Page 61 of Seducing the Sorcerer
Chapter 12
Fenn woke with a start to find daylight coming in, a soldier dropping off a breakfast tray, and Morgrim gone.
He sat in the stall doorway to eat as he always did, watching the soldier’s retreating back through the rain. The events of last night seemed impossible: Jasper climbing down the tower wall, Jasper’s desperate desire for magic.
And, more world-shakingly, Morgrim.
Morgrim in the rain, hair bright with raindrops in the lantern light. Morgrim, biting his lip, talking about magic. Morgrim, fucking. Gods and what a fuck!
And then Fenn had spilled his guts out. Aye, and wept and all. And Morgrim had accepted everything, had said of Fenn’s lost horses, “of course they were yours” as if it was so plain it barely needed saying. And afterwards, they had lain in the hay together, for all the world like lovers.
Morgrim would surely not send him away now. Would he?
Something throbbed in Fenn’s chest: pain at the idea of leaving mixed in with a deep desire to be with Morgrim again, to see him, to smell him, to hold him. Aye, and to fuck him again too.
Ah, but there was food. Eat fast. Then find Morgrim. Quick.
Fenn sloshed out some hot chocolate, gulped half of it down, tore off a mouthful of bread.
There came a rushing sound, like the wind and yet not quite. It intensified and a rumbling undertone shook Fenn’s hand, rippling the surface of the chocolate in his cup as if the whole tower rock was shaking. Heavy droplets of rain splattered down from the underside of the gutter.
Fenn shot to his feet, staggering as a crash shook the stable yard. A scream pierced the air and went on and on, the same as the night he’d arrived: the intruder alarm.
That crash. Could it have been cannon? Were they under attack? He spat out the unchewed bread, dropped the cup, and ran from the shelter of the stables to check the tower. It seemed undamaged, but of course the upper parts were hidden in cloud. Impossible to tell what had happened.
Whatever, must get to Morgrim.
Fenn tore across the stable yard, yanked open the courtyard door.
The courtyard was empty, the gatehouse untouched. The portcullis was still down, the stone bridge to the city undamaged. Fenn looked to the tower. Shit. Half a dozen vast dark blocks of masonry were scattered at its foot like a giant’s game of knucklebones. The steps up to the door were broken, slabs tilted up at angles. Something had hit the tower.
What the hell was going on?
The library window on the second floor was a dark smudge in the cloud, but it was impossible to see higher because of all the damn cloud. The screaming went on, an endless assault on the ears. But the screaming was an intruder alert. So where was the intruder? Already in the tower?
And Morgrim?
Fenn raced across the courtyard and up the tower steps, leaping across fallen masonry. The door was locked. Of course. He thumped it with a fist but there was no response. He put his shoulder to it and shoved. It barely moved. Door was too strong. If Morgrim had bolted it, which he always did, there’d be no breaking it down. This was pointless.
And stupid.
Because the horse was the answer. He’d fly up, get out of the cloud, see what was happening. Squab was at his elbow, as usual.
He was turning to mount when the rushing rumbling roar came again, drowning out the screaming. Something moved above him. Swift. Vast.
He ducked, instinctively flattening himself against the door, protecting his head with his arms. Another deep boom and the tower shuddered like a sapling on its foundations. A rain of grit fell onto Fenn’s head and hands. Must be cannon. Some enemy must have taken the town or the palace. How else would cannon fire reach the tower?
But what was that rushing noise?
It was coming again. From above. He looked up, but what he saw made no sense. Something huge and white and sinuous was streaking across the tower. It had brown streaks and moved so fast it baffled the eye. A spray of wet stuff fell down from it onto Fenn’s unturned face and, even as he dashed it away, the thing was lost again in the mist.
But what was it? A snake?
Oh Gods, a huge, white, oozing snake. A dragon?
Weren’t those all dead?
Must get up there. Find Morgrim.
