Oonagh burst into the roundhouse, arms full of bottles. "Help me, then!" she cried. "Before I drop them!"

Tess and Emery hurried to take a bottle each from her, so that they held one apiece. "You got three?" Tess gasped. "I thought you were just getting one! There's no way we should drink this much."

"Maybe you shouldn't," panted Oonagh, plopping down on the straw bench, placing the bottle she held on the table, "but Emery should. The drunker you are, the easier it'll be to get through the night."

Emery grimaced. She'd told the girls about her deal with the king and Cathbad, and Tess had been just as horrified as she had been about the "right of the first night" stuff. Oonagh hadn't seemed particularly surprised about it; in fact, she'd expressed doubt that King Conchobar would hold true to his end of the bargain. While the redhead sympathized with Emery--thought the practice was at best presumptuous--she was a product of her time, a time when people didn't say no to the king.

"Let's not talk about it," Emery said, hoping the men stayed up so late partying that morning would arrive without her having to stir from her house.

The feasting hall was full of men. Just men. Oonagh had explained that women and children weren't allowed in the hall during an official feast, one held in honor of a king or another chieftain, which Emery would've had some words about if she'd not been entirely relieved that she wouldn't have to go and sit there with Cullen or the king and a bunch of warriors. The place resounded with noise; the shouting and laughter and terrible singing could be heard all the way across the hillfort. It was annoying, but it wasn't as if Emery were trying to sleep. She wanted to stay up as late as possible in the hope that when she did have to share that bed, she'd pass out immediately. Cathbad wouldn't fail her, she was sure--he'd be like a wall between them. Nothing would happen.

"How did you even get this much wine?" Tess asked, joining Oonagh on the bench. Oonagh had explained that wine was highly prized because it was so much more potent than the watered beer they drank daily and had to be imported. Usually it was only drunk on special occasions.

Oonagh pulled the top off her bottle and poured some garnet liquid into each of their bronze cups. "Our friend from the gate, Fionn. My luck he was guarding the storehouse tonight!" She winked at the girls. "I do believe he fancies me. All it took was a kiss for all of this! Oh, but ladies, listen. When I was--well, when I was done with the kissing, I started sneaking back, and who comes around the side of the building but Lord Cuchulain himself, with the druid! I had to squeeze up into a corner where the shadows held."

She paused to take a gulp of her wine and afterward wipe her mouth.

"And who should they be talking about but you, Lady." Oonagh flashed her mischievous smile, and Emery took her own cup and drank to avoid her friends' eyes. "If I tell you what they said, you can't repeat it to a soul!"

"Who would we tell?" Tess hesitantly sipped her drink, slouching onto the floor and leaning with her back against the bench. Emery envied her friend's contentment. Tess had little to worry about in this world, with Cathbad to keep her safe and care about her, no one trying to force her to say or do or feel certain things . . . but then Emery caught herself. Tess's brother was missing, her twin, and he could be suffering terribly.

Emery's spirits fell, recalling Charlie and how she'd not thought of him for most of the day. They couldn't forget him.

"Em, you want to know, don't you?" Tess waved a hand in front of Emery's glazed eyes.

"Oh, sure. All right." Emery had actually forgotten what they were talking about.

Oonagh looked pleased to share her gossip. "Well, Lord Cuchulain was--and don't say a word, you hear? He could get in trouble for it and I'll deny it if it comes back to me--but he was saying he wanted the king to have no chance to touch you. He asked the druid to drug the king's drink!"

Emery looked up severely. "Drug him? Like, as in, poison?"

"No, no! I . . . I don't think so, anyway. My sense was that they were discussing a sleeping potion."

"But you didn't actually hear them say that?"

Oonagh looked as if she really wanted to lie, but she had to admit, "No. No, I didn't. But poisoning the king--! It's not something he'd do, I'm sure of it."

Emery was still concerned. If Cullen went against the promise and killed Conchobar, there'd be serious trouble, and the last thing she needed as she was trying to acclimate was some violent war breaking out. Was Cullen irrational enough to do it?

And yet, the thought that he would kill a man because he didn't want him to touch her was . . . was not as annoying as she thought it should be. It was unreasonable, but not quite . . . unwelcome. Was she mellowing toward him? No--no. She couldn't let herself think that.

