by Lynn Kurland
She looked at the spell sitting on the witchwoman of Fàs’s roof and contemplated the truly improbable nature of what she was seeing. Very well, so magic existed. It was also true that she could see the bloody stuff in broad daylight everywhere she looked, with the notable exception of not having seen anything in Eòlas. Either the city didn’t have very many spells cluttering up its streets or Acair’s childhood home was simply overrun with them.
She was beginning to think her parents might be responsible for some of her current troubles. With all those tales of magic and Heroes and improbable things that they had taken such pleasure in retelling, it was almost as if they’d had an especial fondness for magic—
She shook her head before she traveled any farther down that path toward madness. Her childhood had been ordinary, short, and thoroughly lacking in anything unusual. Her older brother had been protective, her younger sister ethereal, and she the plain, uninteresting middle child who had survived where they had not—
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She didn’t like to think about her past, mostly because there was nothing she could do to change it. Her parents and siblings were gone, and she was in a witch’s house—or, her yard, rather—thinking that she might want to look for a terrible black mage who had vowed he would try to help her.
She wondered if she might be forgiven for simply setting everything aside for a bit and passing a few minutes helping a man who apparently loved his mother enough to fix her roof for her. She walked back to the house just in time to meet him as he swung down off the roof. She picked up a small bucket of nails and held it for him as he attended to something loose on the side of the house.
“Your mother says you never do any work here,” she remarked.
It was surely a coincidence that his aim went awry and he hit himself instead of the intended nail. He cursed, sucked on his thumb, then glared at her.
“She might have that aright.”
She ignored his grumbles. He was, in the end, no worse than any other surly stallion she’d known.
“She also suggested to me earlier that you’re doing it to impress me,” she added.
“I’m doing it so she doesn’t poison my tea.” He drove another nail home, took the bucket from her, and set everything down on the ground. “Somehow, I think my terrible reputation is more than enough to impress you.”
She smiled. “Your cousins say you are a rogue of the first water.”
“Flattering, of course, but I’m unable to admit to anything.”
He didn’t need to. She’d been caught on the way to the stables that morning by his cousins, women who had seemingly felt compelled to fill her ears full of Acair’s conquests. One of the twins, she wasn’t sure which, had been very clear that he traveled in circles so far above their own social station that they couldn’t say for certain but suspected he had toppled more than just thrones.
Léirsinn wouldn’t have been at all surprised.
He dusted the snow off a stone bench pushed up against the house, then invited her to sit. He collapsed next to her and groaned.
“I’ve done all I can to this damned nest of hers,” he said, shaking his head. “If she poisons me, it will be a mercy. And don’t look at me that way. I will absolutely not admit to anything that might paint me in an unflattering light.”
She smiled, because he was absolutely incorrigible. “Do you ever have to use threats,” she asked, “or do you just charm your victims?”
He drew his hand over his eyes. “Ye gads, self-reflection,” he said with a shiver. “The places you’ve forced me to go, woman.”
She watched him watch her with eyes she suspected had seen far more things than he would ever admit to. They were beautiful eyes, though, she had to concede.
He looked at her, sighed, then shook his head. “I have lived a long, indulgent life full of things I might regret and many other things I don’t regret in the slightest. My lack of contrition over any of it is what keeps me heart protected, oy, as my mother would say. But since we’re sharing secrets—”
“Are we?”
He shot her a look that made her smile. “We are,” he said distinctly. “And given that such is the case, perhaps ’tis time you told me what happened to you in young Miach’s garden.”
“I deserve this,” she said grimly. She looked over his mother’s snow-covered ground for a bit before she turned to him. “I saw . . . things.”
“More than just pools of shadow and my superior swordplay?”
“Your swordplay was spectacular,” she agreed, “and I thought you fared very well against Prince Rigaud, who definitely looked as if he would have liked to have slain you. He is very powerful.”
He went very still. “Why do I suspect you’re not talking about his abilities with a blade?”
“Because I suspect you have a very suspicious nature which is no doubt what keeps you alive,” she said without hesitation. “And aye, I saw more than I bargained for. I stepped in that shadow that I hadn’t seen—”
“It was the middle of the night,” he said.
“Or close to it,” she agreed. She took a deep breath. “I don’t think I want to think too long about what it did to me.” She paused. “I’m not sure what it did do to me, but I could see Prince Rigaud’s magic.”
“What did you see of me?”
She blinked in surprise. “You’ve finished hearing about him?”
“Rigaud of Neroche is an ass who careens from one fashion disaster to another, apparently unable to find a polished looking glass,” Acair said without hesitation. “I’m far more interested in all the lovely things you’ll say about me.”
She would have thought he had begun to take himself just a bit too seriously, but he had taken her hand in both his own and was stroking the back of it in much the same way she would have soothed a frightened pony.
She strove to match his light tone. “Your ruthlessness was terrifying.”
“And all is right with the world,” he said in satisfaction. “What else?”
