She stared at him, not wanting to breathe, not wanting to break whatever unbreakable spell he was weaving about them both. He took her hand, casually, as if he feared she would bolt if she realized what he was doing.

She could only look at him, mute, and labor under the thoughts that clamored for her attention: that she might have fallen in love years ago with the prince who had used her mourning gift so thoroughly; that she might have even more fond feelings for the golden peasant she'd pa.s.sed the past several days with; that she might be becoming unsettlingly enamored of the man who so casually taught her wizard's speak and rode like a demon through palace gardens and over the fallen statues, and ragged hedges.

And to think all those men were merely facets of none other than Gilraehen the Fey, Prince of Neroche.

King of Neroche, now.

She wished that she'd known it from the first; she never would have allowed herself any feelings for him at all if she had.

"I will keep you safe," he said quietly.

She shook her head. She would make her way alone soon enough. It was what she had planned on from the start, after all. There was no reason to change that just because she'd found her heart involved in something she hadn't planned on. Magic was her goal and she would just have to continue her search for someone who could teach it to her.

She realized, with a start, that tears were coursing down her cheeks.

Gil put his arms around her and pulled her close again. "Mehar, I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head, but found nothing to say. She merely stood there in his arms and contemplated the apology she would have to offer for soaking his shirt.

A throat cleared itself from a safe distance behind them.

"Gil? They grow restless inside and you know I cannot satisfy them."

"In a moment," Gil said. "I'll be there in a moment."

"Well," Alcuin said, "I wouldn't let myself be caught in the stables thusly were I you. No offense, Mehar."

Mehar pulled away from Gil, then pulled her sleeve across her eyes. "Just trying to wash up a bit," she said. "Didn't have any decent water to hand."

Alcuin grunted but said nothing.

Gil dragged his good hand through his hair. "I have to go."

"Aye, you do." She put her shoulders back. "Sorry for the tears. I'm not used to the price on my head, you see."

He was looking at her, she could sense, but she couldn't meet his eyes. Whatever he felt, whatever she might have imagined he felt, he was still set to wed with the Princess of Penrhyn. Even if he hadn't been, that was no guarantee he would turn his clear eye her way.

"Alcuin, watch over her," he said with a sigh. "Who knows what other kind of filth is lurking about. Apparently, my defenses aren't what they should be, but I don't dare do more."

Alcuin steered him back toward the stable doors. "Go. I'll keep watch over her. And I'll entertain her with all sorts of unsavoury things about you after you've gone."

"Sounds treasonous," Mehar said, trying to smile.

Gil muttered something under his breath, shot her a final searing look that made her shiver, then turned on his heel, and walked swiftly from the stables. Mehar looked at Alcuin, who, for once, didn't curse at her. Instead, he handed her a coin.

"Take it back," he said. "If I'd known what you were about, I would have given you the hare freely, and caught you another."

"You're too kind."

"I pity you," he said simply. "Gil, of all people. Don't you know he has more bad habits than I have curses? Now, if you were to cast your eye my way, you would find a man of truly impressive lineage, impeccable manners, and diverting antics."

"But I haven't cast my eye his way," she protested.

He stared at her so long that she finally had to look away.

"Hrumph," he grunted. "Poor wench. Well, we'd best be about some sort of training for you. Never let magic rule when a dagger will do is my motto."

"Do you have no magic of your own?"

"None that I'll admit to," he said. "Besides, I'm fonder of my blade than all that whispering and muttering under my breath. Bring that dagger lying fallow over there and we'll make for the chicken coop. It's empty and no one will look for us there. Especially no one from Penrhyn, if our luck holds."

She followed him from the stable silently-silently because he seemed to have as many words to hand as he did foul oaths and he seemed determined to talk her to death.

"Thank you," she said, when he finally paused for a few good breaths.

"For that?" he asked, his eyes quite devoid of guile. "You don't really like him anyway, do you? He snores, you know. And he doesn't bathe on long marches. I think you'd be far better off with someone not so afeared of a harmless bit of soap. Take me, for instance. Come along, woman, and I will list my virtues for you. That will occupy the whole of the afternoon."

