FIC: Gathering Gloom, 5/16
Title: Gathering Gloom
Author: houses
Email: houses7177@gmail.com
Universes: Tir Alainn and Merry Gentry
Characters: Morag
Pairings: Morag/Sholto, Meredith/everyone else. No, I’m not kidding.
Narration: Morag, Merry, Taranis, Usna, Sholto
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: Post Tir Alainn trilogy, Post book 4 MG.
Disclaimers: Tir Alainn belongs to Anne Bishop, Merry Gentry belongs to Laurel K Hamilton
Summary: Taranis uses forbidden magic to call an assassin he believes will finally settle his Maeve Reed problem. Only thing is, said assassin has a mind of her own and isn’t particularly pleased to be back from the dead.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
~~~ Part 5 ~~~
“Are you sure about this?” Usna asked, eyeing Merry warily. She held a stack of neatly folded fabric in her arms and a pair of black leather boots hung from one hand.
The princess shrugged. “She hasn’t come out of there in eighteen hours. Either she’s gone mad, she’s dead, or she really needed the sleep.”
Usna accepted the clothing with a sigh. “I hope she just needed the sleep.”
Merry patted his arm gently. “Me too. This stuff should fit her, even if it’s not what she’s used to. Thanks for volunteering, by the way.”
“Well, it’s not like any of the other guards were falling over themselves to see if she’s okay. I really don’t mind,” Usna said, knocking softly on the unobtrusive new doorway. There was no answer, and he pushed the door open quietly.
The room was small, but cozy rather than cramped. The sithen had kindly supplied a bed and chair along with the room, both covered in the requisite Unseelie black silk. It seemed that the sithen had moved one of the guest quarters from three levels up down to Meredith’s rooms. Clever, clever.
The bed looked as if it had been slept in, with a few strewn pillows, but was currently vacant. In the low, pale illumination from the sithen walls, Usna could see the door to the bathroom was ajar, but there was no noise.
He crept forward, placing the clothing on the bed, and pushed open the bathroom door slightly to see inside.
Morag sat in front of the mirror, still as death. Her long black hair hung down her bare back, and it was obvious she was naked. Her pale face was reflected back at him, but she didn’t acknowledge him. It looked as if she were caught in a trance, frozen in some sort of internal investigation, a look of unbearable sadness on her features.
While Usna could make himself unnoticeable when he tried, he wasn’t attempting to slide through the shadows right now. He tapped his fingers on the back of the heavy door lightly, but she didn’t turn around. If not for the slight rise and fall of her chest, he would have thought she’d turned into stone.
“So ordinary,” the woman whispered. The words seem to float, lifted by more thought than action.
Usna took this as an invitation to step further into the bathroom. Morag didn’t seem to notice she was naked, and Usna was never one to comment on nudity. Cats never noticed nudity. She didn’t turn to look at him, still staring forward.
She spoke again, as quietly as before. “I wanted to have a bath, but I couldn’t find the fire to heat the water. And then I-I saw…”
She trailed off, lifting a hand in front of her face. “Is everyone so vibrantly hued here?”
“Pardon?” he asked, though he suspected he knew what she meant.
“Greens and silvers, reds and golds. Like sunlight on water.”
She turned around and Usna saw she held her black overdress clenched in her fists. It covered most of her lap but the pale glow from all the exposed skin lit the dim bathroom. Usna looked at her closer, and was surprised to realize that she could pass for human with very little effort. She had the bone structure of a sidhe, but her hair was merely lustrous black, not colored like Easter grass or tinsel. Her skin was the pale, cool glow of mist, but not robin’s egg blue or even his own patchwork. Glamour away the ears and tone down the magic and she could walk through any human city with little notice.
She seemed to be waiting for a response, so Usna said, “We Unseelie sidhe can be a colorful bunch, and not just our skin tone.”
He’d tried for joking, but Morag only gave a wistful smile. She looked down at the fabric in her hands and her shoulders hunched a bit. Usna stepped forward, careful not to touch her bare knees, and bent over the tub.
“We don’t use fire to heat our water any longer. If you want a hot bath, just twist these knobs here.” He demonstrated the hot and the cold then flipped the switch to an overhead shower.
Her face broke out into a large grin of startled delight. “How wonderful! And it’s so warm!”
She stood, the black dress falling from her hand. Usna nodded at her and said, “There’s a change of clothes on the bed. We’ll get your dress cleaned and back to you soon. If you’d like to join us for some refreshments, I think Princess Meredith is arranging for meals in her quarters this afternoon.”
