by Lynn Kurland
He finally gained control enough of himself that he thought he could look at his fiendish foe without wanting to throttle him. He clasped his hands behind his back where they wouldn’t get him into any trouble by way of uncontrollable, rude gestures, then looked at the hapless grandson of the king of Cothromaiche.
“Where is this spell?” he asked.
“A better question might be, where did this spell once find itself? And the answer is my grandfather’s library.”
Acair thought it might serve him to refrain from shaking his head any more that day. He feared his wits were beginning to rattle around inside his skull in a manner that was unhealthy.
“And you can’t go looking for this spell yourself?”
“From my grandfather’s own solar?” Soilléir asked, looking horrified.
“Library,” Acair said shortly. He dismissed Soilléir’s look as badly done theatrics. The man would pinch his grandfather’s nightcap off his head if it served his vaunted purposes.
Soilléir smiled. “Aye, library.”
“You haven’t hit upon the idea of simply walking in and asking for it?”
Soilléir shifted. “Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?”
“Don’t tell me your grandfather doesn’t know it’s missing.”
“My grandfather doesn’t know it’s missing,” Soilléir agreed.
Acair felt his way down onto a different log from the one where Léirsinn sat so unsteadily. Unfortunately for him, his arse’s aim was terrible and he missed the whole damned thing. He lay on his back for a moment, looking up at the sky and wishing he were admiring it from several hundred feet off the ground instead of from a pile of rotting pine needles, then heaved himself back up and perched on that traitorous piece of wood.
“And what, again if I might be allowed to ask, does this piece of magic your grandfather doesn’t know is missing actually do?”
“That’s an interesting question,” Soilléir said slowly, “but more interesting are the circumstances that seem to surround the theft.”
“I can scarce wait to hear the details,” Acair said, though he could think of several things he would rather be discussing. He paused, considered that, then shook his head. That wasn’t true. If what Soilléir wanted from him included a trip inside Seannair of Cothromaiche’s private nest, perhaps he was more interested than he wanted to admit.
“The spell is gone, but the rest of the book is intact. It was as if someone simply went into the solar—”
“Library,” Acair exclaimed.
Soilléir smiled. “Just making sure you hadn’t forgotten. It’s as if someone merely walked in and cut a page from a particular book.” He paused. “Not that you would have any experience with that.”
Acair ignored the barb and concentrated on the matter at hand. “And you can’t remember what the spell says?”
“It was the original,” Soilléir said, “and not anything I was particularly interested in at the time, truth be told.”
“Don’t you people ever make copies of anything?” Acair said incredulously.
“The library is unbreachable,” Soilléir said.
“Apparently not,” Acair returned with a snort. “What did this spell do?”
“It’s a spell of theft.”
Acair rolled his eyes. “Pedestrian.”
“It steals souls.”
Acair was honestly rather grateful he hadn’t been sipping anything because he would have likely put the fire out with his spewing. He grasped frantically for his last shreds of good sense. He was never afraid. He had walked in places that would have turned that prissy essence changer perched on that sturdy log over there white with terror, yet he himself had hardly raised an eyebrow.
He wasn’t sure if that ice-cold hand that had taken hold of his innards was fear or the coldest of angers.
He settled for the latter, because the former was just too terrible to contemplate.
“Get out of my sight,” he said with a haughtiness that he feared wasn’t nearly chilly enough for present circumstances. “Sending me off to do your dirty work? Disgusting.”
“I think you’ve seen the spell before,” Soilléir said quietly.
“Bah, what absolute rot,” Acair said dismissively.
“I believe you threw it into a fire quite a few years ago.”
Léirsinn squeaked. Acair understood and he wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t made the same sort of noise right along with her. He rose unsteadily and paced, because that seemed like the most intelligent thing he’d done all day. He finally stopped behind Léirsinn and put his hands on her shoulders. To steady her, of course, not himself.
“How do you know that?” Acair wheezed. “Ye gads, man, do you have any idea what you’re saying?”
Soilléir only looked at him steadily. “Aye, I do, and the answer to the first is that I did some investigating.”
“Have you been spying on me my entire life?” Acair asked, thoroughly appalled by the notion.
“You were such trouble from the start that I likely should have,” Soilléir said with a faint smile, “but nay, I haven’t. If you must know, there was something surrounding that moment all those many years ago that drew my attention in a way few things have. You know I don’t like to interfere—”
“Bollocks!” Acair shouted. He took a deep breath. “I honestly don’t know how you live inside yourself.”
“Centuries of practice,” Soilléir said with a shrug.
Acair swore, because it seemed preferable to shouting. “Who stole that spell from your grandfather?”
“We’re not certain.”
Acair supposed he might hazard a decent guess. He considered the mage sitting across from him and decided there was no use in not asking a few questions whilst he had the chance.
“Have you ever heard the name Sladaiche?”
