe. Gods," with a strained chuckle, "I wanted to shake you until your teeth rattled, for frightening me so...but you were still hurt. I did not wish for you to see me felled by more weakness, and I knew I could not go to you then without weeping, so I sent you to the nursery and went to my chambers. Iriall reminded me of the letter you had left, but by then you were home and so I thought it no longer mattered. So I...Nuada?"

Thirteen hells, was he crying? He wondered, quickly bringing up a hand to shield his eyes. His eyes stung and his vision blurred, but no tears fell, thank the stars. Nuada pressed his fingertips against his closed eyes for a moment and cleared his throat. Lowered his hand.

"No one ever told me you had gone to search for me," he said.

"I told you," Balor protested. "When I...scolded you for running away, I said that-"

"You said the entire castle had been turned upside down trying to find me," Nuada said softly. "But not that you had personally gone to search. Perhaps I should have known, but...but understand, Father. I thought you despised me for a weakling and a coward. I had no reason to think you would care I was gone. That was one reason I left."

His father stared at him. Swallowed audibly, then reached out and clasped Nuada's hand in his.

"Forgive me, my son, for ever making you believe such a thing. I did not know. I simply assumed you would know that I would come looking for you. I suppose it was one of those things that turned out to be more important to speak of than it seemed at the time. But no, Nuada. I could not have stayed holed up in our castle while my boy was in danger. I loved you too much for that."

Nuada had no idea what made him say it, but he confessed in a rush, "Father, I'm sorry. I know I am a disappointment to you, and I wish it was not so. I have always tried to make you proud of me, to act with honor as you taught me to do. I swear to you-"

His father squeezed his hand gently. "I know. I know, Nuada. I am sorry, too. I wish I was a king you found worthy of respect. Perhaps we shall get there one day. But my son - you do make me proud at times. So very proud. And while we disagree about what is and is not honorable, I do know that you try."

Did his father at least try to do the right thing? Nuada didn't know. He didn't think so. But the king had offered him much, and would leave later today. Antagonizing him now by saying such would be a grave mistake. And…

You do make me proud. Shades, how often had Balor said those words in Nuada's adult life? A handful, perhaps. Each time precious.

"Now, come," Balor said with a smile and pat on the prince's hand. "Share this one meal with your old father before I go, and we shall leave all dark things to themselves this day. I do not wish to mar this last hour with you with harsh words, my son."

"Nor I, Father." And that was nothing but the truth. But he had something he needed to tell his father as well, and with all these revelations and soft words, this seemed the best time. "Father, there is one thing. My wedding to Dylan needs to be postponed. You see, we were forced to make a bargain…"

.

Sreng mac Umhor crouched beside one of his pets as, with trembling hands, the kelpie lad touched the smooth surface of the black water and a rippling image appeared. After the last few raids, it would have been more effort than it was likely worth to spy on Balor in person. Luckily one of the slave boys was a water horse, which meant he could scry a little. Though his blood swam, festered with magic, the bandit captain had no magical talents of his own. He relied on his slaves and pets for such things.

He idly rubbed the kelpie's shoulder as the image grew clearer: Balor and that wretch Nuada speaking outside the doors of a quaint little tavern, the king dressed for travel. Was the old Elf leaving the village? Hmmm. Sreng would have to tweak some of his plans, then. He'd meant to capture the king, use him as bait for Nuada. He would not have done any permanent harm to Balor, but the Silverlance wouldn't have known that. After all, the wretched prince believed Sreng mac Umhor to be nothing but a glutton for senseless slaughter. Why else would he and that Lady Bitch continue to underestimate him?

Balor was not the only one leaving the village. A small band of travelers was going in the opposite direction, including…Sreng bit back a snarl. The kelpie at his side made a sound between an equine squeal and a gasp as the bandit's fingers dug hard into his shoulder, but Sreng ignored him. He recognized several of the members of the group. There was that young Elven slut who'd murdered one of his sons; another of his men had reported how she'd driven a shard of glass into his throat while he'd been enjoying her. And was that...a baby in her arms? The single iron-gray eye narrowed.

Beside her was a familiar gancanaugh youth. Sreng had made good sport of him during the raid, but he'd gotten away when the captain had been distracted. Were he and the little Elf slut friends? More than friends? Questions for another time. He also recognized the dullahan child that had bitten him, teeth sharp as a rabid fox, while his lads had been enjoying her parents and elder siblings. He'd meant to break her neck in the heat of the pain, but he'd forgotten she was a dullahan and her head had come off. Before he could do much about that, her damn wight horse had caved in his chest with a solid kick to his breastbone and she'd escaped with her father. Little bitch.

And that...snake thing. The monster that had butchered his men and crushed most of his ribs in its scaly grip. That creature was accompanying the group? Blast it. It would be fruitless to send men after them, then. That thing, whatever it was, could slaughter every fighter he sent after them, most likely. No reason to bother for a few toys, even if his hands did itch to wring the Elf slut's neck for murdering his boy.