"Will there be another list on the morrow?"

He smiled, and Gil's dimple showed from his cheek as well. "Of course. I have a quite exhaustive supply."

"Heaven help me."

"Aye, you'll say that as well, when I find you a sword."

"I know where to find a sword," she said.

Alcuin looked at her sharply. "Is it keeping company with a crown?"

"It might be."

He grunted. "Well, then you'd best keep a good eye on both. And we'll go over that spell of protection again, the one Gil taught you this morning. Even I can manage that one in moments of strain, Mehar. Don't know why you can't."

But he patted her companionably on the back as he said it, and she knew she had a friend, at least for a while. She let out her breath slowly. She could do this; she could remain at the castle and learn what she needed to, then be on her way.

And then she would pray she never would have to see Gilraehen the Fey again.

Her heart wouldn't survive it.

Chapter Six.

In Which Gilraehen Finds That Serving Supper Can Be a Perilous Undertaking . . .

SEVERAL endless hours later, Gil stood in the shadows of the kitchen herb garden and watched Mehar go at a helpless bush with his father's sword.

It was, he had to admit, a novel sight.

Fortunately for the shrub, she didn't seem to be able to get it and the sword within the same arc, but she made a valiant effort. She swung, she heaved, she spun.

She landed quite firmly upon her backside.

She looked around quickly, as if to make certain no one had seen her, but Gil knew he was too far in the shadows to be seen even despite a very full moon, so he didn't worry. Besides, he wasn't laughing. He remembered quite well his first lessons with the sword-a sword that he later realized had been purposely too heavy for him. Perhaps Master Wemmit had been trying to teach him humility. He'd certainly never learned the like as a part of more otherworldly lessons. Nay, sword mastery had come dear, and he prized it the more for the effort.

Mehar might as well, in time, though he couldn't imagine what she might be thinking to do with such a skill. There were shieldmaidens in his father's kingdom, he supposed, but they were seldom made such without grave necessity. A brother, a father, a lover wounded and in need of protection-those were the things that drove a woman to master a blade and bend it to her purposes.

His hand ached suddenly, and then his heart, followed quite hard by a flush of shame. To think that she might have seen his hand he could stomach; that she might want to aid him was moving; that she might have him enough in her heart that she would tramp about in the mud in the middle of the night to pay for that skill so she might protect him made him, by turns, humbled and astonished that he could be so foolish. She was not here for him; she was here for herself.

He wished with all his heart that she needn't be.

d.a.m.n that Tiare of Penrhyn and d.a.m.n him for having agreed to endure her waspish tongue.

Mehar had, whilst he was about his torturous thoughts, picked herself up, taken a firmer grasp on the king's sword, and proceeded to try to demonstrate to it who was in charge.

A goodly while later, when the moon had moved quite a bit more toward the middle of the night, even Gil had to admit that said soul was not her.

He watched her as she sighed heavily, jammed his father's sword into the ground, then turned her attentions elsewhere. She fetched her mother's book and studied a page for a few minutes. She put the book aside, then wove a spell of protection quite beautifully over her chosen bush. Gil was tempted to add his own charm to the shrubbery, but refrained. Let the victory be hers.

She retrieved his father's sword and hacked at the bush with all her strength.

The sword clove it in twain.

Gil held his breath.

Leaves had scattered, branches had split and cracked, and blossoms were lying on the ground.

Or so it seemed.

Then, slowly, the ruin dissipated, and the bush resumed its proper form.

She laughed.

He smiled so hard, tears stung his eyes.

May the stars in the heavens and the pitiless faeries in their sparkling palaces look upon him with mercy, he was lost.

Mehar examined her handiwork another moment or two, then took her book and his sire's sword and trudged back to the house. He watched her go and wished he'd never been born the prince, never agreed to wed Tiare, never given his heart where it couldn't go. If only he could change the present . . . He leaned back against the stone of the palace's outer wall and wished for a miracle.