"Fill it up more," Emery demanded, shoving her cup toward Oonagh. She didn't really like the wine, but she did appreciate the fuzziness it pushed through her. Emery had not been one to drink; she was only seventeen, after all, though she'd known quite a few peers who'd sneak their parents' or someone else's parents' alcohol when those parents weren't around. Once, Emery had had wine at a family wedding, and she'd had a little to drink at one of Xavier's girlfriend's houses, but that was it. The watered beer they drank nightly was more water than beer, so Emery really had no tolerance for alcohol, and it didn't take long for her to sense she'd had a little too much.

Oonagh and Tess were going on about something--some soldiers, or maybe it was about Oonagh's brother, or it might even have been about which of the king's men had been attractive . . . she wasn't following the conversation anymore. When she began to feel a little sick, she stood and wavered slightly, telling the girls that she needed some cold air, as she'd grown too warm.

Dressed only in her tunic (as she had been adamant about removing her fancy clothing as quickly as possible), her hair still braided but without the adornment, Emery had the sense to drape her cloak over her shoulders before she stepped out into the night. The air did help; it was like a drink of water for her skin, and her head began to clear the moment she breathed in the cool darkness. How long would it be before someone called her to the feasting hall? She assumed it would be after everyone had passed out drunk or asleep. Cathbad had explained that there was a chamber behind the platform at the end of the hall. Typically, the lord of the hillfort would live there, but Cullen hadn't wanted to. He'd wanted his own dwelling, removed from everyone else.

There she was thinking about him again. Had this been his design? Get her here, and then make her think about him to the point that he finally got his way? Well, she wasn't going to let that happen. He was arrogant and aggressive; he'd almost chopped off the king's head earlier! And she wasn't ever going to--

"Emery?"

She spun at his voice, startled to find him so near her, descending the footbridge of his roundhouse. Emery stumbled a bit backward, whether from the wine or the shock she couldn't tell. "Wh-why are you here? Shouldn't you be at—at the hall?"

Cullen reached her, stood near enough that she could've held out a hand and touched him had she wanted to. He was still dressed in his regalia, and Emery felt suddenly stupid to have removed hers. She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders.

"A man needs time alone."

He no doubt looked at her, though she found her own gaze plastered on Cullen's chest, the colorful tartan he wore over his tunic, the brooch holding his cloak in place. To her dismay, she realized she wanted to press her fingers against him, feel if he were real. Oh! Stupid wine! she thought, sure it had messed with her inhibitions.Turning her whole body toward her own doorway, she asked as disinterestedly as she could feign, "When should I go?"

He didn't say anything right away but then replied with a hint of resignation, "When the druid comes for you. If you wish to rest, he'll wake you."

A raucous laughter from Oonagh burst from the roundhouse, and even Tess could be heard giggling. Emery wanted to be back in there with them, partaking in their gossip, and began inching toward her door. But then she remembered what Oonagh had said, and her anxiety took over. She looked up into his handsome face. "You're not going to kill him, are you?"

Cullen's brow lowered, though why, exactly, the girl didn't know.

"Please, promise you won't kill him."

"I won't make promises I can't keep."

Emery was taken aback. She hadn't expected that answer. "What? Wait—you can't—"

But he had already turned from her. "I do promise it won't be tonight," he added, and then Emery watched him as he walked away, a mix of frustration and disappointment and relief consuming her. Was he getting annoyed with her? Has she been cold enough that he was giving up? He didn't care about her—he couldn't! He didn't know her. Surely he'd thought everything would go back to his normal once she'd come back, but it hadn't, and his patience was wearing thin. What would happen when it wore out entirely? Would he cast her out? Give her to someone else? Just let her live her life?

More importantly, why did she care what he thought?

Confused and irritated, Emery scolded herself and, marveling briefly at how many stars she could see above in the clear, dark sky, went back into her house.

The meadow unfolded around her, again, the beautiful, empyrean meadow, with its balmy fragrant air and its gentle glow. The cornflower blues and lacy whites and yellows of its flowers hovered before her and at her sides, their stems so high the buds seemed to float in a sea of pale green haze. A low hum reverberated beneath the nearer clicks and whirrs, glossy motes and threads flickered at the corners of her eyes--to the left, a fringe of forest that felt, somehow, lesser than the meadow, or perhaps not lesser, but less familiar. And to her right, the sense that others were there. She'd felt it before . . . a calming, a comfort, if she could only see them. But something changed, this time, and Emery found herself somehow turned toward the forest, in one of those strange quirks of dreams where one thing becomes another without any sort of logical transition. The treeline stretched out before her, a jagged black-green monolith from side to side. Where the meadow met the dark, a sort of mist hovered, and within that mist, something deep began to churn.