Balor was leaving, and some of the toys were leaving, too. What was Nuada and the human whore planning to do?

It would take a day, perhaps two, for Balor to arrive back in the capital. Before then, Sreng would send a letter to his...patron...in Findias. Though he had little enough use for the fae demons, this lordling was powerful enough to be a good source of information and aid. Without the fae lord, the extermination of the unicorns would've been impossible. Sreng would write and find out what the Silverlance planned to do, then arrange things accordingly.

He would have his revenge on Nuada, of course. And once that revenge had been extracted, he would make that treacherous bitch suffer for betraying her own kind. He'd killed her once; he could do it again.

"M-milord," the kelpie gasped, and dared to grab at Sreng's hand on his shoulder. "Milord, please...please, you're hurting me, I…"

Realizing what he was doing, the bandit captain released the kelpie. Patted him roughly on the back. The water fae - Ewan, that was his name - was a well-behaved little lad. Didn't fight him, did what he was told. Sreng would see he had an extra ration for his supper to make up for the bruises. Maybe let him have a second bath this week.

"Is that all you have to show me?" Sreng asked. Ewan nodded. "Good boy. Well done. Give us a kiss, then get yourself to the mess tent and have your breakfast."

The boy obeyed and hurried off. Sreng stared at the now black, smooth water again before pushing to his feet and heading for his own tent. The whimpers from inside became audible even before he pulled back the flap.

"Ah, Fionn," Sreng said with sincere pleasure. The Elven boy lay on a cot, his wounded leg bandaged, bruises darkening his face. His eyes widened as the bandit leader strode into the tent. Tears began to roll down his bruised cheeks. "Did you miss me, sweet boy?"

.

He was a man grown, Nuada reminded himself. He should not have tasted fear like iron in the back of his throat or felt his heart fluttering against his breastbone. The weight of centuries shouldn't have hung from his bones as he studied himself in the mirror: the white shirt and sable tunic, black trews and ash-colored sash about his waist. He wore the colors of Bethmooran mourning because...because gods, his heart was so very heavy. He'd thought watching the king leave would ease him but now...

"Are you going to be okay?" Dylan asked softly from behind him.

Nuada turned to her. There was a wealth of love and understanding in those rain-swept blue eyes. Love enough to break a man. Without making a conscious decision, the legendary Elven warrior strode to her, sank gracefully to his knees, and laid his head in her lap, slipping his arms around her waist. The soft lambswool of her skirt pressed against his cheek.

"I do not want to do this," he mumbled. No, he wanted to do nothing save remain here with his lady. Balor was gone at last; he wanted to savor the peace of that, and could not. "What if…" He had no words to continue.

"What if what?" Dylan pressed. He knew the cadence of her voice, the careful edge. Not his lady in this moment, or at least not his lady alone. A mind-healer nudging him down a path.

Nuada sighed. Tried to marshal his thoughts. Finally, he ventured, "What if she despises me now?"

Such a stupid thing to fear. What did it matter? Naya was a traitor, an accomplice to attempted murder, guilty of treason. His dearest Nuala had even told him herself that Naya had sought to eliminate him because she believed him to be an irredeemable monster. Of course she despised him! And after all, was he not despicable? Was he not a monster? There was blood on his hands, sins on his heart. Of course even Naya should hate him in the end.

"Do you think she feels the way your dad and Nuala do?" A gentle question, clean and sharp as a surgeon's blade.

"She must, mustn't she? Or else why should she have betrayed me this way?" His fingers tangled in the impossibly soft, green lambswool leine, fists clenched until his hands shook. "When I had no one else at my side but Wink, when no other remained at home to champion me, I still had Naya. She was never afraid of me, not the way Nuala became. She never treated me coldly when I came home from the wars, as my father did. She...I think she was my best friend, in those days. She was Nuala's lady-in-waiting and she adored my sister, but she was my best friend. And now…"

When he said nothing more, Dylan laid a hand on his head and lightly stroked his hair. It was unimaginably soothing.

"I know you're hurting," Dylan said, "but it won't get any better if you don't talk to her, Nuada. I know you don't want to, but you need to. It will help you. And…" She trailed off. He looked up. In an even gentler voice, she added, "I think she might want to talk to you, too."

"And say what, pray?"

Somehow Dylan managed to shrug without seeming dismissive. "I don't know. You'd have to talk to her and find out. I'm not going to make you go," she added. "That isn't the sort of relationship we have; we don't force each other to do things if we truly don't want to do them. And I won't be angry or disappointed if you don't go see her. But avoiding it isn't healthy, and confronting the problem will probably help."

Nuada sighed, but nodded. "And if I cannot do it? If I go today, as you bid, but cannot bring myself to face her?"

