The Dragon’s Daughter and the Winter Mage by Jeffe Kennedy
~ 17 ~
“It’s much easier to get up in the morning when you live in a tropical paradise,” Gendra observed, eyeing him from the pile of furs almost completely covering her in the bed he’d reluctantly forsaken. But the fire was catching now, chasing the chill that had settled in while they slept.
He chuckled, oddly enough feeling better than he had in years, even before the leg break. “I can only imagine,” he replied wryly.
“When you come to Annfwn with me, you’ll discover for yourself.”
“We’re not going anywhere if you refuse to get out of bed,” he noted. With the brown furs nearly the same color as the spill of her hair, and only one baleful blue eye showing in the pale morning light, she reminded him of a wild creature gazing from the shadows of the forest. He suddenly and urgently wanted to survive to see her shapeshift into some of her many forms. All of them remarkable. All quintessentially her. “You’re still magic,” he said, the seed he’d slept on having sprouted.
“Magically determined never to leave this bed?” she replied doubtfully, then wormed a hand out to waggle her fingers at him. “Come back here and keep me warm.”
“Absolutely not.” He sat stiffly on the stool and began levering himself into his leather pants.
“Mean.” She pushed the covers back enough to demonstrate her pout.
Oh, how he’d love to kiss those sultry lips into a smile—or to panting pleas. “If I get back into bed with my tempting lover,” he explained, determinedly tucking his rigid cock away, “we won’t leave it again for hours.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It wouldn’t get us any closer to finding a rift so we can escape. And that is the focus of our day.”
“Fine,” she huffed, pushing back the covers. She caught him looking and stretched her arms over her head, smiling in sultry invitation. “There’s time to change your mind.”
Suppressing a groan, he firmly tore his gaze away and snagged his shirt. “If you don’t get out of bed on your own, Briar Rose, I’ll wake you by dumping you in this now considerably chilly bathwater.”
She sat up with an outraged squeak. “You would not!”
“Traditional treatment for witches and temptresses,” he replied, shaking his head sadly.
“I am neither.” Throwing the covers back fully, she dangled her long, lovely legs over the side of the bed and pushed her tangled mass of hair away from her face. “Ugh. Mother talked about this when she couldn’t shapeshift, that one of the things she missed most was being able to just shift clean with her hair combed.”
“An enviable trick,” he agreed, hobbling over to retrieve his comb and tossing it to her. “For now, you’ll have to do it like us lesser humans.”
“You’d think a mage could make me a magic hairbrush,” she called after him as he headed out the door to brave the freezing privy.
When he returned, she’d dressed in her gown and had woven her hair into a single long braid down her back. She looked as fresh and lovely as a spring morning after a soft rain, a nostalgia that hit him hard and vividly. He’d love to lay her down in a meadow and make love to her on a bed of new blossoms.
“What did you mean,” she asked without preamble, and startling him from his romantic fantasy, “when you said I’m still magic?”
His practical woman. “Breakfast is on its way,” he said. “Meanwhile, some chaife to tide you over.”
“Thank you!” She pounced on the mug he held out. “Where’s yours?”
“It’s coming. I couldn’t carry two at once.”
She came to him, laying a hand on his cheek and bestowing a sweet, lingering kiss on him, one that tasted of cinnamon laced with honeysuckle. “You are a wonderful man, Isyn,” she murmured.
“Because I brought you chaife? This bodes well for our future together if that’s all it takes to make you happy,” he teased, but she didn’t laugh.
“You’re thoughtful, and you put my needs ahead of your own. Most men that I’ve met don’t do that.”
“Then you’ve been meeting the wrong men.”
“Don’t I know it.” Then she flashed a smile, patting his cheek and moving away. “Also, it makes me very happy that you’re talking about us having a future together. You can keep doing that.”
He had, hadn’t he? Hmm. “How’s your head feeling?”
Pausing, she looked surprised, lifting a hand to prod the spot. “It feels fine,” she answered with some surprise. “I’d actually forgotten about it.”
He nodded, theory confirmed. “That’s part of why I mean you’re still magic. You might not be able to shapeshift out of human form, but you’re healing much faster than any human could. Also, you pointed out to me yesterday that shapeshifters have sharper senses and unusual strength—and you still have those things.”
