Princess of the Sword

  “I have no power.”

  Miach blinked. “What?” he asked, astonished.

  “I have no power,” Keir repeated. “My father stripped it from me—or most of it, rather—just before he opened the well.”

  Miach rubbed his hands over his face, then blew out his breath. He wasn’t sure what was more devastating: entertaining even briefly that someone besides Morgan might be able to see to the task before them, or imagining how Keir must have felt to have lost something so integral to who he was. Having seen Lothar do the like countless times over that very unpleasant year passed in his dungeon, Miach had more familiarity than he wanted to have with what that snatching of power did to a mage. He could hardly imagine having it happen to himself.

  “I’m very sorry,” he said quietly. He paused, then looked at Keir. “Would it grieve you overmuch to give me the entire tale?”

  Keir shook his head. “Nay, not now.” He bowed his head briefly, then looked back up at Miach. “My mother goaded him into the whole thing, of course. He had become so . . . agitated. Nothing pleased him. Worse still, he became convinced that we were plotting against him. My mother felt she had no choice but to push him into doing something foolish and hope that he would destroy himself. I suppose we could have brought ourselves to kill him eventually—since he threatened the same against us so often—though it wouldn’t have been easily done. My father’s power was formidable, and he wasn’t one to be caught unawares.”

  He fell silent. Miach waited for him to continue, but he seemed to be lost in some unpleasant memory and only stared into the distance as if he witnessed events only he could see.

  “Your Highness?” Miach prompted when he dared.

  Keir focused on him. “Rùnach and I stood with my dam in that accursed glade to protect her,” he continued, as if he’d never stopped talking. “Brogach, Gille, and Eglach distracted my father whilst Ruithneadh and Mhorghain went into hiding. I had assumed my father would try to harm my mother first, but instead he attacked Rùnach, taking all his power with a single word. Brogach’s as well. Gille and Eglach he simply slew. He then attacked me just as he began to open the well. My mother deflected his spell that it didn’t kill me as well, but it cost her, which was a disaster for us all. She had counted on me for added strength to fight him.”

  Miach could only imagine Sarait’s panic. She had been powerful in her own right, but facing a mage of Gair’s strength who had just increased that power—not only by the stealing of his son’s but by the evil contained in the well itself . . . it was a miracle she had managed to shut the well as far as she had.

  “The evil sprang up,” Keir went on, “then fell upon my father. My mother deflected it from me and Rùnach, though because of that it caught her fully. She managed to pull the cap back down most of the way—on Rùnach’s hands unfortunately. I pulled him free with the last of my strength.” He paused for quite some time. “I am ashamed to say I then fainted. I’m not certain how long I lay there, but it must have been at least most of that day, for the sun was sinking when I woke. My mother was dead, as were my brothers who had apparently been washed away in that first wave of evil. I tried to look for Mhorghain and Ruithneadh—Rùnach, as well—but I couldn’t find any of the three and I was too weak to manage a decent search.”

  “Are you certain your father was killed?”

  “Of course,” Keir said without hesitation, then he paused. “He couldn’t possibly have survived the initial spewing of the well. He is dead and rotting in some place where I hope he will suffer forever.”

  Miach couldn’t help but agree with that sentiment. “What then?”

  “I crawled off to find aid, then I made my way here. And so you don’t have to ask any particulars, I’ll tell you freely that I can still conjure up werelight, light a fire, and use a spell of un-noticing. Things any witch gel can do once she can speak. I can still weave a bit of elven glamour, but nothing else.”

  Miach wasn’t quite sure what, if anything, he could say, or should say. He closed his eyes briefly. “I’m sorry.”

  Keir shrugged. “I won’t say it doesn’t gall me, because it does, but there’s nothing to be done about it.”

  “Indeed?” Miach asked in spite of himself. “Why not? Could I not undo the spell?”

  Keir smiled without humor. “Know you nothing of this vile art?”