"If you can't do it today, plan for another day. That's fine." She leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss. "I'm here for you, just like you are for me. Always. I love you."

Nuada brushed a slow caress over the thick, pink scar slashing down Dylan's cheek. "And I love you. Thank you, mo duinne."

Her words bolstered him through the first teleportation spell, from the village of Lallybroch to his underground sanctuary. The moment he appeared, the sylph maid who kept the sanctuary clean zoomed out from her little cubby, chirping and jingling at him, the pale blue and amber light of her magical aura flashing in agitation.

"Children!" She gasped, waving tiny arms. "Human! Halfling! They come and eat apples! Jump on bed!"

It took Nuada a few moments to understand what she was talking about, until she presented him with an acorn cup full of tiny garnets no bigger than pinheads, a rosethorn spool wound with golden hair, and a note written on a torn up sheet of notebook paper, penned in careful, large letters.

Thank you for leting us stay in your hoose. The apples were very good. We jumpd on the bed but fickst it after. Hear is some sand rubies and some gold Elf hairs to say thanks.

Russell + Tiana

Nuada grinned. Of course, he remembered now. The two children had told him while Russell stroked Setanta's sleek, black fur and Tiana climbed Dylan like a tree. So the prince took the time to soothe the sylph and assure her he was not angry at the invasion of the little ones. The golden quilt and the blue quilt on his bed had not been dirtied or damaged, and that was what mattered to him.

Alas, he couldn't stay in the sanctuary. He was no coward, but the Silverlance. He had someone he needed to speak to.

It took little effort to get to Dylan's suite in Findias with the ensorcelled ring. He had left an anchor in her private study, in one of the desk drawers, tying it into the web of the travel spell.

He would have to do something to shield the room, he thought, as he stepped from study to sitting room. It was rather eerie, stepping into the icy room, all the furniture draped in white cloth to keep off the dust while he and Dylan journeyed through the villages. He suddenly recalled being in his seventh century, racing through the summer estate in the city of Bethmoora, the kingdom's old capital. He recalled the light, fluting trail of Nuala's giggling and his mother's footsteps, her slippers making muffled slaps against the dusty floor.

"I am going to catch you, little prince!" Cethlenn had cried, chasing him between covered, dusty furniture while he dodged and laughed. "I'll catch you! Ha! I have you now!" And he remembered his mother's arms about him, how she'd tickled his sides and pretended to bite his cheeks while he'd laughed and called, "Nuala! Sister, help me!"

The memory echoed another, far newer than the first. A dream, or a vision, of Nuada hoisting two small halfling children into the air. Princess Boann! Prince Balor! I hold you both fast! The dream that Dylan said was a glimpse into their almost certain-future.

Prince Balor...Would things mend, he wondered, since he named his eldest son for his father? Eventually would it all work itself out between the king and the crown prince?

Balor and Boann...Sean and Scathach...and in the vision, Dylan had been with child again. If it was a girl, would they name her Cethlenn?

Nuada suddenly realized he'd been standing amidst the furniture and dust, smiling a little foolishly, woolgathering. He shook off the memories . Blinked away the sudden sting to his eyes when he wondered about that unborn child in the dream, when he thought of the queen tickling her young son and pretending to chase him. Now was not the time for such thoughts, of course.

He made his way through the castle halls without bothering to use glamour. No one stopped him; one look at his icy expression and topaz eyes silenced any courtier that happened to spy him. He was the crown prince; he would not hide himself away. And he knew his way to the dungeons. He'd been a brief prisoner there occasionally throughout his life when Balor really wanted to hammer home a lesson, when flogging was considered too severe a punishment but a reprimand or house arrest too mild. He had...worked in the dungeons as well, observing the rare torture of a prisoner and learning interrogation techniques.

Having watched his belove at work interrogating the now-dead human assassin Ian Malcolm, Nuada had the feeling her methods of subtle manipulation and the parsing of words was more effective than pain. In his kingdom, interrogation using actual torture was rare and usually only employed when there was quite a bit of time available to invest in breaking a subject. Torture was most often reserved for punishment of a particularly foul crime.

A sudden thought made him pause just at the doors that led to the cold stone dungeon steps. Torture was usually a punishment…

Had the guards hurt Naya? Had his father ordered her to be tortured? Neither his father nor Nuala had said anything about that, and yet...and yet he couldn't shake the sudden, nauseating fear.

Nuada? His sister's voice, baffled and wary and more than a little annoyed. Still, it had been so very long since she had reached out and touched his mind with hers, Nuada couldn't help the sudden surge of sheer joy. What are you doing? What are you doing here? Why are you in the capital? There was a long silence while he waited, because he sensed she had another question. Where is Father?

He remembered all at once that the last time they'd spoken mind to mind, when he'd reached out almost desperately along their link to demand the truth about Naya's betrayal, his twin had been in tears, bitter, furious with him...but he remembered the time before that, only moments before, when he'd reached out without realizing it while confronting the king over Tsu's'di's punishment. Nuada had thought, I am sorry, Nuala, not realizing his twin had let down her shields enough that she could hear his apology.