“I’ve forgotten,” she lied.
He looked a bit startled. “Is my power failing? Am I rusting from the innards out?”
“Nay, you seemed to be in perfectly foul condition, but what do I know? Now, if you had thrush, I might be able to discuss that with you for hours on end.”
He shot her a disgruntled look, which she appreciated. He obviously knew she wasn’t telling him the entire tale, but he didn’t press her and she didn’t volunteer anything. She wasn’t going to be responsible for sending him in a direction he might regret. If he didn’t already realize what was hiding in his own soul, she would have been surprised.
“I think my feet are fine,” he said slowly, “but I thank you for the consideration. As long as my power seemed to be not leaching out of me, I’m content.”
She nodded, then looked at her hand in his for longer than perhaps she needed to. It was better that than remembering how he had looked in the garden at Tor Neroche, standing there in all his terrible, undeniable power.
She was no coward, however, and she couldn’t put off any longer facing the things she needed to. If that meant acknowledging things that made her uncomfortable, so be it. “Do you see?” she asked him.
He looked at her reluctantly. “See?”
“You know.” She waved her hand negligently, gesturing at she hadn’t a clue what. “Things.”
He sighed. “I can see those damnable spots of shadow, as well as spells and whatnot that others feel compelled to send my way. I’m not as skilled at seeing things about people, if that’s what you’re getting at.” He looked at her. “Is that what you’re getting at?”
She groped for a way to avoid answering that, but in the end all she could do was return his look. “I’m admitting to nothing.”
“And why would you? Surely it is enough to be rendere
d speechless by the perfection of my form and visage and that is definitely all you should admit to lest you cause a stampede of angry misses and mavens, come to trample you for delights they are sadly denied.”
“Acair, please stop.”
“Ah, how I love to hear my name said in such dulcet tones.” He squeezed her hand briefly. “I’ll humor you in this and we’ll carry on with less interesting things. As for what we’re discussing but not discussing, the ability to See is something that comes as a bloodright.” He nodded at her. “We discussed that sort of business in Ehrne of Ainneamh’s dungeon, if you remember.”
“I’m trying to forget,” she said.
“I can’t say I blame you,” he agreed. He looked out over his mother’s backyard, then shook his head. “To be honest, I’m not sure bloodright applies as neatly with this. Normally, magic that finds home in your blood allows you to use spells that are your reward for putting up with your vexatious relations—”
“But with enough power, you can use whatever suits you,” she finished skeptically. “Or so I’ve been told.”
“By a very wise man,” he agreed. “With Seeing, though, you could have all the power in the world and you still wouldn’t do so properly unless it came from your own blood. There are those who possess the ability to see, of course—elves, dwarves, the odd local sorceress with something unusual sitting perched in her family tree—but that’s a quotidian sort of business. Those who actually See, well, that’s something else.”
“Is there that much difference?”
“Do you want to know?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I understand that for those who have it as their bloodright,” he continued mercilessly, “’tis heady stuff. Dreamspinners can see the fabric of the world, or so I hear. Those lads and lassies from Cothromaiche are the most cheeky of all, for they can see what a soul’s made of.”
“Can you do this Seeing?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not in the purest sense of it. My father is the son of an elven prince and wizardess of terrible power, both of whom you’ve met. Toss my mother’s heritage onto the pile and there you have what I’m capable of. Nothing to rival that busybody from Cothromaiche, I’m sorry to admit, but enough to get by.”
“Meaning you can pick bugs out of your veg in the dark?”
He smiled. “Something like that.” He looked at her. “I understand for some ’tis a bit like having a layer of wool removed from over one’s eyes. You might have an opinion on that.”
“I’m too refined to voice it.” If she were too unnerved to swallow properly as well, that was her business.
“And so you are. For all I know, ’tis all rubbish and I know nothing of it.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “Why do you ask?”
“I didn’t see any spots of shadow in Eòlas.”
He choked. Léirsinn would have enjoyed that, but she wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t choke himself to death. She pounded him on the back until he held up his hand in surrender.
“I am well,” he wheezed. He took several tentative breaths, then looked at her in astonishment. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“What did you see, then?”
“Nothing,” she said.
He stared off into the distance for a moment or two, then turned back to her. “I don’t suppose you would want to remain behind here.”
“Are you mad?”
He looked, for the first time since she’d first seen him, rather rattled. “I wish you would.”
She studied him. “Why? What have you discovered?”
“Worse than what we already knew?”
“I don’t know,” she said uneasily. “Is it?”
“Much.” He heaved himself to his feet, then held down his hand for her. “I need to walk.”
She would have suggested a quick run to somewhere safe, but she wasn’t sure such a place existed. She walked with him through what served as a path around his mother’s house until she at least no longer felt chilled to the bone. Acair finally stopped and looked at her. She had seen him look bored, angry, dismissive, and impossibly arrogant. She wasn’t sure she had ever seen him look that unnerved.
