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As soon as he crossed into the stone circle,hi of battle in the distance? If he walked far enough, would he stumble back to the place he’d come froainst the altar stone, banging his thighs, and held hientle voice, not weapons at all but the click of leaves on the bronze cauldron

"Why conized from his drea in the uished

"Why am I here? Where am I?"

"You have not traveled far as humankind ht you off the path that leads to the Other Side Has it not been told to you that you are to be the new husband of the Hallowed One of this tribe?"

He touched the a the way Adica had invited hiry, then, because he felt his desire was shae I understand, nor can they understand ether, you and I, while 1 speak as a foreigner would with the others? You aren’t even human"

"By my nature I am bound to hat is, and ill be, and sois alive in the time to come as well as the tied, as though she were speaking to someone else "Listen!" Her voice becaround, " Fainter still: "Beware Guard the looive one

"Alain!"

The mist receded as suddenly as it had coht settled over the stones He sat doorn out by labor and by strangeness

Adica stopped before him and looked him over, both alarmed and concerned and, maybe, just a little irritated She was handsoaze and a firm mouth This close, he had the leisure to study her body: she had the pleasing curves of a woh to eat, but she had a second quality about her, an intangible strength like the glow off a hidden fire In a funny way, she reic threw a cloak over its wielders, seen as a nimbus of power

Her next words reproved hih he couldn’t be sure for what Abruptly, she saw the line of the amber necklace where it lay concealed under his linen tunic

Reproof vanished She brushed a finger along the ridge the string of amber ave this to ers to display it

She s and half flirtatious

"Ai, God, I wish I could understand you," he exclaimed, frustrated "Is it true I’ so little of each other? Yet I knew nothing of Tallia on the day ere taken to the wedding bed Ai, Lady, so little did I know of her!" He could still feel the nail in his hand, proof of her willingness to deceive

Mistaking his cry, or responding to it, Adica took hold of his hand and pulled hiht she would kiss hie The clasp of her hand ly until they drifted up at last to the centaur shaman’s last words Who were the Cursed Ones? What were the looe in co sun!" Kel prodded Alain awake "To work!" He esture that included hio to work"

Three e It was a prosperous place, twelve houses and perhaps a hundred people in all They had about a fourth of the outer palisade raised and today headed back to the forest to fell trees Workone leisurely break, Kel finished carving a stout staff out of oak, orna When next Beor hoisted his ax near Alain with a surly and threatening gri the newly carved staff to Alain and even got Tosti to stand in for a des could "nip" at a hter carunted and bore it, since to stalk off into the forest would have ly, he let Alain work in peace as the afternoon wore on