Turning, Morgan stared into the fire. “I can’t. But then I’ve not spent so much as a day looking, have I? Maris Garrick was tossed in my lap, like a ripe peach, and that was that.”

“Tossed by Venette Martain, who seems to care more about the future of this family than you do.”

Another barb, sunk deep into his flesh. “That’s not true.”

Then what? You’d reject the Garrick girl and taint our bloodline by marrying some chit from a Family ranked below our own? Is that it?’

In the leaping flames Morgan saw, leaping, Barl Lindin’s striking face. Fear and defiance. Passion and pride. He felt again the pain he’d caused her, and remembered her battle not to break before the indifferent Council’s might.

What a pity she’s unranked. There is more power in that girl than was ever dreamt of for Nevin Jordane’s crippled embarrassment of a daughter. Dorana has need of talent like Barl Lindin’s. If I could match myself with her…

But he couldn’t, and he was mad to torment himself with the thought. Mad to let himself wonder, even briefly, what her lips might taste like. How it would feel to feel her fingertips on his skin.

Fool. You can’t have her. Let her go.

Mingled longing and regret throbbed through his blood. The woken need was a cruelly taunting pain. This was what he should be feeling for Maris Garrick. The thought of bedding her without it… the thought of bedding her at all…

I am mad. Barl Lindin is so far beneath me I should be ashamed for even entertaining the notion.

But he wasn’t. Instead he was resentful, not only for himself but for all of Dorana as well. Barl Lindin had a talent that defied explanation, that properly trained and channelled might accomplish astonishing work. Wilfully wasting such a resource was nothing short of a travesty. Yet the Council was wasting it. Worse, it had deliberately turned the girl into a cripple.

And I’m as much to blame as Brice Varen or Sallis Arkley. I should have refused to bind her. I should have insisted she be seen as a gift, not a curse. Of course rank matters, of course it must be considered, but we were wrong about Bellamie Ranowen and we are wrong this time, too. Surely we cripple ourselves when we—

His father’s snapping fingers jerked him out of turmoiled thought.

“Morgan! You dare ignore me?”

Startled, he looked at the bed. “No, my lord. I was simply—”

“I do not care about your simply. Answer my question! Has your gaze lit upon a ranked Family that you know I will not like?”

“No, my lord.”

His father coughed wetly, the wheeze in his chest returned double-fold. “Then you’d destroy us entirely by marrying out of the First Families?”