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Forgall chuckled. "Do you think I'd wish my own daughter to become a widow?"

"I'm healthy. Not planning to die anytime soon."

"None of us plan to die. But should Ulster go to war, and you are the King's champion, we will all be doomed."

"You're forgetting. I still have the ríastrad. I do not use it when we spar."

"That's your problem. The beast inside of you—you may have it tamed, but the beast is still reckless even as you are. Perfect your skill, refine your ability, and even the ríastrad will fight with precision. You fancy yourself a bard... tell me, can you name a single warrior of old who had the ríastrad and died of old age?"

Cú Chulainn bit his lip. He hadn't thought of that. Nearly every story of a hero with the ríastrad ended the same way—they fell in battle. Yes, they died as heroes, but they died young no less. "I suppose you have a point."

"Of course I have a point! And you imagine you will be the exception, that you won't leave my daughter without a husband when you are so reckless in combat?"

Cú Chulainn took a deep breath. "Tell me what I must do to earn your blessing."

Forgall stroked his beard. "There is another warrior... one who might aid you better than I."

Cú Chulainn cocked his head. "Another warrior? I know of no such accomplished warriors in all of Ulster."

"She is a Scot."

"Seriously?"

"What, you don't imagine that a Scot would be a warrior?" Forgall smirked.

Cú Chulainn chuckled. "It's that you called this warrior, 'she' that took me off guard!"

"The warrior-queen Scáthach is not one to be underestimated, young man."

Cú Chulainn stared at Forgall incredulously. Scáthach was known for more than her valor in battle—she was known for her short temper and the fact that most whoever defied her, even her most trusted companions, often found their heads divorced from their bodies. "Are you hoping to make me a warrior that I might earn your daughter's hand? Or are you hoping to simply put me away?"

Forgall grinned widely. "The way I see it, Cú Chulainn, is that if you should die at her hand then at least I've spared my daughter a widow's fate. If you should survive her methods... well, then, I should have reason to hope you might be the sole warrior with the ríastrad to defy the tradition of premature death."

Cú Chulainn glanced again at Emer, who now sat upon the balcony rail to so tempt him with a display of her crossed and shapely legs. It was the first time a mortal woman had captured Cú Chulainn's attention since he'd been but a boy. Ever since his encounter with the faerie, Fand, no human woman had managed to draw more than a fleeting glance from the warrior bard. Emer wasn't Fand. But Cú Chulainn couldn't deny that he desired her.

And if it took him training with the brutal queen, Scáthach, to earn Forgall's blessing, that's exactly what he'd do.

"Very well," Cú Chulainn said. "I will go to Scáthach. I will prove myself worthy. And I will return to make your daughter my wife."