“Are we to move carefully or quickly?” Brighid said.

“Both, of course!”

Smiling at Wynne’s familiar bossiness, Brighid pulled the carcass into the kitchen, soaking in the warmth of the enthusiastic greetings called by the army of scullery maids. The rich smells and the bustling activity chased from her mind the last vestiges of the unease brought on by the vision of the fallen raven. By the Goddess, she loved this part of her life! It Felt right to provide for the Clan-and to be a part of a family unit. Liam was an unexpected element, but the boy had a gift. He could actually see animal spirits. So she’d just weave him into the fabric of her life.

And Cuchulainn? He was equally as unexpected. Perhaps there was a way to stitch him into her life as well.

No. She was being foolish. Cuchulainn was already a part of her life. He was her Chieftain’s brother and her friend. That was the role fate had relegated to him. Simple. Logical. Predictable. Just the way she liked it.

But wasn’t there even the smallest possibility that he could be more?

“Brighid? Can we go, too?” Liam’s expectant question broke through her tangled thoughts.

“Go?”

“Aye, aye.” Wynne made rapid shooing motions with her hands at them. “Be gone. We donna have time to step ’round ye.”

Brighid snorted at the cook, but before disappearing out the rear door she snagged something that still lay with the great carcass.

“Come, Liam.” She headed to the door. “Getting in the way of a busy cook can be more dangerous than tracking wild beasts.” Out in the garden she tossed the lump she had been holding to her apprentice, who caught it neatly. “Speaking of tracking, do you know what that is?”

Liam sniffed it before he answered. “A hoof.”

“Of?”’

“The boar, of course,” he said.

“You know that now. You can smell it, and you know that I pulled it from the carcass. But would you know it as a boar’s hoofprint if you saw it in the forest?”

Liam stared at the grisly relic of Brighid’s hunt. “I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s go find out,” she said. Then paused as they left the kitchen gardens. “How is your wing?”

“It feels good,” he assured her. “I’m not tired at all.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What would Nara say if I asked her the same question?”

“The same thing, I promise.” At her doubting look he added. “Ask her for yourself. She’s out with the rest of them.”

“Out? Where?”

“Where Wynne said, remember? That way-” he pointed to the south “-outside the castle. Everyone’s there setting up camp and trying to decide where to build the new buildings. I’d be there, too, but I thought I should wait for you.”

“You did well,” she said absently. Already her senses were reaching, tendril-like, to the grassy plateau southeast of the castle. Easily, clearly, she Felt the brilliant golden light that was Cuchulainn’s spirit. Get it over with. You can’t live here and avoid seeing the man. “Yes, let’s join the others. And I’ll give you your first lesson in tracking.” She glanced down at the boy. He did look better, and he seemed to be moving more easily. But his wing was still bandaged securely to his back, and his color was paler than she would have liked. The centaur sighed and reached down to him. “Come on. Climb up.”

His smile tugged at her heart. She lifted him to her back and felt one of his warm little hands rest on her shoulder. She knew without looking that the other hand still clutched the bloody hoof stump. His weight was slight and easy to bear and she found that she liked the feel of his hand on her shoulder and how he chattered about boars and hooves with the same excitement she had felt when she had been a young apprentice. She didn’t even mind the surprised smiles and stares the sentries gave her as she trotted back out the front gates.

“Can we go fast?” Liam asked, leaning his chin on her shoulder and talking directly into her ear.

She probably should have said no, that his wound was still too raw to be jostled, but she Felt the lure that was coming from the golden light. She would certainly surprise everyone if she galloped up with a laughing Liam astride her back. No one would expect such behavior from her.

Perhaps it was time that she did a little of the unexpected.

“Hold tight,” she said over her shoulder and launched herself forward. She did, of course, keep one hand on the boy’s leg to steady him, but she was pleased to feel the child settle into a deep, firm seat and hold tight to her. He didn’t bobble around and flail his arms annoyingly. Actually the boy stuck to her like a particularly persistent tick, an image that made her smile. When she pounded around the bend in the land and the southern plateau opened up before her, she ignored the workers, and widened her stride, cutting in and around the clumps of humans, centaurs, and New Fomorians, and was rewarded with Liam’s whoop of excitement.

She didn’t slow until she caught sight of Elphame’s distinctive figure. The Chieftain was part of a small group standing near the cliff which fell dramatically down to the shore far below. Their heads were bowed over a large wooden table situated under an awning meant to serve as protection from the crisp sea wind. Brighid recognized Lochlan’s tall, winged shape, as well as the old centaur Stonemaster, Danann. Beside him stood a wide-shouldered, amber-haired warrior who made her heart squeeze in her chest.

Once she saw Cuchulainn she didn’t have to tell herself sternly to go over there and get this first meeting over with. The truth was, she was drawn to him, as if his golden light was a beacon guiding her home. The Huntress galloped up to the small group in a rush of pounding hooves and boyish giggles. She slid to a stop beside Elphame, who laughed in surprise.

“Brighid, Liam, I was wondering when the two of you would join us,” Elphame said, eyes glittering with humor.

“Brighid got a boar! It smells like mud and anger. And I got its hoof!” Liam proudly held up the bloody stump like a trophy.

“Mud and anger, huh? That doesn’t surprise me. I don’t particularly like boars,” Elphame said.

Lochlan’s arm went around her waist, and she automatically leaned into her mate. “I’m rather fond of them. Isn’t that true, my heart?” He and Elphame shared an intimate look, remembering that it was the attack of a wild boar that had brought them together for the first time.

“Well, I am fond of eating them,” Danann said. The old centaur moved to clasp Brighid’s forearm warmly. “Well met, Huntress. I missed greeting you last night.”

“Well met, Stonemaster.” Brighid gestured to the grounds before them, filled with clan members and New Fomorians, all busily erecting tents. “In this horde, it’s easy to miss one another.” She drew in a fortifying breath and finally allowed herself to look directly at Cu. She’d opened her mouth to wish him a friendly good morning, but the sight of him made her words catch in her throat.

He was so different from the Cuchulainn who had stumbled from her room the night before that the nonchalant greeting she had prepared vanished from her mind. Goddess! He looked vibrant and powerful-like the warrior he had been; only now the boyishness that had always seemed such a part of him had been forged into the maturity of a man. Where was the grief-stricken, broken Cuchulainn she had traveled with and shared quarters with in the Wastelands? Like her flippant greeting, he too had vanished. In his place was a warrior whose hair was washed and neatly cut short. The reddish beard that had covered his face was gone. The lines that had formed at the corners of his eyes were still there, but he had lost that weary, dark-shadowed look. And he was watching her carefully, with those knowing turquoise eyes and lips that were just beginning to tilt up.

“You’re looking at me as if you don’t recognize me. I didn’t look that bad before, did I?”