Morag gave a distracted nod as she thrust her hand under the water flow, followed closely by her body. Usna picked up the dress, pulled the bathroom door shut behind him and headed back to Merry’s sitting room. The usual bustle of guards flowed around him, and he wondered what it would be like to be permanently part of a guard that did not fear their mistress.
As if she could hear his thoughts, Merry appeared at his side. “Was she okay?”
“She was not ill, I believe,” Usna said, handing over the dress to Merry’s waiting hand. “The indoor plumbing was a hit but she seemed to be unfamiliar with the more decorative of our sidhe coloring.”
“Hrm. Interesting.” The princess turned the dress over in her hands. “Do you see this?”
Usna peered down at the dress, trying not to flinch when Frost leaned over his shoulder with a chill breeze. The taller guard made a noise of surprise, and Usna couldn’t help but echo.
“So it’s not just me,” Merry said, “There really is a hole over her heart.”
“Arrows make that kind of tear in cloth,” Usna said.
“And she has calluses on her fingers that bespeak archery skills,” Frost added, pulling the cloth from the princess’ small hands. “Do you think she was wearing this at the time of her death?”
“Maybe, though I’ve not heard of many sidhe that can die with one arrow wound, even if it was to the heart.” She frowned. “Morag is a bit of a mystery, isn’t she?”
Frost and Usna nodded in silent agreement. Usna glanced at the rest of the room’s occupants, though most gave them little notice. With most of Merry’s guards in or around the room at all times, it was a very crowded place to be, like living inside a kaleidoscope. He secretly thought that the sithen was helping them out with a bit more space every now and then, but he could never be sure.
Nicca and Biddy sat at the small table set on the opposite side of the receiving room, looking at each other with rapt attention. It was disconcerting to realize that she was with child, that the magic of the ring had spoken true. Usna glanced down to where Merry’s hand was resting gently on Frost’s wrist, the ring gleaming dully in the light.
Sometimes magic just wasn’t worth questioning not when it conjured dead women out of thing air. He was distracted from his thoughts by a commotion at the door.
“My queen, we did not expect you.” Doyle was standing straight and tall, but the tension in his body was palpable. Beside Usna, Merry tensed, and he could almost feel the chill flow from Frost like snowfall. With a sigh, Merry walked forward, caressing Doyle’s lower back when she reached him.
“Aunt Andais, to what do we owe this honor?” the princess said, face schooled into carefully polite blankness.
The queen pushed her way into the room, waving Doyle and Frost aside as if they were mere inconveniences. She was tall, almost as tall as they were with pale skin, and black hair. That glorious hair was currently done up in an elaborate grouping of braids, looping over her bare shoulders like a collection of hang-man’s nooses. She wore an inky black cloak over what appeared to be a vinyl merry widow. The cloak swung open around her long legs encased in thigh-high shiny black boots. She had obviously come from her play times-another thing Usna didn’t miss at all from his time in the Queen’s guards-and didn’t look happy to be there.
“You’ve been holding out on me, Meredith.” The queen’s voice skittered around the room like shattered glass. “You know how much I hate secrets that aren’t mine.”
Meredith’s expression didn’t change. “I don’t know what you mean, Aunt.”
Andais stalked over to her niece, towering over the scarlet-haired princess. “You’re not queen here yet, daughter of Essus, and the walls have ears. Did you think you could hide a miracle from me and I wouldn’t find out?”
“A miracle, my queen?” Doyle’s voice rumbled from the doorway.
Andais turned on him in a flash, cloak swishing on the floor. “A miracle, or isn’t that what they call coming back from the dead these days? Would you like to try it and see how well you fare, my Darkness?”
Merry exchanged glances with Doyle and Frost before sighing, “Yes, Aunt Andais, coming back from the dead is indeed miraculous.”
“So where is she, the little miracle?” The queen’s voice dropped to a mere whisper, but the menace was so thick Usna could roll it around on his tongue like fine wine.
“She’s right here,” a soft woman’s voice said, “And my name is Morag.”
Everyone had been so wrapped up in the queen’s dramatic little scene they missed Morag’s entrance. The queen moved so quickly that Usna only had a moment to see the flash of the white inner ring of her iris before she was standing in front of the newcomer. She glowered down at Morag and the very air seemed the shimmer. Her hand shot out to grab Morag’s chin, tilting her head from side to side. The queen was gentler than Usna expected her to be, and when she released the young woman, she did not seem displeased.