She gazed back at him with wide-eyed amazement. “You’re absolutely right. Why didn’t that occur to me?”
He shrugged, opening the door for a parade of folk bearing food. No Jasperina, who was likely unhappy with him. “You’re accustomed to being spectacularly gifted, so you don’t realize how inherently magical you are, just by being.”
She didn’t reply, so he glanced over at her. Her blue eyes were luminous with unshed tears as she stared at him, an odd expression on her face. “What’s wrong?” He went to her and pulled her into a one-armed embrace. “What did I say?”
“You’re just so wonderful,” she whispered, rubbing her cheek against his. “No one has ever said such nice things to me.”
“Apparently they’re all idiots, then,” he said, stroking the smooth coils of her braid and tugging it lightly so she’d turn her head to meet his seeking kiss. “Let’s eat and plot how we can combine your magic and mine to get us back home.” Or, at least to get her back home, which he’d do if it killed him. Which it very well might.
“I’m really notsure how far I swam before I found the fishing hole,” Gendra said, not for the first time, chewing on her lip as she worried, her cheeks pink from the wind. He’d found a shadow-fox fur hat for her, the white fur framing her chestnut hair and oval face charmingly. With a hint of blue at the base—the shadowy undertone that gave the shadow fox its name—it brought out her startlingly deep-blue eyes. Isyn felt himself tumble a little more in love every time he looked at her.
The folk were pulling them along in the sled, happy to be going fishing. Isyn hadn’t mentioned it to Gendra, but he’d heavily implied to the folk that they might be able to land the orca today. “I know,” he replied patiently, “but it’s a place to start. And it’s the best excuse to get the folk to bring us out here without making them suspicious.”
“What will we do if this fishing hole is too far from the rift, though?”
“I’ll think up a reason for us to create a new one. The ice over the old one is thinner is all, which makes chopping through easier, but we make new fishing holes all the time.”
She nodded, gaze fixed on the distance. “I really wish I’d paid attention to the location of the rift I came through. It couldn’t have been far from that fishing hole. I ran into the net so soon. It was unforgivably careless of me.”
“Understandable,” he corrected. “You were lost and disoriented.”
“And panicking with that net around me.” Her face set into chill lines.
He had his arm around her already, so he squeezed her shoulders, tucking the fur blanket more snugly over her lap, as if that could somehow keep her safe. “I can’t imagine how terrifying that was.”
“Well, the whale brain helped,” she replied philosophically. “Animals don’t worry about the future as much as we do. The needs are more immediate, with no dread for the potential consequences. There’s a restfulness in that.”
“Something I could stand to learn,” he reflected, studying her lovely profile, the play of color in her face, roses, winter white, chestnut, and deepest ocean blue. “Would you let me draw you?”
She glanced at him, startled. “What does that have to do with fishing holes, searching for rifts, or whale brains?”
“Nothing at all,” he admitted. “You’re just distractingly beautiful. I would paint you, but we have no paints here. I could scrounge up something to draw you with, however.”
“I’d like that,” she replied shyly. “What inspired the painting of yours I saw back at Castle Marcellum? It reminded me of shapeshifters, but you said you haven’t known any but me.”
“A dream I had.” A strand of glossy brown hair had escaped her hat and braid to whip against her cheek, and he tucked it away for her. “Maybe it was a dream about you.”
“I wish I’d known to dream about you.”
“I don’t, for surely it would’ve been a nightmare.”
“Isyn, I want you to know that even if we can’t find a way home, I’ll be happy here with you. I can get used to eternal winter and eating nothing but fish, as long as I can be with you.”
“I won’t live forever, though,” he cautioned her, ignoring the sweet warmth her words stirred in him. “Even if this leg doesn’t kill me, I’m old and—”
“You’re not that old,” she interrupted stubbornly.
“I’m on the downhill side of my life,” he insisted.
“That sounds even worse.”
“It doesn’t make it less true. Gendra, we have to be realistic here. If you have a chance to get home, then I want you to take it.”
“I’m not leaving without you.” She stared off across the ice again, jaw set in obstinate determination. He loved her for it. He despaired because of it.
