Page 19 of The Elven Healer's Apprentice

I nodded my agreement and turned to fetch paper, pen, and ink from the depths of my drawers. I had too much to do to keep running back and forth to the castle.

∞∞∞

Adela

“Tyrant,” Merlon muttered as he burst through the door of the animal barn, eyes blazing brighter than his silvery-white hair. Robes whipping about him in a squall of expensive fabrics and latent magic, he stormed down the aisle between the creature pens. The salamanders responded by flooding their enclosure with heat. They scuffled about, sending off small flares of fire that popped and spit. Thankful I had already fed them, so I tried to focus on my current task, feeding a great creature with the head of a lioness and the body of a goat.

Three days had passed since the incident with Ethe and her son, Hugion. The frequency of the messages traveling back and forth between the compound and the castle indicated something was brewing. With each, Merlon’s level of irritation had only grown.

His current mood appeared to match that of the creature beneath me. The chimera’s enclosure floor had been dug out sothat a ten-foot drop separated me from the hissing beast below. Her malevolent serpent eyes glared up from above a snarling muzzle as she paced, tail lashing in anticipation of food.

Propping the metal-lined slot open with one length of iron, I threw the last slab of meat into the chimera’s pen through the safety door. She leaped up and scrambled for the meat as it hit the stone floor of her cage. The food disappeared down her gullet with a snap and a gulp. Then the creature turned and eyed me, drool dripping from her snarling lips. With a hiss that produced a cloud of steam, she demanded more. There was no mistaking the menacing glint in her eye. She intended that her next bite would come from me.

“No more,” I informed her as I closed the safety hatch keeping the two of us apart. A fireproof spell fell over the bars, blanketing the iron in a glimmering, tingling curtain of silver haze.

Only then did I turn away to collect the feed bucket for the sphynx cats. At least, they wouldn’t threaten me when I offered them their meal. I turned toward the door to the outside and my next task, only to bump into an irate elf.

Merlon steadied me as I stumbled about for balance. The familiar tingle of encountering something magic lit the air, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. To my surprise, Merlon didn’t immediately release me. It might’ve been my imagination, but his fingers seemed to tighten around my upper arms. When I finally lifted my head to reassure him I was steady now, his gaze flared from silver to a deep azure before he suddenly let go.

“Where is Lippin?” he demanded.

“I don’t know.” What was wrong with him? His voice had taken on an uncharacteristically icy tone. Merlon would snap and snark with occasional lapses into barking orders, but he rarely sounded cold.

He grimaced as he scanned the interior of the barn. “Feeding the chimera is Lippin's duty.”

I shrugged with one shoulder as I carried the heavy pail full of feed for the sphynx pride along the wide corridor toward the door on the far end. “I have been doing it for months. When you were gone, we had to readjust the workloads.”

“Really? That is the excuse you are going to give?” He strode after me, catching my arm again. “Let me carry that.”

Dropping the bucket to the floor so violently that some contents escaped, I turned to face him. Despite my best effort to remain calm in the face of his insults, my patience ran out.

“What is your problem with me?” I demanded. “I can carry, lug, and clean, and I have been for months. Sina has never found fault with my work.” Tilting my head back so I met his brilliant eyes, I glared. “You dragged me here. This is now my place, so don’t you dare take away my purpose.”

“Saved you from execution,” he clarified.

“You abandoned me to my own devices.”

“Not my choice.” A flicker of something tightened his mouth.

“It was not my preference either,” I pointed out. “There was a need, and I stepped forward to fill it. Sina and Lippin gave me the tasks. I did not seek them out. Your patients needed help, so I helped them. Would you have preferred that I ignore their needs? Should I have shunned dirtying my hands? Do you wish I had lazed around and made Lippin and Sina do everything without help?”

He studied my features from beneath lowered brows. No trace of derision or anger lingered in the set of his mouth. Instead, he appeared almost repentant.

“I apologized for those accusations.”

He had. Taken aback, I stared at him. “Then why harass me?”

To my astonishment, he didn't immediately respond. Instead, he stared down into my face, searching. The color in his eyes shifted from an angry silver to a warm blue as his mouth softened into a rueful, almost smile. “I am only offering to carry the bucket for you.”

Realizing that I had overreacted, I drew in a deep breath and tried to ignore the flush of embarrassment heating my face. “I am sorry. I assumed you were attacking me again.”

He silently nodded his acceptance of my apology and stooped down to claim the bucket of feed. “A logical assumption considering my attitude of late.”

“Only of late?” The biting query slipped from me before I caught it.

“The past weeks or so, I have not been myself.” A challenge glinted in his gaze, and the corner of his mouth twitched as though he were amused by something.

“And how are you normally? Less abrasive? More accommodating and patient?”

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