The Prince of Souls (The Nine Kingdoms Book 12)

by Lynn Kurland

  “A pleasure,” he said cordially.

  Her brother scowled, but he didn’t resort to any slurs so perhaps there was hope. She smiled at Acair.

  “Where now? To Briàghde?”

  “I think that might be best,” he agreed. “Let’s go fetch our gear.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” Tais said briskly. “Don’t dawdle.”

  She watched her brother step back and simply disappear. She blinked, then gaped at her sister. “He has magic?”

  “All of it,” Iseabail said.

  “How do you know? Did you know each other all this time? Did you know I was alive?”

  She found her sister’s arms suddenly around her. “Let’s finish what we must, then we’ll talk. And nay, I didn’t know anything until a few weeks ago, but you can blame Soilléir for that.”

  Léirsinn looked at her as she stepped away. “But you have magic as well?”

  Iseabail shrugged. “I have a bit. Well, I have a great deal, I just never know if it’s going to do what I want it to.” She looked at Soilléir and held out her hand toward him. “Will you help me shapechange?”

  He took her hand and smiled. “With pleasure, my dear.”

  They disappeared without fuss.

  Léirsinn stared at the spot where they had stood but a moment before, then looked at Acair.

  “What did I just witness?”

  “Something I wish I could unsee,” he said with feeling.

  “He’s far too old for her.”

  “She’s far too good for him. If it makes either of us feel better, he calls everyone my dear.”

  “He doesn’t call you that.”

  “Darling, what he calls me isn’t fit for a lady’s ears.” He picked up the bolts, then looked at her. “Let’s hide these behind a planter, then fetch our gear and find our horse. I’m too tired to shapechange.”

  She thought that was odd, but it had been a long evening preceded by several longer weeks. She nodded and took his hand.

  She decided it might be best not to mention that it was trembling.

  He was tired, that was all.

  Walking up the path toward her uncle’s barn—her step-father’s brother’s barn, to be precise—was one of the odder things she had experienced in a long string of unusual things. She had spent so much of her life there, most all of it that she could remember, but she felt as if she were viewing the place with a stranger’s eyes.

  The barn was smaller than she remembered, but tidy and useful. The house, however, was almost unimpressive.

  No wonder Fuadain was such a miserable man.

  She saw her siblings standing with Soilléir just outside the gates. The sight was so unexpected, she stumbled a bit, then found herself caught and pulled back so abruptly, she almost lost her balance. She looked at Acair in surprise, but he was only staring at a spot in front of her. She would have stepped right into that pool of shadow where shadows shouldn’t have been if he hadn’t stopped her.

  “Would you make werelight, love?” he asked quietly.

  She wondered why he didn’t do it himself, but he likely had his reasons. She made a ball of werelight from the only spell she knew. Acair smiled at her briefly.

  “Lovely light there.”

  “I’m a bit surprised I’m still able to do it.”

  He reached for her hand. “I haven’t had the chance to ask you how you feel. Different? Those bolts were enspelled with I know not what, but I’m assuming Soilléir removed their poison.”

  “If magic was a deafening roar before, ’tis but a whisper now,” she said, realizing as she said it that it was so. She looked at him. “I think I can bear it.”

  “I would have made you a jar of useful coins just the same, you know.”

  “I know,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “You might be the first soul who has ever thanked me for my spells.” He put his arm around her and stared at the ground in front of him. “I wonder about those shadows, though.”

  “I would have thought they would have disappeared with Sladaiche.”

  “As would I,” he said slowly. “There’s a mystery for you. Well, the sooner we solve it, the sooner we put our feet up. Do you have your coins?”

  She looked at him in surprise. “I do, but why?”

  He looked at her carefully. “I like to be prepared, Léirsinn. You never know when an extra spell in the right spot will be what turns the tide.”

  Given that he had a world full of spells at his fingertips, she couldn’t imagine why he thought she would need hers. There was something amiss with that lad there, but she hardly dared ask what. She simply ducked under his arm and put her arm around his waist without comment. He could think what he wanted and she certainly wasn’t going to make any comments about the fact that he wasn’t entirely steady on his feet.

  “It has been a long night,” she said, because it had been.

  He nodded with a sigh. “Let’s be about finishing this. I would like to see your grandfather safe and whole. I might even greet Doghail over a shovelful of manure if all goes well.”

  “I would like to see him.” she admitted.

  He ushered her around the pool of shadow, then glanced at her. “Think he’d like a different view?”

  “That might depend on how many Angesand ponies you’re giving me as a wedding gift.”

  He smiled. “What a mercenary you are. To answer, I suppose as many as Hearn will let you have, no doubt with the understanding that I never get too close to them.” He shuddered. “Horses. What have I done?”

  “Nicked my heart and put it in your pocket on the way out of the barn,” she said dryly. “Someone should have told you the trouble that sort of thing would get you eventually.”

  He lifted his eyebrows briefly. “We’ll discuss that at length later. There is the rest of our party. You should go put yourself between Soilléir and your poor sister. His grooming leaves a great deal to be desired. I’m not sure even I, with my superior sartorial guidance, could possibly rescue him from his frumpery.”