“If not for those ears, she could be mine. Pity.” Andais stepped away, turning her back on Morag.
Usna was fairly certain he was the only one who caught the flash of fury on Morag’s face-everyone else was watching the queen stalk back over to her heir. When the queen reached her destination and glanced back over her shoulder at their guest, Morag’s face was back to being completely neutral. She stood there in her modern jeans and cashmere cream-colored sweater, and looked like a magazine model, not a recently revived, previously deceased sidhe of uncertain origin. Her hands were clasped in front of her loosely, but Usna could see a fine tremor of tension run across her shoulders before Morag moved out of the doorway to her room to stand near Usna.
“Pity about what?” she asked, her voice carrying in the silent room.
Andais narrowed her eyes and Usna had barely enough time reach out and pull Morag down to a kneeling position before the queen stood in front of her once again. “Watch your tone, child. I don’t care how miraculous you are, if you speak to me that way again, I’ll rip out your tongue.”
“Your majesty, Morag is unused to our court ways. We believe she died a very, very long time ago.” Doyle glided up to his former mistress and inserted himself between Andais and Morag.
“That is no excuse for rudeness,” Andais spat out, twitching her cloak.
“Perhaps not, but I would imagine death is a rather unsettling experience for anyone.”
Andais looked down at Morag again. An awful weight settled on Morag, bending her shoulders down, and Usna could feel the fringes of it dragging on his hand nearest Morag. A few heartbeats later, the pressure was gone. Morag looked paler than usual and her breathing was rapid.
“What are you going to do with her, niece?” Andais turned away from Morag and refocused her attention on Meredith.
“Do with her, Aunt?”
“Do you intend to leave her here at court? She has no House, I would assume, and no means to support herself. The little birdie told me she has no Hand of Power.” Andais stalked forward, towards Meredith wrapped in Frost’s protective embrace. “A weakling such as that is a liability, you know.”
“I know that all too well, my Queen.”
At that moment, Usna saw every duel Meredith was forced to fight before she fled faerie etched into her face. No matter how hard Meredith practiced her blank face, she always gave herself away to the queen, and the queen expected it. The taller woman seemed almost pleased at that response.
“So. Will you leave her here when you depart back for Los Angeles? Perhaps she’ll find someone’s fancy to curry.” The leer in the queen’s tone was unmistakable.
Merry bristled, stepping away from Frost. “I wouldn’t leave her here, not without protection.”
Andais smiled. “Of course not. Ever your father’s daughter, aren’t you?”
“It is all that I can hope for,” Meredith responded. Her voice rang with power and no one would forget that the half-breed princess had fought the queen and lived. Certainly not Andais.
The queen strode back to the door, Meredith’s guards melting out of her way. Before she swept out of the door again, she said, “Have a care, niece, that your kindness is not your undoing.”
When the queen was gone, everyone seemed to slump and breathe a collective sigh of relief. Morag stood slowly, her face still downcast. She didn’t look up when Merry, Frost and Doyle came to stand in from of her and Usna. Merry reached out a hand, but stopped before she touched Morag’s arm.
“My aunt can be a bit overwhelming,” the princess said.
Usna snorted. “That is possibly the biggest understatement of the century. A bit overwhelming.”
Morag looked up, a ghost of a dark smile on her lips. “What a fascinating woman. Queen, is she?”
“The Queen of Air and Darkness,” Doyle said, “She rules the Unseelie courts.”
Morag’s glance flickered to Meredith. “Unless the princess gets pregnant?”
Gravely, Doyle nodded. “She will step aside when Meredith is with child, yes.”
Morag regarded Merry closely for a moment before saying, “May the Lord and Lady bless you then.”
Merry offered a small smile. “Thank you. I know that was probably hard for you. And I should have asked you first, but it seems like you’ll be going with us back to Maeve’s in Los Angeles in two days.”
Usna could have sworn he saw something in Morag’s downcast eyes swirl like shadows on a moonlit night, but he decided he must have been wrong when she turned neutral eyes back to Meredith and said, “Thank you. I appreciate your offer of…protection. It is kindly given.”
Meredith relaxed a fraction and waved her hand at the table where Nicca and Biddy had been sitting. “Well then, perhaps some food? I don’t know what you’re accustomed to, but here in the twenty-first century there is a marvelous invention called pizza.”
