Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [3]
But since the time the three had broken the spell and returned Arthur and his court to wakefulness, that voice had been painfully absent from her life. It might be because Merlin was simply preoccupied, trying to escape from the house of ice they had been forced to leave him in, trapped by his former student Nimue. Or perhaps he had tired of Ailis. Perhaps he had decided that the queen’s favor and a well-placed marriage was the highest Ailis should aspire to, and she did not need the aid of an enchanter for that.
In truth, Ailis wasn’t sure how she felt about marriage. Or enchanters. She did not know what she wanted out of life. She wasn’t sure how she felt about anything anymore, except that she wanted more than what the queen’s court was offering her.
No small amount of that dissatisfaction came from the fact that, when the trio had confronted Morgain, the sorceress had called Ailis a witch-child. A witch! Her?
Magic was unnatural, for all that it was useful. It was fine for Merlin, who was magic, a creature of the Old Gods, the ones who had ruled these lands before the Romans came. He might serve Arthur, a Christian king, now, but his allegiances were to the fairy world. Ailis, on the other hand, was a mortal, a God-fearing mortal who valued her soul as it was. The thought of magic having anything to do with her was an uneasy one. It made people look at you strangely. Or step back in fear. Or call you names.
At the same time, she missed hearing Merlin’s voice in the back of her head. She missed the warm glow she felt simply being around the talismans the three friends had collected on their quest. She missed feeling special.
“Want what you can’t have, can’t have what you want. You are a thankless child, Ailis, you are,” she told herself, in a very poor imitation of Caitrin’s voice. Then she looked around guiltily, although there was no way anyone could have heard her.
Having reached the bottom of the circular stairwell, Ailis started down the main hallway, then hesitated in her ladylike steps. It would take her forever, walking so sedately through the main halls.
Looking around, she noted only a few servants, none of them familiar to her, and one page, who gave a cheeky smile as he dashed past on some errand or another. Reaching up to tug at her hair, forgetting for a moment that it was no longer hanging freely over her shoulder, she came to a decision. Picking up the hem of her skirts in one hand so she could move more easily, she turned left into the smaller side-hallway the page had come out from, and took that, instead of the main corridor.
Walking with her own natural stride, Ailis could cover the distance in far less time. The secondary halls were servants’ territory. Anyone who saw her here would be unlikely to reprimand her for moving in such an unseemly manner, or—worse yet—carry accusatory tales back to the solar. It felt like freedom, as much as she might expect to find, for at least a short time.
“And if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll see someone who can tell me what’s been going on!” Her voice carried farther in the stone hallway than she had expected. She jumped a little at the echo, then giggled at herself. Such a brave warrior she was, startled at her own voice!
She tried to mimic Newt’s rangier style of walking as best she could, pulling the memory of it from her mind with surprising ease. He tilted forward a little, like so, and kept his hands in his pockets. She had no pockets in her skirt, of course, but she fisted her hands at her sides and bent at the elbows, just as he did. Odd that she could remember his walk so clearly when his face was a blur of raggedly cut hair and dark eyes in an otherwise unremarkable structure.
Turning the corner, Ailis could feel her spirits begin to rise. Yes, at this pace, she could finish this errand and still have time to stop by the stables to see if Newt had a few moments to talk. At least she knew where