seen him he'd aged years. He was thinner, his mouth held taut and his eyes belonged to the harsh old warrior who had been his grandfather. Instead of state robes he wore clothing that a rough trapper or a traveling merchant might wear, patched here and there with neat stitches.
Aralorn jumped nimbly off her perch and resumed her normal shape, which was not one that he would recognize. Magic was used to change her form, but unlike human magic, shapeshifters didn't need magic to keep that shape, so that even someone immune to magic would see only the form that a shapeshifter wore. When he'd seen her at the magician's castle, she'd been a pretty blonde designed to catch the ae'Magi's eye.
"No, my Lord," she answered. "Or at least not me. Sianim has spies on everyone. In fact, this is a rather fortunate meeting; I was looking for you to tell you that the ae'Magi's messengers have reported your bit of madness to all the nearby townsfolk." She spoke slowly and formally to give him a chance to adjust to her altered state.
Rethians were not less prejudiced against werefolk, just more likely to admit their existence. Since the shapeshifter tribes lived in the northern mountains of Reth and paid tribute yearly to the king of Reth in the form of finely woven tapestries and carefully crafted tools delivered in the night by unseen persons, the Rethians had a tougher time dismissing them as hearsay.
Folk tales warned villagers to stay out of the forests at night, or they would be fodder of the shapeshifters. Given the antagonism that the shapeshifters felt toward invading humans, Aralorn was afraid that the stories might not have it alt wrong. The royal family tended not to be as wary, probably the result of the yearly tribute.
Myr glanced at the magician, who nodded his head and spoke. "Whether she was spying on you or not I cannot say. That she means you no harm, I will vouch for." The slurred quality was not a product of the muffling of the pouch, after all, maybe it was the mask.
"She is something of a scholar, and I need someone to help me in my research. If she is not occupied with other things, it would do no harm to bring her to camp with us. She can fight, and Temris himself knows that we have need of fighters. Also, she stands in danger from the ae'Magi if he should discover who it was that spied on him."
"You spied on the Magician?" Myr raised an eyebrow at her.
Aralorn nodded, "It wasn't my favorite assignment, but definitely one of the more interesting." She let her face shift quickly to the one he'd seen in the ae'Magi's castle and then went back to normal.
Myr smiled. "Yes, I see. Welcome then, Lady. I invite you to join our small camp." Myr gave a short bow of his head, which she appreciated as exactly the correct height for a male sovereign to give in polite invitation or acceptance to a female who was neither his subject nor fellow royally.
She in her turn, dressed in the dead son of the innkeeper's clothes, gave him the exact curtsy she would have given him as her father's daughter. Rethian nobility overdid manners, so she knew he'd catch the subtle difference.
He did. "Who are you?"
She gave him an apologetic smile as she pulled at the uncomfortably tight front of the tunic. "Lady Aralorn of Lambshold."
"One of Henrick's daughters." Myr's voice carried a hint of incredulity.
Aralorn nodded, smiling apologetically. "I know, I don't look much like him, do I? He didn't think so either. I was quite a disappointment to him." She rolled up the sleeves until she could see her hands again.
"No, that's not what I mean," said Myr. "I've seen you in court - a long time ago. You're his oldest child?"
She laughed, "No, oldest daughter, but I have a brother a year older than I am. We two are the illegitimate get of youthful folly. My older brother's mother was a household maid and my mother was a shapeshifter who seduced poor father in the nearby woods. With fourteen of us I can see where you could have trouble keeping us straight. My siblings are all copies of their father, rather unfortunate for my sisters, but my brothers are all considered handsome."
She startled a laugh out of Myr at her description of her family. He'd met several of her sisters as well. They were all