The apology for his decision in that moment to cut down his father without mercy to save the young ewah. He'd kept his sister from seeing the details of what he planned to do, but Nuala was no fool, and she knew him better than any other save Dylan or Wink.

Father is traveling back to Findias along the King's Road, Nuada replied, and felt her immediate relief. When communicating through their link, they could not lie to each other. Merely refrain from mentioning a particular thing. Sometimes even that didn't work, if they were agitated or distracted. I have faster methods.

And why are you here? You did not answer me.

He held back a sigh. I am here to see Naya.

Why? His sister demanded. Each word held an iron barb when she added, What precisely do you plan to do to her?

Do to her? What did she think he meant to do? This was no common assassin, no jumped up courtier with a poisoned blade in the dark. This was Naya. Nuada mentally cleared his throat. In the real world, he pushed through the dungeon's double doors.

Nothing, Sister. I will do nothing to her. I wish to speak to her and...and to make sure she is all right. It sounded so improbable - or perhaps merely foolish - but he could not bear to think of one of his oldest friends under the merciless iron blades and mental magic of the king's torturers, brutalized for her crimes, anymore than he could bear the thought of her being dead. If Hastur, his father's Master of the Dungeons, had harmed Naya at all...Rage bloomed hot and full of razor-sharp teeth in his belly at the thought.

And why do you care, wretch? Nuala demanded. Nuada flinched and nearly tripped at the insult, thrown out of his own rage by the unexpected venom in his twin's words and the tears thickening her voice. You did this. You made her do this. Your hate, your cruelty. What more damage do you hope to inflict?

Oblivious to any guards who might have been watching, Nuada's mouth worked soundlessly as he struggled to process the raw anger and pain radiating from his twin through their link. The mystical bond between them practically vibrated with the force of her fury. He hadn't felt anger like this from his sister since...since their mother's death. Nuada instinctively tried to send a wash of warmth and comfort to her. Nuala batted it aside with a flex of her power, refusing it. Refusing him.

Nuala...Sister, I never meant to-

You never mean it, Nuada! She cried, sobbing now. Pain bloomed along the edges of his hands and briefly flared across the tops of his thighs; his sister had slammed her fists into her own legs. To make him feel it? Or out of simple frustration? She was still crying. Each tear was like a drop of blood squeezed from his heart. Each sob seemed almost to clog his own throat. His eyes burned but he would not weep. You never mean to be cruel or vicious, never mean to break my heart or Father's, never mean to shame our family and act like a mindless, vicious, bloodthirsty brute, but you keep doing it! You never mean to ruin everything and make our lives miserable but you do! You ruin everything! I hate you!

Nuada stared at nothing. Saw nothing. His twin sister's weeping echoed in his skull and he wanted so much to go to her, to comfort her as he had when they were children. To fall to his knees and beg her forgiveness.

It was a rare thing for Nuala to speak to him this way. She had to be heartbroken to gut him so. But of course she was. This was Naya. And in a way, it was his fault, wasn't it? Because he had driven his oldest friend, his first love, to do all that she had done.

He swallowed hard. The salt scorched his throat and tongue. His eyes were burning fiercely, stung as if with smoke. He squeezed them shut. Had to say something. Had to offer something because she was breaking him with those tears and he loved her so much, he'd never wanted to hurt her.

Sister...little love...I am sorry for this. Truly, Nuala.

You always are sorry, she mumbled through her tears. It does not stop you the next time you have a chance to betray us all.

Nuada swallowed again. My sister, I can only follow the dictates of my honor, as our father taught. Please...please, my dearest, do not cry so. I have spoken to Father on Naya's behalf. He plans to withhold judgment until I-

It doesn't matter.

Nuala-

I said, it does not matter, Crown Prince.

He nearly choked on the sharp breath he drew then. She did not call him Crown Prince. She had never done so. Not ever. She knew how much it always hurt him when their father dragged rank between them. How alone, unwanted, it always made him feel, even now.

N-Nuala-

Leave me alone. Begone from here. You have brought enough ill fortune into our lives and our home already. Begone. When he didn't move, when he only struggled to breathe, she shouted, Go on! Get out of here! Go away!

She was crying hard, hard enough her sobs were broken by coughing and gasping. Even as she coughed and yelled for him to go, he knew she didn't mean it, not truly. He sensed the conflicted emotions in his twin, the shame and yearning, the anger and the grief. She didn't mean any of it.

But she had said it. That was enough.

So Nuada turned the golden ring on his finger, croaked the right words, and vanished. When he had disappeared from the castle of Findias, Nuala slumped against her frost-kissed window and cried bitterly, wishing for her twin brother's arms around her and hating him and herself for it.

.

