Oisin came awake slowly, struggling up out of a deep sleep, to an awareness that something was wrong. He wasn’t in his bed. He was…walking? He was walking out the door behind Bel’s palace, out onto the grassy hilltop. Why was he doing that? How had he gotten out of bed while still asleep? What was going on? He had been dreaming…something, he couldn’t remember what. Had he somehow walked here in the dream?
“Hello there, little deer.”
The dark, smug, familiar voice snapped Oisin to terrified alertness and he spun around to see Alitius standing behind him, between him and the door he’d come out of. The god’s golden eyes gleamed with delight in the starlight and his teeth were bared in a wolfish grin.
“You were Belinos’ sacrifice, but now you will be mine,” said Alitius, and he laughed as h
