Foreboding snuck furtively into my heart and chilled my breast. Lucian's severe posture was so wrought with tension that I dared not breathe, let alone question him. I searched the shaded gloom for a sign of what he'd heard, twisting my neck around towards the spot that he now concentrated on. There was a slight rustling of dry leaves coming from close by that was followed by a low, pernicious grunting.

Lucian slowly unsheathed a dagger from his belt and eased me behind him with his other hand as he stared fixedly at where the sound had emanated from. No sooner had I been guided to stand at his back than a ferocious, deeply-pitched squealing erupted from the underbrush. It was directly preceded by the largest boar I had ever beheld, charging at us with a baleful screech and murderous intent blaring from its gimlet eyes.

The beast moved like a dark blur, its tusks curved wickedly and angled to inflict as much damage as possible. I had no warning before Lucian shoved me aside roughly in the last moment ere the boar attacked him. There was only a fugacious impression of dark, evil little eyes bearing down on us before I was thrust to the side by Lucian, my scream rending the morning with a strident harshness that sent the birds, that were roosting above, fleeing desperately from their nests. I landed against a rock and hit my elbow painfully as I came to a jarring halt.

Scrambling forthwith to my feet, I quickly sought my husband out and found him still grappling with the monstrous pig. Would that I had a weapon with which to defend him, but there was naught within immediate range save for a few sharp stones. Loathe to waste a moment more, I therefore grabbed a ready missile, with every intent to bludgeon the swarthy hog. But when I glanced up, I swiftly realized that my aid was no longer required for Lucian had by now immobilized the boar, and had done so when my eyes had been briefly diverted.

He was bleeding heavily from the left thigh as he, kneeling in the snow, held the animal locked in one brutal arm while it fought zealously to free itself. I watched keenly as he brought his long dagger down and slit its throat savagely with his free hand, dispatching it instantly as the blood spurted hotly into his face. Finally, the boar's shrieking struggles had become naught but hideous convulsing that lasted no more than a moment before finally ceasing altogether.

I ran to him the instant that he relaxed his hold and watched as the carcass slid limply to the ground. "You are injured!" I cried, kneeling at his side.

His face had become waxen, but he said naught and made no move to stop me as I maneuvered the shredded flap of his hose carefully aside to inspect the deep gash in his thigh. It was angry and much too deep, his blood hemorrhaging almost as thickly as the boar's had done moments ago. My own face turned deathly pale as I promptly realized what this could mean.

"No!" I whispered, horrified by the implications. Ripping long strips from my kirtle, with the intention of staunching the flow, I almost didn't hear the heavy footfalls approaching from behind me as of a stampeding army bursting on the scene; yet it was only two men who had arrived to aid us.

"Step aside!" Fendrel elbowed me, none too gently, away from Lucian.

Godwin immediately helped me to my feet, but restrained me when I bethought myself to move closer. Where were all the others? I felt as thought they must have surely heard my scream, if not the boar's, but it dawned on me suddenly that everything had happened in a matter of seconds and that Lucian had actually separated us quite a ways from the rest of our party. It was actually uncanny how instantaneously the two men had appeared in our midst.

Fendrel grabbed the strips of wool from my undergarment out of my hands and began constricting the streaming blood. Once the tourniquet had been secured across his nephew's thigh, he reached for the boar and affected his strangest behavior yet: dipping his fingers into the pig's neck, he smeared more of the hog's blood onto the pristine bandages he'd just applied and all over the rest of Lucian's leg as well as up the front of his surcote. The act was oddly grotesque.

"What are you doing?" I whispered in bemusement.

"Hush, Aria," Godwin commanded softly.

"Up you get!" Fendrel helped Lucian to his feet and slapped his wan cheeks with an unnecessary vigor that had my dander bristling dangerously.

"Stop!" I fumed at my boorish uncle. If Godwin had not detained me, I might have rushed at the man and clawed his vile face to unrecognizable shreds.

"Lucian will be well. The injury is only minor," said Fendrel, pinning me with a cold glare. "There... you see, I but sought to add some color to his bloody complexion." And then, having been ostensibly tickled by his own jest, he chuckled with misplaced amusement.

