“Have I displeased you?” asked Kaavi.

  The sadness that came over her face was difficult for Brand to bear. He felt a deep sense of guilt for having brought her pain. Such beauty and life, who was he to insult her? He was an insect beside a goddess, and he was not worthy of distressing her with his petty worries.

  “I—I’m sorry,” he said, trying to think clearly. “There’s nothing wrong. I just thought of something I should be doing.”

  “And what should you be doing?”

  “I should be remembering my fine wife, that’s what.”

  “Oh, that,” she said, giving her head a delightful nod. “Why worry about her? She’s not here. She will never know your thoughts.”

  Brand grimaced at the mere idea. If Telyn could hear his thoughts today—well things would become grim around Rabing House. He was not so sure, upon reflection, that she could not hear them. He was also unsure if this entire affair of bringing home an elf princess was such a fine idea. It had seemed like a fantastic plan when he’d thought of it at Oberon’s festival, but now….

  “There it is,” Kaavi said. “That worried expression again. It’s most unpleasant, you know. If you worry too much, your hair will fall out and you’ll become old. Did you know that?”

  Brand’s lips flickered upward, creating a tiny smile. “I suppose that I did.”

  “We elves live for the here and the now,” she said, as if explaining things to a child. “To worry about futures and maybes…well, it doesn’t bear thinking about! One could never do a thing if tied up in thoughts of possible consequences!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if a dozen vicious beasts await you when you return to Riverton?” she asked.

  “They don’t.”

  “But you don’t know that they don’t. Perhaps they do. Perhaps there will be two dozen. Perhaps today, Old Hob has marched a horde of rhinogs to your town, flying them there from afar.”

  Brand’s axe shifted on his back. His smile, which had been a fleeting affair at best, faded into a snarl. “Are you telling me you know something? Speak plainly, girl!”

  She laughed and the sound was like tinkling silver bells. “Of course I don’t know any of these things! The point is: you don’t either. If you let yourself worry about these maybes and wherefores, you will never rest and enjoy life. The key to the joy of my people is we don’t worry about what might come to be.”

  “A man does not gain much in life if he doesn’t face his responsibilities,” Brand said sternly.

  She shook her head and took his arm. Her hands felt like butterflies landing upon this skin. Her touch tickled slightly, but it was definitely a pleasant sensation.

  “You don’t understand at all,” she said. “My worries will come or not come. If they do come, I will be there to greet my woes when they arrive, but not a moment before. For example, all of us must die someday, but should we think of nothing else today, while we yet live?”

  Brand stared down at her. Her large, round eyes looked back up. She seemed most sincere, and he really did think he was beginning to understand her point. If one was a worrier, one could forever find a new thing to worry about. In a way, everyone had to decide at some point not to worry about the future in order to be able to enjoy the present. What if, for instance, Telyn was destined to die in child birth with their first child? Should he be fearful of that possibility? Or joyous with the hope all would be well?

  “So,” he said slowly. “Your people believe happiness is a choice, not a reality?”

  Kaavi stared up at him. “Very insightful!” she said. She gave her tinkling laugh again, and jumped up toward him. Her lips brushed his before he could pull his face back from her.

  Brand reddened and turned away. Looking ahead he saw now they had almost reached his own world and the Riverton Common. Delicately, he plucked her tiny hands from his arm and cleared his throat.

  “All right boys,” he said loudly over his shoulder. “None of you have gotten lost, have you? Good. We’ll be home in a moment. Don’t step from the path now, or no one will be able to retrieve you.”

  His eyes slid to fall again on Kaavi, who paced beside him. She took two quick steps for each of his sweeping strides. She caught his gaze, and wiggled her nose at him.

  With his own world and people so near, Brand became suddenly aware of her near-nakedness. I occurred to him he was about to march through Riverton with this impish, nearly-nude elf girl at his side. He removed his cloak and swept it around her, putting it on her shoulders. It dragged on the ground behind her.

