I smiled at him and patted his arm like he was a cross between a teenager and a puppy. “Thank you, Dougal. It’s perfect.”

He blushed and gave me a shy smile.

“Do you think you could find me a wineskin, preferably filled with a nice red?”

“Of course, my Lady!” And off he trotted. Literally.

“He is young.” My husband’s voice sounded amused.

“He’s adorable—don’t you make fun of him.”

ClanFintan snorted in reply.

“I’ll bet you were an adorable young thing once, too.”

ClanFintan snorted again, and several of the centaurs within hearing range experienced coughing fits, which sounded suspiciously like laughter.

Dougal returned with a full wineskin, followed by several young centaurs, all of whom bowed nervously to me. ClanFintan spoke to each by name. I recognized two of them from our excursion to MacCallan Castle, the others looked vaguely familiar, and I figured they must all be from ClanFintan’s private guard. Victoria joined us just as Dougal handed me a piece of sizzling meat on a stick, to the very obvious joy of the young centaurs.

“There is room here by me, Huntress,” one cute sorrel said.

“But you would be directly in line of the smoke from the fire there,” a muscular bay chimed in. “Here you would be free of smoke, Huntress.”

Several other centaurs opened their mouths to make their own bids for her attention, but Victoria silenced them.

“I need to speak with Lady Rhiannon, but thank you for your generous offers.” She accepted a succulent-looking piece of meet offered to her by Dougal, whom she rewarded with a grateful smile.

I thought poor Dougal might faint.

She took her place next to my log, and folded her knees gracefully. As she did so she caught my eyes and rolled her own, mumbling something about silly fresh colts.

“They adore you,” I whispered to her.

She shrugged her shoulders and bit daintily into her Bambi-on-a-stick. After she’d chewed she whispered back, “Young males would all like to tame a Huntress.”

She said it as if there was very little possibility of that happening.

“You don’t have a mate?” I kept my voice low, thankful the centaurs were distracted by talking to my husband.

She gave a horselike snort through her nose. “No! Males take up too much time.”

I laughed, but my eyes gravitated to my husband’s handsome profile. As if he felt my gaze, he turned his head in my direction and smiled warmly from across the fire.

“But they can be awfully nice to have around.” I knew I sounded love-struck, and I didn’t care.

“That is because you love him. I have not found love—so I have taken no mate.” She didn’t sound particularly bothered by it. As if to verify that, she added, “Some Huntresses never mate.”

“Guess you’re kept pretty busy.”

“As Lead Huntress it is my responsibility to travel from herd to herd, training and overseeing all of the young Huntresses.” She shrugged her shoulders again. “It leaves little time for courting.”

“Well, Vic, maybe someone should tell them that.” I gestured to the young centaurs who were still sending her looks filled with longing.

She laughed and winked at one of the staring centaurs, who promptly dropped the meat he was pulling off the flank roasting on the fire. As he frantically tried to grab it out of the hot coals, Sila, who was reclining comfortably across the fire from us, laughed aloud.

“Take care with what you are doing, colt. I will not mend burns caused by foolishness.” At that, the young centaurs all chuckled at themselves good-naturedly.

But they didn’t stop sneaking looks at Vic.

“They are intrigued by the power of a Huntress. When one is intrigued by who I am—Victoria, not the Lead Huntress—then I may be willing to make time for him. Until then they are sweet diversions, and no more.”

I was dying to ask her about centaur sex, but ClanFintan chose that moment to join us, and, well, when girlfriends talk about sex it is a girl-exclusive subject, even when one of the girls is part horse.

“Huntress, this is exceptionally choice venison. May I commend you on your hunting today?”

See, I knew we’d been eating Bambi.

“Hunting is easy in this forest. It is brimming with game.” Vic sounded nonchalant, but I could tell she was pleased by ClanFintan’s praise.

I started to tell her that I thought it was good, too, when Dougal cleared his throat and caught my attention.

“Lady Rhiannon—” his eyes were shining and his cheeks were flushed “—I have been asked to inquire if we could entice a story from you tonight.”

Oh, jeesh. Here we go again.

“That would be lovely, Rhea.” Victoria gave me a girlfriend grin. “I have heard you are a master storyteller, trained by the Muse.”

Great. Actually I’m a master teacher who memorizes well enough to plagiarize pretty easily.

I could see ClanFintan shifting nervously at my side, obviously worried that Shannon couldn’t hold up to Rhiannon’s reputation.

He should have known better by now.

I wiped my hands on my pants, tossed my hair back and stood.

Smiling at Dougal, I said, “I would be delighted to tell you a story.”

At my words, exclamations of happy surprise went up from the group around our campfire, and I noticed several centaurs within hearing passed the word that Rhiannon was telling a tale, so my crowd began to grow.

For a teacher, that’s a good thing.

I cleared my throat and put on my storytelling voice, which was part actress, part teacher and part siren. Tonight I made sure it was heavy on the siren part, while my mind was questing ahead, changing and rewriting the romantic legend of the Phantom of the Opera.

