Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [38]
“You have been very patient,” Morgain said. Ailis jumped in shock. She had been sitting on the divan in front of the fireplace, paging through one of the books the sorceress had given her. Ailis could not read any of the writing. It was in some strange, flowing script that she had never seen before, but the drawings of fantastical beasts and monsters were so beautifully rendered that she almost didn’t need the words.
She missed Sir Tawny. The griffin could not fit into her room, and in the several days since that frightening episode at her meal with Morgain, she no longer felt comfortable wandering the hallways with him, not knowing if that whispering shadow-figure was still within the same walls, watching her.
“I haven’t had much choice, except to be patient,” Ailis said in response, once her heart settled back into a normal rhythm.
Morgain had simply walked into the sitting room without so much as a knock on the door. Ailis supposed that, as a prisoner, she shouldn’t expect any such courtesy. The bitterness behind that thought surprised her; she had never thought herself a grudge-holder. Then again, she hadn’t thought herself the type to talk back to a sorceress, or pet a griffin, or dream of blasting open doors with just a twitch of her hand, either.
“True,” Morgain acknowledged Ailis’s words. She sat down on the sofa next to her and smoothed the fabric of her skirt. The outfit today was a serviceable royal blue woolen, but she had boots on, indicating that she had been outside. “But you have borne it with…surprising dignity, for one your age.”
Ailis waited. Four days of eating alone, without even ghostly servants for company, had left her feeling adrift, alone in a way she had never known before. Her entire life, from the very first moment she could remember, she had been surrounded by people on all sides. While she hoped that Morgain’s reappearance meant that the mysterious stranger had left the castle and she would again be free to roam, she knew that the sorceress’s sudden reappearance might mean another kind of end to her captivity. Ailis had no desire whatsoever to die.
No matter what happened, at least she wasn’t alone anymore. Even the chatter of the ladies in the solar was better than being alone all the time. She had tried reaching out to Merlin with her thoughts, but to no avail. Either she didn’t have the ability, despite what he had said (likely), or he wasn’t listening (also likely). Or, most probably, Morgain had protected her stronghold against magics other than her own.
She was totally dependent upon Morgain now, for everything, even companionship.
“Would…”
Something about the sorceress’s voice distracted Ailis from her own self-pity. Morgain seemed almost awkward. And angry about feeling awkward, Ailis decided.
“Would you care to see my workspace?” Morgain finished.
All of Ailis’s thoughts of bitterness disappeared with that offer. She almost fell on her face, leaping up from the divan without untangling herself from the blanket around her lap.
“I…yes, I would,” she said, trying to regain what little dignity might be left after that. She wasn’t going to die! At least, not right now. Not without seeing more of the fortress.
Morgain, although clearly amused, merely indicated with a tilt of her hand that Ailis should put on her slippers and follow her.
This time they used a staircase Ailis had not encountered before. It was a short, very steep staircase that seemed to lead nowhere for a surprisingly long time before depositing them in front of a thick blackwood door without any handle or grate.
“Let me in,” Morgain said in a voice that brooked no argument, and made a slight gesture with her left hand. The door opened; not outward, but slid sideways into the wall itself. The sorceress didn’t seem to take note of anything wondrous there, but entered, carrying Ailis along by the sheer force of her casualness.
The room sang to her. The tidiness of it all was so different from Merlin’s disaster of a study. This room appealed to Ailis’s organized nature, and the flavor of magic that she