THREE DROPS OF BLOOD (2 page)

"Enough!" Efrin Warhawk shouted.

Meghianna took half a step backwards, startled out of her thoughts. Then she realized
that was a shout full of laughter, not anger. Efrin leaped from his chair at the head of the long
oval table and spread his arms wide as he hurried down the length of the room, straight for her.
Laughing, she ran to her father.

"Council is dismissed for the rest of the day," he called back over his shoulder, then
swooped to pick her up and lift her high over his head. Meghianna let out a squeal, kicking her
feet.

"But Majesty--" Lord Markin began.

"Not a word, or I'll cancel all Council meetings until the new moon." Efrin settled
Meghianna on his hip. He scowled as he looked her over, head to foot, and shook his head. The
laughter in his eyes made a lie of his mask of anger. "What did I tell you not to do, my girl?"

"Grow." She giggled.

"And what did you do? Against all my orders. My dear Lady Nalla, haven't you found
any magic yet that will keep her small enough for me to carry around in my pocket?"

"I'm sorry, Majesty, but one of the first rules of magic is to interfere as little as possible
with the way of things as the Estall has established them." Nalla's face turned rosy as she
struggled to keep a serious expression, and dropped down in a curtsey. "Little girls growing too
big to be their father's pets is a law of nature."

"Ah, there, you see my dear?" Efrin nodded absently as the members of the Council
bowed to him, winked at Meghianna, and made their farewells. "It doesn't do us a speck of good
to be important, because the Estall treats us just like everyone else."

"But isn't that a good thing, Papa?"

"That is a very good thing." He kissed both her cheeks and the tip of her nose, making
her giggle. "We need to be humble so we can do our jobs properly. But enough serious talk." He
spun on his heel and swung her off his hip, to settle her on the edge of the table. "My sweetheart
is here and the rest of the day is entirely ours to do with as we wish."

He stroked his golden-brown beard, striking a pose of deep thought. His short hair
looked like he had worn a helmet recently, damp and crushed together. Meghianna wondered if
the Encindi invaders had been especially active this spring, so her father had to lead his soldiers
out in battle so soon. How much time would he have to spend in battle instead of with her this
summer?

"So, what shall we do first?" Efrin said, blue eyes sparkling with laughter and
secrets.

"Papa." Meghianna knew he teased her. They had a set ritual they followed every time
she came to the fortress. "We have to tour, first."

"Ah. You're right. How could I have forgotten?"

"It is part of getting older, I'm afraid," the mellow voice of Lord Mrillis informed them.
He stayed in the Council room doorway and swept them a low bow, so the sleeves of his plain
gray robes swept the floor. As he straightened, he winked at Meghianna.

"Do you think your papa is an old man, my sweet?" Efrin swept her off the table and set
her on the floor with a little jounce.

"You're not allowed to get old, Papa. That's the first enchantment I'll make, when I'm
grown and Queen of Snows. I'll make sure you never get old, and you'll always be Warhawk."
She emphasized her words with a sharp nod.

"Now that's cruel." Efrin took her hand and led her to the door. "Only the young can
know how cruel unending life is, don't you agree, Mrillis?"

"But--" She stared, shifting her gaze back and forth between the two men, who quite
obviously fought to keep straight faces. Meghianna knew her mouth hung open, and it was very
unbecoming, but she couldn't seem to get hold of her thoughts tightly enough to close it.

"I don't want to fight the Encindi and rebel Rey'kil forever." Efrin relented and went
down on one knee so he and his daughter were eye-to-eye. "I can't keep from getting old and
turning my duties over to younger men, and I don't think I want to. Any more than I want to keep
you a little girl forever. Someday, my Meghianna, you'll be a grown woman, and you'll take care
of your Papa, just like he takes care of you now."

"Oh. That makes sense," she murmured, as the new thoughts tumbled through her head.
They settled into place with an almost audible click, in the world-encompassing mosaic that
filled her mind. Meghianna marveled at the new depths of understanding that bit of knowledge
granted her, which she sensed more than actually saw. Her father and Mrillis waited, watching
her, and she knew better than to sit and think for the next few hours. She would save her new
insight for tonight, when she was alone in her big, curtained bed.

