Princess of the Sword

  He squeezed her hand briefly. “You might. As for the magic, there are, as it happens, only a handful of well-known practitioners of Olc in the world because they were the only ones to manage to survive into adulthood. The first master of Olc was Duaichnidh. His descendants were in the habit of having children, waiting until they were grown, then killing off all but the strongest lad.”

  “What of their girls?” Morgan asked, looking horrified.

  “I suppose there are a few of them still roaming the wastes past Aonaranach,” he conceded, “but I wouldn’t want to seek them out. Outside of those few lassies who escaped, the blood has remained concentrated in only a few over the centuries until Dorchadas of Saothair. He had eight sons and killed all but two because he couldn’t choose between them. He set them to fighting each other, but neither prevailed, so in at least that generation, the line was split into two. Droch is one of those lads. I believe he has a pair of sons as well, but you’ll notice they aren’t standing at their father’s elbow, waiting to pour him his wine.”

  “Who was Dorchadas’s other son?” Morgan asked.

  Miach took a deep breath. “Wehr of Wrekin.”

  “Your mother’s grandfather?”

  “Aye.”

  “You use Olc very reluctantly,” she said softly.

  “Very. I make a point of concentrating on those parts of myself that come from more noble ancestors. My mother taught me that much.”

  She looked at him for quite some time in silence. “There’s a lesson in there for me as well, I daresay.”

  “Aye, I daresay,” he agreed. “Of course, none of it matters when I’m facing Master Soilléir. He sees both the good and the bad regardless of what I might like to hide.” He looked at Léir. “Isn’t that so, my lord?”

  Léir nodded, watching them both thoughtfully for a moment. Then he reached out suddenly and pushed their sleeves up over their wrists. He looked at the runes of gold and silver that sparkled there in the light from the fire, then met Miach’s eyes.

  “Runes of betrothal and ascension to the throne of Tòrr Dòrainn,” he said. “Unprecedented. How in the world did you convince Sìle to give them to you?”

  “He’s resigned to the fact that I love his granddaughter,” Miach said with a small smile. “The bit about the crown is, I suspect, simply to annoy my eldest brother.”

  “No doubt,” Léir agreed with a brief laugh. “Does Làidir know? Or Sosar?”

  Miach shook his head. “Làidir doesn’t know about the runes yet, but I imagine he’ll have quite a bit to say when he finds out.”

  “What did Sosar say about finding himself yet another step away from his father’s throne?”

  “He said, and I quote, ‘Good, now I can wed some ill-mannered tavern wench and live out my life with my feet up.’ ”

  “I daresay,” Léir said with a smile. “It is Sìle’s choice, of course, until he dies. Then I suppose you’ll be fighting Làidir’s heirs for the crown, despite what else you might want for yourselves.”

  “Thank you just the same, but nay,” Morgan said with a shiver. “We’ll quite happily keep ourselves far from it, if possible. But if I might ask, how did you know about the runes?”

  “Well, I wasn’t sure about you at first, Princess,” Léir said, “but there was something different about your betrothed lord there. Another layer of power added to his, a vast stretching of what lengthy life he had already, a shimmer of glamour that he didn’t have the last time he was here.”

  Miach watched Morgan look at Léir in surprise.

  “You can see all that?” she asked.

  “I can,” he said. “That makes it challenging to wade through the layers of useless and unwise things mortals and mages heap upon themselves by their choices. It was particularly difficult to watch your father, who could have done much good, choose to do evil with the gifts he’d been given.” He sighed, then looked back at Miach. “I understand why you came to search here, but I can tell you that I would be very surprised to find that Gair had limited himself to either Olc or Camanaë—or to a combination of the two—unless he was using them in a way I cannot see. It would have laid his trail open and easily imitated. If you’ve learned anything about him, either of you, you’ve surely seen that he was not one to make the trail plain. He guarded his spells jealously, never writing them down in their entirety, never using a single source of magic in their fashioning. Add that to his habit of twisting magic to his own ends and I daresay determining what he intended to use as a spell of closing will be extremely difficult, if not impossible—never mind what Sarait supposed.”

