by Lynn Kurland
It was then that she realized that matters at the table had not improved any. Acair and his grandmother were glaring at each other, apparently engaging in last-minute negotiations about things Léirsinn wasn’t sure she wanted to know about.
Cruihniche suddenly handed Léirsinn back her pencil, then threw the small book at her grandson.
“Be grateful.”
Acair opened the book, then he froze. He lifted his head and looked at his grandmother in surprise. Léirsinn had rarely seen him not have at least something to say, but at the moment he seemed speechless.
Cruihniche laughed in a manner that was so reminiscent of Mistress Cailleach that Léirsinn could finally accept the familial connection. The woman nodded.
“That ought to keep you out of my private things for a few days at least. I’ve given you a few spells that might or might not turn on you and destroy you, along with a wee map that might lead you places you’ll definitely regret having gone.” She shrugged. “All the same to me.” She looked at Léirsinn. “What can I do for you?”
“Ah,” Léirsinn said, scrambling for something useful to say, “let us go free?”
Cruihniche laughed in a voice that was definitely reminiscent of Mistress Cailleach. “I will, if only to watch things chase your would-be lover there over the walls.” She studied Léirsinn for a moment or two. “I believe, little one, that you might want to consider trying to acquire a few things that make you uncomfortable. Don’t let Fear dissuade you, no matter how loudly he bellows. I tend to favor a different companion—let’s call her Revenge—but that’s just me.”
Léirsinn could only gape at her.
Cruihniche laughed again. “Two souls rendered mute in one evening. It isn’t a record for me, of course, but satisfying nonetheless.” She pointed a long, bony, ring-encrusted finger toward the door. “Out, before I change my mind and slay you both.”
Léirsinn supposed it would be rude as well as a bit dangerous to bolt without Acair, so she waited as he made certain everyone was politely helped up from the tea table. If he then wasted no time heading for the doorway and she followed hard on his heels, she didn’t imagine anyone would fault them for it.
They weren’t quick enough. His grandmother caught them both before Acair could open the solar door.
“Something slipped my mind,” she said.
“Grandmother,” Acair said carefully, turning and making her a very low bow, “I’m not sure how to thank you—”
“Aren’t you?” Cruihniche asked smoothly. “I think you know exactly what will appease me.”
Léirsinn had absolutely no desire to find out what that might be, but Acair apparently wasn’t one to shy away from the difficult. He sighed deeply.
“I’ll find a way,” he said.
“You’d best succeed.”
He hesitated. “If I might make an observation, they are, as you know, simply little tatted bits of—”
“They’re my damned doilies!”
“I didn’t realize you’d done the handwork yourself,” he ventured.
She leveled a look at him that Léirsinn was rather happy wasn’t aimed at her.
“I stole them from your grandfather’s mistress, you idiot,” she said shortly. She tugged on her collar, then smoothed down the front of her dress. “They have great sentimental value to me.”
“As in, the thought of their being missed is something to chortle over during tea?” he asked.
“Perhaps,” she said archly, “or perhaps not. I’m too well-mannered to admit to anything. You just concern yourself with fetching my damned doilies, you little rotter.”
“Of course, Grandmother.”
She reached out and poked him in the chest. “I want the one in Uachdaran of Léige’s throne room.”
“I didn’t,” Acair began, then he sighed. “Very well, I did.”
“He keeps his bloody mugs of that undrinkable sludge he gulps down atop it, and don’t think I haven’t watched him do it.”
“Scrying his private audiences?” Acair asked sourly.
“One amuses oneself from time to time with the doings of lesser souls,” she said with a shrug. She looked at Léirsinn. “Remember what I said.”
“I don’t think I could forget it if I wanted to,” Léirsinn said honestly.
Cruihniche reached out and opened the door. “I’m counting to one hundred before I set things upon you. Best trot on off into the Deepening Gloom quickly, don’t you think?” She held out her hand toward Acair. “Kiss.”
He did. Léirsinn supposed she shouldn’t, so she patted Cruihniche’s hand, then didn’t protest when Acair grabbed for hers and pulled her out of the solar.
“How fast can you run?” he asked.
“Faster than you can, I’ll warrant.”
He smiled briefly. “No doubt. Stuff this into your satchel, will you?”
She took the notebook his grandmother had scribbled in and shoved it back into her bag. She looked at him. “Now what?”
“Pray she counts slowly.”
Léirsinn supposed there was nothing else to hope for. She was happy that Acair knew where he was going because she was hopelessly lost.
She was also without a single sighting of any stray pieces of Acair’s soul, but perhaps he’d left none of it behind, in spite of all the rather questionable things he’d done in his grandmother’s house.
He paused at the entrance to some enormous hallway or other, swore enthusiastically, then reached again for her hand.
“Front door,” he said with another curse.
“Why—oh, never mind,” she said, because she could see what he saw. There were bright-eyed, sword-bearing creatures blocking every path except the one that led straight ahead. She didn’t bother asking if Acair thought that would end badly for them because she suspected she already knew the answer.
