He slept, if fitfully, and Branwyn was by him, so that for most of the hours of the night he did not sleep at all, but lay with his hand closed about the stone, so that he was aware of it, but only dimly participant.

Dragons stirred in his vision, a glittering of lances, of elvish armor, ancient wars.
A face, elvish-fair, hovered near: elf-prince, the shadows whispered, dreading this brightness.  Liosliath, he addressed this apparition, but it was only dream.  The years were  many as forest leaves, as raindrops in the storm.  The earth had passed its youth since this one had set foot on it... cousin to ageless Arafel.

But when he looked, truly looked with the stone, to see what lay about them, his vision went gray and strange, and he seemed lost among the trees which were not the trees he knew.  He remembered the darkness which had coiled among the hills as he gazed outward, severing him from the sea, and still the disquiet crept through him, a sense of power that might do such a thing, silencing the stone.

Arafel's? he wondered.  But the aspect of it had been dark, unlike her workings, and there was a dread about it different from the bright terror he knew of her.  Has she a dark aspect?  Or had Liosliath?  Or can anything dim such a stone?

Arafel, what am I to do with it?

For your defense, she had said.  I do not ask that you use it.  Only that you have the choice.

Has it come?  Or do I only see what has been behind our peace for years?

Do not walk in Eald, she had said, and he believed this, and avoided thinking of it in these gray, weak hours when the veil seemed very thin.  So I am not come to you.  And again: Do I , truly leave this place when I am there?  Or do I dream?  The thought of Branwyn's fright if she should wake and find him fading kept him struggling against it no less than Arafel's command.

When light came he feigned to wake and smiled at his wife, gave her a morning kiss, with the birds singing beyond the slitted window and the gentle-hued light coming to them, for it was spring and they piled on blankets against the chill, but liked the freshness of the air and had the shutters off that they used in winter.
"They know nothing amiss," he said of the birds.  "Listen to them this morning."

"Did you rest?" she asked, searching his face.

"Oh, aye."  He was not wont to lie, but he did so smiling.

He smiled through breakfast - "Will we ride today?"  asked, Ceallach; and "Hush," said Bronwyn sharply.  "No, you will not.  Let your father be."

Ceallach dropped the matter at once, so  unlike his son; and Meadhbh tugged at her brother's sleeve and comported herself as if the question had not come up, very sober.