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Ral’s insides churned. Every moment of his day was plagued with loss and pain.

No matter how hard he worked to ignore it, it was always there with him, making him ache inside.

Now Odo had come, adding to his burden, stirring the memories, the doubt that never quite left him, making him wish for things that could never be .

“Get out,” he said with soft menace. “Get out and do not return.”

Odo stiffened. “I am sorry. I did not mean to pain you.” He stopped when he reached the door. “Yet even that I give you grief cannot make me regret my words.”

Ral slammed the ledger closed as Odo shut the door.

“He has gone mad,” he grumbled to Marta, who stood just outside the door. The old woman said nothing, but her shoulders seemed to slump with the weight of his words as she turned and walked down the hall.

***

Caryn sat on the knoll among the soft grass and flowers. She went there whenever her endless hours of toil in the convent were ended, just to sit and remember.

At first she had tried to block the past, to forget it and make it disappear. Then she discovered that it was the past that offered her solace, the past that provided her only refuge from the pain.

Though her days were filled with backbreaking toil, of scant meals, stifling confinement, and days upon end of guilty reflection, the moments that she spent in the past, the hours she relived her time with Ral, brought peace as nothing else could.

It was easy enough to remember. In the eye of her mind, his face was as darkly handsome as the day that she had first seen him astride his big black stallion in the meadow.

She could imagine every line, every curve of his sensuous lips.

She could see the teasing light that changed his eyes from gray to blue, or the deeper tantalizing shade that signaled his desire for her.

She could remember his powerful hands and the way they had felt when he touched her, the gentleness and the strength. She remembered the sensuous way they aroused her, the way they had held her when she cried, the way they had soothed her and helped to ease her pain.

She thought of the wolves and the way he had risked his life to save her.

She thought of the way he’d helped Leo, the justice he had sought for the huge blond Saxon warrior.

She thought of Ral, and as much as her heart ached for him, she rejoiced in those times as she never had before, as she knew she never would again.

Mostly she thought of just being with him, of the sound of his deep compelling voice, of the way his lips curved up when he smiled, at the laughter they had shared… and the worries. Who shared his burdens now? she wondered. Who did he have to turn to? He had needed her and she had let him down.

Caryn glanced up and was surprised to see her sister standing beside her, the shadow of Gweneth’s perfect profile falling across her face.

She looked down at Caryn in silence, then Gweneth knelt beside her, her fingers clutching a small bouquet of posies.

She held them out, then pressed them into Caryn’s hand.

Caryn’s own hands trembled as she accepted them, the ache inside her swelling, the pain increasing, threatening to tear her apart.

She reached toward Gweneth and for the first time noticed there were tears in her sister’s blue eyes, a well of sorrow that overflowed and made a path down her cheeks.

There was pain on her face, a sadness as deep and profound as her own.

A lump rose in her throat to see her sister thus, for she had rarely seen her cry, rarely known her to be so unhappy.

It came to her then, that Gweneth’s tears were a reflection of her own, that she felt the pain Caryn was feeling, the heartbreak and loss that must be evident on her face. Seeing Caryn on the knoll, her emotions unguarded, Gweneth had sensed her sorrow, her terrible feelings of grief.

Caryn brought the flowers to her nose with unsteady hands, inhaling the light sweet fragrance. She glanced once more at Gweneth and forced a smile to her face. Leaning forward, she brushed the tears from her sister’s pretty cheeks, then wiped at those on her own.

“You mustn’t cry,” she said with false brightness. “’Tis beautiful here, is it not?” She continued to smile for long heartbreaking moments, forcing away thoughts of home, thoughts of Ral and love and her loneliness, until finally Gweneth’s soft red lips began to curl upward.

Caryn reached toward a small stand of bluebells, plucked one and handed it to Gweneth.

“See how pretty? The same shade as your eyes.” Her sister was smiling in earnest now, nodding eagerly, searching the ground for more of the precious blue flowers.

She spotted a patch some distance away and wandered in that direction.

Caryn watched her go, knowing Gweneth’s sadness was forgotten, the pain as fleeting as the butterfly she had started to pursue.

Caryn’s own pain had not altered, searing in its intensity, burning a hole in her heart.

For the first time in her life, she felt no joy in her surroundings, no joy in the sunshine, or the blueness of the sky.

For the first time ever, she envied her older sister the oblivion of the far-off world in which she lived.