  “In truth?” Morgan asked faintly.

  “Her guesses would be close,” Léir conceded, “for she was a canny weaver of spells herself, but nay, Princess, I don’t think even she knew what was in Gair’s mind.” He paused, looked off into the distance blindly for a moment, then turned back to Miach. “I saw your game with Droch this afternoon, though I didn’t pay heed to the particular spells being bandied about. Sosar was making far too much noise for me to be able to concentrate. I’m curious, though, as to what spell you used to break out of Droch’s trap.”

  “ ’Twas a simple spell of binding,” Miach said. “I reversed it.”

  Léir looked at him for so long, Miach began to grow uncomfortable under the scrutiny. His former mentor seemed not to notice, for he didn’t look away.

  “I wonder,” he said thoughtfully, “if Gair might have considered the same thing at the well when he realized he couldn’t control what he’d unleashed.”

  “A simple spell of binding?” Miach asked in surprise.

  “Nay,” Léir said, “reversing his spell of opening.”

  Miach felt his mouth fall open, then he shut it and shook his head. “Too easy.”

  “Is it?” Léir asked. “What if in that precise moment when he knew he would die if he didn’t close that well, Gair reached for the simplest thing to hand, as you did today?”

  “But where in the world would I find his spell of opening?” Miach asked crossly. “It isn’t as if . . .”

  He felt time grind to an unsteady and ungainly halt. He’d intended to say it isn’t as if I know anyone who was there, but that wasn’t exactly true.

  He was quite certain he would remember that moment for years to come. The precise way the shadows had lengthened on Léir’s floor. The way the fire crackled and popped in the hearth, as if it would rather have been celebrating a merry gathering of friends. The look on Léir’s face, as if he knew he wanted knowledge that was beyond dreadful, but knew he had no choice but to seek it.

  And the exact moment when Morgan realized just exactly what Léir was asking of her.

  She caught her breath, but so softly, he would have thought he was imagining it if he hadn’t felt her hand tighten just the slightest bit against his at the same time.

  Miach shook his head sharply. “There is absolutely no guarantee that reversing the spell will shut the well. Indeed, all signs point to that not being the case.”

  “But,” Léir said slowly, meeting Miach’s eyes, “what if it were the case?”

  Miach heard no change in Morgan’s breathing, felt no trembles in her hand. She was now so calm, it worried him, for he knew what her stillness was costing her.

  He had seen what her nightmares had done to her in the fall. He’d watched her in waking dreams casting spells against her sire who had killed her family with his arrogance. He wasn’t going to ask her to revisit those memories. He might as well ask her to walk into hell.

  He shot Léir a dark look. “You can rip my soul into shreds as fully as you like—”

  “Which I’ve done,” Léir said mildly.

  Miach swore at him. “In this case, my lord, you do not know what you’re asking. I do. And I will not ask this of her.”

  “I’m merely suggesting—”

  Miach heaved himself to his feet and pulled Morgan up with him. “My thanks for a lovely afternoon, my lord. We’ll be off now.”
/>
  “Miach,” Morgan began quietly.

  He ignored her and pulled her away. She dug in her heels, but he merely took both her hands and continued on toward the door.

  She was, he found, stronger than she looked.

  He stopped halfway to the door in the end because she gave him no choice.

  “Miach.”

  He took a deep breath, then turned and drew her into his arms. He bent his head and buried his face against her neck, partly so he wouldn’t have to look at her expression and partly because he didn’t want her to see his. He had to admit, it had been a very long day so far and it was lengthening still. He wasn’t one to concede the battle prematurely, but he thought he just might be on the verge of it. Had it not been enough to spend an hour in Droch’s solar that afternoon and time before that in the midst of a whirlwind of Droch’s spells? If he had to watch Morgan delve into her memories to dredge up more of the same . . .

