With her, I waited on Merlin’s next words, expecting an observation, perhaps, that the difference between a simmering pot and one in full boil was only the amount of heat being applied.
But Merlin’s wisdom struck me dumb. “Take two for your champion,” he advised. “Two halves of the same hero.”
“Two?” The lady’s breaths quickened and the look on her face seemed more panicked than surprised.
“I think you’ll find the temper you desire fully embodied in Sir Marrok.”
“Are you mad?” Marrok’s response came swift. “To put me on the trail alone with…them?”
My eyes narrowed. Of the two of them, I was certain Merlin wasn’t the mad one. But while I struggled to make sense of Marrok’s words, and the lady looked more panicked still, Merlin seemed to understand.
“I would not pair you with a lesser knight than him.” Merlin pointed a long finger at me.
“I’m not yet a knight,” I reminded him.
“Did the king not make it clear enough it’s not the title that makes the knight?”
I bowed my head in humility.
“Then what of me?” Marrok demanded, his voice a strangled whisper.
“Do not forget who or what I am. I can see both the man you are and the man you’ll be. Hear me well: ‘Twas beauty that tamed the beast.’”
What had a cradle tale to do with Marrok? I wondered. More, if the man doubted himself now, how would he conduct himself in a fight? True, there was a volatility about him—something that reminded me of the berserkers of old—that promised extraordinary power at need. Whether that volatility could be harnessed, though, was another matter.
Still, how could I doubt Merlin’s assessment of Marrok when I required the lady to trust Merlin’s assessment of me?
“And the lady?” Marrok asked through gritted teeth.
“Lynette,” she said.
“Has secrets of her own,” Merlin answered. “Blood calls to blood, and I daresay she is more than what she seems. She has more than woman’s wiles to protect herself. And more than woman’s wiles are at play here if she has need to call upon our help.”
“Enchantment?” I guessed.
“Old Magic lingers still in many corners of the land.” Merlin swung his gaze between Lynette and Marrok. Secrets, dark and magical, sparked in his eyes. Understanding seemed to flow between him and Lynette, him and Marrok.
“Can you not speak more plainly?” I asked, tempering the exasperation building in me.
“Their secrets are not mine. Perhaps they’ll reveal them…in time.”
In time. Did he speak simply in terms of days or months, or did he mean they’d need to reveal themselves in time to rescue Lynette’s sister? I silently damned all fae kind. And Merlin’s hint had me believing that just might include Lynette too.
Marrok, though, remained a mystery. A broad-shouldered, slim-hipped mystery with intense and darkling eyes. The very volatility and unpredictability that made me question his suitability for this quest seared like lightning through my soul. He was all that I wasn’t.
But in this Merlin was wrong. I didn’t need Marrok to make me whole. Were not my brothers Gawain, Uwain and Gaheris already heroes by their own merits?
I was being manipulated. Subtle magics, perhaps, or simply Merlin’s skill at getting inside a person’s head and making them see as he saw.
How much could the far-seer know ahead of it happening and how far did his magics reach? I believed I had come to Arthur’s court under my own volition, and that I had volunteered for Lynette’s quest under my own compulsion. But with Merlin at the center of events could I ever truly know how much control over my own life I held?
A part of me that would have made Lynette proud cried in outrage that I was being used as a tool for a purpose I could not fathom. But more so than my outrage, I was intrigued by the magic and mystery that swirled around me. By the strong will and angel eyes of the lady who rebuked me. And by the way Sir Marrok’s every perfect move seemed to swear danger and death to any who crossed him.
I relinquished the last of my control to Merlin, to Lynette, to Marrok and to the quest that awaited. “We ride,” I told Marrok.
Was the gleam in Merlin’s far-seeing eyes one of triumph or tragedy?
Chapter 10
Marrok
“How dare you pledge my services without consulting me? What gives you the right to speak for me?”
