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Bryna stepped through the arched doorway of the ruin and watched him. Such energy, such concentration. Her lips bowed up. He was happy in his work, in his art. He needed this time, she thought, just as he’d needed those hours of deep, dreamless sleep.

Soon he would have questions again, and she would have to answer.

She stepped back inside, wanting to give him his privacy.

Alone with her thoughts, she walked to the center of the castle, where flowers grew out of the dirt in a circle thick with blooms. Lifting her face to the light, raising her arms to the sky, she began her chant.

Power tingled in her fingertips, but it was weak. So weak that she wanted to weep in frustration. Once she had known its full strength; now she knew the pain of its decline.

It was ordained, this I know. But here on ground where flowers grow, I call the wind, I call the sun. What was done can be undone. No harm to him shall come through me. As I will, so mote it be.

The wind came, fluttering her hair like gentle fingers. The sun beat warm on her upturned face.

I call the faeries, I call the wise. Use what power you can devise. Hear me speak, though my charms are weak. Cast the circle for my own true love, guard him fast from below, from above. Harm to none, my vow is free. As I will, so mote it be.

The power shimmered, brighter, warmer. She fought to hold it, to absorb what gift was given.

She thrust up a hand, the silver of the ring she wore exploding with light as a single narrow beam shot through the layering clouds and struck.

The heat of it flowed up her arm, made her want to weep again. This time in gratitude.

She was not yet defenseless.

Cal clicked the shutter again and again.

He took nearly a dozen pictures of her. She stood, still as a statue in a perfect circle of flowers.

Some odd trick of the wind made it blow her hair away from her glowing face.

Some odd trick of the light made it beam down on her in a single perfect diagonal shaft.

She was beautiful, unearthly. Though his heart stumbled when her fingers appeared to explode with light, he continued to circle her and capture her on film.

Then she began to move. Just a sway of her body, rhythmic, sensual.

The wind whipped the thin fabric of her dress, then had it clinging to those slim curves.

The language she spoke now was familiar from his dreams. With unsteady hands, Cal lowered the camera.

It was unsettling enough that he somehow understood the ancient tongue.

But he would see beyond the words and into her thoughts as clearly as if they were written on a page.

Protect. Defend. The battle is nearly upon us. Help me. Help him.

There was desperation in her thoughts. And fear. The fear made him want to reach out, soothe her, shield her. He stepped forward and into the circle.

The moment he did, her body jerked. Her eyes opened, fixed on his. She held up a hand quickly before he could touch her. “Not here.” Her voice was raw and thick. “Not now. It waits for the moon to fill.”

Flowers brushed her knees as she walked out of the circle. The wind that had poured through her hair gentled, died.

“You rested well?” she asked him.

“What the hell is going on here?” His eyes narrowed. “What the hell did you put in my tea?”

“A dollop of Irish. Nothing more.” She smiled at his camera. “You’ve been working. I wondered what you would see here, and need to show.”

“Why did you strip me?”

“Your clothes were damp.” She blinked once, as she saw his thoughts in his eyes.

Then she laughed, low and long with a female richness that stirred his blood.

“Oh, Cal, you have a most attractive body. I’ll not deny I looked.

But in truth, I’m after preferring a man awake and participating when it comes to the matters you’re thinking of. ”

Though furious, he only angled his head. “And would you find it so funny if you’d awakened naked in a strange bed after taking tea with a strange man?”

Her lips pursed, then she let out a breath. “Your point’s taken, well taken. I’m sorry for it. I promise you I was thinking only of giving you your ease.” Then the humor twinkled again. “Or mostly only of that.” She spread her arms. “Would you like to strip me, pay me back in kind?”

He could imagine it, very well. Peeling that long, thin dress away from her, finding her beneath. “I want answers.” His voice was sharp, abrupt. “I want them now.”

