He felt broken, shattered beyond repair, pieces of his heart bleeding and torn. Shaking his head to clear it of his confusion, he looked around him, tryig to find one reason, one explanation for it all, but only the soft sighing of the wind and the miserable sound of a mourning dove answered his silent question: Why?

What hundreds of his enemies had tried to accomplish had easily been done to Conar McGregor by the carelessness of one woman's small hand. Nothing had ever brought this mighty man to his knees before. Not punishments at the Abbey when he was a child nor disappointments as a man. He had always been able to withstant the loss and pain, the hurt and disillusionment thrown at him over the years But this had been too much to ask.

"Liza," he whispered brokenly to the morning wind.

Deep in his soul, he feared he would never see her again. She had taken his heart when she had fled to the DarkLands. The thought of never being with her again was more than he could bear. Life wihout Liza would be a living hell.

He felt so alone. He was alone. He would be forever alone, now. There was nothing left, no future to cling to. In her arms, the world had been held at bay. Nothing could hurt him as long as he had her. Now, that peace, so fleeting in his life, like his innocence, his trust and his dreams was gone. Gone forever with the woman who had fled his arms.

In his despair, he arched his head back and a scream of unearthly animal torment was torn from his throat.

"Her love for him made her leave," Teal du Mer whispered to Conar's men.

Lord Legion A'Lex exploded at the words. "Love?" he scoffed. "She took his heart and crushed it, leaving him in grief. I fancy I'll not ever want a woman to love me so tenderly!"

From the straw-strewn loft of the old tavern stables, came a hitching sigh of sound. A trembling hand--one that held the heart of the mightiest warrior in the kingdom within its small circumference--brushed at the drops of moisture clinging to pale cheeks.

To save Conar McGregor's honor, she might well cause him greif, but the sorrow in her own heart at being torn from his side was of no less intensity than the pain in his.

Together, they were both paying a high price for daring to fall in love.

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