Merlin’s chambers squeezed in on me. Hell, the whole castle squeezed me now. The beast craved freedom, to run the cliffs and hunt the woods.
Merlin, calm-faced and sipping some herbal concoction, couldn’t be riled any more than Beau. “You came to me for help. Did you not place your future in my hands? This, lad, is your future.”
“Perhaps you didn’t understand me in the king’s hall. I cannot ride with Beau and Lyn.”
“I understood you well. You meant the wolf cannot ride with them. Tell me about the man. What does he want?”
I felt the blood rush to my face. “You know or you wouldn’t have set me on this path.”
“Perhaps.” Merlin sipped his tea. “Humor me. I wish to hear you say it, to understand how much you really know.”
“I want…”
“Speak up.”
“… exactly what the wolf wants. Is that what you want to hear?”
“It’s what you need me to hear. Now break it down why neither wolf nor man can ride out and do what knights do—rescue innocence from evil.
I panted. The close walls squeezed closer still. “Because when I think about slaying the Knight of the Red Lands, I think about the wolf tearing his throat out.”
“And you’d rather slit it with civilized steel. Will that make Ironside any less dead? Does the means matter?”
“Yes!” The man shouted.
“No,” the wolf growled in counterpoint.
“And yet whether the man or the wolf slays the Red Knight isn’t the crux here, is it? Why not simply leave the coup de grace to Beau? What is it man and wolf both want that anger you so?”
Where had the air so suddenly gone in this tiny cell of Merlin’s? “Beau,” I choked out at last. “Lynette. The one. The other. Both.”
“And you’re afraid they’ll refuse you?”
I scowled at the bait he’d dropped. “I’m afraid the wolf would…that it wouldn’t give them the chance to refuse. And the man…me…I…couldn’t bear that to happen.”
“So the means does matter?”
“The means always matters.” I felt the rift clarifying itself in my mind. “The means is what separates man from brute.”
Merlin nodded, then drained his cup. “An interesting fact about wolves—they mate for life.”
I stared at him, understanding the words, not comprehending why he spoke them.
“You fear what the wolf might do. Have you ever allowed it loose to see what it will do?”
Fear clutched at my already suffocating heart. “Are you mad? The risk…”
“Every mother’s son is capable of putting his sword through the heart of their sleeping neighbor. Yet most don’t. Why is that?”
“And yet what mother would leave their babe to play beside a sleeping wolf? Some tragedies are easier to foretell than others.”
Merlin laughed. “And yet you risk lecturing a far-seer on his craft. Which of us is the bigger fool?”
I felt the beast shift within. I knew its rage, what it was capable of. “Perhaps you trust too far, old man.”
“And perhaps you haven’t learned to trust enough.” He set his cup aside, and I knew our visit was done.
My head pounded as I slunk away. Unleash the beast? No. That way lay only blood and tragedy. Heartbreak and ruin. Merlin did not live inside my shifter skin. He could not know of the wolf what I knew. He believed I didn’t have courage enough to trust. He didn’t understand I needed all the courage I had to keep control.
But if I was to be party to this fool’s quest, I had need of sword an
d armor. My steps turned for the armory when scent and sight at once brought me up short.
I stared at Lynette as she came toward me, her red-gold hair shimmering in the dusty sunlight that filtered in through the high windows. Her face, pinched now with worry, still stirred my heart with its beauty. I wanted her. I panted with that want as she came near and the meadow scent of her flooded over me.
For a moment I wondered what it would be like, with the quest done and her sister safe, to court such a lady and earn her kindness and love. Then all thought of knightly courtesies fled as the wolf within rose up and shook me to the core with its lust. Mine was no civil beast to woo and wait.
“My Lady.” The words strangled in my throat as I beat back the beast.
She eyed me queerly as something of the struggle within must have manifested in my face, my eyes, the way I held myself from her in fear of what a single touch might do.
