By the time noon came around on that hazy Sunday, the four of them--Emery, Tess, Charlie, and Deirdre--were pulling onto the road leading to Camp Hack-a-back. Not to be left out, Emery's other friends had messaged her a variety of times, asking when they could hang with the warriors again. So Emery had told them to come out after two. She wanted a little time without interference from anyone else. Actually, she would've preferred if none of the others came out at all, but she wanted to appease her friends so the risk of them blabbing was kept to a minimum.

When they arrived at the camp gate, it was pushed aside enough for the car to enter, so they drove right in and up the drive. Surprisingly, not a single person was in sight. Emery was pleased by that; if anyone else had driven in, they wouldn't have seen anything suspicious at first glance. She and the others parked and exited the car, Deirdre staying close to her. Emery had told her sister everything except the stuff about her having a relationship with Cullen, and though Deirdre hadn't known whether to think most of it was a joke or not, the fact that Tess and Charlie could back Emery up held some sway. But Emery was nervous about her sister being there. She was even nervous about herself and Tess and Charlie being there. They didn't know most of these men, some of whom were downright frightening; she could only hope that they were as easy to get along with as Cathbad and Cearnach. Whatever the case, they at least held an allegiance to Cullen, she told herself. They were his men, after all.

"Emery!" called Cathbad's voice, and she turned to find the druid exiting one of the campers' cabins set back amongst the trees, one of the nearer ones. He looked more chipper than she'd ever seen him, which was heartening. He'd foregone his cloak due to the heat and wore his tunic without its belt, its cording at the neck loosened. Where his herbs and paraphernalia were, Emery couldn't see, but she was actually kind of surprised that he went without them. "I see you received my message."

"Yes. Here we are."

"Lady Tess, Charlie." The druid spotted Deirdre and paused, stuck for words.

Emery pulled her sister out from behind the others. "This is my sister, Deirdre. We had this weird thing happen with some deer this morning, and she saw all of it. So I sort of had to tell her."

Cathbad forced a smile, placed his hands on his hips and leaned back slightly. "Well!" He raised and lowered his eyebrows. "It seems our situation grows more compromised by the hour."

She could tell he was annoyed, but what could she do? "Remember, Cat--it's you who've inconvenienced me. You all butted into my life. So I'd appreciate it if you'd back off a little."

The druid's face fell. He gave a truncated bow. "Lady, forgive me. I grow too bold." His sincerity was real. "You are correct in your chastisement. Your courtesy has caused me to forget my place. Please, then, come speak with me. We have much to discuss."

Emery felt a little guilty for causing him to apologize, especially in front of the others, but she said only, "Just me? Or all of us?"

A hint of uncertainty in his dark eyes, Cathbad glanced at the others and then back to Emery. "Perhaps it's best if it's just the two of us, this time." He said it with some difficulty, but Emery nodded in understanding.

"Can you guys please keep an eye on Deirdre?" Emery asked the twins.

Charlie gave her a look that clearly indicated he'd rather keep an eye on her, but the two of them consented. Cathbad warned them to stay away from the woods, as some of the men were out hunting, and then he and Emery headed toward the pavilion, where they could sit and speak outside in the gray daylight.

"Deer, you say?" was the first thing Cathbad said to her when they were far enough away from the others.

"It was nothing. Just a bunch were in my yard and I had to make them leave."

"Did they listen to you?"

Emery stuck her hands in her jeans pockets, shuffled her feet. "Sort of. I don't know, really. But what's so serious that you can't say it in front of the others?"

They'd reached the picnic tables, but Emery didn't feel inclined to sit. Cathbad noticed her reservation and also remained standing. "I want to tell you about the night your curse began."

Emotion clouded Emery's thoughts. A little excitement, a little fear, and much uncertainty. "Ok, but aren't you afraid of making it worse?"

"I believe it's worth the risk. I've thought much on it, when I was parted from you, gathering the Red Branch. I consulted my runes and my bones, the birds and my several other forms of divination--truly, whatever I could think of. This curse has shifted. Its goal seems to be to separate you and my Lord, first through your memory loss and displacement, and then through his impossible quest. But it's more than that, Emery; whoever has done this does not want you harmed. If so, would it not have been easy to hurt you?"

"But the brothers--"

"They do not seem a part of this curse. They are something else altogether . . . my Lord and I were attempting to figure out the reason for their appearance when I was forced to come here."

"But why was Adam here, too, then? If he's a God, like you said?"

"An interesting question, though I cannot answer it."

"He couldn't tell you?"

"I did not ask."

"Why not? That seems like the first thing you should've asked him!"

"He is Tuatha Dé, Lady. One does not ask of the Tuatha Dé."

"Ok, fine. Then just tell me what you wanted to tell me."

"Emery grows tired of me," the druid said sadly. He frowned.