TBC...
Part 6
Author: houses
Email: houses7177@gmail.com
Universes: Tir Alainn and Merry Gentry
Characters: Morag
Pairings: Morag/Sholto, Meredith/everyone else. No, I’m not kidding.
Narration: Morag, Merry, Taranis, Usna, Sholto
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: Post Tir Alainn trilogy, Post book 4 MG.
Disclaimers: Tir Alainn belongs to Anne Bishop, Merry Gentry belongs to Laurel K Hamilton
Summary: Taranis uses forbidden magic to call an assassin he believes will finally settle his Maeve Reed problem. Only thing is, said assassin has a mind of her own and isn’t particularly pleased to be back from the dead.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
~~~ Part 5 ~~~
“Are you sure about this?” Usna asked, eyeing Merry warily. She held a stack of neatly folded fabric in her arms and a pair of black leather boots hung from one hand.
The princess shrugged. “She hasn’t come out of there in eighteen hours. Either she’s gone mad, she’s dead, or she really needed the sleep.”
Usna accepted the clothing with a sigh. “I hope she just needed the sleep.”
Merry patted his arm gently. “Me too. This stuff should fit her, even if it’s not what she’s used to. Thanks for volunteering, by the way.”
“Well, it’s not like any of the other guards were falling over themselves to see if she’s okay. I really don’t mind,” Usna said, knocking softly on the unobtrusive new doorway. There was no answer, and he pushed the door open quietly.
The room was small, but cozy rather than cramped. The sithen had kindly supplied a bed and chair along with the room, both covered in the requisite Unseelie black silk. It seemed that the sithen had moved one of the guest quarters from three levels up down to Meredith’s rooms. Clever, clever.
The bed looked as if it had been slept in, with a few strewn pillows, but was currently vacant. In the low, pale illumination from the sithen walls, Usna could see the door to the bathroom was ajar, but there was no noise.
He crept forward, placing the clothing on the bed, and pushed open the bathroom door slightly to see inside.
Morag sat in front of the mirror, still as death. Her long black hair hung down her bare back, and it was obvious she was naked. Her pale face was reflected back at him, but she didn’t acknowledge him. It looked as if she were caught in a trance, frozen in some sort of internal investigation, a look of unbearable sadness on her features.
While Usna could make himself unnoticeable when he tried, he wasn’t attempting to slide through the shadows right now. He tapped his fingers on the back of the heavy door lightly, but she didn’t turn around. If not for the slight rise and fall of her chest, he would have thought she’d turned into stone.
“So ordinary,” the woman whispered. The words seem to float, lifted by more thought than action.
Usna took this as an invitation to step further into the bathroom. Morag didn’t seem to notice she was naked, and Usna was never one to comment on nudity. Cats never noticed nudity. She didn’t turn to look at him, still staring forward.
She spoke again, as quietly as before. “I wanted to have a bath, but I couldn’t find the fire to heat the water. And then I-I saw…”
She trailed off, lifting a hand in front of her face. “Is everyone so vibrantly hued here?”
“Pardon?” he asked, though he suspected he knew what she meant.
“Greens and silvers, reds and golds. Like sunlight on water.”
She turned around and Usna saw she held her black overdress clenched in her fists. It covered most of her lap but the pale glow from all the exposed skin lit the dim bathroom. Usna looked at her closer, and was surprised to realize that she could pass for human with very little effort. She had the bone structure of a sidhe, but her hair was merely lustrous black, not colored like Easter grass or tinsel. Her skin was the pale, cool glow of mist, but not robin’s egg blue or even his own patchwork. Glamour away the ears and tone down the magic and she could walk through any human city with little notice.
She seemed to be waiting for a response, so Usna said, “We Unseelie sidhe can be a colorful bunch, and not just our skin tone.”
He’d tried for joking, but Morag only gave a wistful smile. She looked down at the fabric in her hands and her shoulders hunched a bit. Usna stepped forward, careful not to touch her bare knees, and bent over the tub.
“We don’t use fire to heat our water any longer. If you want a hot bath, just twist these knobs here.” He demonstrated the hot and the cold then flipped the switch to an overhead shower.
Her face broke out into a large grin of startled delight. “How wonderful! And it’s so warm!”
She stood, the black dress falling from her hand. Usna nodded at her and said, “There’s a change of clothes on the bed. We’ll get your dress cleaned and back to you soon. If you’d like to join us for some refreshments, I think Princess Meredith is arranging for meals in her quarters this afternoon.”
