Song of the Fairy Queen (44 page)

Still half asleep, Morgan stroked her hair, the silken ripple of it soft beneath his palm, inhaling the sweet scent of her. That was soothing in itself. He wanted to curl up around her for hours.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, wanting to be alarmed but was instead simply grateful.

Kyri spread her hand across the broad muscles of his chest, then brushed her cheek against it. “I sensed you were in pain.”

“I called her,” Caleb said. “You needed her, Captain.”

She’d already been in flight when the Call had come.

As much as he wanted to be angry, Morgan couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d missed her and knew she’d missed him, too, it had been in her eyes when she laid her cheek against his chest.

“Thank you, Caleb,” he said, looking around the familiar tent.

So, they’d made it back to the Kingdom in exile. He hadn’t been sure when they’d arrived; he’d been almost too damn tired to care.

With a quick salute Caleb left.

“Stay with me a while,” Morgan said, holding out a hand to her, drawing Kyri back down beside him, needing her body next to his.

“Of course.”

It was no trial to do so.

Gratefully, Kyri stretched out alongside him.

Morgan shifted to lay his head on her shoulder, tangling his legs around hers to pull her closer. She skimmed her fingers through his hair, pressed a kiss to his forehead.

Wrapped around her, Morgan sighed. “Sometimes I wish that you and I were just simple people, living in a cottage at the edge of the forest, with nothing more to do than chop wood, farm and love each other.”

“Do you, Morgan?” Kyri asked, something inside her going still as she stroked his hair, her heart aching. She sighed. “Sometimes I do as well.”

It was no more than the truth.

But she couldn’t be other than what she was. Any more than he.

How much farther could he stretch himself?

The old Morgan would never have made a mistake like this. He’d been too tired, too overstretched. Holding him, running her fingers through his hair, her heart aching, she tried to find another way…

Watching Morgan ride out again, Oryan took a deep breath, shaking his head. Despite the night’s sleep, the man still looked worn. Oryan feared for him. At this rate, if he didn’t collapse from exhaustion he would instead make some other critical mistake. They, he, couldn’t afford to lose him. Yet there was no one else. Nothing he or Kyri said could convince Morgan to take more than a few hours and Oryan couldn’t argue it. Morgan was needed out there. He needed him there.

Standing beside him, Kyri looked as worried and helpless as he. She let out a breath as the tent flaps closed behind them.

Inside, one of the rebel leaders – Corvin – waited.

Oryan nodded to him. “Corvin. A moment.”

“I don’t know what to do, Oryan,” Kyri said. “He’s killing himself.”

It was killing her to watch.

In two years the rebel forces had grown into a more efficient fighting force, but Haerold had also hired more mercenaries, beggaring the treasury to try to put the Rebellion down. As he’d intensified his battles everywhere he’d begun actively hunting both the rebels and the Fairy, offering enormous rewards for information, levying massive taxes to pay for it. Save for the reward for Oryan, the bounties offered for Morgan and Kyri were the greatest.

Haerold had turned, too, on the Fairy with a vengeance, as they’d expected, cutting down and burning huge swaths of Forest. Her people were stretched to their limits to defend themselves, much less the Forests they cared for and depended on.

There had also had to be several rescues of captive Fairy since Galan.

If it went on much longer, she would have to pull them back into the safety of the deep forest, out of contact with the rest of the Kingdom completely. However much just the thought of that tormented her.

The toll on Morgan, Oryan’s General in the field, was enormous as he was still needed everywhere.

With a sigh, Oryan said, “I’ve tried talking to him, too, but we need him.”

Detrick and the others tried to help, but the rebel bands had their own problems, as Haerold sought them, too.

Save to give refuge, Kyri couldn’t help much more than she and her people already were.

It didn’t help that Morgan insisted on helping them also, stretching his resources even further to aid them after attacks by Haerold’s forces, freeing them to repair the damage that had been done much sooner than they might. Nor could Kyri refuse him, for the sake of her people, for that of the people of the Kingdom, for Morgan, or for herself.

Her people needed the trees, the rebellion needed the cover of them, Morgan needed those brief times with her afterward and she needed him.

“He is what he is, Kyri,” Oryan said.

She knew it.

Nor would she change him. It wasn’t in him to give up or give in. He would fight and keep fighting until they overwhelmed him or he died. She’d already seen that. He could do no less and he would ask more of himself than he would ask of others, even if it killed him.

As it very well might.

Tired as he was, though, each layer of weariness increased the chances he would make a mistake, or miss something vital.

It terrified her, the thought of losing him, not just for her own sake, but also for the sake of the Kingdom, this one and her own. There was no one else like Morgan to replace him.