"No," the girl sighed. "I'm just tired of being confused. You are actually the only thing helping me keep sane, right now. I know you're trying to do the best you can."

Cathbad tossed his head a bit, though his straight hair didn't move much with it. Then he took a deep breath and grew serious. "What I am about to say will sound quite foreign to you, Emery. Please treat it with patience. I will avoid many details so as not to discomfit you. My Lord courted you briefly before you agreed to wed with him, but your father disapproved of your union, so Cuchulain decided to abscond with you one night. The first I heard of his love for you was when he consulted with me the night he chose to take you and, I must admit, I advised him against it. You can see how well he listens to me." The druid smiled morosely. "In a most unfortunate turn of events, your father discovered the plan, and he accosted Cuchulain in your chamber. In the ensuing struggle, your father, in an attempt to reclaim you, fell to his death from an orifice. The pair of you escaped retaliation by eloping to some location unknown to me or to anyone and conducting your handfasting. By Gods, my Lord didn't even ask me to perform the ceremony!" The slight had clearly wounded Cathbad's pride. "The morning after, he came to me at Dun-Dealgan, his stronghold, asserting you'd been spirited away from his very arms. 

"We spent the better part of two months attempting to discover your whereabouts, knowing some dark magic was afoot. When I did at last locate you, Cuchulain insisted on coming to see you himself, first. I prayed to the Gods that my warnings about revealing himself to you would not fall on deaf ears, and he did, at least, listen to me in that, though he seldom listens to me otherwise."

Cathbad sat down at last, and Emery followed his example, tired of standing, especially while trying to take in everything the druid was saying. "I tell you this now, I risk causing more complications, because I believe I have discovered--" he paused, took hold of both of Emery's hands from across the table. "I have discovered how to break this curse."

Emery focused so hard on Cathbad's face that her vision began to blur. Scared of the answer, she near-whispered, "How?"

Drawing his hands nearer to him, Cathbad leaned toward her. "All you must do, Lady, is take my Lord Cuchulain's hand and agree to go home with him."

She withdrew her hands from his so quickly that he almost face-planted on the table. Hadn't Cullen asked her more than once to go home with him? Held out his hand to her? Had he known that it was the way to break the curse? Or had his gestures been coincidental?

Unsure how to interpret her reaction, Cathbad sat up straight. "It's as easy as that, Emery!"

"Easy?" She didn't know what she was thinking or feeling, not really.

"When he returns, when he asks you to join him--you must only take his hand and agree!"

If everything he'd told her was accurate, she'd had a . . . a wedding night with Cullen something like four months ago? She'd disappeared from his arms? It was so absolutely impossible! Four months ago, she was finishing up her sophomore year of high school, getting a job at that frozen yogurt place with Adam. And even if all she had to do to break the curse was agree to go with him, what if she didn't want to? "I--what if I--"

Cathbad licked his lips anxiously, no doubt fearing her response. "Lady," he began, but he was cut off when Tess called out for them.

Turning, Emery saw her friend jogging their way and rose to meet her. When Tess reached them, she was panting with her exertion. Even on a cloudy sun-less day, Tess glittered. Her striped T-shirt and purple pants brought a brightness amongst all the browns and fading greens of the campgrounds. She told Emery that things were "getting out of hand with Deirdre." Unsure what that meant and not willing to wait to find out, Emery and Cathbad hurried after Tess toward the main building and behind it, where the flat grounds gave way to the fishing pond. That expanse of grass was used for all kinds of field games and team sports during camp season, and the first thing Emery saw when approaching it was that some sort of competition appeared to be occurring right then, amongst some of the warriors.

Two of them (and Emery didn't know which) were caught up in some sort of intense wrestling match out on the green while the others stood on the sidelines and watched and yelled. Some of them were getting pretty worked up, swords raised, shouting out words too heavily accented to understand. But they all looked to be having a good time. Charlie and Deirdre were off to one side, the boy with a hand protectively on her shoulder.

"They're doing it for your sister," Tess told her.

"What, to impress her?"

"To win her!"

Emery spun to Cathbad, who nodded fiercely and pushed past her and Tess toward the Red Branch Knights. The minute he was amongst them, some clap of thunder sounded so deafeningly that Emery covered her ears, though by the time she did, the noise was gone, and the warriors had ceased struggling with one another on the field. In fact, all of them had eyes on Cathbad, who went between those on the green and those who'd been observing and hollered something about shame and Cuchulain and "the Lady Deirdre's young age." Somehow, he convinced those men to break apart and wander off, and Emery recognized that the two who'd been fighting were Fergus mac Roy, whose thick red lips appalled her, and Keltar of the Battles, who was quite handsome but clearly aware of it. Emery was disgusted. That these grown men could've been thinking of "winning" her sister . . . her fourteen-year-old sister! Ugh. Emery was the first to admit her sister was stunningly beautiful, even at such a young age, and maybe she could've passed for seventeen or eighteen, but even so! The thought of fighting for a girl they'd literally just seen was gross.