  “What’s this about?” she asked in bewilderment. “I’d thank you, but I’m not cold, sir.”

  “Pull it about you, please. I don’t want all the River Haven to be talking.”

  Kaavi shook her head and smiled, but she did as he asked. “Only for you, Brand,” she said.

  Brand sucked in a deep breath and wondered how he had gotten into this situation.

  * * *

  Riverton Common was a harsh dose of sunlight and reality as they stepped out upon it. Every man of them in the procession blinked at the sunlight, which still died in the west, filtering through the treetops. As it left them, they were better able to see in the gloomy twilight which they’d become accustomed to.

  “They’re back!” shouted someone. There was a considerable amount of whooping and a half-dozen individuals trotted toward them. Most were children.

  Brand strode forward and hailed them. “Yes, we are back!”

  “Where are the rest?” asked a child in disappointment. Brand thought she might be little Jenny Fob, a cousin of Telyn’s. She was about ten years old, and had blonde hair cut short with rough shears. She looked dirty and unkempt.

  “There are a few more coming,” Brand said, looking over his shoulder as more men and their new wives appeared as if walking out of a thick morning mist.

  “I don’t see daddy,” said the Fob girl.

  “Are you Jenny Fob?” he asked her.

  “Yes Lord Rabing,” she said.

  “Poor girl,” said Kaavi coming and kneeling before her. “Your father is one of those who stayed behind. I’m sure he’ll come back when he’s done with his…ah, honeymoon.”

  Brand walked close and loomed over the two of them. “How long have you been waiting on the Common, Jenny?” he asked.

  “Over a month now,” she said. Jenny put up a brave front, but a tear ran down her face. “I come here every morning and night.”

  Kaavi caught her second tear with her finger and lifted it high.

  Jenny stared at her. “Are you an elf?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  “Yes dear,” said Kaavi. She peered inside the droplet of water as it clung to her fingertip.

  “What do you see in my tears?” asked Jenny.

  “Lots of things,” Kaavi said.

  “Like what?”

  “A hot meal and a warm fire, for two!”

  Brand cleared his throat and they looked up at him. “Let’s take you back to Riverton. I’m sure the Fobs at the Tannery will look after you tonight.”

  He led the way toward town. The group broke up behind him, every man taking his wife a separate direction. It felt good to be home, even if he was a month late. He wondered if Telyn had worried overmuch. He suspected that she had. As was often the case when journeying to the Twilight Lands, time had moved differently here. Historically, this was particularly common when Faerie celebrations were involved. He supposed he should be glad only a month had passed rather than a year.

  Kaavi took Jenny’s hand automatically. As Brand walked beside them, he could not help but smile. Kaavi had Jenny giggling before they dropped her off at the Tannery. Afterward, he saw the elf girl tasting her finger. Was that the same teardrop? Had she carried it somehow, all this time? She ran her tongue over her finger with an odd expression of curiosity? He suspected it was the first child’s tear the elf had ever experienced.

  * * *

  They spent the night in Riverton at the rebuilt Spotted Hog. Brand paid for two rooms with clinking silver coins. Kaavi complained when she realized she was to be left alone in an unknown town in an unknown world for the night. She tapped at Brand’s door and asked to be let in.

  Brand opened the door, but put a big hand up to stop her as she tried to slip by him into his chamber.

  “Kaavi,” he said, whispering in the quiet hallway. “You have your own room.”

  “The bed is rough,” she said. “It’s as if they stuffed it with straw!”

  Brand chuckled. “They did precisely that,” he told her.

  “Beastly!” the elf said. “Have they no goose down?”

  “Not here.”

  “Well, the bed is cold besides,” Kaavi said. She looked up at him with eyebrows raised high.

  Brand blinked back. Was she asking to share his bed? To warm it with him? He felt a flush creeping up his neck. “I’ll have a bedwarmer full of fresh coals sent up,” he told her.

  Kaavi pouted, but eventually returned to her room. Brand spent a fitful night after that, trying to shed thoughts of Kaavi, Telyn and Jenny Fob from his mind.

