The Prince of Souls (The Nine Kingdoms Book 12)

by Lynn Kurland

  “I believe Morgan sent him.”

  Well, that was something. He wasn’t sure what he thought of that, so he decided bluster might be his only hope. Even if he’d been able to indulge in a bit of spell-making, it would have likely been only of the sort that allowed him to feint right, then dodge left. Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn was a bit like the king of Durial, only with perhaps a tastier wine cellar. They were old, ill-humored, and sitting on a trunkful of spells he would have committed quite a few nefarious deeds to have a rifle through.

  They were also two of the most powerful souls he knew and escaping the wrath of either would take more energy than he had at the moment.

  Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on one’s perspective—that damned bit of Fadaire frolicking through his once satisfyingly wicked form had apparently recognized its sovereign and decided to flutter about in a bit of a salute. It was all he could do not to take a knee, as the saying went, and confess his love for all things elvish.

  Soilléir leaned close. “You look unwell.”

  “You already mentioned that, thank you,” he said grimly. “If you’re curious, I also don’t feel well.”

  “You look…sparkly.”

  He clutched his chest in profound alarm. It was a tremendous alarm, far greater than anything he’d felt before. He did heave himself to his feet, though, because he was no fool. Essence changers and elven kings were hemming him in, but his lady still might require a rescue from those two over there who had to be her siblings. ’Twas best he survive to see to that.

  He noted that Soilléir had also risen to show the proper amount of deference. Handy, that, as he needed a bit of support. If he leaned harder on that damned meddler than was polite, he didn’t suppose anyone could blame him.

  Luck was with him, oddly enough, for Sìle paused to have a look at the trio standing next to the fountain. Acair sighed deeply. A reprieve, though he imagined it wouldn’t last all that long.

  “She won’t be entirely as she was before,” Soilléir murmured.

  “I know that, damn you to hell,” Acair said, dragging his sleeve across his eyes. “I will endlessly torment you because of it, rest assured.”

  “I would be disappointed in anything else.”

  “I would have traded you most of my soul for more years for her, you know,” Acair said, because he couldn’t not say it.

  “You did.”

  He gaped at the man next to him. “What?”

  “Tell her after the entire tale is finished,” Soilléir advised.

  He found himself distracted mostly because the king of the elves—the only ones who mattered, as Sìle himself would have said—had turned his sights away from that glorious woman and her siblings over there and had come to stand in front of him. He wasn’t at all certain he wouldn’t meet his end in a terribly uncomfortable way, but when a gentleman was facing the prospect of either bolting or remaining with the woman he loved, he didn’t run.

  Well, he might run later, when he was back to his old self and could swoop Léirsinn up and nip off the battlefield in dragonshape, but—

  He straightened only to deeply regret it. He would have toppled over if he hadn’t suddenly found a glorious horse miss at his side, pulling his arm over her shoulders and keeping him upright. Soilléir exerted himself to give him a shove when he almost lost his balance in that direction, but no more. He added that to the list of things he wouldn’t be thanking the worthless whoreson for, then glanced at his love.

  Her cheeks were wet, but her eyes were full of wonder. He smiled in spite of himself.

  “Brother and sister, I assume?”

  “Can you believe it?”

  “Tonight, darling, I think I can believe quite a few things. Ah, and you remember His Majesty, the king of Tòrr Dòrainn?”

  He wanted to listen to Léirsinn introduce His Maj to her brother and sister and he supposed he should have made note of their names, but all he could do was breathe and hope he wouldn’t faint. Sladaiche was no more, apparently, and he supposed they now knew what the spell was he’d been looking for, but there was still the mystery of the shadows on the ground that perhaps might never be solved.

  He had also lost something in the process, more than even a spell of death would have taken out of him.

  There were odd things afoot in the Nine Kingdoms.

  He realized that Sìle had taken Léirsinn’s hand and gently placed a rune there, telling her that it would give her comfort and strength when she had a need for the same. He watched it glow with a golden hue so fiery that he wasn’t entirely certain the damned thing wasn’t made of fire.

  Fitting.

  Sìle glared at him. “Your hand as well.”

  All the tortures the elven king could place upon him sprang immediately to mind, tortures he imagined would reach new heights of misery thanks to that damned spell still lodged in his black heart.

  “Ah,” he managed, “thank you just the same—”

  “Your hand, damn you!”

  Acair studied the king and wondered how he might extricate himself from his current conundrum without either bolting or feigning an artful swoon. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any hope of escape. He held out his hand, not entirely certain Sìle wouldn’t just lop it off for the sport of it.

  Sìle looked at him from under bushy eyebrows. “I know what you did.”

  The possibilities were endless there, weren’t they? If he felt rather than heard Soilléir snort, well, he supposed he deserved it.

  “For my Mhorghain,” Sìle clarified.

  Damnation, the pollen was never ending in the south. Far past time to get himself back north where the chill might keep the damned trees and flowers from troubling him overmuch.

  Acair cleared his throat. “It was, Your Majesty,” he managed, “the least I could do.”