“Sir Marrok.” She returned my greeting with grace. Then I realized it was not me she sought in this hall but that she was on her way to Merlin’s chambers. She lingered a moment, drawing a deep breath, and my gaze dropped, caught by the motion of her chest. Creamy skin peeked above the piping of the neckline disappearing into the swell below. I wanted tongue and teeth there.
She slid past me then, doing the unthinkable, catching my chin in her blazing cool hand and lifting her gaze so that I was lost in the warm green of her eyes until she was by me. Then with a small smile of regret or sadness or some other emotion I couldn’t fathom, she dropped her eyes and her hand and I was left standing half-quickened in the wide hall as she found Merlin’s chamber and was admitted, disappearing from my sight.
Her meadow-fresh scent lingered on.
Chapter 11
Lyn
The nearly day-and-a-half wait for provisioning before we could be off grated on me. Of course, had I made good on my threat to ride to Joyous Garde, it would have been at least a two-day ride there, another night gone before we could leave, and another day distant from the Red Lands to make up.
Each hour delayed, though, meant more despair for Nessie. Surely she knew I was coming. Surely she knew I would never abandon her. I prayed that knowledge would give her the strength she’d need to see these terrible times through.
The extra day’s wait, however, gave me opportunity to seek out Merlin, to speak to him blood to blood. Passing Marrok on my way to Merlin sent shivers through my stomach. I wondered if he could see the way I trembled within. This close, there was no denying the perfect proportions of him, the haunting beauty of his bearded face. He walked in strength, and the air of dominance surrounding him made it clear to all he was not a man to be trifled with, though the animal part of my brain made it clear it wouldn’t mind some trifling of a different sort.
That he desired me was plain, but I was comely enough to have piqued the desire of more than one man in the years since I’d begun the transformation from girl to woman. This felt…different… More intense. Primal. As though his desire were stripped bare of all the courtesies.
There was magic in the man. Not fae magic, but something just as old. And just as dark. Something that lured me to him, made me want to taste the depths of him, the same something that terrified me soul-deep. If half-fae and untrained as I was, I could sense the magic so strongly, would Nimue not sense him long before we found Ironside’s stronghold in the Red Lands?
That fear was a splash of cold water on the fires of passion his desire stirred from the ashes of my heart. Before I could allow myself to feel anything other than the pain of my sister’s plight, I needed to see through Merlin’s eyes that Marrok’s presence would not endanger Nessie more.
I had to know what Merlin knew.
The druid admitted me into his chamber readily enough, offering me to sit as he poured us each a cup of tea that smelled of chamomile, peadragon and strawberry. He waited patiently for me to speak.
There was so much I needed to confide. About Nessie. About how my dreams were haunted by what Nessie might be suffering at the hands of the Red Knight.
I tried to tell him, but my words were silenced by the failing of my heart.
“Courage,” he told me then, as he brushed a strand of hair from my tearing eye. A gesture of compassion. Of empathy. The physical touch reminded me that the most powerful fae in the world was as susceptible to pain and hurt and love as any who had walked these mortal lands. My fae blood stirred in a vision that came upon me falcon-swift of Merlin trapped—no, entombed—in a crystal cave. It burned across my inner eye, and then the vision expanded and I was listening with Merlin’s ears from within the cave. From without, beyond the crystal reach of magic, I heard a familiar laugh that chilled me to the bone.
Nimue.
I grabbed Merlin’s hand, clutching at it, feeling its warmth, assuring myself of the life it held.
He smiled at me then, father to child, mentor to protégé. “Never fear the future, for what comes is already written and has already passed.”
“Then you know…?”
“Too much. And yet never enough. Every journey ends in sorrow. But that doesn’t mean the journey itself cannot be a happy one.”
“What can you tell me of my sister?”
“Can you bear the truth?”
A hole opened in my gut and I felt myself falling through it. There was truth that needed bearing?
I nodded. I had to hear it.
