She looked to her right and discovered the source of the very vile smell she realized had been troubling her even in her sleep. It was an elven prince’s bastard grandson, covered in dungeon leavings and listing so far out of the hard chair he was sitting on that she was half amazed he hadn’t fallen to the floor already.
She sat up with a gasp. “You’re free.”
Acair startled himself awake so badly that both he and his chair went sprawling. She tried to catch him, but that only left her tumbling out of bed onto the floor next to him. She would have reached for him, but he held up his hand to hold her off.
“Don’t let me ruin those lovely nightclothes of yours.”
As tempting as it was to throw her arms around him just the same, he had a point. She had never owned anything so fine as the garb she was wearing, so ruining it with the grimehewas wearing seemed a terrible waste. She settled for a deep sigh of relief.
“How did you manage it?” she asked, then she froze. “Should we run?”
“We’re in the clear for the moment,” he said with a faint smile, “so no need to hop out the nearest window and leg it before Master Ollamh wakes himself with his snores.” He nodded toward the bed behind her. “Why don’t you get off the floor so you don’t catch a chill? I’ll give you the entire tale once you’re tucked back in.”
She crawled to her feet, then righted his chair for him. “Let me at least fetch you some wine.”
He heaved himself back up onto his seat, then closed his eyes and breathed lightly. “In a moment, when I think it will remain where I put it. I need to just sit for a bit, if you don’t mind.”
His condition was appalling, which left her suspecting he was very fortunate to still be breathing. She didn’t think the king had left spells below to torment him, but obviously just being locked in that terrible place for so long had been enough to leave him half dead. She wasn’t fully herself, which left her options for how to help him a bit on the thin side, but until he could eat, she could at least give him clean hands.
She walked over to a stand bearing a pitcher and bowl, leaning on various things on her way there when dizziness overcame her. She brought back what she needed, then set everything on the floor and found a footstool to use for a perch. She ignored his protests and washed his bruised and bloodied hands for him. She hesitated, then shrugged and dried his hands with one of the king’s fine towels that would likely be fit only for the rubbish heap.
She set the towel and basin aside, then looked up at him. “Not much better, but at least you’ll be able to eat without gagging.”
His eyes were rather more bloodshot than they had been a handful of moments before. He was also seemingly speechless, which she imagined might have been a first for him.
“The fireplace smokes,” she offered.
He cleared his throat roughly. “I’ll be sure to pen a sharply worded complaint when I can toddle off to His Majesty’s solar for ink and parchment.”
She imagined he just might. She gathered up what she’d used, carried it all to the far side of the room where neither of them would have to look at it, then returned to sit on the side of her bed. She would have offered Acair her spot, but she had the feeling he wouldn’t take it. A gentleman to the last.
“So,” she said, “how did this all come about? I don’t know if I’m more surprised to see you here or find myself here instead of winding up downstairs myself.”
He settled back against his chair and sighed deeply. “I believe His Majesty is a little unnerved by your ability to burn things down and feared to anger you further.”
“Surely not,” she said, shifting uncomfortably. “Though I’ll admit I did lose my temper.”
He smiled faintly. “I’ll choose discretion and refrain from making any comment about the color of your hair and what, if anything, that might indicate.”
She would have glared at him, but she was honestly too unsettled by her actions to do anything but wish she hadn’t been responsible for them. She had always prided herself on being in control at all times. It was part of what made her a good horsewoman, never mind keeping her alive when she would rather have told her uncle to go to hell.
With the king, though, she’d been overcome by a fury that perhaps exceeded what his flat refusal to release Acair should have warranted. She’d reached for a spell of fire-making Acair had insisted that she learn, confident that since it had come from him, it would have a bit of nastiness attached.
Certain that that would leave the right impression, she’d spat it out in the king’s direction with a ferocity that would have alarmed her if she’d been able to think past the flames that had burned inside her—and apparently outside her as well. It would have been easier to believe she had memorized the spell amiss, but the truth was, it had gotten away from her in a way no bolting stallion ever had.
She found that she couldn’t remember anything after that. Whether she had fainted because a guard had clunked her over the head with a sword hilt or she’d been overcome by the very foreign and unwelcome power that had rushed through her, she simply didn’t know.
What she did know was that she wasn’t sure she had any idea who she was any longer.
“We could talk about this, you know.”
She pulled herself back to the present moment. “I don’t want to.”
“I mean—”
“I know what you meant.”
He simply watched her in a way that was so reminiscent of the way his mother studied people, she almost flinched.
