by Lynn Kurland
Or it might have been just because he loved her.
“So, that’s how it is.”
Sarah had a brief smile from Ruith before he turned to listen—through a haze of pain she could see hovering around his head—to what his grandfather was trying to say to him. Sarah turned to Iarann and found him watching her with a smile.
“How what is?”
“You and Ruith.”
Sarah took a deep breath. “We’re friends.”
Iarann only laughed a little. “Good friends, I would say, but ’tis none of my business. I think your great-great-grandfather Seannair might find Ruith almost worthy of you, but then again, he might not. You’ll have to ask him when next you meet. Now, whilst my grandfather is voicing his complaints about the illustrious and ill-mannered queen of An-uallach, why don’t you distract me with tales of Ruith’s bad behavior? I will admit years have passed since I saw him last.”
Sarah smiled in spite of herself. “And how did he behave then?”
“He and young Miach of Neroche were, as you may or may not know, troublemakers of the first water. I daresay the only reason they didn’t pull Mhorghain into their schemes was that my aunt Sarait kept Mhorghain close to her so she wouldn’t run afoul of trouble before her time. Miach and Ruith, however, seemed to find themselves together more times than was good for either of them. And when he was without Miach to spur him on, Ruith spent most of his time either terrorizing the librarian downstairs or fighting in the lists with his brothers.”
“With swords?” Sarah asked in surprise.
“Rùnach obliged him as often as he wished with steel,” Iarann conceded, “but for the rest, ’twas mostly spells.” He paused. “For obvious reasons, I suppose.”
Sarah nodded, because she didn’t need any explanation. Ruith and his brothers had obviously been trying to prepare themselves to fight their sire. She was only surprised to learn of Rùnach’s fondness for steel. How terrible for him, then, to have his hands be so much less than they had been.
“How was it you and Ruith met?” Iarann asked. “Crossing blades or spells?”
Sarah managed a smile. “I have none of the latter and no desire for the former.” She started to explain the rest, then hesitated. She had no reason not to trust Iarann, but perhaps Ruith wouldn’t want any of his secrets revealed. And the truth was, she found herself having difficulty trusting anyone at the moment.
Well, save Ruith.
“I won’t betray you.”
She smiled, though it felt pained. “Why would I think you would?”
He chewed on his words for a moment or two. “Because when you’re thrust into a world where you don’t know the players, you tend to look twice at everyone you meet. Worse still is when you know many of the players and one has betrayed you.”
“Or when you’re the eldest son of the crown prince of Tòrr Dòrainn and you’re watching every shadow?”
“Aye, there is that,” he agreed. He paused, then looked at her very seriously. “Though I cannot force you to trust me, I promise you, Sarah of Cothromaiche, that I will never do anything to betray either you or my cousin who sits over there carrying burdens he is loathe to reveal. ’Tis entirely possible that I might have some detail that would aid you.”
She looked into his eyes, eyes that had no doubt seen several lifetimes and innumerable betrayals, and saw nothing in them that made her uneasy. She paused again, then glanced at Ruith. This time he was watching her.
He looked impossibly tired. She supposed, watching him as he was watching her and trying to listen to his grandfather at the same time, that they shouldn’t spurn whatever help came their way. But there was no sense in not making very clear just what the price of betrayal would be. She smiled briefly at Ruith, then turned to Iarann.
“I don’t have any skill with a blade,” she said seriously, “nor any spells of death to wield, but I think I would guard that man’s back with just my hands if I had to.”
Iarann’s eyes widened briefly, then he smiled. “Oh, so you’re that sort of friend.”
She shifted uncomfortably. “We’re good friends,” she conceded, “and I am fonder of him than I like to admit. I also don’t know where to turn or whom to trust save Ruith, so I’ve decided not to trust anyone until I’m sure of them. You aren’t interested in Olc, or that sort of thing, are you?”