  In the morning they set sail for Rabing Isle. Brand had nowhere convenient to drop off Kaavi, unlike Jenny Fob. He had promised to find her a mate. There was nothing for it other than to take the elf girl home with him on his sailing skiff.

  They rode the River peacefully. There was little other traffic. As they traveled the quiet waters, Kaavi did not seem to be at peace, however. Brand sat in the stern of the skiff to steer it after having seated her in the prow, thinking she could best see the Haven passing by from there. She slipped under the boom of the sails and soon came back to place herself beside him.

  “Can I steer?” she asked. “I’ve never guided a watercraft before.”

  “We call it a boat,” he said, chuckling. He let her take the tiller, but soon had to put a guiding hand atop hers as they neared rocks, shoals and rapids. She seemed to have no aptitude for steering safely down a river, that was for certain.

  Brand soon noted his hand felt hot upon hers. Was he sweating? How odd.

  “What’s that?” she asked, leaning suddenly across his body.

  Brand sucked in his breath at her nearness, and the scent of her filled his head. It was hard to think clearly. He found himself wanting to wrap his arms around her. She was right there, pressing against his chest, almost embracing him….

  “Ah,” he said, following her pointing, outstretched arm. “That’s a woodpecker.”

  “Such a strange call it makes.”

  He laughed. “That’s not a call! It beats its beak against trees to dig out insects.”

  She frowned at him and pouted. “I’m a joke to you?”

  “Certainly not.”

  Mollified, Kaavi went back to staring at the passing world with big, intense eyes. “You’re trees are rather small here.”

  Brand huffed. “Would you believe our insects are so tiny, we can crush them with a single boot?”

  Kaavi looked at him disapprovingly. “Father said you were a murderous people.”

  “He should talk!”

  She withdrew from him somewhat and crossed her arms under her small, perfect breasts. At some point he realized, she’d managed to remove the cloak he placed upon her shoulders in Riverton. It now lay discarded at the bottom of the skiff. Brand picked it up.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Kaavi said. She grabbed up this cloak, folded it neatly and stowed it in the nets along the gunwales that were hung like baskets for storage purposes. There it wouldn’t be soaked with the water that sloshed at the bottom of the skiff.

  All the while she worked, Brand’s eyes drifted to watch her. His heart quickened in his chest to see her, moving precisely and primly. Her shape was so attractive he found himself wondering why he had not volunteered himself to find a wife among the Fae. He envied the men he’d led to that mystical place. They were off bedding new wives like this…fantastic women who would never grow old, careworn and slow.

  Brand shook his head suddenly, as might a man who awakens from a dream. He saw she was sitting beside him again, very close. Her body was in contact with his, and when he moved the tiller, he could not help but touch her.

  “I say, could you move up to the prow again?” he asked.

  “Whatever for?” she asked.

  “I’m a married man,” he explained.

  “So?”

  “Well, I know it is not the same for your folk, but I’m feeling an urge to…” he said, and trailed off, not wanting to put his thoughts into words. “Anyway, it would be better if you did not sit so close.”

  Kaavi stared at him for a time, then tilted her head charmingly and gave him a knowing smile. “Take me,” she said. “If that is your wish.”

  “What?” Brand croaked. It was hard to think. He felt a surge of excitement run through him.

  “Right now,” she said. “Before we get too close to your home.”

  “I’ve just finished telling you I’m married—”

  “I will not tell any tales!” she said.

  “I don’t want to hurt her.”

  “Exactly,” Kaavi said, almost in a whisper. She leaned conspiratorially close again, and he caught her wonderful scent. “You must hurry, if your wife is not to know!”

  Brand kissed her suddenly. She responded immediately, passionately. He almost lost control. Something distracted him, however. Something that prodded at his spine tenaciously. It was extremely irritating. He felt a weight on his back, and he reached back to scratch it or remove it, with violence if necessary.

