Song of the Fairy Queen (50 page)

Briefly, she touched his face.

Gordon’s head whipped around. “Morgan, did you say? Not
that
Morgan, not High Marshall Morgan?”

Behind the matted hair and beard pale eyes the color of the clear blue sky she loved so much opened slowly as she poured Healing into him.

She could have wept, would have, save for those betraying tears.

The damage was horrific.

At some point they’d beaten, flogged and starved him. The shackles on his wrists didn’t burn his skin as it did hers, but it had chafed them raw over the years.

His pain tore her heart to shreds. She should have looked harder, closer. She’d never thought to look here…in Caernarvon.

Two years, Gordon had said. Maybe more.

If Morgan was aware of the end of the pain, of the wounds knitting, he was slow to show it.

To Morgan it was some kind of a dream, one of the ones that had both tormented and eased his suffering. In some there had been one woman, Joanna, but she was dead. He knew she was dead because he’d seen her die. Watched it.

He’d loved her quietly and now she was dead. She hadn’t deserved that.

A spark of rage flickered.

He could never quite see the face of the other woman of his dreams, he only knew she was beautiful. He had a sense of teasing laughter, of joy, of long golden hair and gentle hands easing his pain. Had he loved her, too? Or was she, too, only a dream?

Some of the aches he’d known for so long they were almost familiar faded in a rush of tingling warmth that seemed oddly familiar as well.

“Did you say Morgan?” Gordon demanded.“That Morgan?”

Gawain had come to the door of the cell, his gray eyes wide.

Distracted, grief-stricken and guilty, Kyri nodded.“That Morgan.”

“Well, hell,” Gordon said. “He didn’t disappear, they captured him and put him down here.”

Morgan clawed past apathy, used the small spark of rage and the memories.

They kept saying his name.

Who were these people?

The sudden sound of howling echoed, a harsh baying, far too close, scraped his nerves. Hunters. That galvanized him. Instantly he shifted to survival mode, his muscles tightened and his mind cleared.

Kyri looked up in alarm.

“How do they keep finding us so quickly?” she demanded in furious frustration of no one in particular.

“We have to get out of here,” Gordon said. “Fast.”

Helpless, pressed in by stone and iron, Kyri said, “I don’t know of another way out.”

“As it happens,” Morgan said, his voice rusty even to his own ears, “I do.”

Kyri looked at him in astonishment, half propped against her shoulder.

A rush of warmth went through her at the sound of his familiar deep voice.

Puzzled, he stared at her with no recognition.

Kyri closed her eyes against a sudden burst of pain.

It seemed her spell was still working.

She debated releasing him from it but hesitated, not sure whether it would harm or ease him. Now somehow seemed like the wrong time. For the moment, however much her heart and spirit argued differently, in fairness to him she left it as it was.

“All right,” she said, getting her shoulder under him.

Gordon was astonished to see this slip of a girl manhandle a man nearly twice her size.

He hurried to help her.

“Through the gate?” she asked.

Morgan shook his head.

Kyri’s heart sank.

“Gawain, close the door then and lock it,” she said, “Quietly, but hurry.”

The boy raced down the corridor, easing the door shut again, before shooting the interior bolt home.

With a tip of his head, Morgan said. “Down there, at the back.”

There was a trap door there, bolted and locked, but one of the keys on the key ring fit.

Kyri closed her eyes.

More tunnels, more earth and stone.
What she wouldn’t do to see the sky.

“Down.”

“Somehow,” she said, staring down into the darkness, “I knew you would say that.”

The tunnel brought them out by the sea – by Kyri’s standards a long, long way in dark, close quarters, with stone pressing and water dripping. A creature of the light, of the sky, the earth above her head had been oppressive. She’d been shaking by the time they finally left it and was more than glad to put some distance between them and it.

Morgan sat by the shore on the remains of an old pier and, using Gordon’s borrowed razor, shaved the remainder of a long beard from his face. He’d taken his shirt off to reveal his broad, strong chest – a torment of its own for her, remembering the times when she’d laid her head on it – and she saw he still wore her talisman. They hadn’t been able to take it off of him. She closed her eyes. At least there had been that. They hadn’t been able to do to him what they’d done to Philip and rip out his soul, or parts of it.

A quick dunk in the ocean had cleaned them all up at least a little, washing away much of the stench of the dungeons.

Now he looked far more like the Morgan of old than he had before but there was something cold and distant in his eyes, something in his spirit, that worried and pained her. He was thinner than she remembered, his square handsome face more hollow.