“Ironside slakes himself upon her. His revenge is watching her innocence bleed away.”
“You’ve seen this?”
“It takes no gift of far-seeing to know that. To cope, she must retreat to a new reality of her own making. When you find her, she may not be the same sister who was spirited away.”
The hole kept expanding…expanding. But I grabbed the lifeline Merlin had thrown and clawed my way back through. “When I find her?”
“Whether your quest wins or fails, Ironside will ensure you’re reunited with your sister. He means to hurt you. Would he keep you from seeing her utterly destroyed?”
I shook my head.
I wanted to tell him that Nimue was a part of this. That she played games with lives and had designs on him. But Nimue also had power—more than me—and knowing she might know my own thoughts as clearly as me curbed my tongue. “There’s something more. Something…I can’t tell you. I thought I could. I thought I had the courage.”
“Sometimes it takes more courage not to speak. Take your knights and go. And remember: While already written, if you have yet to read it, the future has a way of surprising us all.”
Chapter 12
Gareth / Beau
Marrok, Lyn and I met before sunrise in the courtyard. Arthur had seen to the loaning of horses for each of us, and three magnificent animals awaited. The two battle-trained stallions arched their necks and shook their manes at our approach. Even the smooth-coated chestnut palfrey for the lady seemed far from the docile trail beast as it stepped high and whinnied when the horsemaster led her to Lyn.
“She’s a handsome one,” Lyn said, “but what of the mare I rode in on. Alice?”
“A swollen knee, m’lady. She’ll be sound again soon enough. But for now she needs rest.”
We had sent our belongings ahead and the stable hands had packed our things onto my own Cornish pony. She was a sturdy mare but, by intention as I came here under concealment, one that didn’t catch the eye the way these other three did. When I saw my own packs slung over the mare’s withers, I nodded. Once away from the castle, I could don the armor those packs held.
Somewhere Marrok had found armor of his own. Of better quality than any squire would wear and well-matched between the black leather of the scaled hauberk, black shield strapped to his arm and black helm that dangled from his hand, it was likely to have been property of a knight now slain.
It was natural, then, for the horsemaster to next hand the black stallion of the pair to Marrok. Mounted, Marrok looked the image of nobility in his borrowed black worn with easy
confidence. I regretted not taking the chance earlier to cross swords with him. To find out if his skill matched his temper in the promised strength so evident in his every move. His air of command and his wildness, barely harnessed, excited me beyond mere admiration for a peer of the land. Just seeing him sit his horse, knowing we’d be riding together for days, joyed me as much as thought of the quest itself.
As much, too, as thought of reuniting Lyn with her sister joyed me, though that joy was cruelly tempered by the very real expectations of the conditions under which we were likely to find the prisoned damosel. I didn’t doubt we would win our way to Nessie. I welcomed the hardships and tests ahead to free her. I only hoped that we could get to her before the Red Knight broke her in body and mind. Because if the thing we returned to Lyn was no longer the sister she adored, then even if we buried him, the Red Knight would have won his revenge.
My heart broke for Lyn, for the brave face she turned toward the road ahead. As much the epitome of knighthood that Marrok looked astride his steed, Lyn looked the daughter of kings. A stranger riding by would be struck by her and Marrok’s noble statures, noble miens. But I knew the turmoil of their hearts. And knowing made their brave faces all the more beautiful in my eyes.
With a silent salute to their courage, I mounted my horse. The trickster immediately skittered sideways, but I held my seat and kneed him to attention. Satisfied—or perhaps disappointed—he had a rider who would brook no impishness, he settled handsomely under the rein, his power gathered under me, his eagerness to be off twitching in his creamed mane and along his golden coat.
How had the stable boys known which horses to loan, to match them so perfectly to Marrok and me? Marrok in his just-borrowed armor and mine still packed away—none but Fate could have guided their hands. I took that for an omen and a blessing. Which meant, once again, I was being manipulated for another’s purpose.
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