She turned the pages, perhaps a little desperately, wanting nothing more than a distraction from a journey she did not want to contemplate.
And then she found she could turn no more.
She stared down at the words swimming before and wondered why it was they seemed so perilously cold and brittle.
Then came the black mage of Ceangail, Gair by name, who never aged and begat children after a thousand years…
A noise outside the door startled her and she jumped as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't have. She hastened away from the desk and went to stand near the fire before the door was fully opened. She shifted nervously, her face flaming, her heart racing. Nicholas shut the door behind him and returned to his seat. He sat with a gusty sigh.
"Bloodshed averted," he said happily. He looked over his shoulder. "Come and sit, my dear."
Morgan did, praying that he wouldn't notice her appalling condition. She reached for her goblet of wine, but her hands were shaking so badly, she could hardly hold it.
But why?
She knew nothing of mages or magecraft and she couldn't have cared less about the bloody black mage of Ceangail. Perhaps he had a tale that was so truly dreadful, even just the reading of his name was enough to make one unsettled. She drank deeply of her wine. No doubt she had heard his tale at some point, found it unbearable, and forgotten it, only to remember the horror and not the details…
Nicholas wrapped the blade back up in its velvets, then patted it meaningfully. "Now, let us seal this bargain. You will take this to the king for me, won't you?"
"Why me?" she asked, in one last attempt to escape what was beginning to feel like fate.
"Because you are the only one I would trust," Nicholas said.
Well, if he was going to put it that way, she could protest no further. Besides, there was no point in arguing with Nicholas when he'd decided upon something. He would wear her down until she relented.
She sighed. "Stow it in the bottom of my pack where I need not touch it and I will do as you ask."
He looked at her for quite some time in silence, then he leaned over and brushed the hair back from her face. He hadn't made the gesture often, not after she was grown and needed no father's comfort. But he'd done it the morning she'd left the university for her trip across the island to Gobhann, and he'd done it the first night she'd returned after winning her liberty.
He ran a finger over the faint mark above her brow.
"I never can decide," he said quietly, "whose you are: mine or Weger's. "
"You say that often."
"I think it often." He smiled and sat back. "You are your own, Morgan, my dear, and you carry in your heart the best of both worlds." He patted the knife. "Take this to your king and offer him your sword as well."
"I'll take him the dagger," she conceded, "but I will not stay. I have business here on the island. Important sieges." She said it firmly, but it sounded rather hollow to her ears, as if those sieges might not be so important after all.
"Is the island big enough for important sieges?" Nicholas asked.
Morgan glared at him. "It is full to the brim with bickering lords bent on mayhem and willing to pay for aid in perpetrating it. There is work enough here for me."
"If you say so," Nicholas said. "Perhaps you will change your mind when you reach Tor Neroche."
"I doubt it," she said grimly. "Very well. I'll go tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? Surely not. You'll need supplies. It will take me a se'nnight to see to them."
"A week, old man, will leave me too spoiled to make it across Melksham, never mind finding my way to the king's hall."
"Then sleep on the floor, Morgan, my dear."
She frowned. "The floor? And leave that bed to go to waste? I couldn't."
Nicholas laughed. "Sleep on the bed, love. It may be a while before you have another one."
"I shudder to think," she muttered, but she suspected that she would sleep on the bed and be grateful for it.