Unfortunately, given the lack of miracles in his life so far, he didn't hold out much hope.

Eventually, he pushed away from the wall and headed back to the hall himself. Maybe if hope wouldn't be with him, luck might and he would avoid any unpleasant encounters with any of his future in-laws until he had his treasonous heart under control.

He thought about seeking a bed, but found himself suddenly standing before the door to the chamber of records. It didn't matter to him, really, who Mehar's forbearers were. He would have loved her if she'd been a thief or a princess, poor fool that he was. But since he was where he was, there was no sense in not seeing what a little look into Tagaire's impossibly cluttered chamber might yield. He pushed the door open, took a deep breath, then sneezed heartily.

He picked his way around stacks of papers, teetering piles of books, and perilously positioned inkwells. Apparently his spell of restoration had worked all too well inside Tagaire's chamber-taking it back to its former state of glorious disarray.

He spent the rest of the night turning ma.n.u.script pages and wishing for better light than the weak magelight he dared conjure up. A candle didn't bear thinking on; he had visions of the entire chamber catching fire due to a stray spark and that kept him from looking for any suitable wicks.

Dawn had broken and the sun was well into his rise toward midmorning before Gil made his way, bleary-eyed but much enlightened, toward the kitchens. He'd found Elfine of Angesand's name entered neatly into Tagaire's books, and thereby knew her claim to a mighty magic. Her line was pure, going back to Isobail of Camanae, who was the mightiest of her kind in the days when those with gifts had been a.s.sembled together and their places decided upon. What would Mehar do, if she knew? Wilt under the pressure or rise to great heights because of it?

He would tell her, eventually, when he thought it would serve her. For now, his curiosity satisfied, he suspected that what would serve him best was a hearty breakfast.

He walked into the kitchens to find Cook in high dudgeon. She banged and clattered and cursed loudly. And that was just when she saw him.

"Have they been awake long?" he asked politely.

He ducked to miss the flying spoon, then loitered with his hip against the work table whilst she made ready a substantial meal.

"I don't think you've ever fed me this well," he remarked.

"I won't be feeding you at all if you don't send them on their way," Cook threatened.

"And how am I to do that?" he asked.

"A finger gesturing toward the front door might do."

He refrained from comment. For all he knew, one of Tiare's spies was lurking behind the flour barrel, waiting for just such an admission of agreement, whereupon the scout would immediately repair to his mistress and tell the full tale. Gil would then find himself begging pardon from a furious Princess of Penrhyn.

He shuddered at the thought.

So instead, he waited, and while he waited, he examined Mehar's lineage and that of his own and speculated on the children such a union might produce. A fruitless and dangerous speculation, to be sure, but he hadn't slept well in a very long time and his poor wits were at their worst.

Such unhealthy contemplation took him through the rest of Cook's grudging meal preparations and on into the great hall where he struggled to carry several dishes in his arms. He wasn't very good at it, given that his maimed hand was of use for little besides trying to keep the plates balanced on his other arm, but he was the king, after all, and not a page, so perhaps it didn't matter what he dropped. Hopefully he would be better at juggling the affairs of his realm than he was at juggling plates of meat and bowls of sauce.

Dour Dougla.s.s was already seated and Tiare was preparing to sit when he reached the high table. He started to set down his burdens when Tiare set up a screech so piercing that he dropped everything in surprise.

"d.a.m.nation, woman," he exclaimed. "What are you-"

She only made more shrill noises that left him wanting to cover his ears. He looked about him in alarm, half expecting to see an army of trolls marching in to make a breakfast of him and his guests.

But there was nothing in the hall.

Nothing but him, Tiare, and her father.

And then he realized, quite suddenly, what was amiss.

In his haste to see to Tiare's comfort and make the meal presentable, he'd neglected to make himself presentable as well. Tiare was pointing to his maimed hand with a look of complete horror on her face.

"I will not wed with that," she howled.

"The dirt will wash off him," her father said placidly. "Look you, he's already cleaner than he was yesterday."