The Ships of Merior Read Online Free PDF

man would be dead, not to suck a rushed breath for her beauty.
    Torchlight caught his sapphires like splintered ice as he added, ‘At long last, I’ve had word.’
    Talith raked her teeth over her lower lip to redden and brighten her pout. ‘You’ve located your bane? The Master of Shadow has been found?’
    His stark and stubborn silence informed her that he had not.
    From behind, glass chinked as the arthritic old servant fumbled to unlatch the postern lamp’s cover. Lysaer pushed off the crenellation, gave a casual flick of hishand. A spark jumped from his finger across empty air and snapped the wick into flame behind the smudged panes.
    The lampsman gave a violent start and spun around. Made aware of just who stood with the lady, he gulped in pale awe and knelt. ‘Your royal Grace.’
    ‘Ath bless, you need not bow.’ Lysaer gave the man a grin and a silent, conspirator’s gesture to hurry along on his rounds. Never one to flaunt his gifted powers, this night, the prince was jealous of his privacy.
    ‘Ah,’ sighed the lampsman, recovering. He returned a wink and hurried off, trailing the oily reek of torch smoke around the bend by the gatehouse. Inside the ward room, a guard lost his dice throw and cursed, his epithets obscured as a wagon rumbled down the thoroughfare below.
    Persistent despite interruptions, Talith said, ‘What word could move you but the wish of your heart, to find out where Arithon’s hiding? Ath knows, you’ve searched every cranny in Rathain.’
    The prince who had helped wrest the sun clear of mist was never an easy man to nettle. ‘If I’d unmasked that sorcerer’s whereabouts, beloved, your brother’s troops would be marching, winter ice or not.’ Unlike the fashion of the dandies, Lysaer wore no scent. He required none. The closeness of him seemed to burn Talith through to the skin. She needed to shed the clinging weight of her mantle, but dared not.
    He touched her arm and gently turned her. Even after five years, the beauty of him stole her breath. The flare of new lantern light fired his gold hair, gilded perfect cheekbones and sculpted chin and a bearing instinctively royal. As earnestly as the city gallants strove to emulate such carriage, inherent majesty eluded them. Then, forthright as no man born Etarran would ever be, the prince cupped her face and kissed her.
    Passion flurried and tangled Talith’s thinking.
    He was excited by something. His hands trembled andhis eyes drank in the sight of her with scarcely veiled anticipation.
    Piqued enough by his secrecy to use looks that could bring men to their knees, Talith drew back and struck him lightly on the jewelled sleeve of his doublet. ‘What have you learned?’
    Lysaer laughed, a flash of perfect teeth. ‘The best news. Never mind the Master and his shadows.’ Eagerness let him speak of his nemesis without his usual brooding frown. ‘The Mayor of Korias has finally set seal to my claim. Avenor and its lands are to be mine.’ He caught her waist and spun her, while around them, the flutter of night insects battered hot glass in their fatal, blind swoop to the light. ‘We can officially formalize our engagement. That’s if you can find heart to marry a prince who has title, but no subjects, and fields gone to briar and wilderness.’
    Talith looked into deep sapphire eyes and shivered. ‘Everywhere you go you have subjects,’ she said. ‘Not least that decrepit old lampblack. He’ll brag to his grandchildren until he dies, for your tricks. Never say it was I who insisted on meaningless propriety.’
    He reached, brushed back the loose curl at her temple, then began with abandon to pluck out jewelled pins. Neither of them noticed the dicers’ revealing silence in the gate house as a cataract of wheat-gold hair unreeled over his ringed knuckles. Lysaer touched her brow with his lips. ‘I could accept no estate as a gift from Lord Diegan.’ His mouth trailed down her cheek, caressing. ‘Not when I’m the