“Once, long ago, a child was born with a horribly disfigured face. His eyes were mismatched, his lips were deformed, his skin was thin and yellow, like old parchment, and where his nose should have been, there was only a grotesque hole.” My audience made murmurs of disgust. “His mother abandoned him at birth, but a kindly goddess—” I searched my brain frantically “—the Muse of Music, took pity on him. She carried him to her temple and allowed him to live in the catacombs beneath it. To make up for his terrible disfigurement, she gifted him with that which was most important to her, a magical ability to make music, both with instruments and his voice. So, the child grew into a man, living in the bowels of the temple, worshipping music and perfecting his craft. His only love was music; his fondest joy was to listen to his Goddess training the voices of the neophytes who came to study at the temple.”

The centaurs were rapt with attention—a seriously good class.

“He never allowed himself to be seen, he even fashioned a mask, white as moonlight gleaming on snow, which he wore always to shield his face from the shadows and spirits that were his only company. He even believed himself to be a shadow, or a spirit, and he called himself the Phantom of the Temple.” (Well, it worked.)

“He convinced himself that he was content with his life, convinced himself he needed nothing more than music to fill his dark days and endless nights. Until the day he happened to hear a young neophyte auditioning, and he made the mistake of glancing at her through a hidden mirror. He fell instantly and irrevocably in love. Her name was Christine.”

I moved around the fire, weaving a bastardized version of the timeless story. I loved teaching the story to freshmen—every year I had them read Gaston Leroux’s original, then I would read aloud to them from Susan Kay’s 1990s romantic retelling. Then we would listen to Andrew Lloyd Weber’s amazing musical. By the time the final scene was played, there were very few dry eyes in my classroom.

For my centaurs I mixed the best of the three versions together, recreating a tale that mesmerized them.

“…and when he finally had Christine alone, down in his chamber beneath the temple, he knew there was only one chance she would love him—and that one chance was if his music could move her heart enough that she could forget the horror of his face. So he wrapped her in his words and sang to her of The Music of the Night.”

“What did Christine choose?” My husband’s voice was thick with emotion. The world had narrowed so that it seemed we were alone.

I smiled through tears and told a big ol’ whopping lie. “She overcame her fear of his appearance and chose the beauty within him—and they lived happily ever after.”

A cheer went up from my audience, followed by lots of loud clapping and stomping of hooves. In the midst of it all, ClanFintan pulled me into his arms and kissed me long and hard, which caused a lot more cheering and stomping. Then he picked me up and, to the accompaniment of lots of ribald shouts, carried me quickly away from the campfires. Over his shoulder I was surprised and touched to see Sila smiling wistfully as she wept openly, and Vic wiping tears from her shinning eyes with one hand, and waving at me with the other.

Clearly, I’d been a hit.

“And you didn’t think I could do it.” I kissed his muscular shoulder, then (on second thought) gave it a sharp bite.

“You know I can bite back.” He looked down at me with mock seriousness.

“I’m counting on it.” I kissed the place I’d just bitten.

“It is not that I did not think you capable of entertaining them…” He paused. I stayed silent, allowing him to continue as he carried me away from the firelight. “It is just that I know you do not like to be thought of as Rhiannon, and storytelling is a very…”

His voice trailed off and I offered, “A very Rhiannon thing to do?”

“Yes.” He looked relieved that I understood.

“Our lives overlap—” I shrugged “—I can’t help that. All I can do is make what was hers my own.” I wondered briefly what kind of mess she was making of my life. Then I squelched that thought. This was my life; there was nothing I could do about what she was or was not doing in another world. If I dwelt on the possibilities, like how badly she must be hurting my friends and family, it would drive me insane with frustration. There was no going back, no fixing it. I looked up at my husband’s strong profile, and admitted to myself that even if there was a way for me to go back, I wouldn’t. I understood it was a selfish decision, but he was my love and with him was where I chose to make my life. I closed my eyes and rested my head against his chest, wishing sincerely that Rhiannon would get hit by a bus.

11

“You are not asleep, are you?”

“No.” I opened my eyes and looked around.

ClanFintan had been traveling north, and we had passed out of the area in which the army was camping. I heard him answer a sentry’s hail, pausing only long enough for him to acknowledge the centaur’s salute before he continued moving. He veered to the right, and we were soon encased by the darkness of the forest. The moon had risen, and points of silver light drifted down through the ancient trees, washing everything in a surrealistic glow.

“Where are we going?”

“I have a surprise for you.”

“Really?” I started patting his vest for pockets.

“What are you looking for?”

“A jewelry box.”

He laughed. “Not that kind of surprise.”

He began looking around at the floor of the forest, like he was searching for something. Then I heard his satisfied grunt as he came to an old fallen tree. It looked as if it had been split almost exactly in half, probably by lightning. ClanFintan walked over to the largest half.

“Stand on this,” he said as he carefully deposited me on the log.