Queen's Heart: An Arthurian Paranormal Romance (Arthurian Hearts Book 2) Read Online Free Page B
Author: Phoenix Sullivan
Drustan bristled.
“Curb your foul tongue.” Drustan’s tone was low and measured, commanding as no harper’s should be among his betters. “You have not yet earned the right to speak so to my Lady.”
Feigning innocence—for I truly meant the double-entendre as implied, I said, “You over-reach your authority, harper. I was asking my Lady what I must do to carry her favor in the tourney, nothing more.”
Yseult stole a glance at Drustan who glowered still before returning her gaze to me and quirking a brow. “ Nothing more?”
“It is all I ask. Though I am willing to accept all you have to give.”
Her blush deepened, rosing her cheeks in a way that delighted my heart. While she appeared to take no offense at my innuendo, Drustan’s horse suddenly found its way between us. Yseult took its bridle in her hand, ensuring Drustan remained calm or risk unseating her. “If my favors were to be so freely given, they would lose value—both in my eyes and in the eyes of any knight upon whom I might bestow such a gift. My favor, in any form, must be won, by any man.”
She slipped her gaze aside to include Drustan too, just that easily taking command of this field where two suitors warred for her attention. A sudden weight in my chest drove breath from my lungs. Had she and Drustan already exchanged favors ? I had caught them laughing beside a stream, alone and far away from condemning eyes. Had they tarried by that stream before? Did my arrival interrupt one of many trysts between them?
It was not enough that I was smitten by her beauty and charm. If I were to gain back all that I was before, I had to win her . Seeing her, I could not doubt Fate guided her here. Fate who gave me a target in plain and easy sight then deliberately fouled my aim by placing Drustan between. Besmirching Drustan in any way would not win me any bouts with Yseult. My dearest Brinn had lessoned me in that when I so foolishly challenged her lovers to a duel. All I had accomplished was to drive her further from me.
With Yseult, I would not make such mistakes. I had been fae and would be fae again—a race who lived a thousand years. Time was on my side.
CHAPTER SEVEN
TRISTAN
Even the best of lies requires continued diligence to avoid the two great traps of prevarication.
First is forgetting some detail of the lie, whether in its creation or in some aspect of its growth—and grow it will, hour by hour and day by day, gaining life as it wraps its tentacles around the truth, entwining lie and truth, squeezing until extrication of the lie complete becomes an impossible feat.
The second trap is succumbing to the lie, allowing yourself to forget—or possibly simply to ignore—the truth in favor of the lie. To live the lie to its extreme.
Of the two, the latter trap is the more insidious, for the greater the lie the more probability it will eat away at self and soul.
I lied to stay alive. At first. Or so I told myself. Certain it was that the knights of Whitehaven would not grant me safe harbor within its walls if they knew it was I who slew their queen’s brother. But I was mending quickly now. The skiff I had arrived in would as well return me to Tintagel in Cornwall where my own uncle would welcome me as The Prodigal Son. I no longer needed the lie to live. Yet letting go of it would mean letting go of Whitehaven—and, more importantly, letting go of Yseult.
But now a complication had ridden in on a great white horse. The song in my heart died a little to see Yseult’s head so easily turned by this stranger knight who so boldly asked her favor.
My only redemption was the gauntlet Yseult threw between us: her favor to be won.
My lie provided only harp and voice as weapons. Palomides offered sword and valor—and an otherworldly beauty that neither sex could deny. To compete meant stripping away the first layer of my lie without uncovering the darker secret deep within. If that happened, my life would still be forfeit here in
“Curb your foul tongue.” Drustan’s tone was low and measured, commanding as no harper’s should be among his betters. “You have not yet earned the right to speak so to my Lady.”
Feigning innocence—for I truly meant the double-entendre as implied, I said, “You over-reach your authority, harper. I was asking my Lady what I must do to carry her favor in the tourney, nothing more.”
Yseult stole a glance at Drustan who glowered still before returning her gaze to me and quirking a brow. “ Nothing more?”
“It is all I ask. Though I am willing to accept all you have to give.”
Her blush deepened, rosing her cheeks in a way that delighted my heart. While she appeared to take no offense at my innuendo, Drustan’s horse suddenly found its way between us. Yseult took its bridle in her hand, ensuring Drustan remained calm or risk unseating her. “If my favors were to be so freely given, they would lose value—both in my eyes and in the eyes of any knight upon whom I might bestow such a gift. My favor, in any form, must be won, by any man.”
She slipped her gaze aside to include Drustan too, just that easily taking command of this field where two suitors warred for her attention. A sudden weight in my chest drove breath from my lungs. Had she and Drustan already exchanged favors ? I had caught them laughing beside a stream, alone and far away from condemning eyes. Had they tarried by that stream before? Did my arrival interrupt one of many trysts between them?
It was not enough that I was smitten by her beauty and charm. If I were to gain back all that I was before, I had to win her . Seeing her, I could not doubt Fate guided her here. Fate who gave me a target in plain and easy sight then deliberately fouled my aim by placing Drustan between. Besmirching Drustan in any way would not win me any bouts with Yseult. My dearest Brinn had lessoned me in that when I so foolishly challenged her lovers to a duel. All I had accomplished was to drive her further from me.
With Yseult, I would not make such mistakes. I had been fae and would be fae again—a race who lived a thousand years. Time was on my side.
CHAPTER SEVEN
TRISTAN
Even the best of lies requires continued diligence to avoid the two great traps of prevarication.
First is forgetting some detail of the lie, whether in its creation or in some aspect of its growth—and grow it will, hour by hour and day by day, gaining life as it wraps its tentacles around the truth, entwining lie and truth, squeezing until extrication of the lie complete becomes an impossible feat.
The second trap is succumbing to the lie, allowing yourself to forget—or possibly simply to ignore—the truth in favor of the lie. To live the lie to its extreme.
Of the two, the latter trap is the more insidious, for the greater the lie the more probability it will eat away at self and soul.
I lied to stay alive. At first. Or so I told myself. Certain it was that the knights of Whitehaven would not grant me safe harbor within its walls if they knew it was I who slew their queen’s brother. But I was mending quickly now. The skiff I had arrived in would as well return me to Tintagel in Cornwall where my own uncle would welcome me as The Prodigal Son. I no longer needed the lie to live. Yet letting go of it would mean letting go of Whitehaven—and, more importantly, letting go of Yseult.
But now a complication had ridden in on a great white horse. The song in my heart died a little to see Yseult’s head so easily turned by this stranger knight who so boldly asked her favor.
My only redemption was the gauntlet Yseult threw between us: her favor to be won.
My lie provided only harp and voice as weapons. Palomides offered sword and valor—and an otherworldly beauty that neither sex could deny. To compete meant stripping away the first layer of my lie without uncovering the darker secret deep within. If that happened, my life would still be forfeit here in
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