"I must go to battle, Leigh," he declared, "but I cannot leave your side until I convince you. Surely you can wait a few more days."

"Guy, you'll die, I know you will. Her voice was choked with tears. Don't go to battle just to die, please, I lost one husband, don't let me lose another!"

"But I am not truly your husband . . . yet."

"You never will be if you go to battle!" She grasped his arm. "Please, Guy, Richard will have understood. Come with me."

"Leigh . . . just come with me."

She was pulling him down with her into the center of the bed. She wrapped herself around him, bringing him farther and farther into the feathery deepness. Together they floated and drifted. She could feel the strange pull, that spinning sensation she'd felt that long-ago night. As her eyes closed, she could feel her body suspended in that distant spacetime, a passageway not of her world or any other world, but a void into which they both entered. She grasped him, her fingers clamped around his arms. He was still with her. Then, ever so slowly, he began slipping away.

"Guy! Stay with me!"

"I cannot, love, I am falling!"

"No! Oh, God, no!" She clutched at his arms, his hair, his doublet, yet he kept slipping away; that same force that was bringing her forward was pulling him back. He grabbed her arms, but his fingers soon lost their grip. She could feel him tugging at the watch, then it slid off her wrist, scraping her knuckles as he grasped at it. The band snapped, her last connection with him now broken, and the force tore them apart. "Guy!" she screamed his name one last time, flung her arms out to him, but clutched only emptiness. He was gone.