That same night, as I watched the scud stretch across the full moon, a light mizzle tapping gently at the glazing, I marveled again at the silence of the keep. I was not used to such quietude, but at length I did succumb to sleep.

But the castle was beset with a terrible gale in the small hours of the morning, and I had been dreaming but a few hours only before I was harshly awakened.

"Have you consulted with the devil, you wicked child?" My head came away from the pillow in a rush of panic, the nightmare, and my slumber, having dissipated swiftly at the sound of thunder that had snapped through the sky.

With my dead grandmother's voice still ringing in my ears, I leapt from the bed and hurried to my door to escape both her ghost and the darkness. Howbeit, that darkness was only sporadic, and though I craved the light, I did not care for the intermittence of it that accompanied this furious display of nature.

The moon was gone and the sky was freaked with terrible light the likes of which I had never seen before. It so horrified me that I bolted from my bed, my maid, ostensibly used to the tempest's cacophony, still lay abed peacefully in slumber.

There was no light in the hallway and the cold flags seemed to stab at my soles as I wondered down the gallery, alternately gasping and trembling each time a particularly violent clap of thunder cracked through the night.

I had half expected the castle to be awakened, as I had been, but it seemed that all were still abed, untroubled by the storm that vented its fury outside our walls. On I walked, without bearing and uncaring wither I was bound. I only knew that I could not rest until the sky did.

So distracted was I by the trembling of the thick, stone walls that I did not at first notice the light at the end of the corridor, mistaking it initially for the residual glow of a lightning bolt. But it was a torch that flickered there and I instantly made my way towards it like an eager moth, somehow believing the glow to be a beacon of safety.

When I reached the sconce I noticed the door beside which the flame burned was left ajar, but I dared not enter. I merely stood beside the flame, drawing of its meager warmth and reassuring, steady light. I had resolved to stay there until the sun rose or at least until the storm ebbed, but my will was thwarted by the last voice I wished to hear.

"Is there any reason you are waiting outside this door particularly?"

I whirred around and nearly sobbed for fright. Lucian had appeared like a wight and stood towering over me, brows lowering, like a bloody giant, his eyes seemingly charged by the golden flame of the torchlight.

"The storm..." was all I managed, clutching at my shift to stave off whatever cold I could.

I thought surely he would thunder at me, as the storm was doing, and demand I remove myself to bed, but he only regarded me thoughtfully. As I returned his scrutiny it was then I noticed his hair was damp and his feet were as bare as mine atop the stones.

If I were not much mistaken, either he had been wandering outside in the storm or he'd just partaken of a midnight bath. Both possibilities were, although feasible, entirely odd behavior for this time of night; or morning rather.

"Come on then." He motioned for me to enter through the door I'd been staring at moments earlier.

I did not move and he shrugged his shoulders and entered without me, leaving me to the mercy of the shadows without. At last I could bear the lonely roar of the wind against the castle battlements no longer and passed through the open door to see Lucian stoking the fire.

Without glancing at me he retrieved a large pelt of fur from his bed — a bed that was as undisturbed as one that had not been slept in — and walked back to stand before me, wrapping the heavy mass around my shivering shoulders.

"Sit," he commanded, indicating one of two high-backed chairs by the fire. I complied instantly.

Once I was settled before the crepitating hearth, he left the room. Although his presence intimidated me immensely, I did not relish the idea of spending the remainder of the night in his room alone. Strangely, for the first time since meeting him, I silently beseeched him to return. I did not wish to be abandoned by him just then. Not with the storm outside, glaring brightly through the window.

A tap at my shoulder nearly had me affrighted out of my skin, but it was just Lucian; he'd returned as soundlessly as he'd first appeared. "Drink this."

I took the tankard from him and offered up a small smile as I brought the rim to my lips. "Thank you, my lord," said I.

The milk had been somehow warmed for me in the space of time that he had been gone and I thought it inordinately kind of him to make the effort. I was not used to people going out of their way to see to my comfort. Only Mildred had ever really bothered.

Lucian positioned himself by the mantle-shelf, his eyes drifting distractedly over the flames as I drank off the last of my goat milk.

