The Prince of Souls (The Nine Kingdoms Book 12)

by Lynn Kurland

  That terrible spell of death shrieked as if it had been stabbed with a thousand daggers.

  Yet it remained trapped.

  “Shut up!” he exclaimed. “Ye gads, man, my father can hear you in Shettlestoune!”

  The spell fell silent. The look of malevolence it sent his way would have alarmed him had he been made of less stern stuff, but he was who he was and he had definitely seen worse. He waited, but still drew breath. That he was surprised by that said more than he liked about the state of his life at present.

  Being able to use his magic however, even just inside his own home, was an unexpected turn of events.

  He stepped back inside the house, slammed the door shut behind him, then lit the hallway lamps in a thoroughly magical fashion as he passed them. He rummaged about in his study for the most potent bottle of whisky he could find, then walked swiftly back to the kitchens.

  Sianach was giving his feline self a wash in front of the fire, and Léirsinn was still sitting where he’d left her, her arm resting on the table at that unwholesome angle. He found a glass, poured her a generous amount of what he was sure would do her a world of good, then sat down next to her. She opened her eyes and took the glass he handed her, then stared at it as if she had no idea what to do with it.

  “Drink,” he suggested.

  She nodded, then downed most of what he’d given her. He was half surprised it didn’t come right back up, but the gel was no weak-kneed miss. She sat still for a moment, then looked at him.

  “What now?” she said hoarsely.

  “Well,” he said, removing the remains of his cloak from around her arm with a silent spell, then cutting her sleeve away with the dagger shoved down his boot that he sharpened with an equally silent but different spell as he drew it, “let’s have a look and see where we are.”

  She looked at him blearily. “You’re using magic.”

  “To my surprise,” he said, “aye, I am.”

  “And you’re not dead.”

  “Not yet, darling,” he said. “Apparently my ability to craft a spell of protection is as formidable as I always thought it to be, which is a fortuitous turn of events given my limits as a proper physick.”

  She shifted, then winced. “Can you set this?”

  “Better than that,” he assured her. “Whilst I should probably lay out all the possible magics we could use and let you choose the one you fancy the most, I think the ferocious growling of your tum and the fact that you just knocked back a substantial amount of my favorite libation might leave you a bit more short-tempered than usual. Let’s settle for Fadaire.”

  She leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. “I thought you never used prissy elven rot,” she murmured.

  “Clever you for reminding me of my own standards,” he said, “but I have to admit it is a rather pretty magic. I’m quite sure King Sìle would approve of having it used on your fetching self, though I’m guessing he would be less thrilled about my being the one to use it. Let’s see if we can’t hear him roaring all the way from Uachdaran’s most comfortable guest chamber.”

  “You talk a great deal,” she whispered.

  He shot her a quick smile he was certain she hadn’t seen, then bent to his work. He did indeed know several spells of healing, though it probably said more about him than he wanted it to that he didn’t use them all that often. He also knew more Fadaire than Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn would have been happy with, but he would offer an apology for that later.

  Or not, more than likely. He suspected he might have used up a millennia’s worth of fawning words of regret in just the past half year alone.

  He began the spell carefully, partly because he wasn’t entirely sure how much of the pain the spell would take away whilst doing its goodly work, and partly because the magic was beautiful and brought an undeniable peace along with it. He had used it before for a thing or two and found it coming reluctantly to his call. Perhaps that had something to do with his bloodright to Ehrne of Ainneamh’s magic, but he’d never cared to investigate that overmuch.

  At the moment, however, Fadaire seemed to feel that having a few of its relatives lingering in the vicinity of his own black heart was reason enough to do his bidding. He spoke the final words and watched them fall softly onto Léirsinn’s arm. He could hear the faint echo of her bones knitting together, then watched as that elvish business worked its way out through her flesh and up not only her arm, but his. He sighed in spite of himself. Whatever King Sìle’s faults might have been, he was at least the guardian of a truly lovely magic.

  He looked at Léirsinn to find her watching him with tears streaming down her face. He cleared his throat to cover his own emotion, only surprised that he didn’t cough out a handful of Fadairian sparkles as a result. Never mind any of his previously complimentary thoughts, the damned stuff was going to be the death of him some day.

  Léirsinn moved her fingers, then pulled her arm from under his hand and held it up. She looked at him in astonishment.

  “That’s healed,” she said faintly.

  “You stepped between me and death,” he said easily. “Again, I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “It has become a bad habit,” she agreed. “And look at what it got you. Your shirt is in shreds as well.”

  “I’ll go find something else.” He rose. “Make as at home, of course.”

  He decided to ignore the expression she was wearing, as if the words simply didn’t have any meaning for her.

  Her uncle had many things to answer for.

  He fetched something from the armoire in his bedchamber, then returned to the kitchens to find them empty. He ruthlessly ignored the panic that flashed through him and decided that the sooner he had food and a decent night’s sleep, the better.

  He found Léirsinn by his front door. She hadn’t opened it; she was simply standing there, staring at it as if she couldn’t decide whether she should stay or go. He moved to lean against the wall opposite her.