“I can’t bear to think of you living here among the folk, all alone, for the rest of your life, with no human companionship. It’s not a fate I’d wish on my worst enemy, much less the most precious person in the world to me.”
She looked at him then, pink lips parted, indigo eyes full of emotion. “How can you ask me to leave you when you say things that make me love you even more?”
He leaned in and kissed her. Her lips were cold with heat beneath, honeysuckle blooming under the snow. “I’m asking because you love me, and because I love you. Because all that matters to me is that you go on to live a long and happy life.”
“There’s nothing for me without you,” she whispered, on the verge of tears again.
He kissed her again. “There’s everything.”
They spent acold and fruitless day at the fishing hole. Well, not entirely fruitless, as the folk brought up a good haul of fish. Not nearly as bountiful, however, as the one when Gendra had chased deep-sea fish into their nets. The foreman and Jasperina glumly agreed that the orca must be gone. Probably dead and no good to anyone.
Isyn kept Gendra as close as possible.
“So, tomorrow we look elsewhere?” she asked as they made it back to his room. She was walking at a solicitous pace, eyeing his halting steps but not asking about the leg. A day on the ice had undone all of her healing work from the night before, the thing aching as if the bone itself had frozen solid. It was likely his imagination, but now that he knew the bone had been set incorrectly, he fancied that he could feel the splintered pieces grinding unevenly together. Not a pleasant image.
“Yes. I have some idea of where I came through, so I’ve already suggested to the folk that we try fishing tomorrow in that area. They’re all too young to remember that’s where I was pulled out of the ocean, so they won’t be suspicious.” Not too suspicious, anyway. The folk had already noted the changes in his behavior, and the folk didn’t like change. Having Gendra among them was pushing things already. Having him change routine only worsened their unease.
She handed him a mug of hot fish broth. “Drink this. You look pale.”
“I am pale,” he replied irritably. “By nature, and it comes of not seeing the sun for fifty years.”
“Cranky, too,” she observed equably. “How much pain are you in?”
“It’s nothing for you to concern yourself with.”
“A lot,” she decided. “You’re having a hot bath.” Ignoring his protest, she opened the door to have a one-sided hand-waving conversation with the folk bringing up firewood. “It’s not good for you to be out on the ice all day,” she informed him on her return.
“It’s for a good cause.” The only cause.
“It makes no sense to find the rift if it kills you.”
“We agreed that getting you home takes highest priority.”
“No—you made a unilateral decision and are attempting to shove it down my throat.”
He could almost imagine a lashing tail to accompany her sharp tone. “And here I thought you were so sweet,” he grumbled.
“I can’t imagine what gave you that massive misconception.” She strode over and laid a hand on his forehead before he could duck her touch. “You have a fever. Mild but definite.”
“Then a hot bath is the worst thing for me,” he reasoned.
“Wrong. How many stubborn mossbacks have you nursed through exposure and other injuries resulting from hard mountain living? None, I’m betting, Your Highness.”
She had him there. Jasperina arrived with a parade of other folk carrying buckets of hot water to fill the big tub yet again, giving him a long side-eye which she slid onto Gendra with marked distaste. Gendra, busy with assembling her supplies and warming the oil, carried on obliviously. But Isyn took the look for the warning it was—and fought the deep alarm it stirred in him.
If he died while Gendra was still trapped here, she wouldn’t fare well with the folk. They’d likely decide to eat her rather than have the burden of serving her. Literally. She had no magery to improve their lives, so they’d fill their bellies with her instead. Even with her supernatural strength, she’d be no match for their numbers if they decided to overpower her. Also, she still had to sleep sometimes, and she wouldn’t have him to magically ward the room.
The hot bath did feel good, he had to admit, despite the high price in the goodwill of the folk, and he sank into it with a sigh of pained delight as the heat penetrated his chilled bones. Gendra settled on the stool behind him. “Tonight I’m going to wash your hair,” she informed him.
“So the Tala do care about hair things?” he asked, trying to sound less cranky.
“The Tala traditionally wear their hair long and loose, so yes, I suppose we do,” she mused. “But mostly I think you’ll feel better for it. More yourself. Dunk.”