“Too late to run?” she asked.
“For me? Aye. For you?” He looked at her seriously. “It is never too late, Léirsinn, for you to remain in a safe haven.”
“I cannot,” she said lightly. “I breathe fire, you know. Your mother said as much. For all you know, you might require that sort of thing at some point in the future.”
“I might,” he agreed quietly, “though I’m not sure I can describe the lengths I will go to before I ask you to put yourself in harm’s way for me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, attempting to sound brisk and businesslike. “You’re a ruthless, evil mage with a terrible reputation who I’m certain never worries about the state of his companions. That, and you hid behind me in Angesand and the library without a second thought which tells us both all we need to know about your true feelings.”
He smiled wearily. “I can only hope to avoid that sort of thing in the future.”
She would have happily continued to poke at him, but the expression on his face stopped her. “What did you find that was worse, Acair?” she asked, not at all interested in the answer but knowing she had no choice but to have it.
He paused, then sighed. “My mother thinks a truly vile little black mage who lived eons ago has slithered forth again and is making trouble. Stealing souls and that sort of rot.”
She blinked. “What?”
He held up his hands in surrender. “I didn’t suggest it to her, she suggested it to me. Utter rubbish, of course.”
That wasn’t the word she would have chosen. She wasn’t sure what to call what she’d just heard, but she thought terrifying might be close to the mark.
“Does she think he’s making those spots of shadow?”
“I believe so, but I also think she may have been overcome by her recent matchmaking success, resulting in her making assumptions she shouldn’t. I’m sure she’s mistaken.”
She suspected he wasn’t sure at all. She continued on with him for a bit longer, waiting for him to spew out what she was certain he hadn’t yet told her.
“About those spots,” he said slowly.
She stopped and looked at him. “What?”
“My mother believes that in order to fight their maker, I must go round to scenes of past triumphs and collect pieces of myself I left there.” He glanced at her. “So I’ll have as much of my black soul as possible available for the final fight.”
She retrieved her jaw from where it was hanging halfway to her chest. “That’s completely daft.”
“Thank you,” he said with feeling. “I agree.”
She supposed the time to point out to him that a pool of shadow had ripped off a piece of his soul—his words, not hers—back in Sàraichte was not the present moment. It was likely the last place he wanted to return to. She watched him watch the forest for a bit, then cleared her throat.
“So,” she began, “what now?”
He sighed deeply and looked at her. “I believe we should visit the scene of my first triumph, namely the cottage of the mage whose spell I stole right off his mantel.”
She found she had absolutely nothing to say to that. The thought of Acair potentially knowing who seemed to be setting snares designed to steal souls was terrible enough. Having to scurry around to places where he hadn’t been on his best behavior was likely going to be dangerous, if not fatal.
Believing that souls could be lost, collected, or used against another in a battle of magic was almost more than she, even with her newfound acceptance of a reality that had never been hers, could begin to believe.
“If the house still exists,” he said carefully, “I suppose it would be
as good a place as any to start.”
She nodded, but could only hope it wouldn’t be the place that finished them.
Twelve
Acair stood near the fire in his mother’s kitchen and contemplated the dregs of something in his cup that might have risen to the level of poison with a goodly nudge. He had been at the activity for longer than he should have, but he was having thoughts that he wasn’t sure he cared for, he who had never backed away from any unpleasant thought before. He had been up before dawn—an alarming trend he would put a stop to just as soon as his life was again his to call his own—pacing and wringing his hands.
Chasing after bits of his lost soul? Looking for a mage who collected souls like he himself collected spells? Yet another indeterminate number of leagues spent with that pampered puss, Mansourah of Neroche?
Appalling.
He noted something out of the corner of his eye and was relieved to find it was his mother, not some new spell of death bent on his destruction. She was watching him far too closely for his peace of mind, which should have been unsettling all on its own, but there you had it. His mother was terrifying.
He rather liked that about her, truth be told.
“Aye?” he asked warily.
“Just watching the wheels turn,” she said with a shrug.
Well, if she was going to do that, there was no reason in not clearing up a few last-minute things with her. “There is something that still puzzles me,” he admitted.
“Why that red-haired vixen tolerates you?” she asked. “Me too, but perhaps she took a blow to the head recently and lost all sense.”
He pursed his lips. “I try not to discuss it with her.”
“Wouldn’t want to scare her off.” She walked into her kitchen, took the cup from him, then refilled it before she sat it and herself down at the table. She pushed it into an empty spot and nodded. “Tell Mother about your confusion, lad, and we’ll see if superior wit and wisdom can carry the day.”
“And if not?”
“Well, I’ll make a note of it and rejoice after you’re gone, of course.” She patted her hair. “I’m on my best behavior for the moment. Never know when that luscious piece of goodness from Neroche might stumble into me kitchen for coffee and a biscuit or two.” She lifted her eyebrows briefly. “I have a reputation for hospitality to maintain, you know.”