She stroked the cool metal, wishing it were Kerrigan she touched.
"How is your tapestry coming?"
"Very well," she said, her voice breaking. "But I—"
"Shh…I must go now. God keep you, my lady."
A tear slid down her cheek as she felt him pulling away from her again. As always his absence tore through her. She hated to feel this emptiness. Hated to miss him so very much.
Perhaps Kerrigan and Blaise were right. The kindest thing would be to marry one of the others, but she couldn't quite make herself do it. She didn't want another man.
She wanted only one.
Sighing, she moved away from the sword to leave her room so that she could wander through the hallways outside. The castle was enormous, filled with all sorts of marvels and delights.
None of them pleased her.
She was restless. Most of all, she was lonely even though she was seldom ever alone here.
Sighing, she paused in the gallery room where paintings of kings, knights, Merlins, and battles lined the room from floor to ceiling. There was one in particular that always seemed to draw her attention. It was the painting of her ancestor Emrys.
The painting itself was over ten feet tall and five feet wide. It hung in the center of the wall that was across from the conservatory where all manner of flowers bloomed amid the greenery.
The figure of Emrys was as commanding as it was eerie. He was a lot younger than she would have thought given the stories she'd heard of him. He didn't appear any older than his early thirties, even though his long hair was as white as Blaise's.
Standing near the edge of a dark cliff at night, he was dressed in a black robe and held a staff that had been fashioned to look like a snake, the eyes of which were encrusted with dark rubies that made them a sinister red. A deep glow radiated from them.
His eyes, like hers, were green and seemed to stare out from the painting as if he could see her. She reached to touch the heavy brush strokes that stood out from the canvas like waves from the ocean. The paint was as cold as her heart, but even so she felt an inner connection to the scene.
"He's lying to you, you know."
She turned at the sound of a deep, gravelly voice behind her to find a tall, handsome man standing in the doorway that led to the hall. He appeared around the age of two score, and yet he was as lean and well muscled as a man half his age.
His wavy, dark brown hair brushed his shoulders, framing a face that was sharp and refined even with several days' worth of whiskers covering his cheeks. He was dressed as an archer in a dark green leather jerkin and breeches. His longbow was draped around him and leaned in the opposite direction from his quiver of arrows.
He had a sword strapped to his right hip as he leaned nonchalantly against the far wall with his arms crossed over his chest. Even from her distance, she could see a small lady's ring he wore about his neck on a thin gold chain.
Even though he was dressed as a peasant, there was something regal about him. Indeed, he was rife with an air of power and wisdom.
She lowered her hand from the painting. "I beg your pardon, sir? Were you speaking to me?"
He nodded. "My name is Faran, my lady."
"Are you one of the Lords of Avalon?"
"Nay," he said with a small twist to his mouth. "I'm not worthy to be included in their esteemed company. I'm merely a friend to the Merlin and to you."
"To me, sir? But I don't know you."
He gave her a gentle smile. "Sometimes the best friends to have are the ones you don't know about. They are the ones who help you without asking for anything in return."
What an odd man.
He pushed himself away from the wall to move closer to her. "I have to admit, Kerrigan has surprised me. I would never have thought him capable of such a sacrifice."
"What sacrifice?"
Faran paused before her. His hazel eyes were troubled as he stroked the whiskers on his chin. "To ensure your safety, he has enslaved himself to Morgen. He's so worried about you that he thinks Morgen won't kill him. Poor bastard. He's deluding himself as much as he's deluding you."
Terror gripped her at his words. Was he serious? "Kerrigan told me