Nuada made his way through the teleportation spells back to Lallybroch, back to Dylan, as if in a fog. His mind clamored and he could taste his own pounding heartbeat in the back of his throat. By the time he found his lady in the tavern, wrapping an erlkin child's skinned knee and sending the little one off with a smile and a ruffle of her milkthistle hair, he'd gotten his emotions back under control once more. He was no heartsick boy, to tremble when his twin castigated him. He was Crown Prince Nuada Silverlance, by the Fates. Nuala's scorn was nothing. He would make it into nothing by his will alone.

Dylan caught sight of him when he entered the common room and came immediately to his side. The Elf could tell simply by looking at her that the human kew something had gone wrong. Nuada forced a smile to curve his dark lips, though it felt as if his face might crack like porcelain. Dylan took his hand and twined her fingers with his.

Your eyes are gray, Nuada, she said through their linked hands, and he had to bite back vicious invectives. It was supposed to be nothing, supposed to mean nothing. A mere spat between siblings. It should not have mattered at all, much less enough to wrought such change. How pathetic was he?

You didn't talk to Naya, Dylan hazarded. Her voice was nothing but gentle. Nuada wondered how she could have guessed that simply from the color of his eyes. In a sudden shift in mood and topic, Dylan added brightly, We've got some time this afternoon. Give me an archery lesson.

Give...what? It had been the last thing he'd expected her to say.

An archery lesson. We packed my bow but I'm still a lousy shot. May I have a lesson, please, Your Highness?

She was offering him distraction, he realized. Well enough; he'd take it, and gladly. Anything, so long as it drove the sound of Nuala's weeping from his ears.

Dylan retrieved the beautiful bow from her room. Nuada had given it to her for a Midwinter gift. Though she'd had a few basic lessons in knife-fighting, she had no skill with sword or staff, and lacked the strength to train with ax or hammer. Because fae were far stronger than humans, those weapons seemed impractical anyway. The bow had, to Nuada's mind, been the best idea to compensate for mortal weaknesses in strength and speed.

The pearlescent wood gleamed in the afternoon sun; Nuada had paid for the services of two wood-workers, a birch maid and an ash tree nymph, to sing ash and birch boughs together into one blended, supple shaft, and then he'd seasoned and shaped the sung wood himself with hawthorn oil before stringing it with a cord woven of unicorn hair and a strand of swanmane curls. The arrows were fashioned of a specially-bred vervain wood, tipped with faerie metal points, and fletched with macha-raven feathers so they would always fly true. The quiver was enchanted, as well - it would never empty in times of need.

The bow and quiver of arrows wasn't considered a sacred treasure of the Tuatha de Danaan, though. Hundreds of such magical objects filled the king's vaults. Nuada had had this one made for Nuala when she'd shown an interest in archery in their youth. It had been his attempt at protecting her better than he'd protected the queen, inspired by the training bow he'd first used as a boy.

His twin hadn't wanted it. Had said that it was "low, dirty cheating" to have a bow that never missed. Never mind that those spells had lain dormant during lessons and practice, and were merely extra protection in times of true mortal danger. Nuala hadn't commented openly on what she considered Nuada's lack of honor, but…

Dylan appreciated the enchantments. She was no archer, no warrior, though she could - when pressed - kill very thoroughly and efficiently. In a fight, his mortal lady would accept any and all help she could get her hands on.

"Remember what I told you," Nuada said as the lesson began, as Dylan took her stance and drew back the glimmering bowstring. "Even out your breathing. Let your heart beat slow and steady. You have all the time in the world to aim, to prepare yourself, and to take your shot. Are you ready?"

He saw it in her face when it was time - the sudden spark in her lovely blue eyes, the calm suffusing her face, the determination in every line of her body. He found himself smiling widely.

"Release."

The bowstring sprang from between her fingers. The arrow shot through the bitterly cold winter air and thunked into the bole of the dead tree they were using as the target. On a standard practice target, it wouldn't have been a bull's eye or even close - a prodigy, his beloved was not - but she'd hit the meter-wide trunk and that was well enough for only her second lesson.

Dylan grimaced and rolled her shoulders, trying to peer over one shoulder as if to glimpse her own back. Nuada frowned and laid a hand against her back, lightly, just below the shoulder blade.

"Dylan? Do your wounds still pain you?"

She shrugged a little. "Things are just a bit tight. It's not bad. Just wanted to make sure I hadn't split anything open and got blood on my dress. Should I keep going?"

"If it is not too painful." He trusted her to know her own limits. Gone were the days when she pushed herself to the point of near-collapse, thank Danu.

The pale winter sun drifted slowly across the sky as Dylan aimed and fired, aimed and fired. Sometimes she hit or almost hit specific small knots in the wood Nuada pointed out for her. Sometimes she missed the tree completely and shot an arrow into the snow, though that was fairly rare. Nada couldn't hide the grin slowly widening across his face as the afternoon wore on and Dylan's misses grew rarer and rarer, her good shots coming more and more frequently. He adjusted her footing occasionally or lifted a drooping elbow, offered murmurs of encouragement.