She knew it more than saw it--a certain twisting within the foamy obscurity, like a black snake writhing its thick body in rhythm with the beating of Emery's heart. And she realized that the sounds had vanished; the insects and birds had fallen silent. The air had stilled all around, and what remained was the undulating mist and a growing apprehension of what it could be hiding. Something was going to happen . . . some building anticipation consumed her . . . but she couldn't move; she was rooted to the ground, and the meadow--she knew it was there, but it had somehow faded, so that her focus was on only the forest and the mist and the way it began to part--

A deer. A small, gentle deer stepped from the gray, darkly glittering fog. The trees above it and beyond it began to tremble slightly, as the creature delicately picked its way across the grass and toward her. It was one of those baby deer, a fawn, with creamy speckles across its back and sides, and its huge black eyes shone sweetly.

Emery's  dream body crouched down to reach for the docile animal as it approached, and it was almost at her outstretched hand, awaiting a brush of her fingers against its cheek, when in another fractured instant, the creature was lying on the ground, head in her lap, the light draining from its eyes as crimson patches bloomed across its fur. Emery watched in horror as the fawn's mouth began to drip, as its eye began to sink inward, as the thing decayed right on top of her, and then it spread its jaw apart and uttered in its decaying filth, The Dark Man asks—will you answer?

"Lady!"

Emery jerked awake, momentarily forgetting where she was. Her neck hurt, and she rubbed it for a moment, but then someone grabbed her arm and she was lifted up off the floor, where she'd been lying with her head on the straw pallet.

"Quickly! We must reach the feasting hall before he awakes!"

"What?" Her thoughts were muddled, and her head hurt, but Emery put enough together to remember that she'd been drinking wine with Tess and Oonagh and had likely fallen asleep. That must have been it--and the dream! Thank goodness it had been a dream.

Cathbad was helping her put her robe and sandals on and dragging her out the door before Emery could piece everything together, but out in the air, she gained clarity. "Cat!" she hissed, allowing him to pull her along the pathways through the sleeping roundhouses, only some sheep and chickens peeking at her from their pens. "Cat, the Dark Man--"

"What?" The druid stopped so suddenly that Emery smushed into him. "What did you say?"

Shaking her head a little, Emery took a deep breath. "I had a dream. You said--you said the Dark Man might come to me in a dream."

"Yes," he hurried, his gray eyes pale in the dim, his mouth down in concern. "You've dreamt of him? How?"

"I don't know how. It was just now. There was a deer, and it was dying, and it said the Dark Man wants me to answer, or something. That's all."

Cathbad pursed his lips, looked aside, then rolled his eyes across the dwellings. "This isn't the place or time, but I will think on it. We must get you to the king's chamber."

Oh yeah, she thought, having forgotten that unpleasant business. But Cathbad was already on the move again, and she jogged after him, her breath clouding around her in the chill air. It occurred to her quite suddenly, though, that the deep night was gone, that in fact, a thin line of gold limned the top of the distant wall and watchtowers. "What time is it?" she whispered, catching up to him.

"I do not know, only that it is morning. And if the king wakes and you are not there, he will be angered. However," and here Cathbad stopped and turned and caused her to bump into him again (at which point, Emery huffed in exasperation), "he'll believe you were with him the whole night, so be sure to claim that you were, yes?"

"Sure, okay. Yes."

"Now come." They'd reached the feasting hall, and rather than go to the front door of the building, where guards likely stood watch the druid approached the back, and, using a finger, he outlined the shape of a square on the wattle and daub. The interior of the square began to shimmer as if it were liquid. Cathbad motioned her toward the opening, and she slipped through it into the chamber, where King Conchobar lay snoring on a massive, furred and blanketed pallet. He was fully clothed, a bottle of wine in one arm and a bronze cup in the other, and Cathbad and Emery had no problem arranging themselves onto the pallet next to him, leaving plenty of room between them all.

Lying there would be no problem, but Emery dared not close her eyes for fear of seeing the rotting deer once more.