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CHAPTER 8 - MORGAN
He pushed back thevelvet hood of his cloak.
“An ambush?” I glanced back at Merlin.
“Forgive the subterfuge,” she said. “He wished to speak with you... and I believe there are things you need to hear.”
“As it happens, I wished to speak with him, too,” I said. “So I’ll forgive your methods, Merlin... this time. Next time, simply ask.”
Merlin nodded. “I understand. You are no longer a child.”
Then, to my surprise, she turned back to the door and left the passage.
My uncle and I were alone.
I turned to face Caspar Starweaver.
“You nearly killed me.”
“I am glad I was not successful,” he said calmly.
I crossed my arms. “I’m to believe you planned not to be?”
“It’s the truth.”
“So you somehow... what?” I shook my head. “Manipulated Arthur into hiring a royal guard who you already knew was not what he seemed?Sir Ectordidn’t even know the truth.”
He and Dame Halyna had thought they’d peeled back the truth, and Sir Ector had told me Draven was an assassin-for-hire, a ruthless one. “So you somehow knew that Draven was posing as a royal guard who was posing as a brutal assassin but that he was... neither of those things.”
“How well do you know him?”
I flinched. It was an excellent question. But not one I wanted to face.
My uncle’s eyes swept over me thoughtfully as if he were seeing much more than I was saying. “Even now, you are not sure, are you? Yes, I knew. That said, he really is quite a talented assassin. Perhaps not as cruel a killer as Arthur was led to believe, however. Or Sir Ector for that matter. I’m sorry about that. Tricking Sir Ector was not my primary intent, of course. But it can help to be thought of as worse than you are.” He smiled slightly.
“You would know, I suppose? Just how much about Draven do you know, really?”
I thought about all of the things Draven was. The list was lengthy.
Fae.
Crown prince.
Royal guard? For a time.
Assassin? Apparently before he’d come to Pendrath. In that shadowy period where he’d been banished by the Siabra court for his brother’s murder.
My protector? Always. Whether I wished it or not.
My husband. But in the royal courts, women often had husbands they hardly knew and did not love. Marriage did not make them true partners. It did not make them mates. Was Draven? Was he my mate?
I looked at my uncle, wondering just how much he’d seen, suddenly feeling strangely exposed.