She could see the truth of it in Oryan’s eyes as well.

His face averted, Corvin practically vibrated with some emotion.

“Maybe the man wouldn’t be stretched so thin if he weren’t so concerned with the damn Fairy,” Corvin said, suddenly, sharply. “Or your bed.”

“Corvin,” Oryan said, sharply.

Glancing almost shamefacedly away from Kyri, Corvin’s mouth tightened.

“With all due respect, your Highness,” Corvin said, “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought it a time or two yourself. We’re all grateful for the help the Fairy give us, but their damn forests are a sight more important to them than we are. It’s not like their army is coming marching out to aid us.”

Still, the worst of it was, Oryan knew, Corvin wasn’t the only one to think it.

To his shame it had even crossed his mind a time or two as much as he regretted even thinking it, grieving as he did for his Gwen.

Nor could Kyri deny there was some truth in it. Some, but not all.

She shook her head. “No, Oryan, he has the right of it and the right to say it…”

In the back of her mind she remembered Morgan whispering that he wished they could be just some other couple in a cottage in the woods. As did she. Even more so now.

She knew he hadn’t meant it as it stood, that he didn’t want her as anything other than what she was. He was the only one who’d ever seen Kyri for herself, not solely as Queen of the Fairy, but as Kyri and Queen.

“But you should know that all we can spare,” Kyri said, “you have.”

She looked at Corvin.

“There are no more of us than you see,” she said. “Without the forests, we’ll die, all of us. I dare not pull more, or the Fairy will be no more. My people have suffered greatly at the hands of yours until these last years.”

“Kyri,” Oryan said shocked. He hadn’t known.

She hadn’t said as much to Oryan or even Morgan – who wouldn’t have asked, knowing without needing to ask that she was doing and giving all she could.

Nor would she add to his concerns, not now, as much as it pained her.

It was only another reason why she was considering taking her people out of the Kingdom and into the deep forest. The only reason she’d stayed was because they were needed…and for Morgan.

That she must tell Morgan and soon, was clear.

At the very least, she must consider pulling some of her people back to save them.

“Lady Kyri,” Corvin said, helplessly, shamed.

“We fight, as you do,” she said, “with all that we have, with everything we can spare.”

Corvin had seen dozens and thought there must be hundreds. That was what the rumors said.

“Kyri,” Oryan said, touching her hand.

With a small smile, she brushed her fingers over his.

“No offense taken, Oryan,” Kyri said, “Have no fear. In any group there are always differences of opinion.”

Galan waited outside but she couldn’t speak her thoughts to him, either.

She was Kyriay, Galan wouldn’t gainsay her.

Only Morgan would do that and although they’d talked to some extent about it, there was nothing really that anyone could do.

Galan eyed her worriedly, picking up some of her distress.

Again, she smiled. “Stop worrying, Galan. I’m well enough. I need only a little time, old friend, to think. To clear my mind. Will you do that for me?”

For all his concern, Galan nodded.

He watched her fly, watched her seek the thermals high above as she did when she was troubled, when the burden of rule became too great, her wings glittering in the sunlight, to soar among the clouds.

Kyri flew, searching for and finding the pool where she’d preened that day, the day she and Morgan made love in the water, and settled on a rock there to think.

Her heart ached.

It was becoming clearer with each passing day that Morgan was stretched too thin, in too many directions.

Oryan’s Kingdom needed him, desperately. The fight was going well but their most precious resource was growing thin.

Oryan needed Morgan not only as his General but as his advisor and his friend.

Her people needed him, too. If they didn’t win this, Haerold would turn on them and her anyway.

And she needed him. She couldn’t bear the thought of a world without Morgan in it. She would sacrifice anything, so long as he lived…

The thought of losing him tore at her.

In the end, what was she, measured against all the rest?

But if…her breath caught…if something happened…if Morgan wasn’t there...

The thought sent grief tearing through her.

She forced herself to think of it, as she must, for the sake of her people and for the people of the Kingdom. For Oryan…but most of all, for Morgan.

It would all fall apart, certainly for a time. The loss of him would do more than shatter her, it would shatter everyone. Others would see it as a sign they weren’t fated to win.

Oryan would have to find another general or take to the field himself, putting himself at even greater risk of being killed or captured.

There was no one else who could lead. All that could be done to lighten the load Morgan carried, to ease his burden, had been done. All that remained was to ease it by making it less.

If he didn’t have to worry about the Fair, if he didn’t have to worry about her people, all of them at the very edges of the Kingdom, then he would have one less burden. He wouldn’t be stretched so far.