“She must want that ale-saturated piece of lace very much,” he groused.
“And this is her parting shot of good cheer?”
He pursed his lips. “I think you two might get on quite well if I weren’t involved. Aye, I imagine this is just what that is.” He took a deep breath, then looked at her. “Ready?”
She didn’t suppose there was any alternative, so she nodded and darted across the polished marble with him.
What she assumed was the front entrance certainly was worthy of the name. She had never in her life seen doors so large or fine and she honestly couldn’t remember the last time doors opened for her without anyone manning them. That she only shuddered as she hopped across the threshold instead of remaining rooted to the spot was perhaps less surprising than it should have been. The last place she wanted to linger was the grand house at Fàs.
She bolted with Acair down the path through a palatial front garden, along a tree-lined path that would have hosted at least half a dozen horses riding abreast, then through an enormous metal gate that started to close as they approached.
It was either good fortune or an ability to sprint perfected thanks to many years of eluding ne’er-do-wells on her way back from town, but she avoided being caught on the gates as they closed. Acair had to leave his cloak behind, but she imagined he thought it a light price to pay, all things considered. She continued to run with him until they reached at least the minimal protection of the trees that were a bit farther away than they’d looked at first glance.
Acair skidded to a halt and she ran full into his back before she realized what he was doing. She supposed the only reason she didn’t flatten him was because Mansourah caught them both. She heaved herself upright, then felt something unpleasant run through her at the look on the prince’s face.
“We need to run,” he said quickly.
“Why?” Acair wheezed, then he shook his head. “Don’t answer. Pick a direction.”
“Take your horse,” Mansourah said urgent
ly. “I’ll hide us as we fly. I say west, but that’s only because I think we’re being driven in that direction.”
Léirsinn flung herself onto Sianach’s back as if she’d been doing the same for years, didn’t complain as Acair almost knocked her off as he scrambled up behind her, then thought she just might have to give that horse-turned-dragon an extra measure of grain the next time they were in a barn for having so thoughtfully provided her with reins.
“I don’t know that we’ll manage this one,” Mansourah said, standing on the ground next to them. “There are things coming after us that we won’t like.”
“My grandmother’s minions,” Acair said dismissively. “Easily eluded.”
Mansourah looked at him seriously. “I don’t think so,” he said frankly. “Not this time.”
Then he disappeared.
Léirsinn had become unfortunately familiar with the sort of spell Mansourah used to hide not only his tracks but theirs. She could still see herself, so she wasn’t entirely sure what good it would do them. At the moment, perhaps any help was good help.
She forced herself to breathe normally instead of wheezing with what she didn’t want to call fear. Acair’s grandmother had advised her to send that sort of feeling to the back of the barn, which sounded a bit better when one was sitting in relative comfort in front of a fire instead of climbing fiercely up into the night sky on the back of an invisible dragon.
At least they hadn’t encountered any pools of shadow—
She frowned and considered that, probably more grateful than she should have been for something to think on besides how far off the ground she was. Just as she hadn’t in Eòlas, she hadn’t seen a single spot of shadow in Acair’s grandmother’s house. She hadn’t seen any pieces of Acair’s stray soul lying about there either, but it was possible she’d been more distracted than she’d realized.
Either way, it was odd.
She also hadn’t seen anything untoward at Acair’s mother’s house—save the witchwoman of Fàs herself, of course—but perhaps nothing was able to grow in the shadow of that mighty tree.
She considered that for a bit, then shook her head. The women in Acair’s family were powerful witches who likely didn’t allow anything unusual to take root on their land and in Eòlas, but she’d been too distracted by circumstances to have a proper look at anything.
Surely.
“Léirsinn.”
She pulled herself away from her thoughts only to realize how far they’d come without her having noticed it. The sky was beginning to grow light in the east. She twisted a bit to look at Acair.
“What?”
He looked grimmer than she’d ever seen him before.
“We’re going to have to go faster.”
Damn that fear she hadn’t been able to entirely dismiss. “Why?” she managed, her mouth utterly dry.
He pointed over his shoulder, but perhaps that hadn’t been necessary. It wasn’t a cloud of mage following them, nor was it a darkness made by things she imagined Fionne of Fàs could send scampering with her wand.
It was something entirely different.
“Hold on,” was the last thing he said before Sianach turned himself into something just a bit more substantial than a terrifyingly fierce bit of wind.
She hoped she could.
Sixteen
Acair had never thought all those years spent honing the ability to bolt past his brothers in absolute silence no matter the terrain would ever be so critical to his survival.
Of course, he’d been silent as a cat whilst about many of his own nefarious activities over the course of his lifetime, but that had been almost always simply for sport. There was nothing quite like the deliciousness of poaching something valuable from under the very nose of some snoozing royal or other and escaping without being marked.
The inescapable fact, however, was that his life had never hung in the balance during any of those pilferings because there had never been a moment, from the first time he’d set one of his brothers’ knickers on fire, that he hadn’t had magic to use for escape.