  “Thinking of bolting?” he asked mildly.

  She looked at him in surprise. “I wasn’t, actually. I was just wondering why you had no lock. Then it occurred to me that you aren’t afraid someone will come in because you have…you know.”

  “Magic?” he asked. “Aye. But it is what I do, isn’t it?”

  She didn’t look particularly comforted. “What about the spell over your house?”

  He considered what he might say to reassure her, but supposed none of it would matter. He knew what the spell was capable of because he’d made it so he might have one place in the wide, terrible world where he could sleep in peace. He also suspected that hearing about the inner workings of the magic involved would interest her as much as knowing the precise ingredients in Sianach’s supper might interest him.

  “Oh,” he said with a shrug, “’tis just a little mixture of this and that. The frame is a spell I found lying about in, as irony would have it, Uachdaran of Léige’s forge, but the rest is just pedestrian stuff I’m not sure I could bring to mind.”

  She only watched him, silently.

  He suppressed the urge to shift uncomfortably. In the interest of continuing his slide into that warmish pile of virtue entitled Honesty, he had to admit he knew exactly what he’d put into the damned thing and could likely point out where each layer began and ended. What covered his house was elegant, direct, and fatal to anyone who thought to try to best it. It had occurred to him, no doubt during that same bit of thinking about how useful it would be to leave pieces of his power under various thrones and sofa cushions, that he might someday find himself with a need for a refuge. He’d constructed his spell with the caveat being that he would always be allowed through it with only his sweet self as the key.

  Léirsinn’s having managed to contain that mysterious spell of death long enough for him to pull her through his arguably best piece of work was som
ething he was going to have to think through a bit more. That said piece of foul magic now found itself trapped in the web of his own spell was something he would face after he’d poured himself something very strong to drink.

  “Let’s just say it will hold,” he said finally.

  “Not even Soilléir could breach it?”

  “Well, now isn’t that an interesting question,” he said, reaching for her hand, “and one for which the answer is far more entertaining than you might expect. I’ll tell you all about it over supper.”

  “A lock first?”

  He realized quite suddenly that she was afraid. Hard on the heels of that came a terrible suspicion that she might be afraid of him. Perhaps what she’d seen in Uachdaran’s cavernous chamber had…well, he should have insisted that she leave.

  He hadn’t, though, and there was nothing to be done but press on. He stood there for a moment or two, finding himself with a new appreciation for her ability to approach any horse no matter how skittish and leave it not bolting the other way. He carefully took a step closer to her and held out his hand toward her.

  “Fadaire can be a bit of a bother sometimes,” he said casually. “My half-brother Rùnach healed me with a piece of it, as you know, and I vow I’ve been given to all sorts of uncharacteristic displays ever since. Tears, maudlin sentiments, the overwhelming desire to write Nerochian questing poetry and bore everyone in the vicinity with my droning readings of the same.”

  She put her hand in his, which he supposed was promising.

  “I suppress it all, stellar soul that I am,” he continued, “simply because my overarching purpose in life is, as you know, to make the world a better place. Now, let me go fetch our gear, then we’ll find something hopefully edible and sleep in peace. If I use any magic, I’ll do it aloud so you might be properly dazzled by my mighty skill.”

  She stopped him. “Must you go outside?”

  He decided at that moment that perhaps she was less afraid of him than she was for him.

  That was almost worse, actually.

  “I promise you that I will return,” he said seriously. “Here, stand at the door and watch.”

  She looked none-too-happy about the idea, but she released him and nodded just the same.

  He stepped outside and walked down the path to collect their packs. He ignored the death-dispensing spell suspended in his very useful and businesslike piece of protective magic, then scanned the path to the shore, looking for mages who wanted him dead. He saw nothing, but that was somehow not all that reassuring.

  He walked back inside his house, shut the door firmly, then wove a simple spell of imperviousness over it. He left a delicate tassel hanging from the doorknob, then looked at Léirsinn.

  “If you feel the need for fresh air, just give that a tug and off you go. Perhaps you heard your name mentioned amongst those fine words which means that you’ll be able to come back inside, no pulley needed.”

  “And no one else can?” she asked, looking rather less comfortable than he would have hoped. “Come inside, that is.”

  He slung their packs over his shoulder, then reached for her hand. “No one,” he assured her. “Well, save a master of epicurial delights who comes to stay from time to time, but even he would need to knock thanks to that new lock.”

  “You have a cook,” she said in disbelief.

  “Occasionally,” he said. “You might be interested to know that offering him a position with my vast and impressive entourage almost started a war, but to pacify the short-tempered monarch I stole him from I’ve arranged a sort of share-and-share-alike bargain. Sadly, I’ve been off groveling so often over the past few months that I felt it only fair to release the man to appease the monarchial palate until called for again.”

  “Good of you.”

  “I thought so,” he agreed. “He does keep up with the larder just the same, so there might be bits of dried fruits and cured meats with perhaps even a hastily scrawled recipe or two lurking there. If he’s been particularly diligent, we might find things still resting comfortably in the garden.”