Kyri waited, hunkered down on her heels, listening to the sounds of the surf and looking back worriedly at the distant castle.

Over the sounds of the sea, she couldn’t hear the howling, but she assumed the Hunters were still searching. It would be a time before they reached the dungeons to break the door down as they must, but still... They were too close even so.

They’d done the introductions, but Morgan hadn’t even flinched or blinked at the names.

Not at hers, not at Gawain’s, not at Oryan’s. His face had been still, cold and set.

“Do you know where Oryan is?” she asked.

“How the hell would I know that?” he answered sharply, his blue eyes turning to her, lifting his chin in the direction of the castle behind them. “I’ve been in there for two years. Not surprisingly, they wanted to know that, too. I couldn’t tell them that then and I can’t tell you now.”

Anger and hate burned through him.

It was wonderful to be clean
, Morgan thought,
but even better to be free
, to breathe fresh air and see the sky after so long.

“Will you help us find him?” Kyri asked.

“Find who? Oryan?” He looked at her, his blue eyes going colder. “Thanks for getting me out, but I’ve got my own agenda.”

It was the answer she’d feared.

“Oryan was your friend, Morgan. Once you nearly died to save him and his son.”

“Yes and you know what? Look where it got me.”

The bitter words struck her like a blow and she winced, closing her eyes.

Morgan
.

She wanted to weep and couldn’t, for the betraying tears. None of these knew her for what she was. Not yet. They hadn’t noticed the earlier ones, but that wouldn’t last long.

Gordon stomped away in disgust, the boy Gawain just looked sad and disappointed. Morgan hardly cared, but the girl…

She was beautiful beneath the dirt, now that it was washed away, her features fine-boned and those eyes… the color was incredible.

Morgan looked out toward the ocean as the sunlight caught in a wave. It was the same color. Something moved inside him and some part of him took pity on her.

And there was the basic truth that until they got away from the Hunters, they were stuck with each other. He had a pretty good idea that Haerold would want him back in that cell pretty quickly once Haerold found out he’d escaped. Having the ex-High Marshal on the loose again wouldn’t please Haerold much.

There was a certain satisfaction in that.

Haerold wouldn’t be too happy with the ones who’d released him, either. Morgan owed them that much.

“I’m going west,” he said, “To Remagne. If you want, you can follow.”

Shocked, alarmed, Kyri said, “Remagne. Why in the world would you go there, to Haerold’s own city, Morgan? They’ll kill you on sight. Or put you back in prison.”

“Do I know you?” he demanded.

“Once upon a time,” she answered, “a long time ago. But that doesn’t answer the question. Morgan, why would you go to Remagne?”

“I’m going to see a man about a traitor,” he said. “You might as well go, too. There might be one or two people on the way and one or two people there” including the man he wanted to kill, “who might be able to help you find Oryan. If he’s still alive.”

Kyri had nothing else, no other choice.

She’d promised Oryan.

Her first goal had been to get Gawain safe. Once she’d sensed him, her second had been to find and free Morgan. The third now was to find Oryan, if she could, and deliver his son safely to him, to honor that promise. The only problem was she didn’t have the same strong connection to him that she had to Morgan…and still had.

It hurt.

Waves of pain and anger washed through her. His.

Anger, bitterness and grief throbbed in him, beat in him. She wanted to ease it as she had Healed his wounds but she couldn’t.

There was nothing for it, though, but to go on, because if nothing else she needed Morgan’s strong sword arm. It wasn’t as if there hadn’t been enough corpses in the now dry moat for him to get one.

None of them had dared suggest Morgan wear a dead man’s clothes, but Gordon had had a spare set in his sack. Morgan now wore them, although they were a little short and tight across the chest and shoulders.

They were an improvement, however, on the rags.

He stood up, swinging the sword lightly, the muscles in his chest flexing.

During his time in the dungeons he’d lost a little muscle tone. He’d have to get it back before he found his traitor. There was a long way yet to go.

Kyri turned her palms over, looked at the burns on them. They pained her.

“Ready?” Morgan asked, and then frowned, seeing the raw red marks on her slender, pretty hands. “What did you do to your hands, Princess?”

He was closer in that title than he knew.

“I touched something I shouldn’t,” she said. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

Gordon looked at her.

She shrugged.

What choice did they have? Morgan also knew the ground here far better than she did.

She looked to Gawain, who raised his hands helplessly.

They left the beach behind, fighting through the dunes and scrub to higher ground, to the high mountains and valleys that fell down to the sea behind them.