If he wished. How did one leave this? Go from that shining? Alun wanted (so much) to call to him, but tears were pouring down his face and his throat was blocked with grief, so he could only watch as his brother (his brother's soul) turned to look at the queen in her litter beside him. He was too far away for Alun to see what expression was on his face: sorrow, anger, fear, yearning, puzzlement? Release?

It is, as has long been said, the nature of the Cyngael that in the midst of brightest, shining joy, they carry an awareness of sorrows to come, an ending that waits, the curving of the arc. It is their way, the source of music in their voices, and-perhaps—what allows them to leave the shining behind, in due time, when others cannot do so. Gifts are treasured, known not to be forever.

Dai twitched the reins of his mare and moved forward, alone, across the water. Alun heard Brynn again, praying behind him. He looked, for one brief moment (that could be made to last a lifetime if held clearly enough in memory) upon the faerie that had come to him, his own gift, a shining left behind, and saw her raise a hand to him from behind the arm of the queen. Final balancing.

Dai reached the water's edge, dismounted. Walked across the grass. Not hovering as the others had, not yet, still clothed in the form his brother had known. Alun made himself stand still. He held the Volgan's sword.

Dai stopped in front of him. He did not smile, or speak (no words spoken, across that divide). Nor did he kneel, Owyn of Cadyr's older, slain son. Not before a younger brother. One could even smile at that perhaps, later. Dai spread his feet a little, as if to steady himself. Alun was remembering the morning they had ridden north from home, coming here. Other memories followed, in waves. How could they not, here? He looked into his brother's eyes and saw that they had changed (were still changing). It seemed to him there were stars to be seen there, a strangeness so great.

"Let there be light for you," he murmured, scarcely able to speak.

"Let it be done with love," said Brynn behind him, soft as a benison, words that seemed to be from some ancient liturgy Alun didn't know.

"How not?" he said. To Brynn, to Dai, to the bright queen and all her faeries (and the one he was losing now), to the dark night and the stars. He drew back the sword a last time and drove it into his brother's chest, to accept the queen's gift of his soul, the balancing, and set it free to find its harbour, after all.

When he looked up again, Dai was gone (was gone) and the faeries had disappeared, all that shining. It was dark upon the water and in the glade. He drew a ragged breath, felt himself shivering.

There was a sound. The dog, come up to nuzzle him at the hip. Alun put a trembling hand down, touched its fur between the ears. Another sound. He turned towards it wordlessly, and he let Brynn ap Hywll gather him in his arms as a father would, with his own father so far away.

They stood so for a long time before they moved. Brynn claimed the scabbard, wrapped the sword in its cloth again, as before, and they walked over and he laid it in the hollow where it had been. Then he looked up. It was dark. The torches had burned out.

"Will you help me, lad?" he asked. "This accursed boulder has grown. It is heavier than it used to be, I swear."

"I've heard they do that," said Alun quietly. He knew what the other man was doing. A different kind of gift. Together, shoulders to the great rock, they rolled it back and covered the Volgan's sword again. Then they left the wood, Cafall beside them, and came out under stars, above Brynnfell. Lanterns were burning down there, to guide them back.

There was another torch, as well, nearer to them.

She had waited by the gate the last time, when her father went up. This time Rhiannon slipped out of the yard amidst the chaos of returning. Her mother was arranging for a meal to be served to all those who had come to their aid, invited, and unexpectedly from the farms west, where someone—a girl, it seemed—had seen the Erlings passing and run a warning home.

You honoured such people. Rhiannon knew she was needed, ought to be with her mother, but she also knew that her father and Alun ab Owyn were in the wood again. Brynn had told his wife where he was going, though not why. Rhiannon was unable to attend to whatever duties were hers until they came out from the trees.

Standing on the slope above their farmyard, she listened to the bustling sounds below and thought about what it was a woman could do, and could not. Waiting, she thought, was so much a part of their lives. Her mother, giving swift, incisive orders down below, might call that nonsense, but Rhiannon didn't think it was. There was no anger in her any more, or any real feeling of defiance, though she knew she shouldn't be up here.

Needful as night she had said in the hall at the end of spring, entirely aware of the effect it would have. She'd been younger then, Rhiannon thought. Here she was, after nightfall, and she couldn't have said what it was she needed. An ending, she'd decided, to whatever had begun that other night.

She heard a noise. The two men came out from the trees and stood there, the grey dog beside Alun. She saw them both look down upon the farmhouse and the lights. Then her father turned to her.

"Jad be thanked," Rhiannon said.

"Truly," he replied.

He came over and brushed her forehead with his lips, as was his habit. He hesitated, looked over his shoulder. Alun ab Owyn had stayed where he was, just clear of the last trees. "I need to drink and drink," Brynn said. "Both at once. I'll see you below." He went over and took both horses' reins and led them down.

She was unexpectedly calm. The springtime seemed so long ago. The wind had died down, the smoke from her torch rose up nearly straight.

"Did you—?"

"I have so much—"

They both stopped. Rhiannon laughed a little. He did not. She waited. He cleared his throat. "I have so much need of your forgiveness," he said.

"After what you did?" she said. "Coming here again?" He shook his head. "What I said to you—"

This, she could address. "You said some things in grief and loss, on the night your brother died."

He shook his head. "It was… more than that."

She had stood by the gate, seen her father go up. The two of them had just come out of the wood. She knew something of this. She said, "Then it was more. And you are the more to be forgiven."

"You are gracious too. I have no right…"

"None of us has a right to grace," Rhiannon said. "It comes sometimes. That night… I asked you to come to me. To sing." "I know. I remember. Of course."

"Will you sing for me tonight?"

He hesitated. "I… I am not certain that I…"

"For all of us," she amended carefully. "In the hall. We are honouring those who came to help us."

He rubbed at his chin. He was very tired, she saw. "That would be better," he said quietly.

That would be better. Some paths, some doorways, some people were not to be yours, though the slightest difference in the rippling of time might have made them so. A tossed pebble landing a little sooner, a little later. She looked at him, standing this near, the two of them alone in darkness, and she knew she would never entirely move beyond what had happened to her that night at the end of spring, but it was all right. It would have to be all right. You could live with this, with much worse.

"Will you come down, my lord?" she said.

"I will follow you, my lady, if I may. I am not… entirely ready. I will do better after some moments alone."

"I can understand that," Rhiannon said. She could. He'd been in the half-world, would have a long way back to travel. She turned away from him and started down.