Gift of Magic

by Lynn Kurland

  She walked over to the kettle simmering quite happily over the fire that always seemed to be at the perfect temperature, then gave her yarn a stir.

  And then she realized that she had nothing left to do but stand there in the sunlight and think.

  She supposed she couldn’t have been blamed if her thoughts immediately went to Ruith. He would have realized a se’nnight earlier that she was using one of her no-excuse-necessary notes for getting out of that intimidating state dinner Sìle had planned. She was also fairly sure he would have realized why. As kind as his maternal grandparents had been to her, Sìle’s glamour was a bit much. Not even dimming her sight had been enough to aid her much. Gair had been powerful, true, but Sarah didn’t think she wanted to begin to delve into what Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn was capable of.

  Her horse-turned-dragon lifted his head suddenly and looked behind her. Sarah closed her eyes briefly and reminded herself that she was perfectly safe. Though it was unobtrusive, Sgath had his own bit of glamour laid over the entire lake. He would know immediately if something befell her.

  Still, she wished she hadn’t been so trusting as to leave her knives back at the house. She should have least have brought a sturdy kitchen knife to tuck into her belt. She looked at her horse, but he had only put his head back down on his paws and closed his eyes. Well, one eye. He was masquerading as a dragon, after all.

  She took a deep breath, then turned around.

  There, leaning his shoulder against a tree, stood a man clad in simple traveler’s gear. There was a knife suck down his boot—she could see the hilt of it poking up—but no sword, no quiver of arrows, no enormous collection of spells hanging in the air under his hand to delight and terrify. If he were a mere traveler, he was traveling with a lack of protection that was downright ill-advised.

  And on the ground next to him was a spinning wheel.

  Sarah felt her eyes begin to burn, just the slightest bit.

  He pushed off his tree and walked across the new spring grass, frowning thoughtfully at it, as if it were telling him to keep off it with his muddy boots. He pursed his lips, then stopped in front of her and made her a small bow.

  “My lady.”

  “Your Highness.”

  “I can trot out your title as well,” he said lightly, “if you like.”

  “Please don’t,” she said earnestly, then she smiled. “How was the ball?”

  “I hid in the library with Miach of Neroche.”

  “Old habits die hard, apparently.”

  “Mhorghain was there as well, along with an increasing number of my cousins.” He smiled and shrugged. “I think Sìle despairs of having any grandchildren with manners, though we did all make an appearance at supper the next night to trot out our good court clothes. I fear, however, that the current librarian may never recover from our antics.”

  She smiled. She supposed, since he had come such a long way to see her, that there was no reason not to take a step closer to him. She considered, then took another. She put her hands on his chest and looked up at him. “I needed to see less,” she said, “which is why I left. But I already told you that.”

  “And I appreciated the difference,” he said seriously.

  “Did you?”

  He put his arms around her. “I did.” He paused, then smiled at her pleasantly. “You know, I have spoken with your grandfather.”

  “About what?” she asked.

  “Oh, this and that.”

  She had to put in a bit of effort to suppress her smile. “When?”

  “Several days ago at Seanagarra, then again a few minutes ago back at the house. He managed to wrest his ancient self into something with wings after I told him I would submit to his and Sìle’s idea of ten handsome lads of note dancing with you before I had the chance again if he arrived at Sgath’s hearth first.”

  “Tell me you won.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Not interested in a long line of eligible lads waiting to vie for your attentions?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “It was, you should know,” he said solemnly, “a very stormy journey. Quite the bumpy ride full of peril, lightning, and I think even a spell or two. Franciscus suggested we turn back, but I refused.” He paused. “I was particularly interested in seeing you, as it happens.”

  “Were you?”

  He nodded solemnly. “I had a particular question to ask you that couldn’t wait any longer.”

  She looked into his rather lovely eyes for several minutes in silence, then put her hands on his cheeks, pulled his head down to hers, and kissed him. She supposed she might as well do a thorough job of it, since he’d gone to all the trouble of flying through what she, Sgath, and Eulasaid had managed to best. He was right; it had been a terrible storm.

  “Is that an aye?” he managed, when she released him.

  “I don’t remember hearing any question.”

  He smiled down at her. “Wed me?”

  She considered. “I might.”

  “I brought you a wedding present.”

  “Is that it over there?”

  “It is. Shall we go examine it and see if it suits?”

  She slipped her hand into his and nodded, then walked with him across the glade. She stopped in front of the spinning wheel and admired it, then blinked in surprise and leaned over to look more closely.

  Ruith’s mark was on one of the spokes.

  She looked at him in astonishment. “Did you make this?”

  He nodded solemnly.

  “Does it work?”

  “You’ll have to try it.” He paused. “I will tell you this much: my grandmother Brèagha’s best spinner tried it out a time or two to point out where I might have gone amiss and she personally guaranteed that it would spin only plain wool. No dreams.”

  Sarah took a deep breath, then turned and went into his arms. “I don’t mind dreamspinning.”

