away the various manuscripts he’d been studying, arranging his pencils in a row, pocketing the four ancient metal disks.
Laughter danced in her eyes. “Your response hasn’t changed in ten years either.”
Ten years—the blink of an eye. An eternity. They’d grown up together; Duke’s grandson and Duke’s ward. Close as siblings—closer even. His sibling had been seven years his senior and barely noticed Gray except as a nuisance to be shed at the first possible opportunity. Meeryn had filled that slot, becoming his boon companion in all things from illicit raids on the Deepings kitchens and nasty pranks on the string of tutors and governesses when they were young to illicit raids on the Deepings wine cellar and midnight forays beyond the protections of Deepings’s walls as they grew older.
As a child, he’d foolishly imagined their friendship would last forever. Time, distance, and circumstance had ended that dream long ago. Yet she’d remained a bright memory among so much he’d tried to put behind him when he’d been condemned to exile. Was that memory, like so many other things in his life, about to be irrevocably shattered?
“What are you doing here, Meeryn? And why come sneaking in via mousehole? Was knocking at the front door too plebeian for your tastes?”
She offered him a flippant roll of her eyes. “Would you have welcomed me in if I had?”
“Not while Pryor and his enforcers scour London, hunting anyone they think might be in league with me.” He poured himself a brandy.
“But, you see, it was Pryor who sent me.”
He froze with the glass halfway to his lips, but there was no hint of mockery in her placid expression. She was dead serious. “Did he? This visit grows more interesting by the moment.”
“I know what you’re thinking, Gray, but you can relax. I’m not here to kill you. I’m here to bring you home.”
“I
“Don’t be clever. You know what I mean—home to Deepings.”
“And why would I want to do that? Despite what people might think, I’m not looking for a quick death, even less a slow and gruesome one.”
“What if coming with me meant preventing more bloodshed among the clans? What if it meant saving the Imnada?”
“Dromon was clever in sending you as his emissary. Anyone else would have been shown the door . . . or the end of my sword. You have five minutes to explain, then you leave.”
Defiance lit her unflinching stare. “The Duke is dying.”
Gray closed his eyes briefly on a silent prayer, though for what he couldn’t say. For some reason, he’d always just assumed the old man would live forever; a craggy irascible rock upon which the world crashed and broke. His presence solid and eternal as the cliffs below Deepings.
“He’s been ill since you . . . since the summer you were sent away,” Meeryn continued. “Then this past spring he took a turn for the worse. It’s his heart. They don’t expect him to last more than a few weeks.”
“And if I said good riddance to the old bastard?”
Candlelight flickered over her face, glinting in her auburn hair, flames reflecting in her deep brown eyes. “You don’t mean that. He’s the only family you have left. When he dies, you’ll be—”
“Duke of Morieux,” he finished her sentence.
“Leader of the five clans,” she amended.
Neither role had been his by birth—a fact his grandfather had never ceased to remind him of even as Gray struggled to fill his dead brother’s shoes. He’d finally escaped into the military, unsure by then whether he hoped to win honor in battle or a quick death. There he’d found the praise he’d sought, in the letters that arrived from home. A pride that ended in the Gather’s circle with the flames charring the clan mark from his back.
“Sir Dromon Pryor is leader in all but name.” He stood at the hearth, a hand upon the mantel as he stared into the cold expanse, wishing he might glimpse the future, but seeing only the past.
“His grip on power isn’t as secure as he wants you to believe and it will only worsen if the Duke dies without an heir in place,” Meeryn explained. “Rumors spread as your rebellious Imnada grow in numbers. The Gather elders chafe under his heavy-handed authority and the brutality of his Ossine enforcers. Summary executions of clan members on the mere suspicion of sedition are becoming common. Even the Palings begin to fail, the mists thinning dangerously in some places. Now that the Fey-bloods know we’ve survived the Fealla Mhor, it’s only a matter of time before they discover a way through the wards and the slaughter begins in earnest.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“So you say, but can you speak for all the Fey-bloods? Can you guarantee us our safety?”
“Can Pryor?”
“The clans won’t survive an attack from without while they are beset from within. Pryor concedes this and wants to talk.”
“Pryor’s tongue is as crooked as his brain. Why should I trust him?” Gray asked coolly.
“Don’t trust him. Trust me.” She smiled, her eyes alight with mischief. “As N’thuil, I can guarantee you safe passage on holding lands. So long as you’re with me, you’re protected.”
She spoke. He saw her lips move, but he heard nothing after the bit about Meeryn being named N’thuil. Voice of Jai Idrish. Living vessel of the Mother Goddess.
She dragged the robe from her shoulders and twisted around so her back faced him. There, high upon her back, was the crescent of the Imnada, a whorl of black against her golden skin. And just to the right of it, still pink at the edges, was the smaller circlet that signified her ascension to the seat of N’thuil.
Unthinking, his fingers traced the needle’s narrow marking as it curved up over her shoulder blade to the base of her neck. She shivered and cast him an arch look, the laughter dying in her eyes to be replaced with something uncertain and almost shy. His finger became his hand. The skin of her back was like silk beneath his palm as he caressed downward along her spine to the point where her hips flared and the robe and his own ragged self-control stopped him from descending further. Her lips parted, and he sensed the suspension of her breath, the tremors running beneath her feverish skin. Her eyes darkened within the thick fringe of her lashes. Was it longing he saw? Excitement?
His heart thrashed against his ribs, and sweat splashed hot and cold over his skin. He wanted to tempt Meeryn further; an inch lower, a breath nearer. Then a breeze teased the candle’s thin flame. Her look vanished as if it had never been, and he surfaced from the lecherous swirl of his desire just before he made an utter ass of himself.
“When did this happen?” Thankfully, his voice emerged only slightly raspy.
Meeryn yanked the robe up to her neck, her body rigid, her gaze fierce. “A month ago. I’m surprised you didn’t hear.” Her voice trembled, though the emotion behind it was difficult to decipher. “Sir Dromon accuses you of having spies in every household and knowing our secrets before we speak them.”
“I’m flattered, but unfortunately, my network isn’t quite that extensive or well informed.”
She opened her mouth as if to respond, her gaze swimming with thoughts left unspoken. Gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head before continuing on. “Muncy Tidwell died unexpectedly a few weeks ago.”
Somehow he doubted that was what she’d originally intended to say, but if she chose to ignore his boorish behavior, he sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up. And so the awkwardness dissipated ever so slowly.
“A more useless N’thuil the world has never seen,” Gray replied.
“Granted, but Jai Idrish chose him . . . it must have seen something within his heart that spoke of promise.”
“What did it see in you?”
She ducked her head, looking almost shy . . . or ashamed. “I don’t know. It has yet to speak to me. Not since the night of my choosing has it woken from its slumber.”
“Which must be a tale in itself. Jai Idrish has never chosen anyone not shaman-trained.”
“Or male,” she added. “So I’ve been told—repeatedly.”
“Then how . . .”
“It wasn’t my fault, Gray. Honestly. I woke one night as if someone had called to me. I walked out into the corridor, thinking I was being summoned; that the Duke needed me. I don’t remember much after that, but the
