Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [35]
“Woman, you have lied to me!”
Morgain smoothed the fabric of her dress and rose to meet the newcomer, one of her well-groomed eyebrows raised in a calculated expression of surprise. “Be careful what you say, my friend. Bursting into my presence with such an accusation might be considered ill-manners. What is this lie you claim that I have told?”
“That!” From the way Morgain’s gaze did not shift, the girl suspected that she was the subject of the spiteful voice’s words. But she remained very still, very silent, wishing for the ability to turn translucent like the sorceress’s servants. “The agreement was that none were to know I was here.”
“And no one does. And no one would have, had you not burst in here like an ill-mannered child.”
Don’t look, child, a voice in Ailis’s head warned her. Don’t turn, don’t move, don’t look….
Merlin? But while familiar, the voice did not feel like the enchanter’s, not entirely. Morgain? No response.
“You did not tell me you had brought this one here. Why?”
“Because I did not trust you to behave,” Morgain said. Her back was straight and her voice was steady, though a careful observer might have detected a faint tremor in her hand.
“She is—”
“She is a guest in my house,” Morgain said. “As are you.”
There was tension in this room that terrified Ailis more than she had ever been before; even more than when she hid under the low bed in her parents’ cottage and heard the sounds of battle raging all around her; even more than coming out of that cottage and seeing bodies strewn about her village. This wasn’t violence or madness. Those memories were hot and fierce. This was cold and severe; it whispered around her soul like the sound of a frigid winter’s wind.
There was a long silence, before the door was slammed shut again. Morgain held herself very still, but for the rise and fall of her chest as she took a long breath in, then let it out in an equally long and slow movement.
“I am afraid I need to ask you to stay in your rooms…until I can decide what to do with you,” she said, not looking at Ailis. “I will have someone continue to bring meals, and whatever books or amusements you desire. It is…temporary, I promise.”
Temporary because she would go home soon? Temporary because she would be allowed to roam the castle again? Or temporary because…Ailis decided not to finish that thought. All she knew was that she didn’t want to be anywhere near that shadowy voice. She wanted it to forget she ever existed, and never see her ever again.
Morgain scared her and made her angry—but she had to admit Morgain also fascinated her. But the speaker of that voice terrified her. The fact that she didn’t know why she was so terrified only made it worse. But she would not give the sorceress the satisfaction of knowing that. Strength, she thought. She respects strength as well as talent, especially in females.
“I think I would very much like to return to my room now,” she said, standing up on legs that were only a little shaky. “With your permission…”
Morgain merely nodded, her mind clearly leagues away on some other matter. “I shall escort you.” Not because Ailis did not know the way, and not, the girl suspected, because Morgain feared Ailis might try to escape. The only other reason was that the intruder might be lurking, waiting for her somewhere in the hallways between here and there, and neither female believed that the results of such a meeting would be pleasant for Ailis.
And for the first time, the restrictions that had kept her trapped before, now seemed comforting.
The three rescuers had been riding since dawn that day, following the tug of the lodestone that hung around Gerard’s neck. Both Gerard and Newt had been awake before the sun, lying in their bedrolls, silently wrapped in their own bleak thoughts, until Sir Caedor woke and went through his now-expected morning routine. That was Newt’s cue to build the fire back up and start breakfast, while Gerard fed and watered the horses. It might have made more sense to do it the other way around, but Sir Caedor’s manner set