  The axe handle slapped into his hand. A hot rush of rage coursed through him. His eyes bulged until they all but popped from his head. He stood in the skiff, causing it to slide and wallow. Kaavi, who had crawled up into his lap, fell to the bottom of the boat in shock. The axe rode high in the air, his white knuckles wrapped tightly around the haft. He could not recall drawing it, but there it was.

  Ambros spoke into his mind: Slay this witch before thou art lost, fool!

  The axe released a yellow flash of silent lightning. The brilliance echoed back from the trees around them. A dozen birds launched themselves from branches, screeching in fright.

  Kaavi crawled quickly away from him toward the prow of the skiff. He moved to follow her, but the sails got in the way and fouled his legs with infernal ropes and ties.

  Brand’s axe struck and chopped through the mast, cleaving it down. The Golden Eye of Ambros flashed as it bit into the wood and cut right through it. With an oath, he heaved and kicked the mass of wood and canvas over the side. The sails were still attached by ropes to the skiff, however. They slowed the boat and caused it to twist around and become caught on boulders as they passed by. Brand paid none of this any heed. He advanced on the cowering elf girl, the temptress who’d dared place her spell over him.

  Kaavi knelt before him in the prow of the boat. Clearly, by the terror in her face, she felt her life was forfeit.

  “I am the axeman!” he roared, and he lifted the axe again.

  “I plead for your forgiveness and mercy, axeman!”

  “You have tempted me with your person!” he cried. “You must confess: you were sent here by your father to cause me discord and strife, weren’t you?”

  “You asked to bring me here, milord!”

  Brand blinked. Some part of him which was still whole and clear-minded asserted her words were truth, but he was not yet dissuaded. The axe had not tasted blood for months, and it hungered for a meal.

  “Can you deny you have flirted and caused me no end of lustful thoughts? Was this not done purposefully?”

  “I thought you enjoyed my company, Lord Rabing.”

  Brand gave a roar of frustration through his gritted teeth. Spittle flew, and the elf girl cowered further. “Of course I enjoyed it! That is not the point! You were sent here to disrupt my family, to ruin my home. I beg you to deny it!”

  “Then I do so: I deny your accusation.”

  Brand knew now that he was in the right. His face split into a broad grin. The Amber Jewel in the axe flared bright with anticipation, and he took it into both hands at once. Ambros filled him with a sense of justice and well-being.

  “Lies!” he roared. “You have compounded your slattern actions with LIES!”

  Kaavi shook her head emphatically. “I cannot help my nature, Lord Rabing. I beg of thee, do not slay me as you have slain my twin sister!”

  Brand faltered then. His grin faded, and he stared at her for a time. She spoke further, but he heard none of it. Her voice was like the babbling of the River itself that flowed beneath his boat. His axe stayed upraised, lifted high and shining brightly, competing with the sun itself.

  He knew now why her face had been too lovely to him, why he had almost recognized her and felt so haunted by her beauty. This girl was full-grown now, but she was the same as the elf girl he had once cut down upon a Fae mound in the Twilight Lands. He had carried a silver lock of her hair for years, and had only recently set it aside in a cedar box for safe-keeping.

  Brand sank down onto the boat’s stern bench and replaced the axe on his back. It went reluctantly, squirming to get past its master’s will as might a hound that smells fresh meat. He forced it away and felt tired when it left his mind. He sat there on the bench for an hour while the elf girl wept. Brand ignored her, lost in thought.

  At long last, he cut free the wrecked mast, rope and sails. He began to pole the river bottom, pushing the skiff toward home.

  Kaavi watched him all the while, not daring to speak further. Her eyes were wide with fear. Each time he moved suddenly, she winced or ducked away from him. He handed her his cloak again.

  “Put this on,” he said.

  This time, she did so without argument.

  When the sun had almost set, they arrived on Rabing Isle, tired and late. Brand wondered what Telyn would say when she met this pair on her doorstep. It was sure to be an awkward homecoming.