The Mage's Daughter

“Let’s go to the buttery.”

  “Why—”

  “Because Nicholas is telling the Tale of the Two Swords. If I must hear it again, I will scream.”

  “What is wrong with the Two Swords?” he asked, even more surprised. “Don’t you care for it?”

  “There is too bloody much romance in it,” she said curtly.

  Ah, well, here was the crux of it, apparently. “Don’t you like romance?” he ventured.

  She looked as though she were trying to decide if she should weep or, as he had earlier predicted, stick him with whatever blade she could lay her hand on. “I don’t know,” she said briskly.

  “I see,” he said, though he didn’t. He wished, absently, that he’d had at least one sister. He was very well versed in what constituted courtly behavior and appropriate formal wooing practices, thanks to his father’s insistence on many such lectures delivered by a dour man whose only acquaintance with women had likely come from reading about them in a book, but he had absolutely no idea how to proceed with a woman whose first instinct when faced with something that made her uncomfortable was to draw her sword.

  Or walk away from him, as she was doing now. “Supper,” she said over her shoulder.

  Miach caught up to her in one stride, then walked alongside her with his hands clasped behind his back. “So,” he began, drawing the word out as long as possible, “what would you think if someone wanted to ply a bit of romance on you?”

  She stopped still and looked up at him in astonishment. “On me?”

  “Of course, on you.”

  She blinked. “What the hell for?”

  He smiled in spite of himself. “For the usual reasons, I imagine.”

  “Who would be that daft?”

  He took a deep breath, then let it out silently. “Well, I would, actually.”

  Her mouth fell open. “You?”

  He took a deep breath and reminded himself that he was a prince of Neroche and that there might actually be a woman in the realm who would like to have something formal, or stated, or even discussed with him.

  “Aye,” he said.

  She looked at him for another moment or two in surprise, then sighed and bowed her head. “Miach…”

  He smiled, though it cost him quite a bit. “A few games of cards,” he said. “A bit of time in the lists. A few escapes from dragons bent on incinerating us. Actually, I’m not very good at romance. But I could try. For you.” He paused for quite some time. “Unless that doesn’t suit.”

  There, that would do it. She could say him nay, leave with her pride intact, and he would be the one with his heart in shreds. Though he’d already rent his heart when he’d left Gobhann. He wondered, absently, if he’d recently acquired a taste for self-torment. First Gobhann, then Morgan. Where would it end?

  Morgan looked down for so long, he began to wonder if she was trying to think of a way to say him nay without humiliating him. Then again, this was Morgan. She would have humiliated him without thought if he’d merited it.

  “Will you sleep in my doorway tonight?” she asked suddenly.

  He blinked. “Is that your answer?”

  She shrugged and looked away. “It seems as good as any.”

  He shut his mouth when he realized it was hanging open. Well, that settled that, he supposed. Perhaps he couldn’t have asked for anything else. She wanted him to guard her back, just as she’d offered to do for him. Comrade-in-arms. Nothing more. He took a deep breath.

  “Of course I will,” he said. “If it will ease you.”

  “Aye,” she said, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “Supper first?”

  She nodded. He walked down the passageway with her and cursed silently. Obviously, he’d grossly overestimated his appeal. Perhaps he should have taken her at her word in Gobhann when she’d reminded him that she had no use for mages. Perhaps he should have realized sooner that she—

  Had reached behind his back and taken his hand.

  He held his breath as she laced her fingers with his. He was almost cowardly enough not to look at her, but he supposed that whatever he saw in her expression couldn’t be any worse than what he’d been through in the past month. He steeled himself for something truly dreadful, then looked at her.

  She was watching him gravely.

  “What?” he said, a little less enthusiastically than he might have otherwise.

  “Aye.”

  “Aye?” he echoed. “Aye to what? Supper? My sleeping in your doorway? Swords in the lists tomorrow?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Nay. Aye, to that other business. Aye to that, damn it.”

  “Oh,” he said, feeling a little like she had just kicked him in the gut. “Romance?”

  She glared at him. “I just want it noted that this is your idea.”

  “At the moment, love,” he said faintly, “I think I’m quite willing to note anything you’d like me to.”

  “You’re daft,” she said, but she smiled at him. “Come on, you impossible man, I need something to eat.”

  “I think I need something to drink.”

  She pursed her lips and pulled him along with her. He was tempted to laugh, but she truly would have thought him daft, so he merely walked with her and kept his good humor to himself.

  He supposed the realities of their future would intrude soon enough, but for the moment he was more than willing to enjoy the fact that Morgan was holding his hand and all her blades were still sheathed.

  He would take it for as long as it lasted and be grateful.

  Twelve

  Morgan dreamed.

  A mother walked with her young daughter through a forest, speaking to her in a tongue Morgan understood but couldn’t name. A sweet, soothing peace surrounded the pair. Morgan followed them, wanting that peace to envelope her as well.

  Soon they came to the edge of a clearing. There was a well there, a well like one might have found in a farm, though this was larger and there was a roughhewn cap sitting atop it. A man stood next to it, dressed all in black. Morgan knew him: Gair of Ceangail. He had come to uncap the well before him, a well of evil that he had boasted he could control.

