And then I noticed the blood-soaked breast of her gown, and understood.
“I always wanted to be fey,” she said softly as Rosier knelt beside her. “My mother’s dream, passed on to me. She sent me to court, when I was young. But I—” She broke off, gasping.
“You don’t have to speak.” Rosier’s voice was gentle, unlike any I’d ever heard from him, but Morgaine shook her head.
“No. I want to. I must.”
He didn’t try to dissuade her again.
“My sisters stayed behind. Their magic was weak, and they didn’t seem drawn to it as I was. But I jumped at the chance. It was so lovely there, so unlike anything I’d ever seen. I thought my father’s stronghold fearsome once, a great craggy fortress on the coast, the waves smashing into the rocks below like thunder whenever there was a storm. But hers . . . the throne room sits in a huge cavern, under a river. Did I ever tell you?”
He shook his head.
“It glides along suspended overhead, like a great jeweled snake. It casts the most beautiful light everywhere, emerald rays streaming down and moving across the floor. It makes the whole cave gleam like a gemstone. . . . It’s beautiful. Like so much about their world. . . .”
She trailed off, and for a moment, I thought that would be it. She looked pale, her face almost waxen. The only color came from the soft glow of the fire.
But she rallied. “It was my mother’s dream, but it was mine, too. Fey magic was so much stronger, its pull so much sweeter. Earth magic came hard, and grudgingly, to my hand. But theirs . . . tasted like honey.”
“Temptation usually does,” Rosier said softly.
She nodded. “But I couldn’t see that then. I couldn’t see anything, except that I was a quarter fey with no chance of being more. Just some little charity case, tolerated for my connection to the throne. And then only because my mother was showing signs of age. She would not live long, they whispered. Someone else would have to take her place, and manage the trade in the humans they keep as we do draft horses. When I refused, I was sent back to earth in disgrace. Where I met you, and your clumsy attempts at seduction . . .”
“They weren’t clumsy.” Rosier smiled slightly.
“For an incubus, they were clumsy,” Morgaine said, laughter in her voice. And then a hitch. Rosier’s fingers tightened, but she shook her head at him, swallowing. “But the approach didn’t matter once I realized . . . all those women you’d been with, all those fey. They gave you more than you knew. Not a son, but talents, skills, elemental magic . . .”
“I had no idea.”
“How could you? You didn’t use it. But I did.” There was wonder on Morgaine’s face now, despite the pain. “You can’t imagine how it felt, after that first time, to discover that I could control the winds. Baseborn, they’d called me, and lack magic, and unclean—yet suddenly I owned two elements. And owning the second made the first so much stronger! Tasks that I’d had to strain to accomplish became almost effortless. I didn’t know what to think, until you happened to mention something about abilities passing over. . . .”
“I wondered why you stayed,” Rosier said. “I’d taught you the basics; you could have learned the rest on your own. I began to think you cared.”
And maybe she had, a little. Because there was sorrow in the beautiful voice the next time she spoke. Fey voices were so expressive; it sounded like spoken tears.
“I didn’t care for anyone in those days, or anything but my own ambition. My long-held dream was within my grasp, and it was all I could see. I thought, if I acquire them all, if I do what no one else has ever done—then. They must accept me.”
“And acquire them you did.”
She nodded weakly. “Some of those women, fey of every type and clan, had gifted you with their power when you joined with them, and I took it from you the same way. And it happened so quickly. I already had water and wind, and soon after came fire. So easy to manipulate, almost like a liquid, too. The final was earth, small and stubborn, and so hard to coax forth—”
“I never bedded a Svarestri,” Rosier said. “But someone must have carried a thread of their blood, weak and dilute, but enough. One of the Returned, perhaps . . .” He trailed off.
“Perhaps. But it came. Finally, it came to me, and I had them all! But by then, you had something, too. . . .”
“A son.”
“Yes.” The expressive voice rang hollow now. “I should have stayed.”
“You had no choice. Nimue took you.”
“There are always choices.” Her beautiful eyes grew distant. “You would have found it amusing, I think, to see me return to court. Expecting triumph, expecting praise, expecting . . . I’m not sure. All those new powers . . . Can you imagine my horror, when I realized they only made things worse? Three-quarters human, yet able to outshine them all. Three-quarters human, yet owning four elements. And having acquired them in such a way!”
She had to rest for a moment before continuing, and the room was strangely quiet. The only sounds were the crackle of the flames, and the hiss of rain from outside the windows. I didn’t even hear anyone breathing.
Even the tears streaming down the blond witch’s face were silent.
“Grandmother wouldn’t let me tell anyone,” Morgaine said. “She silenced those who knew, or thought she did. Wouldn’t let me use my powers, wouldn’t let me go back. And by the time I finally escaped, and fled here . . .”
“Yes?”
She laughed suddenly, and the sound was bitter. “I had gained a small amount of wisdom at last, enough to know he’d be better off without them, without me. A half demon possessing four elements? They would have killed him. At least your people look at power, not bloodlines, and I knew he’d be strong—”
“They’re not his people. He never—” Rosier broke off.
“No.” The sorrow in the voice was almost overwhelming now, a tangible thing. “We didn’t give him one of those, did we? You wanted a son, to help you hold your kingdom; I wanted power, to give me access to mine. Neither of us thought about what he might want. Or where he might fit in, if he didn’t share our ambitions.”
“Yet you sent him tonight,” Rosier said, a question in his voice. And then his head tilted. “The gods used elemental magic, didn’t they?”
“A different one for each piece of armor,” Morgaine confirmed. “And once they are fused together, only one who commands them all can—” She broke off, choking.
“Let her be,” the redhead said harshly, coming forward.
“No,” Morgaine said. “Please.”
“What would you have of me?” Rosier asked, bending close to hear her, because her voice was fading.
The lovely eyes rose to his. “You named him Myrddin. . . .”
“Sea Fortress. It seemed . . . appropriate.”
“But I named him Emrys.” She clutched his hand. “Immortal. Don’t let it be a lie!”
“I don’t have my power here—”
“You are Prince of the Incubi! And you are his father. Rosier! Bring back—” The voice hitched and went silent, and the lovely eyes fixed, unseeing. And just that fast, she was gone.
“Our son,” Rosier finished for her.