Desire, power, crest of the wave. He was the force behind the wave and the foam where it broke. Wordlessly, he turned, remembering the way, and crossing the wide chamber, bearing his blood in a stone bowl, he came to its farthest point. To the very brink of the chasm.

Naked as he had been in the womb, he stood over it. And now he did not let his mind go back to the lost things from before; instead, he turned his whole being to the one wish of his heart, the one gift he sought of her in return, and he poured out the brimming cup of his blood into the dark chasm, to summon Dana from the earth on Midsummer’s Eve.

In the chamber behind him the glow died utterly. In the absolute black he waited and there was so much power in him, so much longing. The longing of all his days brought to a point, to this point, this crevasse. Dun Maura. Maidaladan. His heart’s desire. The boar. The blood. The dog in the snow outside. Full moon. All the nights, all the traveling through all the nights of love. And now.

And now she had come, and it was more than anything could be, more than all. She was, and she was there for him in the dark, suspended in the air above the chasm.

“Liadon,” she whispered, and the throaty desire in the sound set him on fire. Then to crown it, and shape it, for she loved him and would love him, she whispered again, and she said, “Kevin,” and then, “Oh, come!”

And he leaped.