  Morgan looked around her. She saw lads of various sizes spread out in the glade, all of them older than the girl. She watched the mother, Sarait, leave the girl in the shadows of the trees and walk out to talk to the man.

  Morgan knew Sarait wouldn’t be able to stop Gair from doing what he intended to do. Only she could, because she knew already what would happen. Without hesitation, she walked out into the clearing and caught Sarait by the sleeve. Sarait turned to look at her.

  Morgan blinked in surprise. She felt as though she was looking into a polished mirror.

  She would have stopped to consider that, but Gair had already begun to weave his spell of opening. Morgan turned away from Sarait and ran to him.

  “I won’t let you do this,” she said, putting herself in front of him.

  He didn’t answer her.

  Morgan knew the only way to destroy his evil was to destroy him. She wanted a spell of death and one came to her lips as if it had been fashioned for just such a moment. She recoiled at first from its magic, for it was evil, but she knew it had the power to do what she needed.

  “I’m not Gair,” Gair protested as she began.

  She paused and looked at him. “Of course you are. Stop interrupting me.”

  “Morgan, I’m not Gair!”

  Morgan paused, wondering how he knew her name, then shrugged and continued on. Of course he was Gair. She’d seen Gair in her dreams and knew exactly what he looked like.

  Morgan listened to him grow increasingly frantic and knew that she was doing the right thing. She had to save the people she loved from his evil.

  “Morgan.”

  She looked to her right. Nicholas was suddenly standing there, watching her with an understanding smile.

  “You must stop, my dear.”

  Morgan looked at him, then back at Gair. “But I must
kill him.”

  “It isn’t Gair, my dear. It’s Miach.”

  “It isn’t Miach. It’s Gair.”

  “Morgan!” Gair exclaimed.

  Morgan took a deep breath to speak the last word of the spell.

  Nicholas’s hand on her arm distracted her. She looked at him in irritation, but he only smiled.

  “Morgan, you’re dreaming. You must awake. Trust me.”

  Morgan didn’t want to trust him, but he tugged on her arm. She scowled at him, then turned back to finish her work.

  But in Gair’s place stood Miach.

  Morgan woke with a start. She realized she was on her feet in the middle of her bedchamber. She was facing Miach, who was also on his feet, wearing a rumpled tunic and hose. His gaze was locked on her and he was unmoving. Power was rolling off him with a heat so intense, she stepped back instinctively. Then she realized that there was a word on the tip of her tongue.

  The last word of a spell of death.

  She realized in horror that she hadn’t been dreaming. She’d been weaving that dreadful spell in truth and she hadn’t been trying to use it on Gair, she’d been using it on Miach.

  She dropped her spell like a dirty cloth. Miach fell to his knees, gasping for breath. Morgan threw herself down in front of him and flung her arms around him, partly to see if he was still alive and partly because she didn’t have the strength to remain on her feet. She had never in her life felt such weariness, not even during her first year in Gobhann when she’d often thought she would simply expire from fatigue.

  This was much, much worse.

  She bent to look in Miach’s face. “Did I hurt you?”

  “I’m fine,” he wheezed.

  He didn’t sound fine. He didn’t feel fine either. He was trembling, as if he’d been out in the lists for a fortnight without a single rest.

  She understood.

  He pulled her close and rested his forehead against her shoulder. “Hold on to me,” he said hoarsely. “Just for another minute or two.”

  She put her arms back around his neck and shook right along with him. She knelt there for quite some time, stroking his hair, fighting the urge to break down and weep. Magic was a terrible business, much worse than she’d ever thought.

  It should all, she decided firmly, be consigned to the pit of hell.

  “What can I do?” she asked him, when she thought she could speak evenly.

  “Don’t use that spell on me again would be my first suggestion,” he managed.

  She decided that she would be better off to never use any sort of spell again. She sat back on her heels and looked around to see if anyone had watched her try to kill the archmage of Neroche.

  Nicholas was sitting on her bed, watching them tranquilly.

  “Good morning,” he said pleasantly.

  Miach grunted, but said nothing. He remained hunched over, breathing raggedly. Morgan moved closer to him and put her arm around his shoulders before she turned to look at Nicholas. It took her only a moment to realize why she was unsurprised to see him there.

  “I dreamed you,” she said. “You woke me up.”

  Nicholas shrugged with a small smile. “I heard shouting and came as quickly as I could.”

  “Shouting?”

  “I thought you were having a row. All’s well now, though, isn’t it?” He stood up and smiled at her. “I’ll be in my solar. Come have breakfast when you’re ready.”

  Morgan nodded. She heard him leave and shut the door. Miach groaned and sat back on his heels with his hands on his knees. He looked as if he wanted to do nothing so desperately as to return immediately to bed. “Can I assume you mistook me for another?” he asked faintly.

  “I dreamed you were Gair,” she whispered. “I thought I was killing him, not you.”

  “Heaven help me if you truly become angry with me,” he said, with a half laugh. He dragged his hands through his hair, then let out a deep, shuddering breath. “Well, that was quite a start to the day.”

  “How can you jest about this? I could have killed you!” She hesitated. “Could I have?”