  He took a deep breath, then lifted his head and looked across the chamber at Léir. “Why are you doing this?” he said harshly. It occurred to him that he’d said that more than once during his own month of hell in Léir’s solar, but that had been just his soul being shattered, not Morgan’s. “She should not be forced to think on that.”

  “If she cannot face the memory of the spell,” Léir said, and there was pity in his eyes, “how will she face the glade again? And I understand very well what you haven’t told me: Mhorghain will have to close that well herself because only one with her father’s blood and power can do so.”

  Miach felt Morgan’s hands on his cheek. He looked down at her.

  “Morgan—”

  She only shook her head, then pulled out of his arms. She led him back over to his chair, then put her hand in the middle of his chest and pushed him until he had no choice but to sit. She drew her chair up close to his, then sat and looked at Léir.

  “If you’ll fetch me what I need, Master Soilléir, I’ll write down for you what I can remember.”

  Léir smiled at her. Miach recognized that smile. It was one he’d had himself numerous times when Léir had asked him to go deep inside himself and look for things he hadn’t particularly wanted to see, and he’d been foolish enough to agree to do so. Miach closed his eyes briefly, then took Morgan’s hand in his left and put his right arm around her shoulders.

  Morgan shot him a look. “I am not a weak-kneed maid,” she managed, though there was no venom behind her words. Miach squeezed her shoulders briefly.

  “I’m holding on to you for my own sake, not yours,” he said quietly.

  Léir clapped him on the shoulder as he passed, then went to rummage about in his desk. He drew up a small table in front of Morgan and laid out a sheaf of parchment, ink, and a quill. Then he pulled up the chair across from her and sat. He looked at Miach.

  “Keep her grounded here.”

  “I’ll repay you for this,” Miach growled.

  Léir smiled gravely. “I don’t doubt it.”

  “Could he?” Morgan asked quietly.

  “Oh, aye,” Léir said with a rueful smile. “Miach is very powerful, though he is very self-deprecating about it all. I wouldn’t have taught him anything otherwise.”

  Miach knew Léir was humoring him; Léir was powerful in ways he was too modest to admit. He was also cruel in ways that didn’t bear admitting either.

  Never mind that that cruelty was usually for the best.

  Miach watched Morgan as she bent over the sheaf of paper. She considered for a moment or two, then quickly wrote out in a very fine hand a very complicated spell of opening. The words of Olc slithered in and out of spells of Camanaë, twisting them, uprooting them, turning them into something ugly and repulsive. There were other things there as well, glimpses of magics that were equally as vile. But Miach wasn’t a weak-kneed maid either, so he read along as Morgan wrote, pitying her that such things were inside her head, casting a shadow over her soul.

  She finished suddenly, shoved the quill at Léir, then pushed her chair back. She leapt to her feet and pulled Miach up to his.

  “Let’s fly.”

  “We cannot,” he said, seeing by the haunted look in her eye just how much what she’d done had cost her. “You cannot use your magic here lest everyone know who you are.” He paused. “We could run, though, if you like.”

  She nodded and pulled him toward the door. Miach spared Léir a look before he shut the door.

  His servant was sidling over to him, hugging the shadows as if he couldn’t bear to be in the light. He stopped behind Léir and looked down at the paper still lying on the table.

  Miach would have given that more thought, but Morgan’s fingers tangled with his were starting to cause him pain. He supposed there would be time enough to unravel other mysteries later, when she’d agreed to come back inside.

  He wouldn’t have blamed her if she wouldn’t.

  Seven

  Morgan paced about Master Soilléir’s chamber restlessly, unable to sit and enjoy the after-supper conversation. Her legs ached from an hour spent running around the inside of Buidseachd’s bailey, but that discomfort wasn’t distraction enough from the darkness she now found creeping toward her again.

  She wandered around the room, touching books, looking at tapestries, searching for something else to think about besides where she was and what she’d done that afternoon. Finally, she came to a stop at the window. Soilléir’s windows faced north, which she supposed was pleasant enough during high summer. Now, though, the sun had set and the gloom outside was very disquieting. Not even the reflections of the candles on the table behind her and the men she was quite fond of helped her overmuch.