Was he mad? My fury surged with ebullient intensity, and heartily did I welcome that rage for I would much rather be imbued in its scalding fervor than endure the alternative — an icy bleakness of acute anguish! I had seen the wound! My husband had been practically ripped asunder by the creature's razor tusks. Why were they making him stand? Why was Godwin just standing here like a useless observer!? He should be beside himself with grief.

I was opening my mouth to argue when the rest of the curious throng swarmed into view. However, Fendrel was quick to assure the party that all was well and that no serious injuries had been sustained, his voice all the while modulated with nonchalance.

Liar! I felt something beastly stirring in my core.

There was a chaotic din of murmurings and excited exclamations as each person crowded around the warm corpse and then congratulated my husband with hearty back slapping — nary a soul wise to the fact that he hid a terrible lesion. He stood steadfastly abiding the merry bombardment with compressed, white lips and a slight grimace that made me want to smite them all where they stood. Godwin increased the pressure on my arm as if sensing my growing fury.

"Be easy, Aria. Fendrel is right. Lucian will be well."

A guttural growl, the likes of which has never issued from my chest ere now, quietly rolled forth. It was directed solely at Fendrel, and gave even Godwin pause. A man nearby looked around with a puzzled frown and seeing nothing out of place, save Godwin and I waiting on the sidelines, went back to fawning over the younger lord who was was still being unobtrusively steadied by his uncle. An uncle who was even now smiling ruthlessly at me with a lethal tightness about his blazing green eyes.

"Threaten Fendrel again, and not even I will be able to help you!" Godwin seethed into my ear, his soft tone blistering me for all its calm reserve.

Had I threatened him? I was still reeling over the eerie sound of my own utterance to understand yet what my reaction had meant. I had never been this furious, but nodded nonetheless, acquiescing to my father-in-law's wisdom, and took a deep breath to calm myself.

"You may release me now. I will keep my distance."

"Good. See that you do." He nudged me forward gently, always the gentleman... unlike his brother-in-law.

I followed the procession, Godwin right behind me, as we all made our way back to the horses and the dogs. Only two of the huntsmen remained behind to prepare the boar for transportation back to the castle. Lucian's gait, though slightly stiff, seemed rather normal for all that he bore a nasty flesh wound. I frowned with confusion. He should be writhing in agony not walking stoically.

The sun was just beginning to slip over the horizon by the time we reached Nørrdragor, and it was not yet even noon. Most of the guest were congregating in the hall for the main meal, but I continued up the stairs after Anne, Godwin, Fendrel and Lucian. Caine stood staring warily at Lucian from the bottom of the steps as we all passed him without a word.

As Lucian was being settled comfortably on the bed, Fendrel turned on me suddenly and hauled me up against the wall by my throat with an unyielding hand on my windpipe.

"Challenge me again," said he with sibilant contempt, pressing a little harder on my already bruising neck, "and I shall make sure it is the last thing you ever do!"

"Lucian!" Fendrel and I turned to see Godwin restraining his son in much the same way I'd earlier seen Lucian controlling the boar: in a brutal headlock. My husband's eyes were shooting rancor at his uncle who ignored him as though he were a flea instead of six foot five and two hundred and fifty pounds of powerful muscle. Weak or no, Lucian was a sight to behold, but my vision was dwindling rapidly as Fendrel continued his bestial hold on me.

"Let her go Fendrel," Godwin growled, still constraining his son to the bed, the command issued with harsh authority.

It had obviously held enough force, for the next second I was released to collapse against the wall. Anne hurried to my side and poked tenderly at my neck as Fendrel left the room with a warning glare at Godwin and Lucian.

"Oh, my sweet girl!" She clutched me tightly.

"I am well, Anne!" I rasped, pushing her hands away. "How fares Lucian? Go to him, please! I am well."

As soon as she had reassured herself of my wellbeing, she retreated back to Lucian's side. When I made to follow, Godwin forestalled me with a firm hand on my shoulder and ushered me out of the room.