  She would have poked at him for talking so much, but she could feel his hand occasionally trembling. She looked at him quickly and found that he was watching her.

  “Weariness,” he said with a shrug. “It will pass.”

  She didn’t have any reason to tell him differently, but when he and her brother walked off together to investigate the insides of Slaidear’s little house on the edge of the manor garden, she caught Soilléir by the sleeve. He looked at her and smiled.

  “What is it, my dear?”

  She frowned before she could stop herself. Perhaps he said that to every woman he met and perhaps every woman was distracted by the fairness of his face and the power she could see only the echoes of, much like a noon-day sun behind an immense cloud. He didn’t look any older than she was, but what did she know? Acair didn’t look any older than she was, either.

  “Léirsinn?”

  She pulled herself back to the present moment and fished about in the pocket of Acair’s coat she was still wearing. The thin wafer she held out sparkled more silver than black in the werelight she realized was still hanging over her head. Soilléir studied it, then looked at her.

  “His soul?”

  “Some of it, at least. Can you, you know.” She found herself fluttering her fingers in exactly the same way Soilléir’s father had when talking about her family. “Put it back in him, that is. I think he doesn’t feel well.”

  Soilléir considered for far longer than she was comfortable with, then looked at her.

  “I think,” he said slowly, “that you should hold onto it for a bit longer. He won’t need it for this business, but he might need it later. Keep it safe.”

  That wasn’t an answer, but she supposed she wasn’t going to have better from him at the moment. She nodded and walke
d with him to Slaidear’s house, but couldn’t force herself to go in. She stood outside with her sister and found herself feeling unusually hesitant. She finally looked at Iseabail.

  “This is strange.”

  “You’re older,” Iseabail said with a faint smile.

  “As are you.” She paused. “Where were you?”

  “Do you know An Cèin?”

  Léirsinn looked at her in surprise. “I know of it, though I’ve never been. Is that where you were?”

  Iseabail nodded. “For most of my life.”

  “Where was Tais?”

  “I honestly haven’t had a chance to ask him. I just met him in Inntrig yesterday.”

  “That must be why Soilléir was there,” she said. “He seemed a bit off-balance.”

  “Desperately trying to hide his tracks, rather,” Iseabail said with a snort. She started forward, then stopped. “I’ll hold you and weep later, if you’ll allow it.”

  Léirsinn nodded, though she found she couldn’t say anything. That she had siblings where she thought she’d had none before…she wasn’t sure if she should have cursed Soilléir for knowing yet keeping them from her or not. She suspected he’d had his reasons, but she thought she might need very good ones indeed before she refrained from joining Acair on any quest to do damage to him.

  “I don’t think they found anything interesting inside,” Iseabail said suddenly.

  Léirsinn hardly had time to give any thought to what her sister had said before she found herself caught by the hand and pulled along with a surprisingly energetic black mage.

  “House,” he said briskly. “I think what we want is in Fuadain’s solar.”

  She had no reason not to agree. She would have paused at the kitchen door to enjoy the sight of Fuadain’s head butler at a complete loss for words, but she didn’t have the chance. Acair pushed past the man without comment, pulling her along with him. She gave the man a casual shrug, then had to almost run to keep up with her companion. At least she hadn’t had to scrape off her boots.

  Acair ran up the stairs with her and strode down the passageway. She stopped in front of her grandfather’s chamber, hardly daring to enter. Acair opened the door first, looked inside, then held it open for her. She moved past him, then hurried over to where Tosdach was still lying in front of the fire. He was breathing still, which she thought was something of a mercy.

  “Fuadain first,” Acair said. “We’ll return.”

  She nodded and followed him back out into the passageway where she almost ran bodily into her siblings and Soilléir. Acair pulled the door shut and dropped a spell in front of it she imagined Soilléir himself might have to make an effort to breach. She exchanged looks with her siblings, then followed Acair down the passageway to stop in front of her uncle’s solar.

  Acair banged on the door without any decorum whatsoever.

  “Come!”

  Acair looked at her. “I’ll go first, so you’re safe.”

  “And you?”

  He shot her a look that made her smile.

  “Very well,” she said. “After you.”

  She followed him into her uncle’s solar and had the oddest feeling of having done the same thing for so many years, yet having everything so changed. Fuadain looked at the five of them, slapped his hands on his desk, and rose to his feet. His expression was far less panicked than hers would have been in his place, but perhaps he knew things she didn’t.

  Things such as a spell of death that he threw not at Acair, but at her.

  Acair caught it, examined it as if it had been a piece of questionable fruit, then tossed it into the fire.

  “I wouldn’t,” he advised.

  Fuadain blanched. She knew she shouldn’t have enjoyed that as much as she did, but she thought she might be justified. And if her brother moved to stand in front of her and her sister, well, perhaps she shouldn’t have expected anything less. She did manage to look around his shoulder, though, because she had spent the whole of her life that she could remember standing on that very carpet, biting her tongue, and she thought she might want to see that man behind the desk be on the receiving end of some well-deserved comeuppance.