“You do, I know. But are you ready, I wonder?” She turned a slow circle. “Here, I suppose, is the place for it. I’ll tell you a story, Calin Farrell. A story of great love, great betrayal. One of passion and greed, of power and lust. One of magic, gained and lost.”

“I don’t want a story. I want answers.”

“It’s the same they are. One and the other.

” She turned back to him, and her voice flowed musically.

“Once, long ago, this castle guarded the coast, and its secrets. It rose silver and shining above the sea. Its walls were thick, its fires burned bright. Servants raced up and down the stairways, into chambers. The rushes were clean and sweet on the floor. Magic sang in the air.”

She walked toward curving steps, lifted her hem and began to climb. Too curious to argue, Cal followed her.

He could see where the floors had been, the lintels and stone bracings.

Carved into the walls were small openings.

Too shallow for chambers, he imagined. Storage, perhaps.

He saw, too, that some of the stones were blackened, as if from a great fire.

Laying a hand on one, he swore he could still feel heat.

“Those who lived here,” she continued, “practiced their art and harmed none. When someone from the village came here with ails or worries, help was offered. Babies were born here,” she said as she stepped through a doorway and into the sun again. “The old died.”

She walked across a wide parapet to a stone rail that stood over the lashing sea.

“Years passed in just this way, season to season, birth to death. It came to be that some who lived here went out into the land. To make new places. Over the hills, into the forests, up into the mountains, where the faeries have always lived.”

The view left him thunderstruck, awed, thrilled. But he turned to her, cocked a brow. “Faeries.”

She smiled, turned and leaned back against the rail.

“One remained. A woman who knew her fate was here, in this place. She gathered her herbs, cast her spells, spun her wool. And waited. One day he came, riding over the hills on a fine black horse. The man she’d waited for.

He was a warrior, brave and strong and true of heart.

Standing here, just here, she saw the sun glint off his armor.

She prepared for him, lighting the candles and torches to show him the way until the castle burned bright as a flame. He was wounded.”

Gently she traced a fingertip on Cal’s thigh. He forced himself not to step back, not to think about the hallucination he’d had while driving through the hills toward this place.

“The battle he had fought was fierce. He was weary in body and heart and in mind. She gave him food and ease and the warmth of her fire. And her love. He took the love she gave, offered back his own. They were all to each other from that moment. His name was Caelan, Caelan of Farrell, and hers Bryna. Their hearts were linked.”

He stepped back now, dipping his hands into his pockets. “You expect me to buy that?”

“What I offer is free. And there’s more of the story yet.” The frustration at having him pull back flickered over her face. “Will you hear it, or not?”

“Fine.” He moved a shoulder. “Go ahead.”

She turned, clamped her hands on the stone balustrade, let the thunder of the sea pound in her head. She stared down at that endless war of water and rock that fought at the base of the cliff.

“They loved each other, and pledged one to the other. But he was a warrior, and there were more battles to fight. Whenever he would leave her, she watched in the fire she made, saw him wheel his horse through smoke and death, lift his sword for freedom. And always he came back to her, riding over the hills on a fine black horse. She wove him a cloak out of dark gray wool, to match his eyes. And a charm she put on it, for protection in battle.”

“So you’re saying she was a witch?”

“A witch she was, yes, with the power and art that came down through the blood. And the vow she’d taken to her heart, as close as she’d taken the man she loved, to harm none.

Her powers she used only to help and to heal.

But not all with power are true. There was one who had chosen a different path.

One who used his power for gain and found joy in wielding it like a bloody sword. ”

She shuddered once, violently, then continued.

“This man, Alasdair, lusted for her—for her body, her heart, her soul. For her power as well—for she was strong, was Bryna the Wise. He came into her dreams, creeping like a thief, trying to steal from her what belonged to another. Trying to take what she refused to give. He came into her home, but she would not have him. He was fair of face, his hair gold and his eyes black as the path he’d chosen.

He thought to seduce her, but she spurned him. ”