He had let many trappings of civilization fall away in his half-existence. So he obediently dunked, gasping a little as he rose again at the shock of heat over his scalp. Gendra set to scrubbing his scalp, another sheer pleasure that sent waves of relaxation all through him.
“Isyn?” she asked very quietly. “Have you set your wards in place?”
He opened his eyes in some surprise. “I didn’t know you knew I was doing that. Yes, I have.”
“I’ve been around magic workers. I might be a shapeshifter, not a sorceress, but I can recognize magic when I smell it.”
He wondered if she realized that not everyone could. Even among shapeshifters, he doubted that was a common skill. “I thought some Tala are wizards and magicians.”
“True,” she admitted. “My mother can work some spells, but I can’t. Too much mossback in me. I’m lucky I can even shapeshift.”
“And yet you’re sensitive to magic.” He felt her shrug through her hands, the restless unhappiness in it that she revealed only when dwelling on her past, so he let it go. “Why did you ask about the wards?”
“I wanted to ask—why are you afraid of the folk?”
Ah. And there it was. He should’ve known she’d pick up on the many clues. Probably she’d noticed before now but had waited to ask. “Remember how you noted that it sounded like I was as much captive as king?”
“Yes.” She drew out the word enough that it hissed with her displeasure. A tigress ready to defend him.
“There’s a great deal of truth to it. When the folk pulled me from the water, they were planning to…” No sense protecting her from the ugly truth. “Kill and eat me.”
Her hands stilled on his scalp. A bare pause, but noticeable. “Cannibalism is a vile practice.”
“The folk aren’t human, so is it really cannibalism?” he returned lightly.
“Then whatever word we should have for killing and eating a thinking being.” Her tight voice reminded him that the folk would’ve been happy to eat her orca self, too. “Rinse, please.”
Did the more polite request indicate that she was more relaxed or more rattled? Could be both, he supposed. He dunked to rinse his soapy hair, leaning forward so she could wring out the sopping mass of it before draping it over the rim of the tub. “Clearly you survived,” she commented neutrally, setting to work with the comb. “What happened?”
“I was fighting them off—losing badly, as they had the numbers and I was half drowned—when, in a desperation move, I tried to charm them as I would an animal. That’s really my mother’s gift, but I have a little of it. Well, the folk recognized the magic immediately and took me captive instead. It was a long few months there while I tried to find magic tricks useful enough to keep them from deciding I’d be more useful as dinner.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “How awful for you.”
It had been awful. The grinding low-key terror and grueling loneliness enough to bring him to despair any number of times. “But I was, more useful, that is. My magery has provided more meals over the long term than a single week of fine dining.”
“Not funny, Isyn.”
Oh well, he’d tried. “In return, they taught me how to survive here. Everything I know I owe to them, so I suppose the debt is mutual. My point is, however, that they won’t want to let me go.”
He felt her nod thoughtfully. “King of all you survey—only so long as you serve the will of the people,” she observed.
“Not unlike every monarch, truly.”
“Only the consequences are a bit more dire. Are you ready to get out?”
He was, so he lifted himself from the tub, taking the staff to lean on and drying himself as she tested the temperature of her massage oil. “Gendra,” he said, waiting for her to look up. She did, indigo eyes sober. “If something happens to me…”
“Then I’m likely to become supper,” she supplied. “And unlike you, I don’t have enough meat on me to even feed them for a week.”
“I feel like it’s my turn to tell you it’s not funny.”
“Yes, well—gallows humor and all.” Her lashes dropped as her gazed stroked over him. “On a happier note, I’d like to take a moment to tell you how very beautiful you are.”
He glanced at his nakedness, a bit taken aback. In the seriousness of the conversation and his comfort at being alone with her, he’d forgotten. “Scarred, bent, and broken,” he corrected.
“Scarred, yes,” she breathed, coming to him and sliding oil-warmed hands up his back and pressing herself against him, his body rousing to her proximity. “Battered and with the odd bone bent out of shape, sure. But never broken.” She kissed him, a delight that he only had to turn his head slightly to meet her lips. “Stalwart, enduring, stunning. I love you, Isyn.”
