Hearn was going to have quite a bit to say to Miach about corrupting his horses with shapechanging.
She hadn’t seen Miach, though she supposed neither had anyone else. He’d been closeted for the whole of the day with Adhémar’s ministers. She knew this because she’d been sought out several times by official-looking young lads wearing crowns on their tunics who had come to tell her that even though Prince Mochriadhemiach was still in council, he had expressed concern about her care and wanted to make certain she knew he would seek her out at his earliest opportunity.
By supper, she’d been looking for another distraction and found it in the person of none other than Mehar of Angesand, who had been quite happy to jump off the roof of a tower with her and fly in dragonshape. Perhaps Mehar had once outrun her own demons, for she had certainly been willing to indulge Morgan in attempting to outrun her own. She hadn’t offered much in the way of conversation outside of comments on the weather and the most likely spots for a good updraft. She said only one thing of import as she’d left Morgan at her door.
“I fell in love with Gil when I thought he was a stable boy,” she had remarked casually. “The crown didn’t change him. Or me, I daresay.”
Morgan had tried to sleep on that, but it had proved a most uncomfortable pillow.
All of which left her where she now was, pacing through the hallways with a hood over her face to hide who she was and a cloak pulled close around her to ward off the chill.
She was having more success with the first.
She hadn’t seen Miach yet that morning, but she hadn’t been surprised by that. He likely hadn’t managed either much sleep or any meals that hadn’t been eaten whilst he was being badgered by ministers of this and that. Actually, so far that morning, she hadn’t seen anyone at all.
Well, that wasn’t precisely true.
She had seen and continued to see a steady stream of princesses and escorts that astounded her with not only their finery, but their beauty. She had no idea how tidings of a potential new lad on the throne had traveled so quickly or been responded to with equal swiftness, but there were, she had decided, many things that she just didn’t understand.
“Watch your step!”
Morgan stepped aside as a particularly lovely woman almost ran over her.
The woman smoothed her hand over her bejeweled frock and straightened her crown, then looked down her nose. “When I am queen, you filthy urchin, servants such as you will pay better heed to where they’re going!”
Morgan blinked. “Queen?”
“Aye,” the woman said, drawing herself up. “I am come for that express purpose.”
“And your name, Your Highness?” Morgan asked, because apparently she couldn’t keep herself from taking a knife to her own breast and plunging it in to the hilt.
“Beatrice of Penrhyn. Of course.”
“Of course.” Morgan wasn’t at all surprised at Princess Beatrice’s manners, given that she’d encountered Beatrice’s older sister in Tor Neroche several months earlier. And a pair of days ago, as well. “You must be grieved for your sister’s demise,” she said quietly.
“Briefly,” Beatrice agreed, “but I like to move on to happier thoughts.” She frowned at Morgan. “You are quite talkative for a serving wench. I suggest you learn your place before I don my crown. You won’t like what happens to you otherwise.”
Morgan imagined that might be quite true. She made Beatrice a small curtsey, then slipped past her and continued on. It was tempting to continue on right through the front doors and out the front gate, but of all the things she was, a coward she was not.
I fell in love with Gil when I thought he was a stable boy
.
Mehar’s words echoed in her head in a particularly stubborn way, as if she’d added a little spell to them to make them do so. Morgan sighed to herself. She’d fallen in love with Miach when she’d thought he was a farmer. Perhaps it wasn’t his fault that he’d been chosen to be the king.
Though it was a little hard for her to swallow, Mehar’s annoyingly incessant words aside.
She rebuked them sternly, then continued on to blessed silence inside her head. Or, rather, she would have if the damned ring she had on her hand hadn’t begun a little song, a song that became a duet as the knife in her boot joined in.
At least the Sword of Angesand was safely and quietly lying under her bed where it couldn’t offer either its opinion or its harmony.
She continued to walk through the passageways, avoiding piles of luggage and collections of princesses, until she found herself standing at the bottom of a circular staircase. She paused and listened for a moment, but couldn’t hear anything that led her to believe there might be someone above. She began to climb the stairs.
In time, she found herself on a landing, facing a door that was ajar. She pushed on it gingerly and found that it swung in without protest. It was cold inside that tower chamber, but that might have had to do with all the windows set into the walls, floor-to-ceiling windows that made her feel as if she were almost flying.
There was a luxurious rug on the floor, slim tapestries lining the walls between the windows, and a substantial hearth set into another of those walls. Chairs were set in front of the fire with a finely woven blanket tossed over the arm of one, as if it had merely been left there carelessly after a happy conversation had ended. Morgan walked over and fingered the red material. It was marvelously soft and seemed to whisper comforting things as she touched it.
She wandered over to one of the windows, then sank down onto a handy window seat and looked out. The countryside was bathed in early morning sunlight. She could even see the ocean glistening in the distance from where she stood. It was a particularly lovely scene and soothed her as nothing had in days. She had no idea what the future would hold, if Miach would want her, if she could bear what he’d had suddenly thrust upon him—
The sudden crackle and pop of fire in the hearth startled her so badly, she leapt up and whirled around with a shriek. Miach stood in the doorway. He held his hands up slowly.
“Only me.”
Morgan slipped her knives back up her sleeves, then turned away before she had to look at him. She’d forgotten in the haze that had been the past two days just how handsome he was.
And how much she loved him.
Nay, she couldn’t say that. She’d thought of little else, actually, and when she hadn’t been thinking about it, she’d been trying not to think about it.