Soilléir looked as if he’d just been clouted in the nose. He pulled back, then looked at Acair with something that on another’s face might have been called surprise.
“I haven’t heard that name in years,” he said carefully.
“But you’ve heard it before,” Acair pressed.
Soilléir considered. “It cannot be the same man. That one was . . . nay, it can’t be the same mage.”
Acair crawled over the fallen tree and sat next to Léirsinn. “Perhaps you should let me decide that.”
Soilléir shook his head. “I’m not sure I can bring to mind—well, actually you know I can but I don’t wish to—from whence he hailed, but the country bordered Bruadair. Take that for what it’s worth.”
Acair wasn’t unhappy to have Léirsinn put her arm around his shoulders, even if it was likely to keep herself upright. It was damned chilly and that in spite of the fire in front of them.
“He was exiled from his country hundreds of years ago for misuse of power,” Soilléir said slowly. “Rumor has it he died a beggar.”
“I’m suspecting that is wishful thinking,” Acair said sourly.
Soilléir studied him for far longer than Acair was comfortable with. “If Sladaiche and this theft are linked in any way, I would be extremely careful—”
“I have no magic!”
The words hung in the air, there over the fire, where they crackled and popped as if they’d been a terribly dry branch full of sap. He looked at them until they faded, studiously avoided looking at Léirsinn, then fixed his glance on Soilléir.
“I have no magic,” he repeated quietly.
“But you do have a quest,” Soilléir said.
“I already had a quest!”
“This is an extending of that goodly work,” Soilléir said mercilessly. “Your task is to find out where that spell has gone. I would suggest you pinch the original book for the companion spells, but that’s only a thought.” He paused. “I have the feeling that
when you find that spell, you’ll also solve several other mysteries that are keeping you awake at night.”
“You should have told me that months ago!”
Soilléir only looked at him steadily.
“If you tell me you’ve been waiting for me to be ready for this new, unusual, and very unwelcome addition to something I was already doing under extreme protest,” Acair said coldly, “I will stab you.”
“You won’t manage it.”
“Oh, I will,” Acair promised. “When you least expect it, you will find me standing over you, spell in hand, and you’ll be powerless to stop me from sending you off to hell.”
“Well, if anyone has the courage to try, it would certainly be you.”
Acair wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or an insult, then decided he might not want to think about it too much. “Why don’t you steal the damned book yourself?”
“It wouldn’t do—”
Acair was sure he hadn’t howled, because a gentleman never howled except discreetly when the port he was sipping wasn’t quite the thing, but whatever noise he’d made had come damned close to something that felt as if it had come straight from his soul.
What was left of that soul, apparently.
“You know,” Soilléir said carefully, “it’s an interesting spell that’s missing.”
“It’s a terrible spell that’s missing,” Acair shouted. “How could you possibly let something like that slip out of your own damned library?”
Soilléir looked a bit more helpless than Acair was comfortable with.
“My grandfather can be somewhat absentminded.”
Acair found that there were simply no words left in what was left of his mind to use in describing his disbelief over what he was hearing.
He was also desperately regretting his lack of magic at the moment given what he thought might be a fortuitous breach in the bulwark around those Cothromaichian treasures, but he used a firm hand and all the terrible things all those months of do-gooding had caused to fester inside him to push himself away from that profoundly tempting thought.
It was a thought he would, of course, revisit at his earliest opportunity.
“Odd what those spots of shadow do, isn’t it?”
A sharp verbal riposte was halfway out of his mouth before he realized it hadn’t been Soilléir to speak, it had been Léirsinn. He looked at her in astonishment.
“What did you say?”
“Those spots of shadow,” she said slowly. “They steal souls, just as that spell supposedly does.”
Acair was happy to be sitting down. He felt Léirsinn’s arm tighten around him, which he had to admit he appreciated for more than just the gesture of affection.
If those two things were connected, if he could find the mage using that spell to create shadows to steal souls . . . well, then the mystery would be solved. Repairing the damage already done would likely be a dodgy business, but perhaps he was more prepared for that than he suspected. His mother had advised him to collect bits of his own lost soul, so perhaps helping others to do the same wouldn’t be all that hard.
Do-gooding. It was becoming a bad habit.
He rested his head against Léirsinn’s, choosing to ignore her trembling, and considered the state of affairs in his life.
Spots of shadow, mages speaking in shards of metal, a prince of Neroche who might possibly be slain, and a spell dogging his steps that left him unable to defend himself were one thing. A woman he loved—there was no point in denying it any longer—now having magic she would no doubt come to regret having asked for, and no magic himself whilst his path led to a place where, he had to admit, he likely wasn’t going to be able to restrain himself from dipping into the family coffers?
Impossible.
He looked at Soilléir. “Did you bring anything to eat?”
“I might have, but I’m not sure you’ll have much time for a leisurely supper. You’ve distracted your friend over there in the clearing and I’ve given him a bit more to think about, but I sense that he’s shaking off our spells.”
