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from my skin and blowing it free like dandelion seed.
    I put my hand on the prisoner’s arm, not a gentle touch, this time, but a hard grip that made his head come up sharply and his muscles tense. 
    “A god rides your brow, whoever you are. And that is not an easy nor a comfortable gift. Believe me, I have cause to know. But I can’t let you stay here and get yourself recaptured and killed. There’s too much at stake.” I drew in another breath, still gripping his arm. “I need you to come with me now. And if anything happens to me, if Vortigern’s men find us, and I’m the one captured, I need you to swear to me that you’ll run—as fast as you can—to where my father’s men are. I’ll draw you a map on the ground here, now. And you must swear to me that if anything happens to me, you’ll get to my father’s men and deliver the message that they must make ready to attack.”
    I saw him start to shake his head, saw him open his mouth to refuse again. I tightened my grasp. “You must! Would you have Vortigern remain king thanks to you? The man who gave you these?” I touched the raw lash marks on his back. “Would you let your choice tonight keep that man on Britain’s throne?”
    I could see the fine tremor of a muscle on the side of his jaw, and realized just how on edge his nerves were, how close to the point of breaking. 
    The moment lengthened, stretched out, the night silence grew and swelled between us, broken only by the harsh bark of a fox from somewhere not far distant, the creak of the branches above as they swayed in the night breeze.
      Then, finally, the prisoner jerked his head in a wordless nod. He grimaced as the movement jarred his injuries, but spread his hand out, palm up.
    “Go. I’ll follow. I swear to it. As you asked.”
    * * *

MY FATHER'S MEN were gone. 
    They should have been hard at work, clearing earth from the tunnel they had made on the eastern side of Dinas Ffareon. But the forest was utterly deserted, and the black mouth of the tunnel, when we reached it, yawned silent and empty as a tomb.
    I drew the prisoner inside, rearranged the cover of brush and branches over the opening as best I could. In truth, what else could I do? The prisoner had kept pace with me as best he might—and truly, better than I could have hoped—as we had made our way through the chill, dark night, skirting the thick forest along the base of the hill.
    But the walk had tired him. He was pale and sweating, muscles shivering as though he fought at every moment a grim battle to stay on his feet. And dawn was breaking, pale-gray light beginning to spill like a cascade down the hillside. We could not risk remaining out in the open much longer; Vortigern’s patrols might be rare in the usual way, but he would surely send out searchers when he woke from the night’s drinking and found his proposed sacrifice to the gods gone.
    “Sit.”
    The prisoner didn’t resist, but sank down as I bade him onto the ground, though still with an echo of that spare, focused economy of movement I had seen in him before. A warrior’s training, too, had been carved deep into his muscle and bone.
    I had given him my cloak to cover himself, and a pair of Bron’s breeches that rode low on his hips and ended well above his ankles. 
    But apart from that, I had had no boots nor other clothing to offer him. I could see, now, in the faint light of dawn that filtered through the branches, that his feet were pale with cold and bleeding from a dozen and more scratches, as were his hands and arms. He braced his forearms on his knees and lowered his head, and I heard the harsh rasp as he fought to control his breathing.
    The opening of the tunnel had been braced with split timbers to hold back the weight of earth above and around. I sat down opposite him, leaning against one of the wooden beams. The prisoner’s eyes, bleak and gray in the pale half-light, met mine.
    “What now?”
    I gave him the answer I had already decided