She felt rather than heard him come to stand next to her. He was silent for several moments. It was all she could do not to turn, go into his arms, and burst into tears. But she wasn’t a crier, her lengthy bouts of blubbering at Lismòr aside, and she wasn’t about to indulge at present. She lifted her chin and continued to stare out the window.
“Do you like the view?” he asked at length.
“ ’Tis spectacular,” she said, but her voice cracked on the last word. She cleared her throat roughly, then tried again. “Aye, ’tis very lovely.”
“It was my mother’s private solar,” he remarked. “I spent many a happy hour here with her, lying on the rug in front of the fire and imagining up what would hopefully be a brief stint as archmage of Neroche before I went off to farm in the hills near Chagailt.”
She almost smiled, but she couldn’t. She put her hand on a tapestry and tried not to dig her fingers into its weave.
“I don’t think your stint will be brief,” she said.
“Hmmm,” was all he said.
Her eyes began to burn. She cursed, but that didn’t help. She looked for strictures to recite, but Weger hadn’t provided her with anything to use in the event that she might find herself betrothed to a man who had suddenly found himself king of Neroche. She was half tempted to blurt out a few spells of Olc in a last-ditch effort to harden her heart, but she didn’t think she could go that far. Tears began to stream down her cheeks, but she would be damned if she was going to acknowledge them. She was a cold-blooded mercenary with scores of battles under her belt, ruthless, callous, in control of her emotions at all times—
“Morgan.”
She made the mistake of looking at him. His eyes were very red. Perhaps in his own way he was just as miserably uncomfortable as she was. And that thought finished her off as nothing else could have.
She turned and went into his arms. She thought she might have wept a bit, but she wasn’t particularly keen on determining that. She was fairly certain that Miach offered her some sort of cloth to use in wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, but then he took it away again and used it himself. She was positive he then spelled it into oblivion.
“Will you ever give me a gift that you don’t take away and make disappear within minutes?” she asked.
He managed some species of laugh and hugged her so tightly, she gasped. “I told you at Lismòr that I am not adept at wooing.”
“A handkerchief, Miach, that remains in the same chamber where you created it for more than a quarter hour. How hard can that be?”
He took her face in his hands, smiled at her, then kissed her softly. “Come sit with me before the fire and I’ll work on one just to please you.”
She found she couldn’t move. He looked at her in surprise, then he put his arms back around her.
“What is it?”
She swallowed, hard. “I have been thinking of running.”
He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I know. I just don’t know why.”
She pulled out of his arms, then gestured at him with a jerky motion. “Well, look at you. King of Neroche, and all. You have a bloody crown!”
“I had a crown before.”
“The new one will be bigger,” she said pointedly. “And have you seen all those princesses downstairs? I think Adaira’s younger sister is already planning your honeymoon. She informed me the servants, including me, would be better mannered after she was queen or else I would come to regret my cheek. And do you have any idea how many
other
women are downstairs, waiting for you to show your face so they can fall upon you like, well, like those damned faeries at Buidseachd did—only these gels have, I daresay, pedigrees to actually tempt you!”
Miach gaped at her in astonishment for a moment or two, then he gathered her back against him. He held her very tightly. She supposed, after she thought on it for a moment or two, that he held her so tightly so she wouldn’t feel him laughing.
“Damn you, if I could just reach a blade,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest.
He seemed particularly unintimidated by the threat. He merely continued to hold her close. He kissed her hair, then sighed, the deep sort of a sigh a body might indulge in when he was happy to be home after a long journey.
“Woman, you’re daft,” he said finally, sounding more amused than he should have. “Why would I look at any of those lassies downstairs? My heart is already given. Don’t give them any thought. They’re the same swarm that periodically descended for Adhémar. I imagine they kept their trunks packed for just such an exigency as this.”
She was tempted to smile, but she managed to avoid it because the truth was just too brutal to ignore. “But, Miach, I don’t look anything like any of them.”
“Thank heavens,” he said, sounding vastly relieved. He pulled back far enough to look at her. “Morgan, you look like an elven queen of old, grave and remote and so beautiful that any man who sees you will fall to his knees and feel himself fortunate to be allowed to merely stare at your loveliness. I’ll likely spend most of my time in that position as well.”
“Don’t tease me,” she warned.
“I’m not teasing you. Don’t I already spend vast amounts of time simply staring at you in a besotted fashion?”
“Glines seems to think so,” she agreed reluctantly.
He smiled. “He has it aright.” He hesitated, then his smile faded. “Shall I tell you how I think we’ll survive this? In truth?”
“Please,” she said with feeling.
He took a deep breath. “I’ve given it quite a bit of thought, actually,” he said. He smiled briefly. “It was the only thing to keep me awake during the past two days of interminable meetings.”
“Was it, indeed?”
“It was, indeed. Now, here is my plan. When we must, you’ll be Mhorghain and I’ll be Mochriadhemiach. We’ll wear our crowns and look important. Then we’ll take our crowns off and be just Morgan and Miach. And nothing will change between us because I’ll still best you in every game of cards we play—”
“Ha,” she snorted.
“And you’ll still come close to besting me on the field every time we cross blades.”
She scowled at him.
He smiled. “See? I’ll love you to distraction, you’ll pour gushing praise upon my head all day long, and we’ll be happy.” He caught her left hand and held it up. “And I think you’ve forgotten something.”
The circlet of runes glinted very faintly in the light from the window. She sighed, then looked up at him. “Perhaps my grandfather wasn’t so far off with that crown of yours, was he?”