Morgan rubbed her eyes and wondered if now her descent into madness was complete. The boat had obviously done more harm than she'd dared suppose. The question now was, was it permanent?
She looked again at the cheerfully blazing fire and saw that Adhémar squatted next to it, warming his hands against it, but now he had been joined by another man.
Another man?
Morgan took a step forward and looked at them both. They looked so much alike, she could scarce tell them apart, though the newcomer was younger and seemed a bit raw, as if he had traveled a great distance in terrible haste.
Adhémar seemed to have no pity for him. He began to babble at the newcomer with great irritation. Morgan did not consider herself unlearned, but this was a tongue she had never heard before.
She leaned heavily upon her sword. Could the day worsen? First had been a battle with things from her nightmares, then the sword that blazed with a bloodred light, and now these words that were being spoken in front of her but swirled in her head as it she'd dreamed them long ago but forgotten them until just this moment.
She realized her knees were not going to hold her the split second before she went down upon them. Adhémar jumped to his feet and looked at her in surprise, but he made no move to help her.
The other man rose, shook himself like a wet dog, then walked around the fire and held down his hand to her.
"Don't bother," Adhémar said. "She won't take it. "
"But I'll offer just the same," said the second man.
Morgan was not herself; it was the only reason she allowed him to pull her to her feet. Perhapspullwas not the right word for it. It was as if she had been floated back to her feet. That had everything and nothing to do with the man in front of her. She pulled her hand out of his immediately and clutched her sword as if it was the only thing holding her upright.
Which, as it happened, it was.
The second man coughed suddenly. She supposed it was from his long journey as an eagle. Nay, hawk. She looked at him with a frown.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Does it matter?" he rasped.
She supposed it did not. "Are you a shapechanger?" she asked, feeling things around her beginning to spin. Shapechanger. How was it a word she had never considered before came so easily to her tongue?
"Who's to say? You know, you don't look well. "
"I don't feel well." She paused. "I was seasick."
"That can be draining," he said, reaching out to lay his hand lightly on her shoulder. "Let me help you back to the inn."
"Nay…"
"I think you're going to fall."
"Never…"
She felt herself pitching forward.
She supposed the ground would hurt when she met it, but blackness descended before she knew for certain.
Chapter Seven
Miach stood with the woman in his arms and tried not to hurt her as he clutched her to him. He had been traveling as a hawk far longer than he likely should have and the wildness was still coursing through his veins. It was an effort to speak instead of scream, to use his arms for carrying instead of beating against the night sky.
And that was only part of the problem. He looked down into the woman's face and caught his breath. She was, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful women he'd ever laid eyes on. Not pampered and coiffed and painted like the princesses and their ilk who came to Tor Neroche singly and in packs, hunting for a prince or better. Nay, she was beautiful in an almost painful way, like air in the winter that shimmered with frost and hurt to breathe in, or icy water that rushed and cascaded over stones in a stream and was breath-catching to swim through.
Just looking at her hurt him.
He looked at his brother, intending to ask who she was, then thought better of it. Adhémar was definitely worse for the wear of the previous months and seemed eager to dispense a bit of blame for that. He was already cursing Miach thoroughly. Miach suspected that it he asked for the woman's name, Adhémar would give him the wrong one out of spite.
He took a deep breath and focused with an effort.
