Any Man So Daring by Sarah A. Hoyt Page A

it?
    She gritted her teeth, thinking of her adopted father’s wounded expression. Force, her heart would break. She felt the sting of tears behind her eyes, like the swelling of rain-laden clouds that must burst in water or else break in storm.
    Then she thought of Proteus, poor Proteus, whose father had been defeated in battle, whose last hope had been dashed.
    She swallowed back the pressure of her tears and told herself that she must hurt the Hunter to save Proteus, and that Proteus, the weaker, needed her more.
    On this resolution, she reached for the shelf, and found her fingers brushing the symbols Proteus had drawn on the spine of a blood-red leather bound book.
    “I’ve found it, Caliban,” she said, and, holding her green dress up away from her rushing feet, she climbed down the ladder.
    Caliban hadn’t been making much effort to look at books. He’d been standing by the bookcase, glaring at Miranda with an air of aggrieved dignity. Now, he followed her out of the library with dragging step.
    “Mistress, I don’t think you should trust--”
    A look quelled him. When Proteus had first appeared near the castle, Caliban had made such comments, and indeed, enlarged himself upon the theme that Miranda shouldn’t trust the stranger, that the stranger was just that, and might bring danger and treason to her life and him and even the Hunter.
    Miranda had answered his doubts then, and clearly enough. By accusing him of jealousy of Proteus’s clean beauty, she’d reduced the beast to sputtering tears.
    Since then, Caliban had been quiet on the subject till now.
    What did he sense now, that pulled such words from him?
    Miranda gave her beastly servant a searching look but saw no more than his normal, surly, red-eyed boorishness.
    He’d been taken from his parents as a cub by the Hunter, who’d wanted him to be a serf to Miranda.
    Did Caliban miss his parents' smelly cave in the far northern mountains?
    Did he crave the companionship of his litter mates?
    “What, Mistress, what?” Caliban asked.
    Miranda realized that she’d been staring, thinking odd thoughts indeed. Trolls were brutes with no feelings or memories.
    Yet, why did Caliban look ever so mournful?
    Oh, nothing, it is nothing , Miranda told herself. No thoughts, no feelings does he have that are worth my concern.
    She held the magical book to her chest, and tried to think only of Proteus as she climbed the spiral staircase that led to the back door of the tower.
    Outside the tower extended a vast garden, a thing of marvel built by the Hunter for Miranda’s delight.
    On this expanse, flowers grew together that had never, in either geography or season, known each other’s company. Lilies intertwined with roses and those with tulips, and those yet with the exotic orchid that grew in colors so perfect and absolute that they would have been worth a king’s ransom in the world of men.
    Miranda paid no attention to the flowers, or to the singing of myriad multicolored birds, or to the smell of warmth and life that diffused into the crisp morning air. All of it had amused her when she was a child, but now she was a woman, and she must put her childish toys by.
    She walked along the path between the tower door and the gate that opened in the encircling wall, the gate that led to the forest and to Proteus.
    The book in her arms felt very heavy and cold, and she couldn’t help but hear, in Caliban’s shuffle behind her, an ominous question.
    Why did Proteus want this book?
    Thinking about it now, Miranda realized she did not know. She’d been lulled by Proteus's talk of love, of proving her love and of righting the great wrongs done to both their families.
    And yet a book of spells was for spelling — and what spell would change the outcome of the elf civil war? What spell would restore Miranda to the throne? What spell could bring back the brave rebels who’d lost their life in the war? What spell could give Proteus back his father?
    Spells — Miranda