  “I’ve watched Lothar do it a time or two.” That was an understatement, but there was no point in dredging up his own past at present.

  “Lothar’s spell for the like is but a shadow of what my father could do,” Keir said frankly. “Lothar claims to drain his victims of their power, but at best he might capture half of what they have. My father could strip a mage of every drop of his strength, completely, wholly, mercilessly.” He shot Miach a look. “That’s why Droch hated my sire so intensely. Because he could steal power and Droch cannot. Droch tried many times to have the spell, by bribery, by threat, by merely asking politely, but my father never humored him.”

  “Your father was notoriously stingy with his spells.”

  “Thankfully, I daresay, or we would all be nothing but shells of ourselves.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, that leaves me of no use to you.”

  Miach frowned. “I don’t mean to be obtuse, but I don’t understand why I or your grandfather—or both of us, for that matter—couldn’t restore what you lost.”

  “Because only the mage who took the power can give it back,” Keir said, “and that because he alone holds what is yours. That is the nature of the spell and the reason it is so powerful. And believe me when I tell you that by the time the mage has used the spell even once, he does not have any interest in giving back what he’s taken. He would no doubt prefer death first. Not that any of it matters. I don’t have the spell of closing you’re looking for and I have no power to aid you. And,” he said, shooting Miach a look of warning, “I will not allow my sister to do that work in my stead.”

  “Then what will you have me do?” Miach asked seriously. “I am no more eager than you to see her anywhere near that glade again, but if not Mhorghain, then who? The well must be shut and she is now the only one left with the right to use your father’s spells.”

  “And if she fails?”

  Miach took a deep breath. “She cannot. And she will not. She has more courage than anyone I’ve ever known. She came along with me when I slipped over the walls of Buidseachd and into Droch’s solar—”

  Keir gaped at him. “You bastard.”

  Miach smiled faintly. “We argued for a full three hours about it beforehand. Your sister the grown woman is, I imagine, much like your mother. You will not find her easily dissuaded when she decides on a plan. I’ve found the best course of action is to agree with her, then follow along behind and offer her protection she certainly doesn’t need. She spent six years in Gobhann and though she’s never elaborated, I would imagine she earned Weger’s mark quite quickly. She was a master there for quite some time, honing her skill past where you or I could have borne the discipline.”

  “She’ll listen to reason from me,” Keir said confidently.

  Miach couldn’t stop a brief smile. “You’re certainly welcome to try.”

  Keir glared at him briefly, then buried a curse or two in his cup.

  “If I might ask something else,” Miach began gingerly.

  “Can I dissuade you from it?” Keir asked sourly.

  Miach smiled. “I’m curious about why you haven’t gone to Seanagarra. Or to Cladach to see Sgath and Eulasaid. Either pair of grandparents would have been overjoyed to welcome you.”

  Keir studied him for a moment or two in silence, then leaned forward stiffly and rested his elbows on his knees. “I cannot leave—and that through no fault of my own. There are others who keep me here.”

  “Others?”

  “The rumor that my father had no bastards—or that he killed them all—is false. I honestly couldn’t say how many there are out in the world, but there are at least two h
ere in the keep with me. They’ve woven spells over the keep that I can’t best. A third left last summer and I’ve had no word of him since. I shudder to think of the mischief he’s been stirring up. The eldest of the witchwoman of Fàs is also out roaming the world. He thinks his brothers are ruling me here, his brothers here think I’m in league with the eldest, and I’m keeping myself alive by promising them both a spell they know will die with me.”

  “And that spell would be?” Miach asked, because he couldn’t help himself.

  “The spell of Diminishing,” Keir said. “What else?”

  “Do you know it?”

  “Of course I know it.” He smiled briefly. “I memorized as much of my father’s private book as possible whilst he wasn’t looking.”

  “Very interesting.”

  Keir pursed his lips. “Next I suppose you’ll ask if I’ll give you all the spells.”

  “I had considered it.”