Morag gave a distracted nod as she thrust her hand under the water flow, followed closely by her body. Usna picked up the dress, pulled the bathroom door shut behind him and headed back to Merry’s sitting room. The usual bustle of guards flowed around him, and he wondered what it would be like to be permanently part of a guard that did not fear their mistress.
As if she could hear his thoughts, Merry appeared at his side. “Was she okay?”
“She was not ill, I believe,” Usna said, handing over the dress to Merry’s waiting hand. “The indoor plumbing was a hit but she seemed to be unfamiliar with the more decorative of our sidhe coloring.”
“Hrm. Interesting.” The princess turned the dress over in her hands. “Do you see this?”
Usna peered down at the dress, trying not to flinch when Frost leaned over his shoulder with a chill breeze. The taller guard made a noise of surprise, and Usna couldn’t help but echo.
“So it’s not just me,” Merry said, “There really is a hole over her heart.”
“Arrows make that kind of tear in cloth,” Usna said.
“And she has calluses on her fingers that bespeak archery skills,” Frost added, pulling the cloth from the princess’ small hands. “Do you think she was wearing this at the time of her death?”
“Maybe, though I’ve not heard of many sidhe that can die with one arrow wound, even if it was to the heart.” She frowned. “Morag is a bit of a mystery, isn’t she?”
Frost and Usna nodded in silent agreement. Usna glanced at the rest of the room’s occupants, though most gave them little notice. With most of Merry’s guards in or around the room at all times, it was a very crowded place to be, like living inside a kaleidoscope. He secretly thought that the sithen was helping them out with a bit more space every now and then, but he could never be sure.
Nicca and Biddy sat at the small table set on the opposite side of the receiving room, looking at each other with rapt attention. It was disconcerting to realize that she was with child, that the magic of the ring had spoken true. Usna glanced down to where Merry’s hand was resting gently on Frost’s wrist, the ring gleaming dully in the light.
Sometimes magic just wasn’t worth questioning not when it conjured dead women out of thing air. He was distracted from his thoughts by a commotion at the door.
“My queen, we did not expect you.” Doyle was standing straight and tall, but the tension in his body was palpable. Beside Usna, Merry tensed, and he could almost feel the chill flow from Frost like snowfall. With a sigh, Merry walked forward, caressing Doyle’s lower back when she reached him.
“Aunt Andais, to what do we owe this honor?” the princess said, face schooled into carefully polite blankness.
The queen pushed her way into the room, waving Doyle and Frost aside as if they were mere inconveniences. She was tall, almost as tall as they were with pale skin, and black hair. That glorious hair was currently done up in an elaborate grouping of braids, looping over her bare shoulders like a collection of hang-man’s nooses. She wore an inky black cloak over what appeared to be a vinyl merry widow. The cloak swung open around her long legs encased in thigh-high shiny black boots. She had obviously come from her play times-another thing Usna didn’t miss at all from his time in the Queen’s guards-and didn’t look happy to be there.
“You’ve been holding out on me, Meredith.” The queen’s voice skittered around the room like shattered glass. “You know how much I hate secrets that aren’t mine.”
Meredith’s expression didn’t change. “I don’t know what you mean, Aunt.”
Andais stalked over to her niece, towering over the scarlet-haired princess. “You’re not queen here yet, daughter of Essus, and the walls have ears. Did you think you could hide a miracle from me and I wouldn’t find out?”
“A miracle, my queen?” Doyle’s voice rumbled from the doorway.
Andais turned on him in a flash, cloak swishing on the floor. “A miracle, or isn’t that what they call coming back from the dead these days? Would you like to try it and see how well you fare, my Darkness?”
Merry exchanged glances with Doyle and Frost before sighing, “Yes, Aunt Andais, coming back from the dead is indeed miraculous.”
“So where is she, the little miracle?” The queen’s voice dropped to a mere whisper, but the menace was so thick Usna could roll it around on his tongue like fine wine.
“She’s right here,” a soft woman’s voice said, “And my name is Morag.”
Everyone had been so wrapped up in the queen’s dramatic little scene they missed Morag’s entrance. The queen moved so quickly that Usna only had a moment to see the flash of the white inner ring of her iris before she was standing in front of the newcomer. She glowered down at Morag and the very air seemed the shimmer. Her hand shot out to grab Morag’s chin, tilting her head from side to side. The queen was gentler than Usna expected her to be, and when she released the young woman, she did not seem displeased.