  “I know.”

  “But I would rather spin just yarn.”

  “I know that too,” he said very quietly.

  She stood with her head on his shoulder until she thought she might like to sit down. Ruith was, fortunately, seemingly very content to join her on that fallen log and look out over the water as it laughed and sparkled in the sunshine. They sat there for quite a while in silence before she looked at him again.

  “I still have one state function to get out of, you know,” she said with a smile.

  “Which is why I’m planning to wed you in Grandmother Eulasaid’s garden. It can’t possibly be considered an appropriate location for a state anything.” He paused. “She said she would weave you a crown of flowers.”

  “That is very kind of her.”

  “She informed me I would be wearing one as well, which is less kind,” he said dryly.

  “You’ll look lovely.”

  He laughed, and his laugh was full of sunshine and happiness and the magic that sparkled as it ran through his veins. “So will you,” he said, just before he leaned over and kissed her.

  It was quite a while later before she simply sat there with her head resting on his shoulder. Perhaps there would be clouds in their lives from time to time, and things would not always be so peaceful or easy to look at, but she thought she could safely say that the worst was behind them.

  Ruith had promised her that one day he would make sure that she had nothing but loveliness before her. She had been given many things over the past few months, but of all those things, Ruith had given her the most treasured gift of all.

  And that was the mage from up on the mountain who had taken on her quest as his own, then kept her safe when that quest had become something more than the both of them. And now, he had given her the best gift of all, which wasn’t the spinning wheel he’d made with his own hands.

  It was the gift of his heart.

  Epilogue

  R

  uith stood on the edge of Lake Cladach and looked out over the water. It was one of his favorite views, as it happened, for
the view was rarely the same. He wasn’t sure if his grandmother had anything to do with the weather or it simply changed its mind on its own, but somehow the lake seemed particularly determined to show as many facets of itself and to their best advantage as often as possible. He lifted his gaze to see his grandparent’s palace sitting on the opposite side of the lake, almost blending in with the trees. That sight never failed to give him a bit of a start, given that it was a place he’d never anticipated he would see again, much less look at every day.

  He shook his head at the marvel that had become his life, then turned and started back up the path toward his own house. He had to admit he wouldn’t be unhappy to get himself inside and shut the door behind him. Autumn had made an appearance the night before, which had left him very happy indeed that he’d put in such long days during the summer.

  The house in front of him wasn’t large—yet—but it was as beautiful as he’d been able to make it with his own two hands. A library for him, a light-filled room for Sarah to spin and weave in, and a decent-sized great room that had already seen more than its share of visitors, noble or not as the case might have been.

  Sìle had given them post-wedding privacy until the middle of the summer when he’d arrived on wing, changed himself into his proper shape on the path that led to the house, then considered. Ruith had watched his grandfather sigh—lightly—only once, then embrace Sarah, kiss her hair, and invite her to show him about. Ruith had trailed along behind them, trying not to give any sign of his thoughts. He had built the house for Sarah by very ordinary means partly because he’d wanted to give her a refuge from her sight, but mostly because he was just as eager as she to live simply. They had already made journeys to several places as man and wife that weren’t open to the traveler without a crown in his pack. But once those journeys had been made, he had been more than happy to hang up his crown and put on boots.

  Sìle had looked at him on that afternoon in early summer, after inspecting the inside of the house, and frowned. “No magic?”

  Ruith had shaken his head slightly, had another light sigh as his reward, then watched his wife and his grandfather discuss where a dyeing garden might best be planted. He’d resigned himself to a solid fortnight of building a rock enclosure.

  To his utter surprise, however, Sìle had stayed to help. If the work had gone a bit more quickly than it might have otherwise, Sarah had very politely made no comment, and he had, very wisely to his mind, kept his mouth shut as well. He would admit, however, to having grown a bit misty-eyed when Sìle had helped her plant with his own two hands. And if there had been a few more plants with a less-than-ordinary character to them left behind, both he and Sarah pretended not to notice.

  It wasn’t that Sarah was opposed to magic, nor was he, though his grandfather would have said they were. It was just that she needed relief from her sight, and he enjoyed making things with his hands.

  Though if he found himself more often than not reaching for the odd, useful spell, well, Sarah was good enough to only smile and thank him for confining himself to Fadaire.

  He opened his front door and walked inside the great room—which Sìle had admitted freely had been handsomely done—then paused a moment or two in spite of himself. He didn’t want to pause, but he just couldn’t help himself. It would have been more reasonable if he’d been brought to a skidding halt by the beauty of his wife’s face—which happened with regularity—or by the memory of the long late summer evenings spent either there or in front of the fire with various members of his family—which he often was. But he was brought up short by something else.

  It was that damned tapestry hanging on the wall.

  He supposed it wasn’t every day that the dreamweavers of Bruadair parted with one of their creations. He supposed it was even rarer that the exiled king and queen of that land were the ones doing the weaving and the delivering. He folded his arms over his chest and scowled at the thing, knowing very well that he was wearing the exact expression Sìle had been when he’d first seen what had been sent along as a wedding gift.