  “Along with the spell of Diminishing, no doubt.”

  “Would you?” Miach asked with a smile.

  “How many rings of mastery do you have?”

  “Seven.”

  Keir lifted one eyebrow. “Droch has those as well.”

  “But he doesn’t have the spells of Caochladh.”

  Keir’s mouth fell open. “Soilléir gave those to you?”

  “I earned them, believe me,” Miach said, with feeling. “What of my soul the mantle of archmage didn’t shatter, he did.”

  Keir looked at him as if he were seeing him for the first time. “What would you do with my father’s spells if I gave them to you?”

  “Catalog them along with a score of other things I’ll never use,” Miach said.

  Keir considered, then looked at Miach again. “I’ll think on it.” He paused. “I would advise you to never use that spell of Diminishing. It would destroy you.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “You may call me Keir.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness,” Miach said with a smile. “And I’d be pleased if you would call me Miach.”

  “ ’Tis better than that other mouthful,” Keir said with a snort. “Besides, I’ve heard ’tis bad luck to use your full name.”

  Miach laughed in spite of himself. “So they say.”

  Keir managed a faint smile. “I knew you when you were a wee thing, you know. Your mother brought you often to Seanagarra. You could at four read everything you saw, and work most all of what you read. I daresay you—how shall we say it?—appropriated the first of my grandsire’s spells at that tender age.”

  “I don’t remember it,” Miach admitted.

  “You might not, but your mother certainly did. She teased my grandfather unmercifully about it every time she visited thereafter. He didn’t dare chastise her, of course, for he was terribly fond of her, even if he pretended otherwise.”

  “He’s never been terribly fond of me.”

  “You haven’t your mother’s charm, I daresay,” Keir said dryly. “And trust me, if my grandfather hadn’t already engraved his approval upon your wrist, I would have quite a bit to put you through before I agreed to give my sister to you. I cannot believe you intend to send her to that well.”

  Miach sighed. “You know I have no choice. I have tried everything in my power to see she came nowhere near it. Unfortunately, we are ofttimes not offered the choice of our adversities, which I hardly need to tell you. I cannot take Mhorghain’s path away from her. All I can do is walk it with her.”

  Keir studied him for several minutes in silence, then he cleared his throat roughly. “Perhaps my grandsire didn’t bestow his blessing amiss.”

  “Thank you.”

  Keir sighed deeply. “I can see there is nothing else to be done. I’ll help you as I can. Do you have the letter my mother wrote Sosar with you? I’d like to see it again.”

  “Aye, I have it.” Miach paused. “I also have a dozen pages full of spells that might have been your father’s, or your father’s sources for them.”

  “Rùnach’s been busy.”

  “Aye,” Miach said with a smile.

  “He had a knack for ferreting out things from unlikely sources. What else do you have?”

  “Your father’s spell of opening, which Mhorghain wrote down for us in Soilléir’s solar. I don’t imagine merely trying to reverse it will be enough.”

  Keir shook his head. “My father was too cagey for that. It wouldn’t have done for anyone to have duplicated one of his spells. Let me see what you have. I might see something to jog a memory or two.” He looked at Miach briefly. “A brother and a sister, when I thought I had none. ’Tis truly a miracle.”

  “Aye, Your Highness, it is.”

  Keir sat up and rubbed his hands together. “I’ll fetch a pair of candles, you pull the table back over, and we’ll see what you have there.”

  Miach nodded and did as Keir bid, then he walked over to stand next to Morgan. She was still sleeping peacefully, for which he was most grateful. Perhaps Keir would give her other details of that fateful day, but surely she didn’t need them at present. He wouldn’t be unhappy if she slept through the rest of his conversations with Keir. The fewer of her father’s spells she was forced to listen to, the better off she would be.

  He reached down and settled her blanket, then turned back to wait for Keir. Perhaps Morgan’s brother would be able to make something of what they had.

  Miach honestly had no idea where to look if not.