She was so willing. That was the thing. She wanted to learn, trusted him to teach her. Wanted to be good. Dylan always worked hard at whatever she set her mind to. His commanding officers in the Army would have adored her, even while hiding it behind shouting and insults and inescapable punishments.

"You'll be a good queen, you know," Nuada said suddenly.

Dylan lowered her bow and shook out her aching arms. "Thanks?" She smiled, looking more than a little confused. "Why, though? Because I can shoot trees?"

He took one of her hands in his and began to massage it gently. Even through the leather of her glove, he felt her fingers shaking with fatigue. They'd overdone it just a bit. He ought to have stopped her earlier, but he'd been enjoying watching her succeed.

"Because you are willing to work hard. Because you have a good heart. Because you are kind and gentle and wise, and ruthless and clever and brilliant. I adore you. Come, let us go inside and warm up."

They gathered up spent arrows. Dylan stowed the bow, and they walked back to the tavern hand in hand, pretending not to notice the fond, indulgent looks of the villagers. As they walked, Nuada sent waves of soothing magic into Dylan's sore hand. When they got inside, he would offer to massage her fingers.

It had been a long day, or seemed so. Tomorrow they would be on the road at last, journeying to the next village. In Findias, Naya waited for him to go to her, confront her over her treachery. His father traveled the King's Road back to the capital and thank Danu in all her mercy for that. But he wanted time with Dylan. So he had their supper - savory mutton stew, fresh bread, winter berries, and spiced cider - brought to Dylan's room, and the two of them ate like a pair of carefree children, lounging on their stomachs on the bed, feet dangling off one side. When the meal was done, Nuada massaged Dylan's hands and apologized for pushing her a bit too hard during the lesson.

"It's not too bad," she said with a shrug. "And with my meds for my leg, it'll be okay in the morning. I'll just have to baby them a little. So...feeling better? I...oh. Ohhh, yeah, that spot, right there." She went limp face-down on the bed. "Ohhh…" Nuada obligingly pressed the ball of his thumb into the preferred spot. Dylan moaned into the blankets.

"That is very distracting," Nuada said with a smile.

"Deal with it," she mumbled. "Oh, geez. If you cared about money, I'd pay you to never, ever stop. Where did you learn this?"

He paused. Considered. Finally, he said softly, "From Keahilele."

Dylan turned her head so she could actually look at him from where she lay prostrate across the blankets. "Kay-uh-hih-lay-lay?" She sounded out the name very slowly to make sure she pronounced it right. Nuada nodded. "Who's that?"

"She was...she is someone I loved very much once. She lives on one of the islands of Menehune far to the southeast."

Dylan blinked. "She's still alive?" Then why weren't they together still? She thought of Ethine, the twin sister of Roiben Darktithe. The fae noblewoman Dylan had dared to slap back in the Unseelie sithen in New Jersey for insulting Nuada repeatedly. Was this Keahilele another one in the same mold as Ethine? Even without the vitriol spewed at Nuada, Dylan had always detested Ethine for the way she treated Roiben and Kaye Fierch, one of Dylan's former employers and still a good friend. Was this someone else to add to her Do Not Like list?

"Yes," Nuada said, "she still lives." He thought of the liquid dark eyes, the smooth coppery skin, the crimson and orange hibiscus flowers she'd always worn in her thick, wavy black hair. A soft smile curved dark lips. "We parted...nearly two-thousand years ago, now. Amicably," he added when Dylan opened her mouth. He, too, remembered Ethine and how Dylan despised her. "She had to...We could not remain together, due to her obligations and my own. But we were together for a long time, and while we loved, I learned many things from her. This was one of them."

Dylan was quiet for a long time, but she didn't seem disturbed, so Nuada wasn't worried. She simply appeared to be thinking. He kept massaging her hands, more for something to do with his own than because she was in pain. At last his lady spoke again.

"May I ask you something?"

"Of course, my love." He wondered if he ought to be nervous.

"You told me before that you've never loved anyone the way you love me. That you didn't know you could love like this. But you've been in love before."

He smiled in understanding. Teased, "That wasn't a question."

Dylan smiled and rolled her eyes. "Nuada."

A cant of his head. He considered for a moment, then asked, "Have you ever loved before me?"

"Not romantically," she said. "I've had a crush or two before on friends, but I wouldn't call that love the way you mean it."

"A better question, then - is your love for Zhenjin the same as your love for me?" It was a testament to the unicorn's blessing as well as his trust in both his lady and his old friend, that he could ask such a question and feel no fear.

Dylan's head snapped up. "Whoa, what? I'm not in love with Zhenjin!"