  He looked at her for a moment, then he shifted to sit with his back against the wall. He patted the place next to him and waited until she had come to sit next to him before he spoke again.

  “I suppose you could have,” he said, reaching for her hand and taking it in both his own, “for you caught me by surprise. I could have merely thrown the spell back on you, of course, but it would have killed you. I had to unravel your spell as quickly as you were weaving it and you had quite a start on me.”

  She shivered. “What was that?”

  “A rather good spell of death, actually.” He rubbed his face with one hand, then shook his head sharply, as if he strove to wake. “I don’t know where in the hell you learned it. Certainly not from me.”

  “I don’t even know what language that was,” she said in a small voice.

  “Olc,” he supplied. “Lots of nasty things come out of that branch of magic.”

  “That’s one of the languages you wouldn’t use to extinguish the torch at Gobhann, isn’t it?”

  “Aye.”

  She frowned. “Why do you know the spell?”

  “Because I know many unpleasant things,” he said. “Whether or not I use them is another thing entirely.”

  She looked down at his hands wrapped around one of hers and considered several things she hadn’t before. “That spell you used on those creatures near Chagailt,” she began thoughtfully. She met his gaze. “That wasn’t Olc, was it?”

  He shook his head. “Nay, love, it wasn’t.”

  “But you’re trembling as you were then.”

  He stroked the back of her hand. “All serious magic is draining, Morgan. The more extensive the magic, the higher the price to be paid. And killing magic does not come without great cost to your soul. Even an unfinished spell,” he added.

  She shuddered. “I think this is far worse than any battle I’ve ever fought in. How is it you manage the realm so easily?”

  “It isn’t done easily,” he said with a half smile. “I’m just not one to complain overmuch.”

  “But how do you bear the magic?” she asked. “How can this be what you face each day?”

  He reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Because I grew up knowing there was magic in my veins that I was expected to use,” he said gently. “I have never known a day where magic was not part of my life. I would imagine that it is more difficult for those who have their magic come to them when they’re older.”

  “I daresay,” she murmured.

  “You know, I think perhaps today is not the day to examine that too closely. Let us do as our good Lord Nicholas suggested and join him in his solar. We’ll feel more ourselves after a decent meal.”

  “Is food the answer to everything?”

  He laughed. “If it isn’t, the question isn’t very interesting.” He squeezed her hands gently, then heaved himself to his feet. “Shall I wait for you to dress, or wait for you in Lord Nicholas’s solar?”

  “I’ll come find you,” she said wearily. “When I think I can manage it.”

  He squatted down next to her. “Trying to kill me was in retaliation for last night, wasn’t it?”

  She looked at him in surprise. “What about last night?”

  “The romance,” he said solemnly.

  She gaped at him for a minute, then pointed toward the door. “Get out.”

  He laughed. “Now you sound more like yourself. Hurry up, wench, lest you come late to table and find I’ve eaten all your breakfast.”

  She scowled at him, but he only laughed at her again. He gathered his gear from where he’d slept in the doorway and shut the door behind him. He wasn’t, she had to admit after he’d gone, all that steady on his feet.

  She couldn’t blame him.

  She sat where he’d left her until she thought she could stand without falling down, then she had a wash and dug clean clothes from a trunk N
icholas always seemed to keep stocked for her. It took her far longer than it should have because she kept dropping things. She wondered, as she struggled to change her clothes and get her boots on, how it was that Miach managed to do what he did—no matter what he’d said. For herself, all she wanted was a nap.

  She left her bedchamber and shuffled wearily around the edge of the courtyard. It seemed to take forever to reach Nicholas’s door, but she supposed that came from equal parts weariness and revulsion over the spell she’d used while dreaming. She stood with her hand on the door for several minutes, forced herself to put the morning behind her, then entered the solar.

  Miach and Nicholas had their heads together over a stack of books on the low table in front of the sofa. Morgan watched the dark head and the white so close together, poring over a particular page, and found that something inside her heart shifted.

  And settled into a place that might have been called home.

  She wasn’t sure whom she was more grateful to: Nicholas for treating Miach as an equal, or Miach for being so deferential to an old man she loved like a father. What she did know was that when they both looked up from their work, their welcoming expressions made her eyes burn.

  Poor fool that she was.

  Miach stood and waited for her to come around the end of the sofa. He saw her seated before he resumed his own, as if she had been a fine lady. She didn’t feel it. Her hair was still in tangles down her back and her nails were chipped. She would have considered her flaws more diligently, but Miach took her hand and pulled her forward.

  “There’s breakfast on that table over there,” he said, with a knowing look. “Go have some and stop thinking so much about the condition of your hands.”

  She gaped at him. “How did you know?”

  “You were muttering.”

  She sighed. “Very well.” She fetched herself something to eat, then brought a plate back over with her and sat down on the couch. She looked over Miach’s shoulder at what lay on the table. “What have you found so far?”

  He smiled. “Lord Nicholas has several interesting books squirreled away. I couldn’t not nose through them.”

  Morgan could only imagine what he’d found on Nicholas’s shelves. She looked at Nicholas, but he only smiled and handed her a cup of warm wine.