  Thirteen

  Morgan lay on the hard bench in front of the fire and continued to feign sleep. She wasn’t above that sort of subterfuge when it stood to provide her with details she might not have had in a more straightforward fashion. She had to admit, though, that she’d heard things she likely could have gone on quite happily without knowing.

  She had hoped, at one point during her eavesdropping, that Keir might have had all the answers they needed. She had also hoped, even more briefly and with a distinct feeling of shame, that he might be able to take on the task of closing the well and save her having to face it. She’d been even less proud of the dismay she’d felt when she’d heard that he had no power.

  Weger would have been appalled at her craven lack of courage.

  She had continued to listen as Keir and Miach had discussed spells and potential locations for other spells that might help them. The sound of her brother’s voice had been terribly familiar and that mixed with the sound of Miach’s voice, which she had come to love . . . well, it made her feel as if she were dreaming, encountering at every turn things she hadn’t expected to, and finding bits of her past becoming enmeshed with the whole of her present. She was as bemused as if she’d been walking in her grandfather’s garden under the full strength of his glamour. She couldn’t say she wasn’t looking forward to having her life settle back to normal, truth be told.

  If normal could possibly have anything to do with palaces and spells and court functions. At least at Tor Neroche she suspected she could count on Miach to meet her in the lists once a day.

  She made a production of waking up. She sat up and shivered at the feeling of spells pressing down on her. She could sense, now that she had the time to do so, that the air was not so oppressive in the solar where she sat, but she supposed Keir had woven some sort of glamour about it—either he or Miach. Even so, it was appalling to think she was in a place she’d been as a child. She wished she could have denied it, but she couldn’t. The truth was all around her.

  She pushed herself to her feet and crossed the handful of paces to stand next to Miach’s chair. He and Keir were looking over the pages Miach had gotten from Rùnach. He put his hand on the small of her back and smiled up at her.

  “How do you fare?”

  “Very well,” she lied. “Did you find anything interesting?”

  “A few things.”

  Morgan nodded and smiled at her brother as if what he and Miach were discussing was limited to them perhaps starting a shop together, or building a new barn tha
t straddled their properties. It was better than acknowledging what it was they discussed. Of course, it wasn’t that she was afraid of the spells, or the magic, or the terrible reality of what she now knew only she could do at the well. Nay, she wasn’t afraid.

  She was terrified.

  She put her hand on Miach’s head briefly, nodded again to her brother, then turned and looked for the best route to use for running away from that fear. She found a route all too quickly, which unsettled her even more. The echo of familiarity that grasped at her at every turn was startling. It was so unpleasant a sensation that she found it difficult to breathe. She felt an inescapable sense of inevitability, as if she were walking toward a darkness so complete that there was no light possible and in that darkness was her death . . .

  She realized her breath was coming in gasps, but she couldn’t help herself. It was the same feeling of doom she’d had in the passageway at Buidseachd when Droch had surrounded her with his spells and was slowly cutting off any hope of escape—only this was worse. She was in the heart of her father’s darkness.

  If that doom had instead been a tangible foe, aye, that she could have conquered. She could have drawn her sword and finished it with a bare minimum of fuss. But this was magic—and unpleasant magic at that. If her mother, with all her centuries of spells and all her power drawn from the springs of Tòrr Dòrainn and An Cèin, Camanaë and Ainneamh, hadn’t been able to fight Gair’s evil, who did she think she was to even try?

  For the first time in her life, she was tempted to sit down and give up. Not even during her first few months at Gobhann when weariness had gnawed at her and Weger’s students had used every slur and barb possible against her had she entertained such a thought. Not even during her first few months at Lismòr when she had been suffocated by university rules and what had seemed a complete loss of her freedom had she ever given in to the temptation to take a step backward.

  Not even during those profoundly miserable years as a young girl when she’d traveled with mercenaries and been favored with only occasional moments of kindness from them had she done anything besides stick her chin out and soldier on.