Nuada realized there was real panic in her eyes. He smoothed back her hair in a gentle caress. "I know you are not in love with him. But you could be, if you let yourself." He didn't find that knowledge as terrible as he once had. Perhaps because of the revelation that the one thing Zhenjin could give Dylan - a family - was now in his power, as well. Being with him, becoming a princess of Bethmoora, would not force her to give up her dreams.

Dylan didn't argue the point, either. She simply groaned and dropped her face back into the blankets.

"I am not upset, Dylan, nor do I blame you. Zhenjin is a good man."

"Mmm," she grunted, and poked him in the leg with her free hand.

"You love Zhenjin - or could - in a way that is different from how you love me, yes? I have loved others ere now, as I have said before, but my love for you is different. It feels different. But it is still love." He mulled over his words for a moment before adding, "When I met you, I did not think I could ever love anyone again. Not after...not after the last time. The darkest time. I thought my heart too broken, my soul too tattered to be able to offer anyone the love they would have deserved. I did not consider myself...whole enough to love. But you showed me it wasn't true."

Dylan rolled onto her side, propping her head on her fist. She studied him before reaching up and smoothing her thumb over the frown lines between his brows, brushing them away. They smiled at each other.

"I guess...you've lived so long, it wouldn't make sense that you had never been in love before, unless you were aromantic or something. I just...never really thought about it, I guess?" She hesitated. "How many times?"

He knew what she was asking.

"Seven," Nuada said. "I have loved truly seven times in my forty centuries. You are the seventh and, Fates willing, you will be the last." Now it was his turn to hesitate, but at last he said, "I will tell you this: of the seven, four still live, including you. One turned against me - Ethine. One, I could not wed because of station and duty and her own vows. One could not remain with me because of her own nature, her own responsibilities - that was Keahilele. Three are dead, slain by humans. And now there is you, my brown one, my lady. You, who are dearer to me than nearly any other in this realm or yours. And with that, I would ask that we speak no more of such things just now."

Dylan brushed her fingertips over the scar etched across his face, a slow caress that warmed some of the chill he'd barely noticed creeping into his blood and frosting his heart. He could offer her two names, Ethine and Keahilele. But he could not speak of Naya as he had loved her once, and he could not force himself to speak the names Shina'kin, Vassa, or Yukihime. Not yet. Not to Dylan.

"Okay," she said gently. "Thank you for telling me. Are you okay?"

"I am well enough."

"Okay," she said again, even more gently. Then, "Hey. You wanna dance?"

Grateful for the change of subject, he smiled. "With you, my fairest lady? Always."

.

It was the night before they were to leave Lallybroch. Everything was packed, and nearly everyone was asleep. But not Dylan. She sat at her window, forehead resting against the casement, and stared absently at the bone-white moon drifting before the ghostly clouds. Stared, but didn't see. Her gaze had turned inward, and her thoughts were dark.

Something had to be done to protect the people of Bethmoora, both now and later when they revealed themselves to the humans. Dylan hadn't forgotten Nuada's suggestion. The K'nyan, and the monster beneath Oklahoma that kept them from overrunning the surface world and butchering every human being they found. A monster that could control through fear even a race of beings Moundshroud himself found worthy of caution and respect.

It made her think of monsters in general. Not her sort of monster, like Ickis and Oblina and Maurice. Real, true, ancient monsters. Things like Shudam'el, the Worm Lord that lived beneath Great Britain; the creature that controlled and terrified the K'nyan; the Mother of All Squid in the great Lbrary Under the Sea, in the northern Atlantic, that her friend Peri had once told her about. Even, possibly, the made monster that was the Darkness That Eats All Things. Could anyone ever possibly hope to communicate, to ally with such beings?

It was a reckless, impossible, insane idea. She'd told Nuada that in no uncertain terms. And even if such monsters agreed to help defend Bethmoora - and why would they? - how could they when it would be so easy for the fae they were protecting to be harmed? Cosmic beings like Yog Sothoth and whatever abyssal lady had given birth to Moundshroud - all she knew of her old friend's parents was that his mother was referred to as Mother Night in the kingdom of Samhain - were so...vast, it was almost a given that if they did you any damage, it was because they didn't realize you were there. Like stepping on an ant while walking across the lawn. Moundshroud would be like that one day, in several million years.

If she asked something like that to swat an enemy - the bandits, for example - at least several nearby villages would be reduced to rubble and matchsticks and a few splotches of blood on the snow. Not on purpose and not out of malice. It would just happen. Did Nuada understand that? Did she? Because despite the oh gosh, no, not a chance reaction she'd had when he'd brought it up, it was starting to sound a little more appealing. But that was insane.

"You say insane as if you yourself are sane, but we both know you're not, little un-sister," a soft voice murmured from behind her. It held the faintest edge of mocking laughter.