  The words of her father’s spell swam before her eyes and the darkness of them was complete.

  She turned away and started to make another circle of the chamber. The occupants of the table didn’t pay her any heed. Her grandfather was too busy being flattered by Master Ceannard, who had somehow slipped into Soilléir’s chamber along with supper. Sosar and Turah were busy discussing things she imagined had to do with ill-mannered tavern wenches. Miach was sitting there with his eyes closed, working on his spells of ward. He’d been willing to pace with her, but she’d declined his offer. He was exhausted and Neroche’s defenses had to be attended to before he could sleep. Perhaps Master Ceannard could be persuaded to leave soon, so he could be about the latter.

  She stopped in front of the fire and stared into it for several minutes before she realized she wasn’t alone. She looked up to find Master Soilléir standing next to her.

  “Am I forgiven yet?” he asked politely.

  She shot him a weak glare. “I’m thinking on it.”

  He only smiled, a small, charming smile that made her suspect he had his own share of faeries fawning over him whenever possible. “I’m sorry, Morgan,” he said, his smile fading. “If I might call you that. I’m sorry for what you’ve faced in your childhood, for what I forced you to face earlier today . . . and for what you’ll face next.”

  “I’m not afraid of difficult things,” she said, lifting her chin.

  “I imagine you aren’t,” he said. “And I suppose I shouldn’t wish away the pain of the road you’ll walk along. A blade is only strong because of the fire it passes through, isn’t it?” He studied her for a moment or two. “Have you ever forged a blade, Your Highness?”

  Morgan shifted uncomfortably. “I haven’t.” She had certainly destroyed one, but perhaps his sight wasn’t clear enough to see that.

  “Perhaps you’ll have the chance someday,” he said. “If you do, you might like to incorporate a few more magical elements into the fashioning of it, as many have done before you.”

  “You mean like Catrìona of Croxteth?” she asked, happy to turn the conversation to someone besides herself and something besides the ruined Sword of Angesand. “Miach told me her tale one night when I couldn’t bear to sleep.”

  “I was thinking of her, actually.” He looked at her casually. “You k
now, I gave Catrìona the spell to make her sword sing.”

  “Did you?” Morgan asked in surprise.

  “Aye. I also taught it to Mehar of Neroche, but only after she’d already forged her very famous sword. She used it on the knife you carry in your boot and the ring you wear on your hand. Her sword always seemed to sing on its own, though, for some reason.” He looked at her with a faint smile. “Or at least it did when it was in one piece.”

  Morgan shut her mouth with a snap when she realized it was hanging open. “I have no secrets, I see.”

  “Not many,” he agreed. “I see echoes of the shards of the Sword of Angesand floating in the air around you, shimmering with power, much like the runes your grandfather placed about your wrist.”

  “And here I thought I was keeping my unsavory deeds to myself.”

  He only smiled. “I wouldn’t presume to pry into why you did what you did, though I imagine you had cause. I will, however, give you Catrìona’s spell before you go, if you like.”

  “Would you?” she asked, doing her best to mask her surprise. She knew the tortures Miach had gone through simply to apply to the man for a few spells. “Why?”

  “Penance,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

  She smiled in spite of herself. “Then I accept.”

  “I thought you might.”

  She nodded, then felt her smile fade. Thinking about spells for swords reminded her that she needed spells for other things. She cast about for something else to talk about so she could avoid the unpleasant a bit longer.

  “Do you see things about everyone?” she asked Soilléir, latching onto the first distraction she could think of.

  He nodded solemnly.

  She wasn’t one to delve too deeply into any species of magic, but she found herself more curious about his particular sort of it than she should have been. Perhaps it was that she had seen so much of Olc that day that anything else would have been a relief to face. And given that Weger wasn’t there to needle her if she asked questions he wouldn’t have approved of, she thought she might venture one or two more.

  “Does it work on everyone? For instance, do you see things about my grandfather?”