  He continued talking about things he was fairly certain might even have caused the current monarch of Gairn, a man notorious for his complicated culinary stylings, to indulge in a yawn, dropped their gear just inside his study, then carried on with her to the kitchen. He saw her settled near the fire and made his way out the back door to the garden.

  He looked at the lovely, orderly collection of rows and boxes and hedges and acknowledged that even though he visited on occasion, he had never once pulled anything out of that ground to eat.

  Carrots and potatoes were what he needed, though, so he used a quick spell of revealing to encourage his garden to cough up the same. Veg leapt out of the soil and arranged itself in a tidy heap. He collected everything, then looked over his shoulder to find Léirsinn standing on the landing there. He would have asked her if anything else sounded appealing, but realized that she wasn’t watching him.

  She was looking beyond him to the shadows under the trees.

  He knew what she was seeing without having to look himself. Bloody hell. He hadn’t expected anything less, which should have left him insisting that Léirsinn remain inside. More the fool was he that he hadn’t taken his own inklings to heart. He took a quick tour of the spell laid over his house and the surrounding environs, but found it undisturbed.

  He strode back up the pair of steps leading to his house, ushered Léirsinn inside, then shut the back kitchen door. If he dropped a spell over it that would have taken a score of dwarvish miners a year with both axe and spell to chip through, he didn’t imagine anyone would blame him.

  He subsequently cleaned, chopped, and boiled his findings in the usual fashion, shooing Léirsinn back to the fire after she dropped his knife and almost impaled his foot with it. He rummaged through the larder and found cheese, apples, and a very nice bottle of wine. That, he supposed, was going to be the best he could manage.

  He suspected his companion wouldn’t taste any of it.

  He cleared off the table after supper, then decided there was nothing to do that couldn’t wait until the morning. He banked his fire in the normal way, gathered Léirsinn up with her gear, then showed her to his very best guestchamber.

  “Oh,” she said, “this is much too…” She stared at the chamber for a moment or two, then nodded and looked at him. “Thank you.”

  “Of course,” he said, ignoring the crack in her voice. “I’m only a pair of doors down the way if you need me.”

  She nodded.

  He refrained from begging her not to run off during the night because self-control was, as King Uachdaran had so wisely pointed out recently, one of his most desirable virtues.

  He made sure she knew the way to a different guest chamber for all the necessary ablutions, then waited until she’d shut the door in his face before he walked off to his private study.

  It was a lovely, snug spot connected to the library by means of a graceful set of heavy wooden doors which he currently closed because there were times he preferred to sit in a smaller room to be alone with his thoughts. If those thoughts had previously concerned, as his mother would have said, merely general naughtiness with only the occasional venturing to heights of true mischief, perhaps ’twas best he just keep that to himself.

  He built a fire with his own two hands for the sport of it, then decided nothing was going to make his head pound any worse than it was already so there was no reason not to pour himself a hearty glass of brandy. He did, then sat down with a deep sigh.

  He waited for deep thoughts to come, but found he was only equal to sitting and staring into the fire. The world still turned and shadows were still being made, though apparently not everywhere, and he would need to determine why. A mage that spoke in shards of metal was standing outside his house, watching silently, for reasons that could certainly have bee
n explained by the usual reasons mages watched him, but somehow that answer seemed a bit too convenient.

  Finally, his grandmother had handed him a mysterious map that seemingly led right to where he was sitting, which he suspected was not an accident.

  He sat with those thoughts until thinking them any longer undid any relief his drink had offered him. He rose, saw to putting the house to bed for the night, then went to the front door and opened it. Seeing that nothing had changed with that blasted spell of death was reassuring, though he caught himself on the verge of something that felt a bit more like concern and a great deal less like fury over its existence.

  He drew back inside his house, shut the door, then resealed the lock before he completely lost any sense of himself.

  He unapologetically exchanged the hallway’s werelight for something a bit paler and dreamier made from Fadaire. If Léirsinn awoke, assuming she managed to fall asleep at all, she might be soothed by it. At the very least, she wouldn’t run into anything.

  He retired, but found that in spite of the exquisite surroundings and the peace in which to enjoy them, he was uncomfortable. Obviously his guest was suffering from the same thing. He might not have heard her pass by his bedchamber if he hadn’t been expecting the same. Credit where it was due, though: the woman could walk almost silently. He didn’t want to think about why she’d mastered that skill, though perhaps ponies were lighter sleepers than he supposed.

  He was grateful for an armoire full of comfortable gentlemen’s nighttime attire. He rolled out of bed, gathered up a thing or two that a shivering stable lass might find to her liking, then made his way soundlessly to his study.

  Léirsinn was sitting huddled on the floor in front of the hearth where she had added only a single, rather inadequate piece of wood. Acair draped a luxurious silk robe about her shoulders, set the rest of his burdens down on a chair, and brought the fire back to life in a perfectly pedestrian fashion. He then went to fetch a pallet and more blankets. Perhaps all she needed to feel safe was a bit of undemanding company.