That he was currently running for his very life without any ability to magically rescue himself was, in a word—and one he rarely used unless he was applying it to how he was certain he appeared to others—terrifying.
What he wanted perhaps more than anything was to wrap his hands around a certain Cothromaichian prince’s neck, but he knew that wasn’t going to help him at the moment. For all his faults, Soilléir of Cothromaiche was not a liar, damn him anyway. If he claimed he hadn’t fashioned the spell following Acair like a lovestruck princess committed to a spectacular piece of rebellion, he’d been telling the truth.
Not that any of that aided him at present, of course. He was fleeing like a common criminal from an enemy he could sense like a bitter wind but couldn’t for the life of him see, and he couldn’t do a damned thing about it.
He had initially hoped his pursuer might simply be one of his gran’s henchmen taking matters into his own hands, but those lads tended to stay close to home where they could corner their prey without overly exerting themselves.
He had also considered the possibility that the storm behind him was just the usual cloud of black mage out for a bit of exercise on a winter day, but dismissed that with equal certainty. Even after Sianach had plummeted to the ground and their little company had continued to flee on foot, the storm of mage hadn’t gained on them.
Very odd that something that reputedly wanted him dead wasn’t trying to catch up to him and kill him.
And then, very much out of the blue—nay, that wasn’t accurate. With time, after having settled into a swift and steady run, it had occurred to him that what was following him wasn’t a random mage out for a bit of sport or a clutch of lesser lads taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity for retribution.
They were being followed by the mage who had slain his tailor and stolen his spell in Eòlas.
He couldn’t say how he knew that. Perhaps with a bit of time and a decent mug of ale, he could have nailed down why his thoughts led him in that direction, but at present, he didn’t have the luxury for it. He could only continue to run and be grateful for the stamina of his companions.
He forced himself to try to work out in his head exactly where they were, though he didn’t have as much success at it as he would have liked. They had flown for the whole of the previous night and the better part of the current day before he’d decided that attempting to blend into the forest below them might be a way to throw their hunter off the scent.
They had run for what felt like hours, though he was certain it had only been a pair of them. The sun had already begun to sink into the west behind them, which merely left him, for the first time in his life, not relishing the thought of a run in the dark. He had an excellent sense of direction, but the woods they were in were too close to the border of Durial for his taste. It was not a country he wanted to get lost in, for reasons he didn’t particularly want to examine.
He cursed enthusiastically under his breath at the irony of his situation. He was where he found himself in a grander sense precisely because he’d refused to travel to see Uachdaran of Léige, king of Durial, and apologize for a minor piece of mischief that had likely not inconvenienced the king in the slightest. Many monarchs had rivers of power running under their kingdoms. Indeed, he couldn’t think of a one who didn’t have some sort of magic flowing through his land in some fashion.
He considered other likely suspects bearing up under that same sort of strain. Dreamweavers, mage kings, and wizards, to begin the list. Then there were witches, faeries, and other less welcoming creatures with magic at their fingertips in lands where he didn’t care to go, to be sure. Indeed, what of those poor elves? They were victims of not only magic in their water, but magic that thoroughly drenched every damned bit of their country. Did they complain? Nay, they did n
ot. They boasted of it to anyone who had the ability to sit for long periods of time and listen without pitching forward, asleep, into their suppers.
Acair suspected that the king of the dwarves had other things on his mind that he felt merited an apology, things Acair absolutely refused to apologize for. It wasn’t his fault if the king’s middle daughter—who he should have known was trouble from the start—had used him as a means to escape her father’s iron rule. Indeed, considering what Acair had endured at her hands, the king should have been apologizing to him.
But given that he suspected hell would freeze over first, he thought it might be best to take stock of where they were and reconsider where a safe haven might be found. For all he knew, the creature pursuing him was Uachdaran himself, out for a bit of kingly vengeance. A detour south to even a marginally friendly elven haven might be just the thing to throw the old bastard off the scent.
He skidded to a halt in a clearing that simply opened up in front of him without warning. He almost went sprawling thanks to Mansourah and Léirsinn running into his back, but caught himself heavily on one leg. He straightened, then looked at the locale into where he’d run not only himself but his companions.
He felt that damned silence descend, as was its wont. He made a vow then and there that in all his other endeavors to come, he would herald realizations of his own stupidity and impending doom with loud and raucous cries.
A man stood there with a faint winter’s sunlight streaming down on him.
“Run,” Mansourah gasped. “I’ll see to this.”
Acair grabbed the prince by the arm. He looked at the man who had accompanied them in spite of his potential misgivings and no-doubt definite dislike of Acair himself, then shook his head.
“We can’t run any longer.”
“Aye, you can.” Mansourah jerked his head toward Léirsinn. “Protect her, at least.”
“Wait—” Acair began, but it was too late.
His hand clutched nothing simply because Mansourah had turned himself into something angry and dark that charged the man in the glade. It didn’t last but a heartbeat or two. Acair watched Mansourah be caught, wrenched back into his own shape, and slammed into the ground at the feet of that mage.