  Sìle grunted. “I daresay it was, but still. And so you know, she’s the one who told me about it. Perhaps she thought I might encounter you on some deserted byway and decide the world might be a better place without you.”

  “Very kind of her—”

  “Shut up,” Sìle growled, “and hold still.”

  Acair found quite suddenly that there were still stars enough in the world to set up a wild and chaotic swirling about his head. The pain in his hand was blinding, but mercifully brief. He looked down at his hand—his skin was red as hellfire, to be honest—and watched as three separate runes flashed silver and gold, then faded. The skin on the back of his hand returned to its normal perfect coloration, albeit with those runes still faintly visible. He could still pinch the odd, priceless knick-knack without impertinent remarks about his grooming, thankfully.

  He looked at the king. “Your Majesty?”

  Sìle shrugged. “Figure it out yourself.”

  “Would my father know?”

  “Go ask him. Take notes of his reaction and send word.”

  Acair was tempted to invite the irascible monarch to make the journey with him, but perhaps ’twas too soon. The old elf didn’t look particularly chummy, but it had been a long evening so far.

  Sìle looked at Soilléir. “My bit’s done and my debt to this wee bastard paid.”

  “What did you gift him?” Soilléir asked.

  “I vow I’ve forgotten already,” Sìle said, seemingly stopping just short of scratching his head. “An irresistible impulse to endlessly go about doing good, or perhaps an inability to memorize any more spells. Can’t say I remember at the moment.”

  Acair was certain of many things and none more than elves had very poor taste in jest. He listened to Soilléir and Sìle exchange the usual sort of pleasantries the moment called for and he should have participated in, but he found that all he could do was stare stupidly at the back of his hand at lines that were so beautiful he could hardly manage a coherent thought.

 
“What do they mean?” Léirsinn whispered.

  “Haven’t a clue,” he murmured.

  What he suspected was they were akin to those tangled spells his dam handed off to overeager youth who came to beg something intricate and mysterious from her. Those pieces of magic were nothing more than endless loops that ended where they began, leaving the mage unsatisfied and the spell worthless. His mother never failed to chortle as those same annoying yobs wandered off into the forest with their brows knitted and their faces fair buried against the spells in their hands. More than one lad had returned to his dam’s house with a great knot in his forehead from where he’d encountered some immoveable object or other.

  Sìle’s gift was likely just the same. He would spend years trying to unravel the damned runes, sneaking into libraries where he shouldn’t go, trotting off occasionally on the proverbial wild goose chase, only to find out after decades of the same that what he possessed was nothing more than directions to the king’s most unkempt privy.

  He wouldn’t have been surprised.

  He thought he might be wise to ignore the way that damned spell wrapped around his heart seemed to recognize a fellow coconspirator, calling to it with a sweet song of Fadaire—

  “I believe he’s cursed me,” he wheezed.

  Léirsinn put her arms around his waist and leaned her head companionably against his shoulder. “You do look a little green.”

  “I’ve had a long day,” he said. “Worry over you, of course.”

  “You’re an awful man.”

  “As I continue to remind you,” he said with a deep sigh.

  She only smiled. If she pulled his arm more fully over her shoulders and he leaned a bit harder on her than he should have, she didn’t say anything.

  It was weariness, that was all. He might have been fretting a bit over making a decent impression on her siblings after they’d seen him at less than his best.

  He supposed he also might have been desperate for an hour of peace and quiet in which to contemplate that nugget Soilléir had simply dropped into the conversation without any warning at all.

  He didn’t protest when Soilléir suggested a retreat indoors to freshen up before perhaps thinking about where the events of the evening had left the world. Acair knew he had other things to see to still, but he wouldn’t argue against half an hour of sitting in front of a fire with his love in his arms and absolutely no one wanting to slay him closer than the other side of a locked chamber door.

  That was, he suspected, always going to be something of a rarity.

  Twenty-two

  Léirsinn looked at herself in the polished glass and wondered if having one’s life completely turned upside down showed on the entire face or just in the eyes.

  She turned away from the mirror, made certain she was buttoned and laced in all the right places, then pulled on her boots. One thing she could say about Acair of Ceangail: he had excellent taste in clothing. The other thing she could say about him was that he wasn’t shy about using magic when the price for the same was no longer death.

  She left the small bathing chamber and pulled the door shut behind her, then paused and looked at the man who had given her not only what she was wearing, but the ability to still breathe the same sweet air that he did.

  He was sitting on the divan in front of the fire, sound asleep. She walked over to lean against the back of the chair across from him and simply looked at him. He was right, of course. She’d been lost the first moment she’d seen him.

  What she hadn’t expected, though, were all the things that had come into her life as a result, most notably siblings she’d thought were dead. Where they’d been and why they’d chosen the present moment to make an appearance was something she thought she might like an answer to.

  She was beginning to see why Acair got himself into so much trouble digging where perhaps he shouldn’t have.

