Kissed by Starlight Read Free

have been sunk deep into the snow. Even when William the Footman brought in the firewood, his shoes sank into the mud or snow to a greater depth than when he went unburdened. Perhaps the crust was frozen hard.... Felicia dismissed this notion in the next instant.
    Looking forward, Felicia realized they were approaching the house by most unorthodox means. The sun shone brightly on the windows of the house, which blazed as though fires had been set in all the rooms. It dazzled her eyes as Blaic paused to open a window and carry her into her room, a full story up.
    * * * *
    Blaic stood over the unconscious girl. Though human women did not attract him in the least, he owed this one a debt of gratitude for her tears. Her face was thin, with shadows under her blue eyes like finger marks. Surely nature had never meant her cheekbones to be so sharp. Yet it was the shadows at her temples, there where the mortal life beat so near the surface, that spoke most eloquently of her pain.
    He owed her a debt which he could never adequately repay. That rankled. He did not wish to be beholden to a slip of a mortal creature. It was like a tiny chain on his freedom, nowhere near enough to hold him, yet galling.
    She moved restlessly on the bed. Her hair, a deep, rich brown, was no longer smoothly bound back from her brow. She called out a meaningless jumble of syllables and Blaic noticed that her lips were dry.
    A white jug of water stood by a basin. He pressed a cloth into the water, then wrung it out. Laying it over her forehead, Blaic was careful not to touch her face with his fingers. He did not like her pallor. This was more than illness. Pain and grief racked this young mortal. He judged her to be no more than twenty years old. Too young, he thought, to look so!
    Curious, he started to reach for her thoughts. Yet his quick ear caught the sound of people coming up the stairs on the other side of the door. He extended his consciousness to see them. Middle-aged, plainly dressed, those floppy caps on their heads ... maids?
    “So I zay, ‘If be not yer plaizure, why I’ll please my own self, Mr. Mann.”
    “You dared not!”
    “Did I not? Aye, and snapped my fingers beneath his long nose, zo I did.” She demonstrated, to her friend’s openmouthed amazement.
    Blaic sent a mental image of Felicia, restless and sick, into the mind of the sharper of the two maids. He faded his body away as the door swung open a moment later. “Oh, the poor miss. Her ladyship’ll niver be happy ‘bout this. Best to tell ‘un quick.”
    “Oh, Mary! I could not....”
    “You mind Miss Felicia, then, Rose. I’ll be tellin’ the old besom. An’ if Miss Felicia don’t have what took away his lordship, I’ll turn harlot, zo I will.”
    The bolder of the two girls went out. Indistinguishable from the paint on the wall, Blaic watched as the more timid one put her fingers on the back of Felicia’s hand to test her temperature. What must it be like to be able to touch without paying a price? he wondered.
    “There now, Miss Felicia,” she said in answer to a mutter. “Mary and Rose’ll watch over you. If they’d let us care for your blessed father instead of that old ... she’d not be a widow today. Shh, shh.”
    Satisfied that the girl was in capable hands, Blaic stepped out the window. Since the world still spun on its axis, the nearest door into the Living Lands would still serve. He’d pay his respects to the high-king, showing him that the curse he’d laid so long ago was broken. Then he’d away to his own lands and his own king, Morgain his father.
    Once upon a time, he’d seen many of his own kind, slipping across the Hamdry lawn with revelry in mind. Not for years, though, had he heard the wild music playing on the high hill behind the manor. How long had it been?
    He’d had no need to ask the human woman for the date. He had kept an accurate count of every bitter year. Six hundred and forty-eight years of weary mortal time had passed since