Adhémar's youngest brother.
"Miach?" she said, but there was hardly any sound to her voice.
"Who does this wench think she is?" the woman asked shrilly. "He's the archmage of the realm and she addresses him so familiarly?"
Morgan felt the ground begin to sway beneath her. "Archmage?" she said, her breath nothing but a puff of sound that floated out before her and hung in the chill of the hall like a thousand shards of glass that would fall and shatter against the floor.
Miach closed his eyes briefly. "Aye," he said quietly.
She wanted to sit, but she didn't dare. Was it possible? Was it possible that he was who he said he was?
But why? Why would he have lied to her?
She stopped still. The cold steel in her hand was answer enough, she supposed. It was all very clear to her now. The charm and friendliness. The anxiousness to teach her spells. The gallant offer to see her all the way to Tor Neroche.
All only because they wanted her to put her hand on the damned Sword of Angesand and see if it called to her.
Perhaps that she could have borne, if that was all the betrayal there had been. But it went deeper than that?and it all had to do with Miach.
He was not Miach the bumbling farmer, he was Mochriadhemiach, the son of Desdhemar of Neroche. The archmage of the realm.
The archmage, not a inept weaver of spells.
The embodiment of everything she despised.
Her fingers tightened around the hilt of the sword?that beautiful sword that fit so perfectly in her hand?and she looked Miach full in the face.
"Who are you?" she rasped. "Tell me yourself, if you have the courage for it."
The woman laughed. "Goodness, Adhémar, is it possible she truly has no idea of who is whom?"
"Shut up," Morgan said, whirling on the woman and pointing the sword at her. "Shut up, you shrill harpy, before I aid you in doing so by means of a dozen ways you won't care for in the least."
Adhémar's fiancée fell, blessedly, silent.
Morgan turned back to Miach and looked at him furiously. "Tell me yourself. Say the words."
Miach paused only a heartbeat before he looked at her gravely. "I am Mochriadhemiach," he said quietly. "And I am the archmage of the realm."
Morgan heard nothing but that. She saw the truth of it in Miach's eyes and knew he would not apologize for it. But to think of the lies, the deceit, the misleading he had done?
He had called herlove.
A great anger welled up in her. It was so strong, she half feared it would consume her, but that it didn't was even more terrifying. It raged through her with a sound of rushing wind, white hot in its fierceness, leaving her blind to all but her fury. In that moment, she understood what fueled Gair of Ceangail. She understood how he could hate so fiercely that he would destroy everything in front of him without mercy.
She lifted the sword?
And brought it down with all her strength against the banquet table before her.
The blade splintered, shattered, sparked as it disintegrated into thousands of shards and bits that floated through the air before her like snow.
The table remained intact.
Morgan stared at the haft of the sword, that beautiful hilt that was worked with a tracery of flowers, and could not believe what she had just done. She looked about her. Adhémar was staring at her, open-mouthed. Soon that would turn to anger, she was certain of that. She looked at Miach.
His expression of profound pity had not changed.
Where there had been hate inside her, now there was only a deathly chill. Morgan threw the hilt onto the table with a sob and bolted.
