“Now you know,” said Garde with a wink, “why the men of Gwen Ystrat always look so tired!”

Kevin smiled and drained his glass. The tavern was surprisingly uncrowded, given the prevailing energies of the night. It appeared that both Aileron and Shalhassan had given orders. Diarmuid’s band, though, as always, seemed to enjoy an immunity from such disciplinary commands.

“That,” said Erron to Garde, “is half a truth at best.” He raised a hand to summon another flask of Gwen Ystrat wine, then turned to Kevin. “He’s teasing you a bit. There’s some of this feeling all year long, I’m told, but only some. Tonight’s different—or tomorrow is, actually, and it’s spilling over into tonight. What we’re feeling now comes only at Maidaladan.”

The innkeper brought over their wine. Upstairs they heard a door open, and a moment later Coll leaned over the railing. “Who’s next?” he said with a grin.

“Go ahead,” Garde said. “I’ll keep the wine cool for you.”

Kevin shook his head. “I’ll pass,” he said as Coll came clumping down the stairs.

Garde raised an eyebrow. “No second offers,” he said. “I’m not being that generous tonight, not with so few women about.”

Kevin laughed. “Enjoy,” he said, raising the glass Erron had filled for him.

Coll slipped into Garde’s seat. He poured himself a glass, drained it in a gulp, then fixed Kevin with a surprisingly acute glance. “Are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asked softly, so it wouldn’t go beyond their table.

“A little,” Kevin said. It was the easiest thing to say, and after a moment he realized that it gave him an out. “Actually,” he murmured, “more than a little. I don’t think I’m in a party mood tonight.” He stood up. “I think I’ll turn in, as a matter of fact.”

Erron’s voice was sympathetic. “It’s not a bad idea, Kevin. Tomorrow night’s the real thing, anyhow. What we’re feeling now is going to be ten times stronger. With a wolf hunt under your belt, you’ll be ready to bed a priestess or three.”

“They come out?” Kevin asked, arrested for a moment.

“Only night of the year,” Erron said. “Part of the rites of Liadon.” He smiled wryly. “The only good part.”

Kevin returned the smile. “I’ll wait for tomorrow, then. See you in the morning.” He clapped Coll on the shoulder, pulled on his coat and gloves, and walked out the door into the bitter chill of the night.

It is bad, he was thinking, when you have to lie to friends. But the reality was too difficult, too alienating, and it was private, too. Let them think he was apprehensive about the hunt; that was better than the truth.

The truth was that nothing of the desire that every other man in the company was feeling had even touched him. None of it. Only from the talk all around had he even grasped that something unusual was happening. Whatever supercharged eroticism was associated with Midsummer’s Eve in this place—so much of it that even the priestesses of the Goddess came out from the Temple to make love—whatever was happening wasn’t bothering to include him.

The wind was unholy. Worse even than a December holiday he’d spent once on the prairies. It scythed like a blade under his coat. He wasn’t going to be able to stay out long. Nothing could. How, Kevin thought, did you fight an enemy who could do this? He had sworn revenge for Jennifer, he remembered, and his mouth twisted with bitter irony. Such bravado that had been. First of all, there wasn’t even a war in which to fight—Rakoth Maugrim was breaking them with a hammer of wind and ice. Second, and this truth had been coiling within him since they had arrived from Stonehenge, he wouldn’t be much good for anything even if, somehow, they ended the winter and there was a war. The memory of his useless flailing about during the battle on the Plain three nights ago was still raw.

He had moved past jealousy—hadn’t lingered long there anyhow—it wasn’t really a part of his nature. He was used to being able to do something, though. He no longer envied Paul or Kim their dark, burdensome powers—Kim’s grief by Pendaran Wood the night before and Paul’s loneliness had wiped that away, leaving a kind of pity.

He didn’t want their roles or Dave’s axe-wielding strength, and no sane person would want any part of what fate Jennifer had found. All he wanted was to matter, to have some way, however slight, of affectuating the heartfelt vow he had sworn.

Two, actually. He had done it twice. Once in the Great Hall when Brendel had brought word of the lios alfar dead and Jennifer taken away. Then a second time, when Kim had brought them home and he looked down at what had been done to a woman he loved and then forced himself not to look away, that the scalding image might always be there if courage ever flagged in him.

It was still there, that image, and—he searched himself for this—he was not lacking in courage. He had no fear of tomorrow’s hunt, whatever the others might think, only a bitterly honest awareness that he was just along for the ride.

And this, for Kevin Laine, was the hardest thing in any world to handle. What he seemed to be, here in Fionavar, was utterly impotent. Again his mouth crooked bitterly in the cold, for this description was especially accurate now. Every man in Gwen Ystrat was feeling the pull of the Goddess. Every man but him, for whom, all his adult days, the workings of desire had been a deep, enduring constant, known only to the women who had shared a night with him.

If love and desire belonged to the Goddess, it seemed that even she was leaving him. What did that leave?

He shook his head—too much self-pity there. What was left was still Kevin Laine, who was known to be bright and accomplished, a star in law school and one in the making, everyone said, when he got to the courts. He had respect and friendship and he had been loved, more than once. His, a woman had told him years ago, was a face made for good fortune. A curious phrase; he had remembered it.

There was, he told himself, no room for maudlin self-pity in a curriculum vitae like that.

On the other hand, all the glitter of his accomplishments lay squarely within his own world. How could he glory in mock trial triumphs any more? How set his sights on legal excellence after what he had seen here? What could possibly have meaning at home once he had watched Rangat hurl a burning hand into the sky and heard the Unraveller’s laughter on the north wind?

Very little, next to nothing. In fact, one thing only, but he did have that one thing, and with the pang of his heart that always came when he hadn’t done so for a while, Kevin thought of his father.

“Fur gezunter heit, und cum gezunter heit,” Sol Laine had said in Yiddish, when Kevin had told him he had to fly to London on ten hours’ notice. Go safely, and come safely. Nothing more. In this lay a boundless trust. If Kevin had wanted to tell, Kevin would have explained the trip. If Kevin did not explain, he had a reason and a right.

“Oh, Abba,” he murmured aloud in the cruel night. And in the country of the Mother his word for father became a talisman of sorts that carried him in from the slash of wind to the house Diarmuid had been given in Morvran.

There were prerogatives of royalty. Only Coll and Kevin and Brock were sharing the place with the Prince. Coll was in the tavern, and the Dwarf was asleep, and Diarmuid was God knows where.

With a mild amusement registering at the thoughts of Diarmuid tomorrow night, and the deeper easing that thoughts of his father always gave to him, Kevin went to bed. He had a dream but it was elusive and he had forgotten it by morning.

The hunt started with the sunrise. The sky was a bright blue overhead, and the early rays of sunlight glittered on the snow. It was milder too, Dave thought, as if somehow the fact of midsummer was registering. Among the hunters there was an electric energy one could almost see. The erotic surges that had begun when they had first entered Gwen Ystrat were even deeper now. Dave had never felt anything like it in his life, and they said the priestesses would come out to them tonight. It made him weak just to think of it.