The Dané lifted his head, and a single anguished cry tore through him—echoing from the ice-clad walls, resonating in my bones. And then, stretching his arms to the heavens, he rose on his bare toes and whipped one leg around so that he spun in place. A quick step and then he spun again…and then again, moving around the pool in a blur of flesh and color and woven light, one arm curved before his chest, one above his head. The very rocks wept with his sorrow. I thought my heart might stop with the beauty of it.

When he reached his starting point, I stepped farther into the grotto. He halted in midspin and dropped his hands to his sides. He was not at all surprised to see me. And I recognized him. Three times I had glimpsed this same one of them…but never so close. Never in the fullness of his glory.

His eyes glowed the fiery gold of aspen leaves in autumn. On his left cheek the fine-drawn pattern of light scribed a dragon, whose wings spread across brow, shoulder, and chest, and whose long tail wrapped about his left arm. Below the graceful reeds that curved from his hip across his belly, a hatchling dragon coiled about his groin and privy parts. He appeared no more than thirty, but Danae lived for centuries and did not age as humans do.

“I didn’t know this would happen,” I said. “The man I brought here pretended to be what he was not. The child he slaughtered was an innocent…chosen because he was my friend. Never…never…did I mean to bring this on the one who slept here—this Clyste. My grandfather—” I caught myself before saying more. The Dané wouldn’t care to hear that a human wept for her.

“As wolfsbane art thou, Cartamandua-son,” he said, speaking fury and grief in the timbre of tuned bronze. “Beauty and poison.