"Are you sure these men are all right?" Emery asked Cathbad when he rejoined her.

"I advise you not to bring your sister again. Lady Deirdre, I fear, will cause much bloodshed one day."

The others walked over to them as well, Charlie drawing up next to Emery so close that his arm touched hers, and she momentarily enjoyed the proximity until she remembered everything that Cathbad had been telling her and moved an inch or two away.

"Deirdre!" Emery grabbed her sister. "What the hell was that about?"

Something was off with the girl, Emery realized. Deirdre's golden-hazel eyes seemed distant, as if she'd seen something mesmerizing and had had a difficult time turning away from it. "I didn't do anything!" she protested meekly. "I didn't even speak to them. They just showed up and started talking about me!"

"Yeah, it was weird," Charlie confirmed. "It was like they came out of those woods, saw her, and immediately started fighting over her."

Some of the warriors approached, though most were wandering away; they were those Cathbad had introduced as three brothers, Naoise, Arden, and Ainle. Not so muscular as the older warriors, these three couldn't have been out of their twenties. The youngest of them perhaps not past eighteen. Each had dark hair of varying length and style and fair skin, but the eldest, Naoise, was quite beautiful, with pale gray eyes and a tall, slender frame. He approached Emery herself and spoke for the three of them while his brothers remained at his back: "Lady Emer, forgive our crude behavior." He spoke well, not gruffly like Cearnach, and for a moment, Emery was a bit moved. "Where we are from, such dueling is commonplace, though it is hardly honorable. Accept our apology, or we would be ashamed to be in your presence again."

"As far as I can tell," Emery replied when she'd found her voice, "you weren't the ones out there fighting. It's fine. You're fine."

Naoise smiled a charming smile, bowed his head in deference, and indicated his brothers, who did the same. All seemed well, although Emery caught the look her sister gave the eldest brother and was ill at ease about it.

But there was no reason to be over-concerned. Emery told the others to go back to the pavilion with her, along the way asking Cathbad whether or not she should bring her friends out if the men couldn't be trusted not to break down and fight at the drop of a hat. He began to explain that while the warriors were sometimes impulsive and overt in their displays of masculinity, they were ultimately good men to be trusted. Emery wasn't so sure and averred as much, but then they reached the grass, and vertigo set in--that dizziness and tilt that she'd twice known--and rather than allow herself to fall, Emery stopped walking and sat on the ground, awaiting the vision she knew was coming.

And it did come, quickly. It was noise that she knew first, this time, the clashing and clattering of swords. She was afraid, almost, to open her eyes--the chaos was so near. And yet open her eyes she did, and what she saw amazed her. There were two people in an intense sword fight, and though she was at a safe distance and apparently sitting near a tree, she watched it in great anxiety. Around her were the walls of a crumbling fortress; beyond, she thought she caught a glimpse of white-capped waves. The hour was dim, perhaps dusk, and the two locked in battle wound about one another in intricate fashion, each dodging the other's thrusts with mere centimeters to spare. Which of them had the upper hand, Emery couldn't tell, nor did she know how long they'd been engaged in this sparring, but as she sat and watched in the waning violet light, one of the two gained the upper hand when the other lost hold of their weapon and knelt to the ground, admitting defeat. The victor, clearly exhausted, stepped forward and pulled off his bronze head covering, and Emery was unsurprised to see the auburn waves tumble out from under it. The fallen warrior, too, removed their small helmet, and the braided hair and finer though dangerous features of a female looked up in anger at Cullen, her conqueror.

Emery couldn't help gasping in wonder, and she must have been loud enough, even at such a distance, that Cullen heard her, for he immediately turned and caught sight of her, and the warrior woman, too, met her eyes. This time, the man moved toward her at a much quicker pace than expected, and Emery had no time to move before he reached her.

They'd made no contact in her other visions--they'd not had time!--but here he was, suddenly, in all his commanding intensity, his glowing green eyes and parted mouth before her after pulling her to her feet and gripping her upper arms. It all happened so fast that Emery didn't know what to do, face to face with him now, his strength evident though tested, his armor dented and dulled in many places, his breath hot on her skin as he pressed his forehead to hers.

"Emer," he panted unevenly, disbelievingly.

She was almost lost in the fervor of that moment, but no! This wasn't right. She wasn't here, not really! And she wasn't his!

And the instant she remembered, the disequilibrium consumed her once more, and she was almost instantaneously looking into Charlie's concerned face while the druid and Deirdre held her arms.

Her fierce disappointment at what she saw versus what she'd seen startled even her, but the notion faded when the druid muttered sobering words: "Evil has arrived."