Iarann’s look of revulsion hastily stifled was answer enough. “I wouldn’t sully my soul thus. I’m only sorry Sarait and her children were forced to be witness to any of it.”
Sarah supposed that was answer enough. She took a deep breath and took a chance. “We’re looking for spells.”
“Gair’s spells?”
She nodded.
“That’s a bit like looking for—how is it they say it in Shettlestoune?—an honestly won guinea in any grubby pocket, isn’t it?”
“I hadn’t heard that one,” Sarah said, smiling in spite of herself, “thought I fear it’s very accurate.”
Iarann leaned back against the edge of the window frame and frowned. “So, is it possible that Gair left all these vile spells in a tidy pile, or . . .”
“Or,” she agreed.
Iarann studied his cousin for a bit, then looked at her. “How do you intend to find them?”
“We have a map.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Gair left a map? I understood that he never allowed them to leave his person, but perhaps I know less than I think.”
“Gair didn’t make a map,” Sarah admitted. She had to take a deep breath. “I did. Well, I haven’t made it yet, but I have it in my head.”
Iarann froze. “And how is it, my lady,” he said very carefully, “that you know where these things that never should have been written down, much less conceived, lie when my cousin does not?”
Sarah felt the last of her very minor doubts about Ruith’s cousin vanish. If Iarann could suspect her—even politely—of nefarious deeds, then perhaps he might be on their side of the battlefield after all.
“I can see them,” she admitted. “Where they lie in the Nine Kingdoms.”
He blinked in surprise, then a look of profound pity came over his features. “Ah, you poor child.” He cleared his throat. “So you’ve gone from a bucolic existence in the south to accompanying Gair’s youngest son on his quest to find spells of pure evil that only you can see.”
“Aye.”
“And when Ruith gathers them all up, what then?”
“Well, I don’t imagine he plans on using them.”
“No,” Iarann said slowly, “he wouldn’t. I think there are many things Ruith might do in this world that would lead elder statesmen to shake their heads, but using his father’s spells isn’t one of them.” He shot her a look. “Do you doubt that?”
She smiled. “He has his faults, I suppose, but the desire to plunge face-first into endless pools of evil isn’t one of them.”
“Nay, he knows firsthand where that leads.” He put his hands on his knees. “Well, I think before you march off into darkness, you should have a decent meal, don’t you think?”
“Not in this inn, we won’t.”
Iarann laughed a little. “I’ll see if I can’t spell what’s brought into edibility. I’m sure the effort will put me in bed for a solid fortnight. Miach’s already been complaining about the disgusting nature of the offerings, but he always had a discriminating palate. Then again, once his mother was no longer there to charm his way out of trouble for him, he was relegated by my grandsire to eating in the kitchens. Perhaps he has cause.”
Sarah nodded, then watched him go. She supposed she might come to regret no more opportunity to make polite small talk, because it left her thinking about what she’d told Ruith’s cousin…and what she hadn’t.
Such as the fact that the spells were laid out, if she considered their places on a map, in two lines that grew closer together as they carried on north until they converged upon a single point. Or that the spells were covered, strangely enou
gh, with some sort of magic that seemed to enspell anyone who touched it.
Or that she and Ruith had begun to find, in the vicinity of those spells, scraps of another spell, as if there were someone who knew exactly what they were doing and wanted them to know he knew. The list of who that might potentially be was long and varied, ranging from her fool of a brother who wasn’t in truth her brother to any one of a clutch of Ruith’s bastard brothers.
Or, worse still, what she had left the inn that morning to tell Ruith: that she feared that the spells had begun to move on their own.
Iarann walked over to the hearth and inserted himself loudly into the preparations for lunch. It was a ploy, she could see, to distract others from things they were currently mired in. It seemed to be working less well with Sìle than she supposed Iarann might have hoped. The king of the elves was currently gaping at his granddaughter.
“You brought him what?” he asked incredulously.