Dylan twisted in her seat and stared at the figure in her room. A dark purple cloak covered the tall body, the hood drawn up so that only half the face was revealed. Strands of coppery red hair twisted and danced on a phantom wind where the hair peeked out from beneath the hood. The corpse-pale face was familiar to her, even with half of it obscured. She didn't need to see the pouch hanging from the rope belt, a pouch filled with dice carved from the bones of suicide victims. Didn't need to see the jackal skull hanging from the belt, or the withered gray hand with the long fingers tipped in long, jagged nails, or the glowing scarlet eye that burned like a hot coal from the shadows of the cloak's hood, the only part of the otherwise hidden half of the face to be seen.

Moundshroud's son. A prince of Samhain.

Dylan rolled her eyes. "For pity's sake, don't you ever knock? I could've been naked, you butthead."

The man in the purple cloak threw back his head and laughed, a high cackling like hyenas yipping in the dark over prey. But he was careful to obscure one half of his face once again before he brought his head back to where she could see his expression.

She knew why. If she were to look on his whole face in this form without any shadows to soften it, it would drive her completely insane. The sort of insane that resulted in padded rooms and restraints because the patient kept banging their head against a wall or clawing at their eyes, completely unaware of the damage they were inflicting on themselves.

"Do you think such things bother me, little madwoman?"

Dylan turned back to studying the sky. "Don't call me that. It's rude and you know it. What do you want, Chuz? It's late."

"You're not going to ask how I came to be in Bethmoora?"

"I don't ask butterflies why they flit," she said with a small smile. "There's a whole lot of traumatized people in this village. A lot of messed up kids. I figure you're here for them. To help them. You old softie."

He chuckled. It sounded like bones rattling against gravestones. "Shut up. Brat. They are my little lunatics and I adore them, and you. But I heard your thoughts practically shrieking at me and came to see if I could talk some nonsense into you. You wish to ally with the K'nyan?"

"Uh, no."

Chuz made a sound of disappointment. "Pity. They're fun. No, you're thinking about their monster master. Now that's fun. Do you know what it is?"

"Do you?"

He laughed. "Oh, my sweet little un-sister, why do I tolerate such insults? Of course I know who it is." Dylan didn't look at him, but she knew that he'd noticed her sudden tension. That second time, he'd said who it was, not what it was. "But I'm not going to tell you. You have to be clever and amusing and figure it out."

Dylan blew out an exasperated breath. Didn't let him see how frustrating that was. Chuz was the opposite of his brother, Azrharn. Where Azrharn was cold and aloof and disturbingly sensual, Chuz was warm and nosy and affable and disturbingly childlike. He was no child, though. He was as cunning and ruthless and vindictive as his brothers and father, but gentle with those under his protection in a way Dylan had only ever seen Azrharn be with his wife. It was why she didn't worry about "sassing" him, as Moundshroud called it.

"In the meantime, little un-sister, I felt I ought to give you a warning...for the sake of our kinship."

At that, she turned to face him. His hood was down completely now, hiding his entire face in shadow. That single burning eye still smoldered in the dark like a hellish coal. Matching coals burned in the empty sockets of the jackal skull. She hoped it didn't try to talk to her.

"There is a madman out there," Chuz said softly, "and he is thinking very mean things about you, little mortal. Things to make you scream at night. His thoughts scream at me. I will have to give him dreams of it when I pass by his resting place, his thoughts shriek so loudly. You have a very angry enemy, little one. You need to be very careful."

Dylan couldn't suppress the shiver that rolled down her spine. She knew who Chuz meant, but for him to feel the need to warn her...how twisted and broken was Sreng's mind, that Moundshroud's son felt like he had to offer her a warning about it?

"I'll do my best," she said softly.

He reached out with his withered hand and touched the very tips of his thick, gnarled claws to her cheek. Each talon-tip burned like dry ice against her skin. She bit the inside of her cheek and didn't jerk away. She'd had enough experience with Moundshroud and his sons to know better by now.

"You choose untouchable enemies, un-sister. I cannot help you with them."

"I know," she said. "Don't worry about it."

He canted his head to her and turned to glide away, toward the lengthening shadows on the other side of the room. He stopped when Dylan called his name, but he did not turn back to her.

"One thing," she said. "My fiance, Nuada? He's...traumatized, too. Like me. Like the kids here. I know you sometimes give dreams, but I'm asking you not to give any to him, no matter how much you think it will help. Okay? He doesn't need that on top of everything else."

His laugh scraped along her backbone, low and fond and rasping. She shivered again, and wondered when the room had become so cold.

"I will do one favor for you tonight, little one. Because you are so amusing, I will keep the dreams I wrought for him from his sleep. Instead, I will give them to an enemy of yours. Perhaps the bitch will cease to be such a thorn in your side afterward."

With that, he stepped into shadow and vanished. Dylan wondered what "bitch" he'd been talking about, but knew she had no way of knowing. Tired, confused, and worrying over the next steps on their journey, she got up and started to get ready for bed.