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” Fuadain spat. “As are those three!”

  “Choose better assassins next time,” Acair suggested. “Now, whilst my temper is still in check, show me where Sladaiche gathered the souls he took. It couldn’t possibly have been something you managed all on your own.”

  “How dare you,” Fuadain breathed. “Of course I managed it on my own!”

  Tais held his hand out to stop her from moving, though she could have told him she had no intention of stepping in front of anyone else any time soon. Her chest ached abominably still.

  “I find that difficult to believe,” Acair drawled, “given the sadly inferior quality of your magic.”

  “Do you have no idea who I am?” Fuadain said haughtily. “I, unlike that barn worker Slaidear, can trace my ancestors back directly to Bhaltair of Mìlidh.”

  Acair looked at him, puzzled. “Who?”

  “Mìlidh, you fool!”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It is next to Wychweald, to the east.”

  “Still not ringing any bells, old bean,” Acair said with a shrug.

  “It bordered Ionad-teàrmainn hundreds of years ago,” Fuadain growled. “We were a warlike and fierce people, unlike those bloody horse lovers.”

  “Why the hell did you choose Sàraichte, then?” Acair asked, sounding genuinely baffled.

  “Everything flows through here,” Fuadain said, drawing himself up and looking down his nose. “Everything important, that is.”

  “I think that’s a fanciful rumor begun by my great-aunt,” Acair said, “but you obviously believe it. Is that why you thought you could draw all these souls here? Or was Slaidear doing all the true work whilst you wished you had better spells?”

  Léirsinn listened to Acair poke at Fuadain and thought it might not have been his first time doing the like. He seemed to know exactly what to say to bring out the worst in her step-uncle, leaving Fuadain becoming increasingly red in the face.

  Fuadain strode over to his sideboard and drew out a glass decanter. He glared at Acair as he slammed it down on his desk.

  “They reside in here,” he said haughtily. “I’m keeping them until Slaidear finds the proper spell and returns to give it to me.”

  Acair looked at him. “What was that spell meant to do? Or didn’t he trust you with the details?”

  “It was my idea!”

  “I wonder,” Acair said slowly. “Quite a powerful bit of business there for a lesser noble to be involved in. Perhaps he kept more from you than you suppose.”

  “How stupid do you think I am?” Fuadain snapped. “I wasn’t relying on Slaidear entirely, something you couldn’t possibly understand.”

  “Probably not,” Acair agreed. “I’m obviously outmatched here.”

  “You are outmatched everywhere, especially in Beinn òrainn.”

  Acair smiled pleasantly. “Making bargains with Droch of Saothair, are you?”

  Léirsinn wished she’d had a spot to simply sit and watch the entertainment. She was beginning to understand why Acair had earned so many powerful enemies.

  “I sent him a horse as a gift,” Fuadain said stiffly. “A small token to keep him doing my bidding, of course. I have the power to take these pieces of souls to myself, naturally, but I prefer to wait for the proper spell to be delivered.”

  “Naturally,” Acair agreed. “What happens if we open this wee jar here?”

  Before Fuadain could answer, Acair simply reached over and wrenched the lid off that glass container.

  Fuadain shrieked. Or perhaps other things that weren’t precisely visible made a noise that was absolutely unbearable to listen to.
Léirsinn watched, open-mouthed, as shadows wafted up into the air above Fuadain’s desk, then simply disappeared.

  Acair rubbed his hands together. “I believe that takes care of things still lying about the world. If you four will excuse me, I believe I have a final thing or two to say to this man about his former treatment of my future bride.”

  She found herself ushered outside her uncle’s solar before she could protest. Acair looked at her brother pointedly, putting his fingers briefly against his ears, then smiled at her and shut the door.

  The screams that ensued were, she had to admit, hard to listen to.

  Iseabail leaned closer to her. “He won’t kill him, will he?”

  “He certainly has the power to,” her brother said. “Knowing what I know about him, however, I imagine he’d rather leave him alive to enjoy his nightmares for quite some time to come. And what does he mean, his future bride?”

  Léirsinn took a deep breath. “About what you’d expect, I imagine.”

  “He hasn’t asked my permission,” Tais said pointedly.

  Léirsinn realized she was sending him the same sort of look he was having from her sister and for some reason, that made her almost unreasonably happy. Iseabail elbowed her gently.

  “We’ve done this before, I think.”

  “I think you might be right.”

  “And as usual, I have nothing to say about what you two combine,” Tais said with a sigh. “Very well, wed him if you like. I’ll still have a pointed conversation with him about your care and feeding. Over spells, if necessary.”

  “I’m certain he would enjoy that,” Léirsinn offered.

  “Are you suggesting I wouldn’t?”

  She would have warned him that such might very well be the case, but the door opened before she could. Acair came out brushing his hands off. He shut the door quietly behind him and smiled.

  “Let’s go see to your grandsire next, shall we?”

  “To rescue him,” Iseabail said slowly.

  Acair blinked. “Well, of course. What else?”