"Don't let Adhémar take a turn without waking me," he said. "I'll pay for it, else. "
She smiled. He saw her do it. "I won't. Now, shut up and go to sleep. I have much to think on. "
He imagined she did.
Acid-tongued, ruthless, unyielding girl.
Good heavens, he was lost.
Chapter Twenty
Morgan looked at her hands as they held Reannag's reins and wasn't sure she recognized them anymore. It wasn't the first time she'd thought that. Indeed, she'd spent an inordinate amount of time considering them over the past month.
But how could she not? She gone from using them to hold a sword to using them to weave a bloody spell. Was it any wonder she could scarcely stop herself from looking at them?
Spells, swords, calluses, chipped nails?she had them all. And not that she cared, but no man in his right mind would want anything to do with her hands.
She paused. Perhaps that wasn't completely true. Miach didn't seem to be all that frightened of her or her hands. He'd held her hand in his in Hearn's stables when her dreams had troubled her; he'd squeezed it briefly now and again when she'd been overwhelmed by her dreaming; he'd held it the night he'd told her of Catrìona of Croxteth.
She wondered if he might ever do something so foolish as to ask for her hand in marriage.
"Morgan?"
She realized with a start that he was looking at her. "Aye?" she managed.
"You look unwell," he said with a frown.
Unwell? Daft, was more like it. She had a quest, for pity's sake, then other adventures to pursue. She had no time for a marriage.
Especially to a man who could render her quite sensible self equally useless by a simple touch of his hand on her hair.
She straightened. "I am well. Just distracted by the noise."
He nodded. "I agree."
The noise was, as fate would have it, the polite discussion going on in front of her. They sat at a crossroads and there was, from all accounts, a difference of opinion on which path might lead in a northerly direction. Well, apparently both would eventually lead one north, but the left-hand way was a straight shot and the right-hand way a more circuitous, interesting route that led past taverns frequented in the past.
Morgan suspected left was the way to go, but she was in unfamiliar country now. It was difficult to truly know which way was best when she had spent the whole of her life on a small island hundreds of miles to the south.
Well, almost all of her life.
The part of her life she remembered, the simple part that had nothing at all to do with her life now?that life that was full of dreams and darkness and wishing she need have no more part of either.
"I say a jaunt wouldn't be out of the question," Camid pointed out loudly. "It would be brief. "
"It would have to be," Paien said with a grin. "I daresay you left quite an impression on the locals the last time you were there."
"And how would you know that?" Camid asked.
"They're still speaking of it," Paien said. "At least they were the last time I was here, oh, ten years ago. Deeds worthy of song, my friend. I vow I might be able to find the precise tavern where I first heard the most impressive tale. Shall we search for it?"
Camid stroked his beard and chortled modestly. "How could I refuse? They might want me to scratch out my mark for them. On the wall, or a table, or some such place."
"The keg behind the bar, no doubt," Glines said. "And after that tavern, we'll search out a more respectable part of town where I might replenish my funds. My purse is feeling quite light."
"How could that possibly be the case?" Adhémar asked crossly. "Given that so much of my gold finds home in it?"
"Some day I may find myself unable to game properly," Glines said earnestly. "I'm seeking to put a little away against such a time."