"I am assured yet again that our world will be in very good hands, when we lay down to
take our rest," Mrillis said.

He smiled warmly at her, but there was something in his eyes, a dimness that came from
sorrow, and a wry curve to the corner of his mouth, that told Meghianna he knew something that
didn't make his words exactly a lie, but rather granted them multiple meanings.

"Enough seriousness." Efrin straightened and clapped his hands three times. "As of now,
we are on holiday." He took Meghianna's hand, led her to the door, and beckoned with his other
hand for Nalla to follow. The healer woman met Meghianna's gaze and rolled her eyes,
effectively breaking the somber mood.

Mrillis walked with them, slowing his steps as Efrin did, to save Meghianna from
having to run. They were both such tall men, with such long legs. She muffled a giggle,
delighted that he seemed to be included in whatever her father had planned for her welcome.
Efrin had said several times that Lord Mrillis was as close to a grandfather as Meghianna would
ever have, and all he had left of his father. He insisted on including the enchanter in their time
together, whenever she came to visit the fortress. Mrillis never asked Meghianna to call him
grandfather, and she was strangely grateful he didn't. A deep, inner sense of her place in the
world warned her that as she grew into her duties and gifts, it would be awkward to have to
change how she thought about him.

They toured the fortress, all the public rooms, the healing rooms, the storage rooms, the
offices of the seneschal and chatelaine, the common rooms for the Valors, the armory, and the
archives. Meghianna satisfied herself that nothing essential had changed since she left in the
fall.

She began to suspect something when her father led them on a tour of the gardens, and
took extra time to show her the walled garden that was always her province. Seedlings and
cuttings had been planted as she had requested in the diagrams she sent to the fortress half a
moon ago. Meghianna was pleased to see more people took her instructions seriously now, not
just humoring her because she was the Warhawk's daughter. Still, there was no reason for her
father to devote so much time to something she could just as easily examine on her own.

Efrin pointed out the spring growth in other parts of the gardens, where the kitchen staff
had dominion, where the healers grew fresh ingredients for their herbal potions, and the flowers
for decorating the ladies of the Court. Meghianna's suspicion grew when he led her away from
the stables, which should have been the next logical step, to the barns where several new litters
of puppies and kittens frolicked in the sunshine and shadows. Their next stop was the mews, to
visit the ancient warhawk that sat on the top of her father's chair during High Court sessions.

"Papa, when we are going to the stables?" she finally asked, stopping short in a patch of
sunshine between the mews and the Valors' training field. Efrin stopped just as short, his mouth
open, one hand gesturing in the opposite direction. Meghianna knew something delightful was
planned when her father glanced at Mrillis, as if asking a silent question.

"I have said nothing to her that you have not heard," the enchanter said, and shrugged.
The caution he displayed in not looking her in the eye hardened Meghianna's suspicions.

Her surprise was in the stables--that much was obvious.

Stables equaled horses.

"A pony? You got me my own pony?" Meghianna remembered just in time to stifle her
squeal. The falcons and hawks didn't appreciate high-pitched noises.

"Of course not." Her father took hold of her hand again. "Why would I get you a pony,
when all the animals in the Stronghold are yours as Queen's Heir?"

"But if it comes from you, Papa, that makes it special." She trotted along next to Efrin,
and nearly tripped over her own feet when she tried to look over her shoulder at Mrillis, who
walked several steps behind them. Meghianna felt very tempted to pout, but having seen her new
half-sister pout, she disliked such an infantile tactic. Besides, she was busy unraveling this new
puzzle. She had been so sure the stables held her surprise, and logic said it had to be a pony.

"Hmm, yes, and I'm more thankful than ever you're out of the reach of my enemies on
the Council most of the year."

"Why?" She giggled a little when Efrin made a face at her.

"If they convinced you to speak on their behalf, I would never be able to stand against
them. You, my sweet, know exactly the right thing to say to turn my heart into melted candle
wax." He stopped short on the threshold of the stables and bowed grandly as he gestured for her
to go in ahead of him.