  She was half tempted to stick a pillow behind his head so he didn’t wake up with a kink in his neck, but she supposed he’d woken with worse. At least he would wake again and so would she, though she wasn’t sure her chest would ever not ache. She put her hand over the spot where not even a scar remained and thought she might definitely have a different opinion of magic than she’d had in her uncle’s barn—

  Her grandfather.

  She caught her breath, then let it out carefully. She would let Acair sleep for a bit longer, find her siblings and hold onto them a bit longer as well, then she would see what could be done to save her grandfather before Fuadain did anything rash. There was still the mystery of what, if anything, he had to do with Slaidear, something she thought might be best to find out also sooner rather than later.

  Ye gads, she was starting to sound like a certain black mage of her acquaintance.

  She borrowed his jacket that he’d left lying over the back of a chair and made her way quietly from the chamber. She realized she had a destination in mind only after her feet led her unerringly back to the garden where she wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t perished.

  She walked through paths she hardly remembered having traversed previously and came to a stop in front of the birdbath that sat where a fountain had stood before. The crossbow and bolts were still there, the bolts lying where they’d fallen. She picked them up, then paused. The moon was still newish, but it gave at least a little light that fell on something that glinted faintly at her feet. She bent down and picked it up.

  ’Twas a rune that sparkled with a beautiful, dark richness that left her wondering if she might be holding onto a piece of someone’s soul.

  She had the feeling she might know to whom it belonged.

  She pocketed it, then glanced at the birdbath. She had the feeling no bird would care to use it, but perhaps she was wrong. The water wasn’t liquid, but instead something that greatly resembled a mirror if a mirror could have reflected anything but…well, she was going to say darkness, but that wasn’t what she saw. There was no telling what Acair and Soilléir—an unlikely pairing to begin with—had decided to do with Sladaiche, but perhaps locking him forever in a pool of shadow had been fitting.

  She realized, as she looked at herself reflected by the light of that new moon, that she had only seen herself, flaws and goodness and an elven rune that greatly resembled a dragon made of flames.

  She also realized quite suddenly that she wasn’t alone. She whirled around but found only Acair standing there, watching her gravely.

  “Just me. Admiring our handiwork?”

  She put her hand over her heart, mostly to convince herself that it wouldn’t beat out of her chest. “Have you looked in it?”

  “Will I regret it?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  He did, then shook his head and stepped back. “Soilléir’s doing, not mine. I will say I am every bit as handsome as I always suspected, if not a little rough around the edges at the moment.” He looked at the bow and bolts she held. “That was too close.”

  She held them out. “I don’t think I want them.”

  He took them, then held out his hand. “Perhaps we’ll gather up those damned horseshoes in the trunk at home, put them together with these, and send the whole lot to Soilléir to turn into something vile to leave under Droch’s sofa. I can think of worse ideas.”

  She could too, but she imagined he knew as much. She let go of his hand and put her arms around his waist, avoiding things that had almost killed them both. “I found something you might want.”

  “Besides yourself?”

  She smiled up at him, then kissed him and shook her head. “A little rune on the ground.”

  “Sìle’s now losing things from his pockets?” he asked. “I’m intrigued.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. She pulled it out of her coat—his coat, rather—then held it up. “What do you think?”

  He gaped a
t it, then stepped away from her. He took several steps backward until he ran bodily into a bench, then he sat down abruptly. She walked over and sank down next to him.

  “Well?”

  He set the bow and bolts aside. “That’s something there.”

  “A piece of your soul?”

  “For all the good it does me,” he said. “Why don’t you hold onto it and we’ll corner Soilléir before he scampers off. Perhaps he can open my chest and shove it in there with everything else rattling around in the vicinity of my heart.”

  She put it back in the pocket of his coat, then looked at him.

  “I’m happy to have this all over with,” she said quietly.

  “You might be, but I’ve still relatives to impress. Speaking of, perhaps we should gather them up and go see about your grandfather.”

  She started to agree, then realized there were three people coming toward them. Acair heaved himself to his feet, then held down his hand for her. She rose, then looked at the siblings she’d thought had perished. She wasn’t entirely sure what to say to them, but realized there was no need.

  Her sister walked up to her and put her arms around her. She felt her brother’s arms go around them both. She would have wept, but she was out of tears and too exhausted to go look for any more. It was enough to know she wasn’t alone any longer—

  Only she hadn’t been anyway.

  She stepped away and looked at the man who had changed that. She reached for his hand and pulled him over to stand with them.

  “Acair, this is my sister, Iseabail. Iseabail, you perhaps know Acair of Ceangail?”

  Acair made her a low bow that almost left him on the ground in front of them all. Léirsinn caught him and moved past that before anyone said anything untoward.

  “Acair, my brother, Taisdealach. You might call him—”

  “Or he might not,” Tais said. He looked at Acair coolly. “I’ve heard tales.”

  “They’re likely all true,” she said cheerfully. “But I love him and he’s kept me safe, so be good to him or face my fury.”

  Acair was apparently accustomed to that sort of reception, which she’d already known. He simply inclined his head at her brother and smiled politely.