I had to agree with him on that.

“Watch over her,” he ordered Dougal, gave my hand a quick kiss, then spun around and headed back to the castle. I didn’t envy the task before him.

“My Lady…” Dougal’s young voice sounded shy and hesitant. “May I offer you some wine?” He held out a wineskin that had been strapped to his back.

“Yes, thank you.” I took a deep drink and stared back toward the castle. I could see the centaurs dragging corpses inside the walls. They had disrupted the feeding of the dark birds, which were now circling the castle fretfully. Their greedy cawing carried on the wind. Crows have always made my skin crawl—now I knew why. I took another drink and let the wine wash away the taste of death. Blinking, I forced my eyes away from the gruesome scene and let my vision focus instead on the whitecapped sea. Craggy rocks jutted dramatically up near the edge of the cliff and I had a sudden desire to climb up and let the salty breeze wash the smell of death from my clothes.

I had only taken a couple steps when I heard Dougal’s hooves thud behind me. I spoke over my shoulder to him.

“I’m just going to sit on one of those rocks.”

His expression looked as if he doubted my intentions.

“I promise not to hurl myself over the edge.” He still looked doubtful. “I’ll stay where you can see me.”

The rocks were a lot smoother than they looked from a distance and I had trouble finding toe and handholds. I settled for perching on top of one of the smaller boulders. Facing the water, I loosened my hair from the leather binding, shook it free and closed my eyes. The ocean breeze whipped my hair, lifting it off my shoulders. I ran my fingers through it, willing the clinging scent away from me. I took another deep drink and sent a sincere prayer of thanks to God or Epona or who-the-hell-ever had filled this world with grapes.

I opened my eyes slowly, squinting against the insistent breeze. The shore far below me was wild and dangerous. Waves broke violently against jagged rocks. There was no beach. The sun had drifted down in the sky and, as I watched it kissed the water, making it blush violet and pink. The soft beauty of the sunset was unexpected and I felt my breath catch with pleasure.

Closing my eyes again, I concentrated on things in life that were lovely, not horrifying and unfathomable in their capacity for evil. Like sunsets over the ocean…tall men…red wine. Suddenly an image played across my closed eyelids like a video across a screen. It was a vision of the last time I’d visited Dad. We’d sat on the old wrought-iron chairs that were perpetually rusted because Dad always left them out on the front patio. Our feet rested on the flat top of an old Oklahoma sandstone rock that served as a footstool but was actually just too damn big to be moved out of the way. It was Sunday evening before the last week of school, and already hot for May—I remember the Coors was icy and tasted like spring rain. The warm breeze had covered us with the sweet scent of the butterfly bushes that Dad had planted all around the perimeter of the patio two years before. I told him I couldn’t figure out why mine never did as well as his—he was succinctly explaining to me that his did better than mine because I didn’t shovel enough horse crap on mine.

Which made me laugh then, as it did now. See, some part of my heart told my mind, he’s still alive.