Meghianna saw the mist-colored shape standing in a shaft of light coming through the
vent door in the sloped roof. A man in the Warhawk's livery held its reins, but the proportions
were all wrong.

"A horse, not a pony," she whispered. Meghianna looked over her shoulder at her father.
Efrin and Mrillis grinned, their faces bright in the sunshine. Nalla, of course, wore an expression
that was a mixture of pleasure on her behalf, and all the caution and horror of a dutiful
nursemaid. A moment later, she burst out laughing and leaped into her father's arms. "A grown
horse, for me?" She kissed both her father's cheeks. "I'll need a ladder to get into the
saddle."

"You'll grow fast enough, I'm afraid," Mrillis said.

"Do you like her, Meggi?" Efrin said.

"Yes, Papa. Very much." She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed until he
pretended to choke, and laughed.

"Mist is full-grown, but she is small for her breed," Mrillis said. "She is very intelligent,
and very gentle. Usually, horses as smart as her tend to be bad-tempered. Mostly because they're
independent, and believe they know better than their riders."

A snort from inside the stable startled the four of them. Nalla stood back, crossed her
arms over her chest, and shook her head instead of laughing with the others.

"Yes, Mist, I know you think you're smarter than everyone, but Meghianna will be your
rider now," Mrillis said, "and I promise you, she is very smart. Besides, we are depending on you
to take care of her as if she were your own colt. Do you understand?"

The white shape moved away from the stable hand, and grew taller, taking on a silvery
sheen as it moved to the doorway of the stables and into the sunlight. Meghianna looked into the
ebony eyes of a pearly gray horse. The delicate, long face was only a little higher than her, held
in her father's arms.

"Now, shall the two of you be friends?" Efrin said. He swung her out and settled her on
Mist's back. The mare nickered and bobbed her head. Her hide shivered once under Meghianna's
hands as the little girl wove her fingers into the coarse, long mane in dozens of shades of gray
and silver and black.

"Thank you, Papa," Meghianna whispered, feeling tears and giddy giggles mixing in her
chest. She knew how tears affected her father, so she fought the sensation until she could lock it
away, and spilled smiles and laughter for both men.

Efrin walked her around the practice fields and the inner and outer courtyards, until she
grew used to riding bareback, and assured in her seating. When Meghianna went to bed that
night, she wore a new bracelet made of hairs from Mist's tail and mane, and her mind was full of
plans to go on adventures with her new companion. She suspected that escaping the watchful
eyes of the Warhawk's bodyguards would be easy compared with escaping from Nalla--but how
could she have adventures if someone always watched over her?

"You're not like other little girls," she whispered into the darkness of her room.
Meghianna heard the words echoed in a dozen other voices. It hadn't taken long for her to
understand the boundaries on her life, both as the next Queen of Snows and as the Warhawk's
only child. Still, that didn't mean she had to forfeit all fun, did it?

* * * *

"Should I send her away?" Efrin stayed at the window that looked down over the inner
court of the fortress.

Mrillis sat back, pressing his shoulders against the chair, and studied the young king.
The window looked down over Meghianna's garden. That was the entire reason why Efrin had
given that particular enclosed garden to his daughter--to let him at least see her during the long
hours immured in his workroom each day. He had spoken about the continued threat against the
girl several moons ago, wondering if it would be wiser to let her live in the Stronghold
year-round to keep her safe. Mrillis slipped his hand into the stack of papers and scrolls and wax
tablets, and tugged out the slip of parchment with a remnant of gold wax seal, a report sent from
Captain Gynefra, detailing the accidental meeting between Megassa and Meghianna the day
before. Mrillis had read through all the reports waiting for the Warhawk's attention while Efrin
made farewells with the delegation of minor kings from southern Moerta. This one report had
been opened already before he found it.

That gave him a good idea of the 'her' Efrin referred to.

"It is too late to send the child away. Meghianna already knows she exists," he said,
pitching his voice to only reach as far as the window.