“If not for those ears, she could be mine. Pity.” Andais stepped away, turning her back on Morag.
Usna was fairly certain he was the only one who caught the flash of fury on Morag’s face-everyone else was watching the queen stalk back over to her heir. When the queen reached her destination and glanced back over her shoulder at their guest, Morag’s face was back to being completely neutral. She stood there in her modern jeans and cashmere cream-colored sweater, and looked like a magazine model, not a recently revived, previously deceased sidhe of uncertain origin. Her hands were clasped in front of her loosely, but Usna could see a fine tremor of tension run across her shoulders before Morag moved out of the doorway to her room to stand near Usna.
“Pity about what?” she asked, her voice carrying in the silent room.
Andais narrowed her eyes and Usna had barely enough time reach out and pull Morag down to a kneeling position before the queen stood in front of her once again. “Watch your tone, child. I don’t care how miraculous you are, if you speak to me that way again, I’ll rip out your tongue.”
“Your majesty, Morag is unused to our court ways. We believe she died a very, very long time ago.” Doyle glided up to his former mistress and inserted himself between Andais and Morag.
“That is no excuse for rudeness,” Andais spat out, twitching her cloak.
“Perhaps not, but I would imagine death is a rather unsettling experience for anyone.”
Andais looked down at Morag again. An awful weight settled on Morag, bending her shoulders down, and Usna could feel the fringes of it dragging on his hand nearest Morag. A few heartbeats later, the pressure was gone. Morag looked paler than usual and her breathing was rapid.
“What are you going to do with her, niece?” Andais turned away from Morag and refocused her attention on Meredith.
“Do with her, Aunt?”
“Do you intend to leave her here at court? She has no House, I would assume, and no means to support herself. The little birdie told me she has no Hand of Power.” Andais stalked forward, towards Meredith wrapped in Frost’s protective embrace. “A weakling such as that is a liability, you know.”
“I know that all too well, my Queen.”
At that moment, Usna saw every duel Meredith was forced to fight before she fled faerie etched into her face. No matter how hard Meredith practiced her blank face, she always gave herself away to the queen, and the queen expected it. The taller woman seemed almost pleased at that response.
“So. Will you leave her here when you depart back for Los Angeles? Perhaps she’ll find someone’s fancy to curry.” The leer in the queen’s tone was unmistakable.
Merry bristled, stepping away from Frost. “I wouldn’t leave her here, not without protection.”
Andais smiled. “Of course not. Ever your father’s daughter, aren’t you?”
“It is all that I can hope for,” Meredith responded. Her voice rang with power and no one would forget that the half-breed princess had fought the queen and lived. Certainly not Andais.
The queen strode back to the door, Meredith’s guards melting out of her way. Before she swept out of the door again, she said, “Have a care, niece, that your kindness is not your undoing.”
When the queen was gone, everyone seemed to slump and breathe a collective sigh of relief. Morag stood slowly, her face still downcast. She didn’t look up when Merry, Frost and Doyle came to stand in from of her and Usna. Merry reached out a hand, but stopped before she touched Morag’s arm.
“My aunt can be a bit overwhelming,” the princess said.
Usna snorted. “That is possibly the biggest understatement of the century. A bit overwhelming.”
Morag looked up, a ghost of a dark smile on her lips. “What a fascinating woman. Queen, is she?”
“The Queen of Air and Darkness,” Doyle said, “She rules the Unseelie courts.”
Morag’s glance flickered to Meredith. “Unless the princess gets pregnant?”
Gravely, Doyle nodded. “She will step aside when Meredith is with child, yes.”
Morag regarded Merry closely for a moment before saying, “May the Lord and Lady bless you then.”
Merry offered a small smile. “Thank you. I know that was probably hard for you. And I should have asked you first, but it seems like you’ll be going with us back to Maeve’s in Los Angeles in two days.”
Usna could have sworn he saw something in Morag’s downcast eyes swirl like shadows on a moonlit night, but he decided he must have been wrong when she turned neutral eyes back to Meredith and said, “Thank you. I appreciate your offer of…protection. It is kindly given.”
Meredith relaxed a fraction and waved her hand at the table where Nicca and Biddy had been sitting. “Well then, perhaps some food? I don’t know what you’re accustomed to, but here in the twenty-first century there is a marvelous invention called pizza.”
TBC...
Part 6