"Could you not sleep either?" I ventured to ask.

He lifted that strange gaze of his to me, an imperceptible smile lifting the corner of his lips, marginally withal. I supposed it could not really be called a smile, but at least it was not the usual sneer he wore in my presence.

"You could say that."

I set my tankard down on the floor and leaned back in the chair to watch him. His robe was still damp from his body, but I durst not ask him why he'd decided to bath in the middle of the night. The milk had warmed my belly enough that I felt at once becalmed despite my broody companion.

He would be leaving at dawn today. My eyes darted back to the window. "Will you leave as planned or will the weather enforce your delay?"

"We will depart as soon as the storm lets up, but I suppose it will not be till later in the morning."

"How is it that all are still abed despite the gale?" I could not imagine anyone sleeping through all that blasted din.

"I imagine that most are awake, but you were the only one brave enough to leave your chamber." He gave a snort and once again disturbed the coals with one of the fire irons hanging from hooks by the inglenook.

"Brave?"

"Or stupid." His lips pressed together as though he meant to thwart a smile. Was he teasing me?

"Or scared," I corrected him. "We do not get storms like this at home; if we do, or did, then I do not remember them."

"Well get used to this, because the north is not for the faint of heart."

"I will, my lord. I have no choice." At my words he looked up with a frown, studying me as though truly seeing me for the first time. "Like you have none..." I was not the orchestrator of my fate, just as he seemed to have no say in our betrothal.

I think I had surprised him with my keen observation. Most people mistook my age for innocence or naivety. I was both in a lot of ways, but not as unfamiliar with the cruelties of the world as perhaps some girls my age.

"Perhaps you are not as ignorant or as frail as I thought. That is good, for you will not survive here otherwise."

"Goodness," I said, feeling braver suddenly, "that is reassuring!" I was facetious of course, but other than a raised brow, he did not acknowledge my temerity.

Edwyn would have impaled me with that fire iron if I had ever dared to address him as I'd just spake to Lucian; that is if he had been sober enough to sense my irony. Most times my father was too stupid to understand my insults or my sarcasm.

Perhaps I'd been testing those deep, golden waters I saw in Lucian's eyes, but he seemed relaxed tonight; tired even. I had chanced to tease the dragon and come out alive after all. This was an interesting development.

"Should I fear for my safety then?" I asked.

"You are safe here, girl. We will not harm you ... not by design in any event."

This moment felt strangely otherworldly, as though we were in another place and I was just a girl; and he was just a boy — both on equal terms. Not bound by obligation or circumstance. I wanted him to continue speaking because, in this instance at least, I felt comfortable with him, mayhap even comforted by him, and I longed for a friend. I always had. Perhaps he could be mine?

"Tell me about the Beast In The Woods?"

He seemed surprised by the request. "Would you not rather hear the story by light of day?"

"You will be gone by first light." And too busy to bother with a silly girl of no importance.

"Very well. There is an old verse that tells the story of a wolf — valdyr in the old tongue — that terrorized a village. He took life indiscriminately and was insatiable until the villagers began to treat him as a god. They left oblations for him every full moon..."

I turned to look out of the window, the sky black with rolling clouds, even when the lightning whipped across them. I knew there had been a full moon tonight. It explained why I'd seen the sacrificial animals bound to their doors the evening I'd arrived.

"For three nights," he went on, "before, during, and after the full moon, they left their offerings to the valdyr. And have done so for a thousand years hence." Lucian then lifted his shoulder nonchalantly. "It is nothing but a legend now, but it comforts the peasantry to think that it is their sacrifices that keep the beast at bay. And, in a sense, it is."

"Has no one ever seen it?"

"Perhaps just before they die..." He watched me with a narrowed look from the tail of his eye.

"Oh." Well, I suppose I did asked... "So he never collects his sacrifices from the villeins?"

"Not exactly." And then, distractedly, the fire catching the gilded flecks in his eyes, he said, "But you may be certain that, if indeed he does exist, he appropriates them from the villains."