Mhorghain didn’t answer her grandfather. She exchanged a look with Ruith that sent chills down Sarah’s spine. It was as if their meeting had been predestined to happen at just such a time and place, as though happenstance had nothing to do with it.
Sarah supposed the conversation carried on, but she couldn’t hear it. She was suddenly too distracted by what she saw glinting on the ground thanks to the light from the fire. She remembered the runes that had appeared in the air just before Mhorghain had unspun herself from her wind-like shape, runes of gold and silver that had sparkled with a light of their own. Those runes, or more of them, were no longer in the air but had settled themselves in an orderly circle around her feet.
What lay around Ruith’s feet were thorns.
Or, rather, thorns that were trying to intertwine themselves with the Fadaire that was suddenly swirling around him, as if it had been a shield, perhaps created by his own magic even. She quickly looked at Ruith’s face, but he was too busy arguing with his grandfather to see what was trying to wrap itself around him.
She realized with an equal amount of alarm that there were thorns wrapped around her wrist, because she could feel them. She pulled her hand from behind her back and looked down. They were rooted in Gair’s ring, rooted so deeply that she couldn’t begin to ascertain where they began. All she knew was that they ended around her wrist.
She looked up and found Ruith watching her. He pulled a chair up next to him and held out his hand toward her.
She hesitated. She had once told him that she wouldn’t have anything to do with him of a more romantic nature until he’d at least chatted with ten princesses. He had wended his way with shocking dishonesty down to one, then announced he was finished with the exercise. In return, she had demanded ten instances where she might get out of uncomfortable state suppers. He’d given her three and she thought she might have already used one in Buidseachd. She was tempted to use another at the moment so she could go hide and stay out of sight, but if she did she would have only one left, which might leave her in terrible straits at some point in the future.
And the truth was, she was very fond of Ruith. If he wanted her to come and sit next to him in that company full of kings, princes, and a princess, she was a fool to resist. No matter what lay entwined about his feet and what she could feel wrapping itself around her wrist.
She had the sinking feeling that there was more to Gair’s ring than either of them knew and that escaping its effects until it had served its purpose was going to be impossible. If only she knew a spell of containment, or had the power to use it . . .
She pushed the thought aside, because it didn’t serve her to entertain it. She put Gair’s ring on her finger, closed her hand around it so it wouldn’t be seen, then rose. She walked across the chamber and sat down next to Ruith, ignoring spells and thorns that cut into her, and hoped she might find some sort of distraction in the conversation there. She would perhaps tell Ruith about what she’d seen the spells doing when they had a moment of privacy.
But she wouldn’t tell him anything else about his father’s ring.
Five
R
uith hovered at the back of the chamber, restless and uneasy. Whilst he’d been very happy to see his sister and sit with Sarah for a bit in front of the fire, he simply couldn’t discuss his plans any longer. No one else seemed to share his unease. He stopped just outside the light cast by the fire in the hearth and looked at his grandfather and Miach grimacing over the wine that had been sent as refreshments and arguing companionably about what produced a more drinkable vintage, the vineyards on the lush rolling hills of Penrhyn or the exposed, rocky outcroppings of Ainneamh’s most southern border. He preferred either cold water from a pure stream or something from Franciscus’s kegs, but the others were welcome to their discussion. It was such a normal, everyday thing—to sit before a fire and critique the wine—that he wished he could join in and forget why he was where he was and what he faced.
Or he could have perhaps distracted himself with the sight of the other souls in the chamber, a collection of persons he’d never imagined he would see again alone much less together. He wanted to gape at his sister, but since he’d spent the majority of the morning doing just that, he supposed she might want a bit of relief from his scrutiny, so he looked elsewhere.
His cousin Iarann hadn’t changed, but he wouldn’t have expected that. Ruith honestly had no idea how old he was, or why he hadn’t found himself a wife already and fashioned a dozen sons between them. He was Làidir’s eldest, so one would have thought his father would have put pressure on him to produce a few heirs. Then again, Iarann’s youngest brother Thoir couldn’t enter a room that he didn’t immediately draw every gel in it to him, so perhaps Iarann was simply waiting for the time when Thoir was otherwise occupied to go find himself a woman to love.