“What of Mansourah?” Léirsinn asked.
Acair felt a pang in the vicinity of his heart. He looked at Soilléir.
“I cannot aid him,” he said, finding it very difficult to get the words past his gritted teeth. “He deserves better.”
Soilléir hesitated, closed his eyes briefly, then looked at them both. He pulled a pack out of nothing and held it out.
“Eat on the fly,” he said, “though I would keep to your feet until you’re deeper in the forest. I will do what I can for you here to purchase you a bit of time to flee. I will also do what I can for the prince.”
Acair supposed that was the best they were going to get. He also rose and took the pack because he was above all a pragmatist. He didn’t waste time asking Soilléir if he couldn’t just see to the whole damned thing himself because the very last thing he thought he could stomach at the moment was a lengthy lecture on allowing the world to turn as it wanted to without interference.
Damn it, there were evil things afoot. Why those didn’t merit a bit of attention from that lad there . . .
It was obvious he would have to see to it himself, as usual.
“Thank you for the supper,” Acair said. “Miach will appreciate your rescuing his brother, I’m certain. I’ll be off to see to your dirty work for you.”
Soilléir only lifted his eyebrows briefly and smiled.
Acair took Léirsinn by the hand and pulled her to her feet. He didn’t stop her from embracing Soilléir briefly, though he would have preferred she use the proximity as an excuse to slip a dagger between the man’s ribs. He shot his taskmaster a glare on principle, whistled softly for his horse, then started off into the darkness with his lady.
He had the distinct feeling he was putting his foot to a path that wouldn’t lead to places he wanted to go, but that was nothing out of the ordinary.
He was starting to wish it were.
Nineteen
Léirsinn stumbled along behind Acair as he walked swiftly along a path she couldn’t see, trusting that he wouldn’t run her into anything. She had her hand on his back, which perhaps wasn’t the most comfortable way to walk, but it helped her stay on her feet.
The chill on her face was bitter, but that helped her stay on her feet as well. The cloak the witchwoman of Fàs had given her kept her warm, but that also might have come from the fact that she was ablaze with a fever that she was fairly certain hadn’t come from being close to anyone who had sneezed.
She tried to ignore the truth for a bit, but the truth was, she was beyond weary. What she wanted most of all was somewhere safe to sleep. It didn’t matter to her if that safe place was a witch’s hearth, a king’s guest chamber, or a patch of ground under a starlit sky with a dragon keeping her feet warm and a prince of Neroche’s spells keeping her from dying—
A prince of Neroche who might be dead.
She turned her mind abruptly away from that thought but all that did was leave her facing other thoughts she cared for even less. The last few words Acair had exchanged with Soilléir when he’d thought she wasn’t listening were burned into her memory.
She cannot fight him and you’re daft if you think I’ll allow her to try.
But she might purchase you the time to escape—
Wasn’t that why she’d wanted magic in the first place?
Acair stopped so suddenly that she ran into him before she realized what he was doing. He caught her, then put his arm around her and drew her more deeply into the forest. He leaned against a tree and pulled her into his arms, wrapping his new cloak around her.
“Danger?” she whispered.
“A handy excuse to indulge in a friendly embrace, rather.”
She smiled in spite of herself. She supposed he wouldn’t notice if her teeth were chatt
ering so badly she thought they might be heard all the way back to his mother’s house.
“You have a fever,” he murmured.
“I don’t feel very well.”
“You feel very well to—”
“Will you stop?” she demanded in exasperation.
He tightened his arms around her briefly, then sighed deeply. “I’m trying to distract us both, I fear.”
She was willing to admit that the thought was a good one. She rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. It was probably as close as she was going to come to safety for the foreseeable future, so she thought she might want to take advantage of the moment.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said finally.
“Kind thoughts about me?”
She lifted her head and looked at him. The dark wasn’t quite absolute so she could see the hint of a smile on his face. “Those, too,” she agreed, “but others as well.”
He studied her. “Thoughts about magic?”
“I’m putting that off for a bit still,” she said honestly. She chewed on her words before she managed to put them in an order that made sense to her. “If the spell that was stolen does what Soilléir says it does—and trust me, I’m finding it hard to take any of this seriously—”
“Even now?” he interrupted.
“I’ve only set half a forest on fire,” she said solemnly. “That could have been someone else trying to undermine my confidence.”
He rested his forehead gently against hers. “I’m fighting the urge to spew out a maudlin sentiment.”
“Are you certain it isn’t indigestion?”
“We have yet to ingest what that whoreson from Cothromaiche sent along,” Acair said, “so, aye, I’m fairly certain my tum is still safe. But that wasn’t what we were discussing.” He straightened and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, then pulled her hood closer around her face. “Go on.”
She took a deep breath. “If that mage had taken that spell,” she began, “and it does what it’s supposed to do . . .” She looked at him. “Well?”