I gave a sage nod as though I understood him. "Do you believe in him, my lord?"

Lucian shifted that light, golden gaze to me, contemplatively. "I do not think it is ever wise to disregard any myth or fable — they teach us much about ourselves."

"I would like to hear the verse," I said.

"Then you must learn to speak our language. To translate is to bastardize it."

We spoke no more after that. He lowered his weight into the chair beside mine and watched the fire in silence. Eventually, without my realizing it, his frightening mien had transitioned into a source of security for me, instead of the threat; and my eyelids thus lowered under the watchful aegis that was my future bridegroom.

The next time I awoke it was to realize I had been transferred to my bed, doubtless by Lucian himself.

The storm had finally abated, the furious winds and violent rain that had raged throughout the night were now calmed slightly, but it was not till the middling part of the morning hours that the rain ceased to fall in torrents. It was for this reason that Lucian and his men did not leave at dawn as planned. But finally the travelers were allowed to take their long sought after departure.

I had almost given up hope completely of their leaving at all, but at last the sun vouchsafed my pleas and stabbed through the murky clouds, ushering the party onto the sodden roads. With a final wave goodbye, we stood framed by Nørrdragor's monstrous main entrance — its heavy, oaken double-doors looming twelve feet high at the very least.

I was still seething over Caine's impertinent remarks of earlier and, as he turned back to wink at his mother and I, I could not forbear sticking my tongue out at him brazenly. He merely laughed as heartily now as he had done moments earlier when I had timidly jumped back from Lucian as he had passed me by.

My betrothed merely bade me a distracted nod of farewell and continued, hardly much the wiser to my timorous behavior. His mind seemed otherwise filled — the rush to get going more than preoccupied him.

Unwilling to incite the frightful temper I knew him capable of, or ruin the peace that we'd seemed to establish in the wee hours by blocking his path needlessly, I had practically stumbled backwards over my kirtle in my rush to avoid him ... much to Caine's everlasting hilarity. The result was that I myself was now in high dudgeon — for I had winced like a dog in front of one brother and thereat provided entertainment for the other vexing cur.

"He will not bite you," Caine had whispered conspiratorially, grinning like a damnable jackal, as he had come to stand beside me the while Lucian had bid his mother and father adieu. "Moreover, he hates cowards." When I had only glared at him nonplussed, he added, "Ergo, perchance you might forswear reacting like one ... or you shall never earn his favor, girl."

"Mayhap I do not wish to own his favor," I had mumbled curtly.

"Well then, that shall certainly be entertaining to watch." He had then rubbed his hands together gleefully, the cur, and sauntered off with a cocky fare well, "Until next we meet, little rabbit!"

Lucian had not turned around once since kissing his mother dutifully on her cheek. He heaved himself, without further ado, onto his midnight charger and gave the call to leave. He had impressed upon me the full measure of his disdain with nothing more than his haughty disregard the morning of our had-fasting, but at least I had been deemed worthy of a nod of farewell today.

But it was not Lucian I watched as the party rode out. Rose's behavior that struck me as decidedly peculiar. She too was leaving today, the only woman amongst the group of men besides her maid. Lucian's impressive entourage, most of whom I believed were his uncle's men, spilled from the courtyard in rapid but orderly succession.

From the moment I had seen Rose this morning, she had watched me with interest as though I were the subject of some burning puzzle. Her unblinking gaze had raised the hairs on my flesh to an uncomfortable height, especially when she'd turned in the saddle to watch me with a craned neck; only young Thomas, who stood beside Carac and I, seemed concerned enough to comment on my palpable unease.

"Take no notice of Rose, she's a scrambled one, that egg," he whispered with a shake of his head.

I then heard a resounding thwack that followed directly after Thomas' unguarded advisement. Carac had, almost as soon as the boy uttered his council, cuffed him over his head. I turned to see a mortified Thomas favoring his throbbing crown with an agitated hand, a baleful eye fixed surreptitiously to Carac who stood by impassively — only the barest quirk of his lips attesting to the satisfaction he found in Thomas' tight-lipped displeasure.





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