"Let Anne see to him, Aria. You may enter when she is done." With his narrowed glare, he brooked no quarrel from me though I had much of it within me to offer him.

Thus, I waited in the next room in recalcitrant silence, while my equally quiet guardian watched me pensively with discerning insight.

"You are growing bold," said he candidly. "Mind that it not land you in trouble, my girl. Mark me well, you have naught to fear from me or mine, but I cannot vouch for my brother-in-law. He would kill his own child if he thought he might benefit from it."

My eyes flared, but I answered him not. I replied only with continued silence, biding my time and awaiting Anne's imminent egress from my chamber with my agitated knee bouncing impatiently. At length she did emerge and I said not a word as I brushed past her into the chamber and to my husband's side, closing the door soundly behind me.

"Are you asleep, Lucian?" I crawled atop the counterpane, employing as much care as I could while maneuvering to his side, and mindful of not jostling him as I did so.

"If I were, I am no longer," he chuckled tiredly. Then, placing his hand tentatively on my neck, he ran his steady fingers softly along the column of my bruised throat, his expression darkening considerably. "I wanted to kill him." I knew exactly of whom he spoke.

"I despise him, Lucian!" I seethed bitterly and cuddled into his side, laying my head gently on his chest so that his heartbeat might steady my own. I faced him still and so watched as his lips quirked despite my hateful words.

"I think you left him in no doubt of that, little hell-cat," he smiled, but it rueful withal.

"I thought..." I swallowed the lump forming in my sore throat. "I thought you were going to die in my arms today." Suddenly I had no control over my violent emotions; a paroxysm of heavy tears beset me the moment I allowed the thought to be verbalized.

Lucian held me to him with an unexpected strength that instantly allayed my fears, for what dying man could squeeze the breath out of someone, as he was evincing at present. He was still so hale of body that I almost questioned the morning's shocking events. He stroked my face a short while longer and, when he stopped, I looked up in time to notice him rubbing my tears between his fingertips as though doubting their very existence. I too was feeling amazed at their wet presence.

I was sure my face betrayed that wonderment too. This disbelief I harbored at his miraculous recovery and, moreover, the bewildering notion that my own reactions — to the thought of his mortality — had been rather intense, were all so confusing. Therefore, my tears were now evidently the apotheosis of all my realizations and feelings; knowing that his eventual decease, whether today or years from now, caused in me no little grief, and it thereby culminated in a thousand new possibilities and repercussions that I was yet not ready to scrutinize.

Did I love him? If so, when had that happened? And would I now lose him having only just realized this fact for myself?

How strange that I had never truly considered death and the afterlife... not really. Why should I? I was yet young and unmoved by death for it was constantly on display and everywhere I looked. Be it in the form of convicts swinging from gallows, a deer carcass being stripped of its flesh, a child dying of the sweating sickness in its mothers arms, or simply a long life reaching its zenith — death was a part of life's eternal cycle; inevitable and immutable.

The circle of death was always present; a ubiquitous entity that I had simply taken for granted and accepted without genuinely examining that obscure state. The impermanence of my flesh, and Lucian's for that matter, had never actually bothered me till this very day. He might now still die of infection! The wound had seemed too serious for even leeching to benefit him. But I was not yet ready for him to die and I did not think, even for a moment, that I would ever be fully prepared or qualified to manage that eventuality.

I do love him then! Tis too soon! I shook my head, panicked by all these debilitating reflections.

The timid knock at the door pulled me from my brooding, and disturbing, reveries. Grateful for the interruption, I got up to answer it directly.

Two servants stood at the door, one bearing a platter of bread, meats, fruits and cheeses and the other a flagon of wine and two goblets. Anne had no doubt arranged for this fare to be brought to us. I smiled my thanks and took the tray from one of the lads as the other placed the wine tray on a table. That done, I dismissed them both forthwith and carried the viands to the bed where Lucian was already sitting up, eyeing the display ravenously, which further supported my theory: that dying men did not exhibit such salubrious appetites.

Definitely not at death's door, I thought.



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