  It wasn’t so much that the thing was unsightly, for it wasn’t. That was part of the problem. Ruith could tell, even with his sight that was nothing more than adequate, that the blasted thing had a mind of its own. He couldn’t say how it happened—and didn’t want to investigate too closely, truth be told—but while the warp and weft held the same heroic scenes they had when the piece had been initially hung on the wall, the scene had…changed. And it continued to change, as if somehow he and Sarah had become a part of the weaving and the threads of their lives were altering with every day that passed what he saw on the wall.

  He had begged a spell from Franciscus to turn the damned thing off, but he had to use it half a dozen times a day just to keep the weaving at bay. Sarah didn’t seem to mind it, which surprised him, but she saw things he couldn’t. He had found her staring at it more than once, as if she were trying to determine just how she might recreate the colors Ruith was fairly sure simply weren’t found in nature.

  No wonder Sìle had left a few extra things in the garden. Ruith imagined those wouldn’t be the last otherworldly things that took root there.

  He muttered Franciscus’s spell at the tapestry on his way by, could have sworn he heard it grumble at him in reply, then carried on down the passageway to less unsettling locales.

  He paused at the doorway to Sarah’s weaving room and simply drank in the sight. It had little to do with the chamber itself, though he would be the first to admit it had turned out well. He’d situated it with a southern exposure, with floor-to-ceiling windows that the light might flood it perfectly. And if he had perhaps slipped in a spell that tempered the sunlight as it fell through those windows that it didn’t fade Sarah’s yarn, well, who could blame him? There was no point in having magic if he couldn’t use it for good now and then.

  He leaned against the doorframe at present and smiled to himself. Sarah was sitting at her wheel, spinning something into something else that he was certain, given the color, he might be happily wearing after it was knit up. His grandmother Eulasaid was sitting with her, spinning something entirely different onto Uachdaran of Léige’s eminently useful spindle. Ruith wasn’t going to comment. If Eulasaid could rid any of them of the memories of what that spindle had last spun, he would be very grateful.

  She and Sarah were discussing something—the properties of woad, he thought—and seemingly untroubled by whatever magic might be finding itself wound upon that very handy stick.

  His grandmother looked up suddenly and smiled. “Ruith, my love, how long have you been there?”

  “Not nearly long enough,” he said honestly.

  Eulasaid laughed. “Spoken like a man newly wed.”

  “I believe it’s been half a year,” Sarah said dryly. She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Though it seems only a day or two.”

  “Well, darling, that’s what happens when you’re living a very lovely dream,” Eulasaid remarked mildly. “May it always be so for you both.” She set the spindle aside and rose. “I’ll come back and finish that another day, if you like. I’m sure you’ll find a use for it eventually.”

  Ruith watched his grandmother exchange a fond embrace with his lady, then come to stand in front of him. She pulled his head down and kissed both his cheeks, then smiled up at him.

  “We’re having guests for supper tomorrow, if you two would like to come over to the house.”

  “Dare I ask?” Ruith said with a sigh.

  “I don’t know if you do,” she said with a bit of a laugh, “but I don’t think you would find the evening too painful. I’ll leave the choice to you. If I lived in this very lovely house, I’m not sure I would leave it.”

  Ruith started to offer her his arm, but she shook her head.

  “I know where the door is, love, and can see myself out.” She smiled at Sarah once more, then walked down the passageway. Ruith watched her go for a moment, then turned back to his wife, who had turned
around on her stool and was watching him solemnly. He tilted his head and smiled at her.

  “What is it?”

  She rose and crossed over to him, then put her arms around his waist. “Nothing,” she said, leaning up to kiss him briefly. “I’m just looking.”

  “And?”

  She smiled. “I thought you were fishing outside.”

  “They were avoiding me, so I thought I would see if my luck was better in here.”

  She only laughed at him, which he had expected, then hugged him tightly before she pulled away.

  “I’m almost done with this bobbin.”

  He let her go, reluctantly, though he had to admit it gave him a chance to just watch her. He sat down in the chair his grandmother had recently vacated, then closed his eyes and listened to the whir of Sarah’s spinning wheel. He thought she might have been humming something under her breath, but he wasn’t sure.

  The truth was, he wasn’t sure of too much any longer. He had begun his life so certain that it would march along a particular path, clear and well-defined. When that path had led him to a solitary house in the mountains, he’d been sure that the rest of his very long life would be spent as a hermit, shunning his birthright and avoiding anything to do with magic or dreams or family.

  Until a lovely, unmagical gel had knocked on his door and changed the course of his life forever.

  And now he had the gift of magic, of family, and a dreamweaving bride who saw things he didn’t and who had been willing to walk with him into his darkness and stay with him there whilst he found his way out of it.

  And back into the light.

  It was so much more than he’d ever dared dream.