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now, little sister,” Ulla said. “Grer will take me back in.”
    Because he had to deal with woodcutters to get fuel for his forge, Grer got the best price. Wulf’s mother, who knew a good deal when she saw it, had given him a contract to deliver a cord of wood for the castle fireplaces each morning.
    He would trundle the wood in on a woodcart that would normally take two men to handle. Grer was incredibly strong from hammering metal all day. He would make several deliveries to different spots so that the staff could reach the wood more easily and get the castle fireplaces going. Castles were chilly in general, and now in the month of Gormanuder, a room could be downright freezing without a good fire to warm it.
    To get Ulla back inside, she climbed into a burlap bag and Grer rolled her in on a cart full of wood. In fact, since one of the inside woodpiles was near her bedchamber, he was able to deliver Ulla right to her door.
    “You don’t want me to stand watch or something?”
    Grer let out a low chuckle. “We’ll be as quiet as mice,” he said.
    “And you have school tomorrow,” Ulla said. “I’ve already kept you up way past your bed time.”
    This was true.
    “Okay, sister. Good night. And good night, Grer Smead.”
    “Pleasant evening to you, Lady Saeunn,” Grer replied. “Ulla and I…well, we thank you.”
    Saeunn looked at Ulla, whose face seemed aglow after the kiss. “I love my sister,” she said. “So this makes me happy.”
    The night was chilly when she slipped out of the smith’s shop. She got past the bailey guard once again, this time much more easily without Ulla, and made her way through the lightless kitchen corridor back toward the castle and her own bedchamber.
    In the darkness of the corridor she spoke once again with her star. Ulla seems so happy and content, even though what she’s doing is crazy. Do you think I will ever fall in love, my star, my soul?
    Again she heard her star’s crystalline laughter. But this time her star did not reply.
    Never mind, Saeunn thought. I already know the answer.
    Yes, she would. And she knew whom she would fall in love with. She’d seen it in the moonlight on this and other nights.
    Another disaster in the making.
    Maybe it was just the moonlight affecting her, but it was funny how at the moment she really, truly didn’t care. She was having too much fun.

Chapter Five:
The Olden Oak

    Somebody was following them. Or some thing . Rainer was sure of it. He—or it—was being quiet, but Rainer heard the faintest clank of metal on metal. Maybe a sword in a scabbard. Maybe a knife getting drawn. And when he and Wulf stopped to figure out where they were and find their way, he heard footsteps. He’d have to be on guard. It was for sure Wulf would not be. He was deep in the trance he went into whenever, as he said, the dragon called him.
    Rainer loosened the dagger in his belt scabbard.
    Don’t want it to get stuck when I need it, Rainer thought. Having a weapon you couldn’t use was the same as not having that weapon at all. Speaking of weapons, what else could he do if they got attacked?
    Rainer considered the options.
    The cloak, if he could get it off in time. Whipping a piece of clothing at somebody you were fighting could be a very effective distraction. He’d done it before in practice rounds during afternoon training at the castle.
    There were also loose cobblestones. You could pick one up and bash somebody’s brains out.
    Stay aware of whatever is around you and use it to your advantage.
    Rainer could just hear Koterbaum, his arms instructor, lecturing on the subject—maybe after some boring match where both of the guys had been whacking around hopelessly. “A weapon doesn’t have to look like a weapon,” said Koterbaum. “Lose a fight in the yard and you walk away defeated. Lose a fight in battle and you don’t walk away at all.”
    Koterbaum might be a dandy with that waxy moustache of his, and a suck-up to aristocrats, but