The Mage's Daughter by Lynn Kurland Page B

things I shouldn’t have.”
    She shook her head. “He said you had called for me, nothing more.” She paused. “You worried him.”
    â€œHe only wants me for my magecraft,” Miach said lightly. “Because I keep him from being overrun by Lothar’s minions.”
    â€œHow could he not?” she said. She realized, with a start, that she was standing far too close to him for her peace of mind. She backed away and sat down against the wall whilst she could still manage it.
    Miach pulled the tunic over his head, then went to lock the door. He returned to sit facing her. “Thank you for my life,” he said quietly.
    â€œAye, well, it was a close thing,” she said, far more casually than she felt. “You idiot,” she added before she could help herself.
    â€œI beg your pardon?” he said with half a laugh.
    â€œYou should have let me see to your arm sooner. You’re the bloody archmage of the realm. You have business to see to, business that you can’t see to if you’re dead!” She glared at him. “Why don’t you be about that business so I can go to bed?”
    He didn’t reply. He simply watched her with a look a duller wench might have termed affection.
    â€œWhat?” she snapped.
    He smiled gravely. “I thought I might try a few more apologies since I have you here.”
    â€œWhat for this time? That you dragged me away from a warm fire?” she asked, desperate to avoid anything more serious. “Aye, you should be sorry for that.”
    He shook his head. “I’m sorry that you had to find out who I was the way you did—”
    â€œWhat, with that bloody Sword of Angesand singing in my ears? And the ring? And the knife? You left me there,” she said, blurting out what pained her the most. “You left me alone.”
    She found, to her horror, that tears were streaming down her cheeks.
    Miach walked over to her on his knees and reached for her hands. He held them tightly with his. “Morgan, I’m sorry.”
    She wanted to wipe her face, but he wouldn’t release her hands. She settled for trying to rub her eyes against her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter now,” she managed.
    He put a hand under her chin and turned her face toward him. “It does matter,” he said seriously. “I wish that it had all come about differently.” He took her hands with his again. “If I could go back and change things, believe me, I would.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell me who you were from the start?” she whispered, looking at him miserably. “In truth?”
    â€œIn truth?” He looked down at her hands and rubbed his thumbs over the back of them. “I knew how you felt about mages and I didn’t want you to hate me.” He looked up. “I suppose it didn’t serve me, did it?”
    â€œI don’t hate you,” was out of her mouth before she could stop herself.
    She wanted to take back her words, or add to them, or toss off some sharp remark that would make him rethink his plans to stay at Gobhann, but all she could do was sit there and look at him like the witless tavern wench she had obviously become. Witless and ill. She wondered if she would ever be herself again.
    â€œWell,” he said, with a smile, “that’s something, at least.”
    She wanted to run, but she couldn’t. She wanted to drive him away, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that either. She wished, suddenly, that he was not the archmage and she was not a shieldmaiden full of magic she did not want. If she had met him at a tavern, perhaps things would have been different.
    But things were as they were. He was trapped as much by his duty as she was by the nightmares that awaited her outside Weger’s gates.
    â€œI’m tired,” she said suddenly, pulling her hands away from his. “Please just do what you do so we can be out of this