Chapter 1 Baucent Stronghold Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina “You’re a pretty lad,” Etienne Guelard, the swordsman wielding three feet of razor-sharp, copper-clad steel, told Jamys Durand. “One step more and you’ll not be.” Murmured wagers swept round the loose circle of half-naked onlookers as their watchful eyes shifted from the massive brute waiting inside the warriors’ circle to Jamys, who stood just outside the perimeter. Beyond the sprawling compound of Baucent, nightfall had drawn its deep amethyst cloak across the mountains; its gilded edges had narrowed the glittering gold of sunset to a silken fringe of tangerine. November had sharpened the wind from crisp to cutting, and turned to diamond density every drop of moisture touched by its wintry breath. Ten thousand acres of evergreens stood guard among the bare, leafless branches and trunks of kin that the long, dark months had already sent to sleep. Jamys kept his back turned against the modernized version of a medieval mansion. Tonight he could not retreat to the safety of his father’s house. The mortal architect who had been commissioned to design the mountain fortress of Baucent had never understood the need for the broad, walled space at the back of the main house, or why the owner had vetoed any landscaping for it. The human had not been told that the space would be called the lists,