“And I love you,” he whispered against her lips, feeling them curve into a smile.
“And that is the most remarkable thing of all,” she marveled, then tugged a lock of his hair. “You should lie down, but I didn’t think about your hair getting the bed wet when I decided to wash it.”
“Aha. Fate is working in my favor. I’ll sit by the fire so I can let it dry while I draw you.”
She blushed, wrinkling her nose charmingly. “I thought you didn’t have supplies.”
“I asked one of the folk to find me some possibilities.” He gestured to the pile of scraped bark and charcoal bits he’d noted when they returned. “I won’t be able to capture all the colors of you, but I can at least come close.”
With both hands, he combed his fingers through the silken mass of her hair, turning her face from side to side to observe the play of candle and firelight on the strong bones, deciding how he’d draw them so her earnest, loving, and practical nature would shine through. Her eyes stayed fixed on his as he turned her head. There was guardedness in her, too, like a cat deciding whether to claw or purr. “Briar Rose,” he murmured. “Would you indulge me in this? I want to have at least a drawing of you, so I can remember.”
The wariness turned to irritated exasperation. “I’m not doing anything for you as long as you’re talking like I’d ever leave you behind.”
He held up his hands in grinning surrender. “Deal.”
She huffed out a breath. “That was not meant as part of a negotiation.”
“Too late,” he replied cheerfully, tucking the staff in the crook of his arm so he could pull on his pants. “Turn around,” he told her, once he was covered enough that his erection wouldn’t be bouncing in the wind.
“Why?”
“So I can undress you.” He reached for her laces.
She put her hands over his. “You didn’t say anything about drawing me naked.”
“Didn’t I?” he asked innocently. “I thought that was a given.”
“No, Isyn. That is not a given.”
Relenting, he cupped her face in his hands, studying the depths of her eyes. “You don’t have to. I didn’t mean for you to feel pushed into something.”
Something soft and shy moved in those lustrous eyes. “You’re not. I’m just… I’m—I don’t know what I am.”
Wounded, was what she was. Isyn kissed her, lingering over it until she melted under his touch. “I’ll draw you in your gown, then.”
She wrapped her fingers around his wrists as he moved to pull away. “No,” she whispered. “I want this. No more waiting and wondering.” Working efficiently, she loosened the laces at the front of her gown, then turned her back, lifting her hair so he could get the rest. “It’s much easier,” she commented, nerves in her voice and posture, “when I can shapeshift. I can just shift to another form and come back naked.”
“What becomes of your clothing then?”
“I can kind of cache my clothes, and accessories, too. Anything I’m wearing when I shift, within reason. In fact, I have quite a few gowns, fighting leathers, and so forth saved. It would be nice to access them.” The gown fell in a puddle at her feet, and she stood in only the sheer slip she’d been wearing to sleep in.
“I’d wondered how you went from wearing soaked oilskin to a dry fur-lined cloak.”
“I’m glad I had the wit to do so, in my addled state.” She turned, holding her hands over her thinly clad breasts, self-conscious in a way she hadn’t been before.
He smoothed his hands down her lovely, long body, shaping the lean curves through the silky material, savoring and soothing her. “I could draw you like this,” he murmured, easing her closer for a kiss. She opened for him, softly, trustingly.
“No, I’m being silly,” she whispered against his lips. “I know I have no reason to be shy. I just… You should know that I’m not voluptuous. I mean, I’m sure you figured that out already. I just hope you won’t be too disappointed. Even if I could still shapeshift, I can’t change my human body. We are what we’re born with and grow into.”
Fuck that Henk, he thought viciously. “Briar Rose, you are a miracle. You are perfectly you.”
She smiled tremulously, but came to a decision, swiftly untying the laces at the neckline of her slip and swiping it off her shoulders to follow the gown. He was too close to get a good look at her, so he swept a hand down her long elegant back, savoring the expanse of satin skin, the sweet dip of her spine, holding her gaze and trying to read the glimmer in her eyes. Praying to the capricious spirits of the Isles that he’d find the right words. He didn’t know what to say, so he simply asked the question burning in his mind.
“May I look at you?” he whispered.
