Veins of Albion | The Pendragon Cycle 🗡️✨
Ao3 📚 Author: stawarsporg99
Merlin drew in a slow, unbothered breath. “I speak plainly.” He paused, then added, quieter, “I know better than to mock a woman with fire in her.”
She huffed a laugh “And the madman continues his courtship,” she shook her head “Quite the response, Emrys.”
“You mistake me again…I have made no such claim.”
A cry of a hawk echoed overhead, the horse startled slighting but Merlin calmed her with a soft hush before he.
“You have been too long behind stone walls,” He remarked, his tone even. “You mistake simple honesty for courtship.” He wet his dried lips for a brief moment, his gaze remaining fixed on the horizon. “They are not the same.”
Eira opened her mouth but repressed her tongue, he was right—she was reading into everything but she needed more knowledge of this man. Clearly, he was mad to claim the title of counselor to the High King; he evoked too many strange mysteries for any other explanation.
But if he were truly a madman, what did it matter? She had nowhere to run, she could not survive on her own in the wilderness alone.
Instead she sighed with exhaustion. “How much longer till we reach the shelter? The day has grown long and my last meal was before I fled the king’s court.”
Merlin eyes narrowed ahead, measuring the path as the light thinned between the trees.
His hands settled back over hers, steadying the horse as it picked its way along the uneven ground. “We will have shelter before nightfall.” He paused briefly before proceeding. “And food.”
Eira glanced down at his hands and frowned. She said nothing this time. The cold had stiffened her fingers, and the warmth of his sleeved palms thawed them as before. She accepted it—only this once.
Sure enough, another mile on, across a snow-patched field as the sun began its descent, they reached a wooden, abandoned stable. Moss clung to its beams; the oak had begun to decay, but it would suffice for a late winter night.
His word, once again, proved true.
Eira remained skeptical—until she was delivered safely to…wherever “safe” was meant to be.
Slowing the mare at a leaning, broken fence, Merlin released her hands and dismounted first. He turned and offered his hand. Eira ignored it. She slid from the saddle in a careless motion—only to falter, her footing giving way beneath her.
Merlin moved at once. His hands caught her at the waist, steadying her before she could fall. Their bodies pressed close, her balance caught against him. His head dipped slightly just enough that their faces were close.
He exhaled softly, fixing her with a look that bordered on chastising.
“I—” she began, immediate in her defense.
“Had it?” Merlin interjected, one bemused brow lifting.
A long exasperated breath left her “I have ridden a horse before, I know how to dismount.”
“Mm…And yet.” His gaze flicked to her unsteady footing.
Eira’s hands shoved his chest, “I’m fine,” she huffed, pushing him away and he let her go with ease. “Go fetch the food!” She added in annoyance, limping toward the stable, without a backward glance.
The sorcerer watched her, his expression obscure. “Is this how you treat those who aid you?” he asked, calmly. “Or only those you mistrust?”
She gave him no answer, only waving him off offhandedly as she sank onto a bale of hay. Her temper had flared for no rational reason. She had fled the only safety she had ever known and now found herself at the mercy of a man who, thus far, had done her no harm.
It was easier to expect cruelty. Harder to grapple with restraint.
And being stripped of the comfort she was accustomed to did little to soften her mood.
…it was better than becoming Sebastian’s wife.
“I will see to it,” Merlin said evenly, unmoved from where he stood “You may rest without dismissing me.”
When his footsteps receded into the snow, Eira finally let out a breath—then another. Each one came shakier than the last, until a tightness rose in her throat.
No. She would not cry. She had escaped Sebastian.
How long before he loosed his Saxon hounds to hunt her—men who could track a wounded stag across frozen ground, who read broken twigs and disturbed snow as though it spoke to them? Men who did not tire. Who did not stop.
Eventually, they would find her. Drag her back to his court. Bind her to him in vows she could not refuse.
What could one man do against that? Against a force bred for war?
Merlin had bent wind and earth to his will, but she believed it was only trickery. The Saxons would not be so easily deceived by illusions.
This was only time he had given her—nothing more.
Time to breathe. To see the world beyond stone walls, if only for a little while…before she was taken back and caged for the rest of her life.
Eira wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and took in the stable. The last of the sun’s rays warmed her face, and she closed her eyes, absorbing what little heat remained as she pushed back her hood. When she looked again, her gaze dropped to the hay. She gathered a few dry strands, weaving them together to stifle her thoughts.
Which, inevitably, turned to Merlin.
The mysterious madman. Sorcerer. Servant. Now, counselor. A man of many riddles and quiet certainty—of secrets…or perhaps none at all.
