a greedy desire for satisfaction. She supposed the responses were all residual effects of the dragon horn that lingered in her blood. But rationalising those responses did not soften the urgency of her needs.
Ignoring the threat of faraway sounds, convinced they were nothing more than echoes from her imagination, she stepped up to the shelves and considered the rows upon rows of stoppered glass jars.
The jars gleamed in the dusk light as though they had all been recently polished. Caitrin could see the contents in each one. Some contained murky liquids, moving ominously of their own volition. Others were filled with disconcerting items such as eyeballs, tongues or locks of hair. All of them were labelled on white card written with the painstaking precision of the mage’s exact hand. The labels, Caitrin noted, were in the same order in which she’d been taught her letters as a girl.
That would make things easier, she supposed. She traced her finger along the shelves in search of the cards beginning with the letter D.
Demon Claws. Diamond Milk. Dodo Feathers.
Dog Hairs were stored next to Duck Feet.
From what she recalled of her letters, dragon horn should have sat between those two jars. But there was no jar labelled dragon horn. There wasn’t even an empty space where a jar should have been.
‘Fie,’ she muttered.
She turned to the H section of the jars and her hopes were briefly raised. There was a section dedicated solely to animal horn.
Horn: Buffalo.
Horn: Chameleon.
Horn: Griffin.
‘Fie!’
If there had been a jar labelled ‘Horn: Dragon’ Caitrin knew it would have sat between Chameleon and Griffin. She stamped her foot angrily on the floor, annoyed that she had risked so much in stealing into the mage’s office and all without achieving any gain.
‘Fie! Fie! Fie!’
‘Quite the foul-mouthed little trespasser, aren’t you?’
Caitrin glanced toward the sound of the voice.
She hadn’t seen the door open and she hadn’t seen the mage enter the room. Now she realised that Nihal stood blocking the doorway. There was no way to escape. She clutched one small hand over her mouth to contain the squeal of surprise that wanted to escape.
‘Who are you and what are you doing in my offices?’
‘I’m sorry, Nihal,’ Caitrin began. ‘I was trespassing. Please forgive –’
‘You’re not sorry yet.’ Nihal’s voice rang from the stone walls of the tower. The words were not shouted but there was no denying the authority with which they were spoken. ‘You’re not sorry yet. But you will be sorry if you don’t tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.’
The mage looked resplendent in a crimson cowled robe tied at the waist with a ceremonial gold cord. Youngest of the castellan’s household wizards, a migrant from the southernmost borders of the North Ridings, Nihal was a mage with a deserved reputation as the most powerful master of magicks in the whole of Blackheath. Nihal cast spells to end the cold cruelty of the long winter nights. Nihal made the first flowers bloom in spring. And, Caitrin had heard it said, Nihal could draw the truth from reluctant lips as effortlessly as the farm maids drew milk from the cows.
Goosebumps prickled her flesh.
Her nipples stiffened.
‘Nihal,’ she whispered. ‘It’s me, Caitrin. Don’t you recognise me?’
‘A shape-changer would likely visit my offices in Caitrin’s form,’ Nihal growled. ‘It’s known I have a tenderness for the castellan’s dark-haired daughter.’
She touched a hand to her coal-black tresses.
‘You have a tenderness for me?’
Caitrin could not stop the smile from sitting on her lips. She had never realised Nihal had a tenderness for her. The thought was warming and made her suddenly yearn for the mage. Her heartbeat quickened.
‘You should have said something,’ she began. ‘Perhaps you and I –’
‘Stand up straight,’ the mage barked.
Her body reacted instantaneously to the command. She stood stiff, as though her backbone had been replaced by a pikestaff. The idea that Nihal was controlling her actions and movements inspired a thrill of helpless excitement.
Standing rigid, Caitrin felt as though it was only her eyes that could move.
Her gaze scoured the room for some hope of salvation.
She studied Nihal and tried to silently beg for leniency.
It was impossible to see the wizard’s face. The hood of the ceremonial cowl was drawn forward to throw shadows over the mage’s features. In the dwindling light of the offices, Caitrin caught only the occasional flash of bright almond eyes and dazzling teeth fixed into a cruel smile. It was a combination she found unsettling and yet deeply and darkly attractive.
‘You do look like Caitrin, the castellan’s daughter,’ Nihal admitted. ‘So you’re either her, or you’re a very skilled shape-changer. I’m curious to discover which.’
‘I am her,’ Caitrin insisted. ‘Why would a shape-changer visit your offices?’
A wand appeared in the mage’s hand. It was a fifteen-inch length of bitternut hickory, as thick as Caitrin’s thumb and tipped with a silver cap. The silver tip glowed a dull cerise, although Caitrin wasn’t sure if it was a reflection from the settling sun, the nearness of the mage’s robes or some magical power lighting the wand.
She swallowed thickly.
The sight of the wand stirred a slick and fluid warmth in her loins.
‘By the power of all the magicks I command,’ Nihal’s voice boomed from the walls. The brightness in the offices briefly intensified.
Caitrin couldn’t imagine where the extra light came from.
‘By the power of all the magicks I command,’ Nihal repeated, ‘you will tell me now your true identity.’
‘I’m Caitrin, youngest of the castellan’s three daughters,’ Caitrin admitted. ‘I’m Caitrin, twin to Tavia and younger sister of Inghean. Don’t you recognise me, Nihal? I’m Caitrin.’
Something in the stoop of the mage’s shoulders suggested Nihal was not yet convinced. ‘I don’t believe you’re a shape-changer,’ Nihal allowed. The mage began to circle her. ‘Yet I still have my doubts. You seem different from the Caitrin who last visited my offices. Why would that be?’
Caitrin blushed.
Only able to move her eyes, she lowered her gaze.
She was a different person from the Caitrin who had previously visited Nihal’s offices and she knew why she was
