Free Princess of the Sword by Lynn Kurland Page B

more than he deserved. He laughed weakly.

    “I can see you’re not inclined to do any fetching,” he said, “so perhaps we’ll just soldier on as best we can until Miach is finished with his, er, business there. I don’t suppose you’d want to hurry him along, would you?”

    “Aye,” Sosar agreed. “I should think you would want to rush over and defend your lord’s abused honor. Those lassies are notoriously . . . well, they’re notorious.”

    Morgan gave them both looks of warning that they should have taken more seriously, then turned back to the spectacle in front of her. Was it not enough that she’d spent the past half hour wondering how she could possibly save Miach before he was killed; now she had to watch him be fawned over by half a dozen truly lovely women?

    “Faeries,” Sosar corrected. “And there are eight of them.”

    “Are you reading my thoughts now, my lord?” she asked shortly.

    “You’re muttering.”

    She didn’t want to think about where she’d learned that bad habit, but she suspected it might have been from Miach, who had learned it from Adhémar. Reason enough not to investigate any further.

    She took a deep breath and clasped her hands together under her cloak where no one would be able to watch them tremble. It had nothing to do with the faeries; it had everything to do with the battle she’d just witnessed. She wasn’t terribly fond of chess. She’d played it with Weger to humor him, and bested him a respectable number of times, but she far preferred to be out on the battlefield instead of merely playing at it.

    The speed of the game had been swift, the battle ruthless, and the outcome far from certain. Indeed, the entire thing had come about too swiftly for her to decide what, if anything, she could do to be helpful. She wouldn’t soon forget the sight of Miach becoming increasingly bound by Droch’s spell.

    She tried to distract herself with the sight in front of her, but that was no better. The faeries had now formed a very ladylike, sedate line in front of Miach, who had managed to get back to his feet without help.

    Well, the faeries were sedate until the first of them took what was apparently more time than she was allowed. All-out war ensued with pauses only for one faery to shove another of their ranks aside and take her place immediately in front of the hapless archmage of Neroche.

    Morgan wondered, absently, just what they were. Some species of elf, perhaps, though they were not so unrelentingly beautiful as her relatives were. These creatures were alluring in an entirely different way, as if they’d been flowers that were so sweetly luscious that any bee with sense wouldn’t have passed them by.

    And damn them all if they weren’t still fighting each other to be the one closest to Miach. They hovered behind him, in front of him, on either side of him, their gossamer wings fluttering coquettishly.

    Morgan gritted her teeth and wondered if this was indeed what jealousy felt like.

    The only thing that eased her any was how profoundly uncomfortable Miach looked. He was very red in the face and looked pathetically grateful when the knights who had fought for him demanded their own turn. After those goodly lads had discussed the battle to their satisfaction, the stewards took a turn. The faeries began to murmur unhappily. Apparently discussions of strategy that didn’t involve how to get themselves as close to the exceptionally handsome prince of Neroche as possible didn’t interest the ladies much. They fluttered off, disappointed and disgruntled. In time, the rest of the players wandered off as well.

    Miach rubbed his hands over his face, then heaved a sigh and walked over to where they stood near the wall. He stopped in front of her.

    “How are you?” he ventured.

    “Unkissed,” she said tartly. “Not that you find yourself in a similar situation.”

    He laughed uneasily. “I would see to remedying that for you if I could, but perhaps