Miach’s older brother Nemed, who was masquerading as Mhorghain’s guardsman, had most assuredly changed over the years. Ruith wasn’t sure he would have recognized him if he’d seen him walking down the street. At least Mansourah was still out scouting. Sìle had complained loudly about his arrows in the side of his stables, but then again Mansourah had been famous for shooting arrows into all sorts of things that inspired outrage.
Nemed was older, but Ruith suspected no different in either temperament or interests. It was rumored that he could weave melodies in the wind that would leave dreamweavers weeping, though Ruith suspected that rumor had been started by Nemed himself.
He looked at Miach, who was, it should have been noted, sitting far closer to Mhorghain than was polite. Who would have thought that a nine-year-old whose only passion had been unearthing an impolite number of spells from wherever their owners had hidden them would not only live to manhood but apparently make something useful of himself?
Ruith considered the last time he’d seen Miach at Seanagarra. They had spent the morning in his grandfather’s library, breathlessly memorizing spells whilst hiding under a table. He’d looked up and found his mother and Desdhemar of Neroche sitting by the fire, talking in hushed voices. At the time, he’d assumed they’d been mourning the fact that they’d been thwarted in what he could readily admit was an admirable search for the obscure and useful. Having been on his own hunt, he had understood that very well.
Now, though, looking back on the memory as a man, he was fairly sure those had been not tears of frustration, but rather the tears of two lifelong friends who realized that one of them was about to step into a place she might not emerge from.
He wondered if Queen Desdhemar had had any idea, sitting with his mother who was facing a certain trip into darkness, that she would be soon taking her own journey to a place where she would give her life for her child.
And now that child of Desdhemar and Anghmar of Neroche had earned himself a crown on his head that he likely never wore and runes around his wrist that sparkled faintly in the firelight when he reached out and took the hand of the woman he loved.
Ruith sighed in spite of himself. Obviously there was nothing
he could do to stop his sister from shackling herself to Miach. If Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn could unbend far enough to give a grudging blessing to the upcoming union, Ruith supposed he couldn’t withhold it. Besides, he had the distinct feeling his sister wasn’t going to listen to him long enough to have him change her mind.
It was a little startling to look at her and realize he was looking at his sister and not his mother. But she wasn’t his mother. She was much as she had been, if he could venture an opinion, at the tender age of six. Fiercely determined, terribly brave, ready to pick up a sword of any type and defend whichever brother needed defending against another. Ruith could bring to mind several times when he’d found himself standing behind his wee sister as she brandished whatever makeshift weapon she’d had to hand against Gille or Brogach when they’d been after him about spending too much time looking for spells and not enough time practicing the ones he’d already known.
He sighed, then turned his mind to much less comfortable things, namely to what Mhorghain had tried to hand him earlier that morning.
An onyx ring set in silver.
It was his sire’s ring, that ring of silver that never tarnished that he had taken from Sarah’s hands a pair of hours earlier and was currently keeping in his pocket. Ruith had never seen his sire without it on his finger. In fact, the last time he’d seen it was on his father’s hand as he’d had that hand stretched up toward the heavens, grasping for that towering geyser of evil he’d unleashed.
Ruith supposed that perhaps his sire had fallen, rapped his head smartly against the stone of the well, and lain senseless long enough for the mercenaries who had rescued Mhorghain to slide it off his finger. Those lads had obviously been wise ones, for they’d deposited the ring along with Mhorghain herself on Nicholas of Lismòr’s front stoop, apparently happier to rid themselves of the ring than the gel. Nicholas had no doubt recognized it immediately, having been a friend of Gair’s for centuries. According to Mhorghain, Nicholas had given her the ring several se’nnights ago to convince her of the parentage she hadn’t remembered.