Spirit of the Mist by Janeen O'Kerry Read Free Book Online

her fingers. She dropped the grass she was twisting and moved her hand beneath the folds of her cloak. “I knew that you were out in the world somewhere,” he continued. “And I hoped that I would find someone like you before—”  
     
    “Before you exhausted yourself with all the other women you encountered?”  
    “Before I had to take my place as king,” he finished patiently. He got to his feet and stood very tall, forcing her to crane her neck to look up at him. He still held the bright yellow primroses and dandelions he’d plucked. “I will need a queen. And I have not yet found one.”  
    “Your speech is well rehearsed,” Muriel snapped. “You must have used it many times. It seems strange to me that such a fine and handsome man as you—as I am sure you will try to tell me—can find no woman who will have him.”  
    She waited for his response, but he merely turned and walked with long, graceful strides toward the nearby rocks. The wind stirred his golden brown hair around his face as he paused in front of some brush. “You misunderstand me,” he said and broke off a little branch of gorse, heavy with golden blossoms. “There were plenty of women who would have accepted me. I have not yet found one that I would accept.”  
    “Ah. I see. Well, Brendan, I suppose you will simply have to keep on searching.”  
    “Perhaps,” he said finally, adding a few stems of spring gentian to his collection. Arranging the blossoms carefully, he walked around the rocks to some blackberry brambles. In a moment, a slender cane filled with tiny white flowers joined his primrose and dandelion and gorse and gentian.  
    “You are forgetting what King Murrough just said!” called Muriel peevishly. “It is possible that you will never leave Dun Farraige. You might stay here and live out your life as a slave.”  
    The man smiled back at her, carefully adjusting his bouquet to avoid the sharp thorns of the gorse.  
    “If that happens, perhaps I could persuade you too to be a servant, and live alongside me. It would be a simple life, but a happy one, so long as we were together.”  
    Muriel watched him as he worked with the flowers—and as she watched, it seemed to her that he no longer wore his fine black leather and soft gray wool, but the rough, undyed garb of a slave. There was no shining brooch at his shoulder now, only a plain bronze pin. And he seemed cold and despondent and underfed, nothing like the strong, young man who had stood above her a moment before.  
    A cold shock ran through Muriel. Her face grew hot and her hands felt cold. “Being a slave is nothing to laugh about,” she whispered, turning away and fighting to keep the tremor from her voice.  
    He walked to her and leaned down a bit, trying to catch her eye. “My lady, that possibility is so very unlikely that the only thing I can do is laugh about it. Clearly you are no more a slave than I am.”  
    Still, she could not look at him. “The king’s men leave in the morning for Dun Bochna. It will not be long until they return, and then we will know the truth.”  
    “You already know the truth, for I have told it to you: I am the tanist of my father’s kingdom and in time I will be its king.”  
    The fresh breeze blew over them again. Muriel took another deep breath and firmly reminded herself that this Brendan was an unknown, a mystery, as insubstantial as the mists and as shadowy as the gray cloak he wore.  
    He was the last man she would ever want to know…much less marry.  

Chapter Four  
    Brendan walked away from Muriel, this time toward the willow trees. From the edge of the shade he took blooms of the foxglove—long and slender and deep pink—and then he moved to the deepest shade beneath the trees to pick a few tiny violets—blue, purple, and white.  
    He walked back to Muriel and sat down in the grass beside her, toying with his bouquet. She waited for him to give it to her, but the idea seemed not to occur