Tears were streaming down Ardan’s face. He looked at Ruith, absolute agony written on his features.
“He took my magic.”
Ruith put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “There’s nothing I can say to make this any easier for you,” he said quietly, “but I will tell you that I don’t think he did it very well. I don’t have any answers for you at the moment, but I think with enough looking we’ll find them. Don’t,” he said sharply, “kill him in your anger. If you slay him, you’ll never have your power back.”
“At this moment, I’m not sure I care,” Ardan said bitterly.
“You will later,” Ruith said. “And there are worse things that could happen to you.”
Ardan’s look of disdain was perfection. “Aye, being forced to seek refuge at Seanagarra, or, worse still, Tor Neroche now that I’m too ashamed to go home. I think I would do better to lie down in a ditch and sob myself to death.”
Ruith looked over Ardan’s head to find Seirceil standing there. “Perhaps you might see to the mighty prince of Ainneamh for a few minutes whilst we investigate other things.”
“Conjure us up a bench, Your Highness, and I shall.”
Ruith did as requested, turned Ardan over to Seirceil and Oban, then turned to Sarah.
“I suppose we should try the lock,” he said slowly.
“I’ll stay behind you.”
“I was just going to suggest that.”
She walked over to him, put her arms around his waist, and hugged him tightly. “That was a great chance you took there, provoking him that way.”
“He’s a blustering fool,” Ruith said with his own fair bit of bluster. “I think the real test lies ahead, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t want to speculate.”
He couldn’t say he did either. He simply took her hand in his, walked over to the wall, then pulled her behind him. He looked down at his father’s ring that he’d put over his thumb, then took a deep breath and reached out to put it into the lock.
And for a moment, nothing happened.
And then, as easily as if the door had been opened the day before, it separated itself from the surrounding rock and swung inward.
Into total darkness.
But since Ruith had been putting his foot out into darkness whilst the light remained behind him for the past two months, he supposed there was nothing noteworthy about stepping across the threshold.
He only hoped he would feel the same way in a quarter hour.
Sixteen
S
arah stood behind Ruith at the doorway and hoped he wasn’t stepping into a trap. There was absolutely no light inside, which she supposed shouldn’t have surprised her. There had been no windows that she could see in the face of the rock. She wouldn’t have been surprised to find the inside nothing more than a few crude benches pushed up against rough-hewn walls and perhaps a pile of blankets wadded up in a corner. Ruith ventured in a pace or two, then stopped, no doubt listening for a sign of something alive inside. Sarah tried her spell of seeing, but that did nothing for her. She closed her eyes to see if her ears would serve her better.
Unfortunately, all she could hear was her own rapid breathing.
Ruith blew out his breath suddenly. “I think I must attempt a bit of werelight.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Sarah managed. “We see something we don’t like.”
He laughed a little. “Aye, I suppose so.”
Sarah listened to the words of the spell that he spoke aloud—something he didn’t often do, but perhaps it was fair warning to anyone who might be hiding in the dark.
Light exploded above them, instantly driving back shadows into corners. Sarah made her way to Ruith’s side, blinked a time or two, then felt her mouth fall open.
She felt as if she’d stepped into a dream. They were standing in an entryway that seemed to stretch forever into the distance, with polished marble on the floor and gilt mirrors lining the walls. Chandeliers made up of a dozen tiers apiece hung from the ceiling, sparkling with faceted crystals that took Ruith’s werelight and turned it into something worthy of any elven palace she ever could have dreamed up on her own.
Sarah couldn’t help herself. She laughed.
Ruith looked at her, apparently fighting his own smile. “I’m not sure that’s the reaction I expected, but I think I approve.”
Sarah managed to contain herself, but she couldn’t help a smile. “This is so far removed from what I thought we would find, I don’t think words will do it justice.” She watched Ruith light the chandeliers with a proper spell, then shook her head as the light leapt from fixture to fixture, changing the hallway from merely spectacular to something far more impressive. She had no means to describe it, so she simply stood there and laughed again.
“I’m not sure I want to know what’s hiding in any of the rooms off this modest entryway,” Ruith said dryly, “but I think I can safely guarantee that the place has been empty for quite some time.”
“How so?” she asked, feeling faintly surprised.
He pointed down and lifted his boot. The print left behind in the dust was perfectly revealed thanks to the enormous amounts of light. Sarah looked more closely at the luxuriously upholstered sofas placed strategically along the walls—presumably so there would be somewhere to collapse should a guest become overwhelmed by his surroundings—and found that they were covered as well by a rather substantial layer of dust. She might have been tempted to have a seat, but she realized upon closer inspection that the dust was liberally mixed with droppings from animals she wasn’t sure she wanted to have a closer acquaintance with.
She looked up to find Ruith wiping a finger along the edge of a stately side table. He frowned at the dust, then looked at her.
“I don’t think anyone’s been here recently,” he said slowly.
“Years, I would guess,” Sarah offered.
Ruith lifted his eyebrows briefly. “I think we might consider that a good thing, actually.”
“What now?”
“A brief explore, perhaps, in this place that I must admit leaves me feeling slightly less kindly toward my sire than usual. I had no idea he possessed anything so opulent.”
“Is Seanagarra not so grand, then?” she asked gingerly.
He looked at her in surprise, then laughed a little. “Oh, nay, ’tis far more lovely. My grandfather would immediately label this a hovel and demand better accomodations—or, I should say, he would have before he found himself as the regular traveling companion of the rustic king of Neroche. The indignities he has endured in the past several fortnights will no doubt find themselves described in great detail in some annal that will be read with horror for centuries to come.”
Sarah smiled. “I like your grandfather.”
Ruith smiled in return and reached out to pull her into his arms. “He likes you. I, however, have slightly fonder feelings for you, but I might have told you about them before.”
“And always at the moment of greatest peril for us both,” she said, a little breathlessly. “Your timing, Ruith, is exceedingly poor.”
“I’m an opportunist,” he admitted cheerfully. “No spells of death are being flung at us, no annoying cousins demanding attention, no crazed mages lunging at us from the dark.”
He looked over her head briefly, perhaps to make certain that was the case, then back at her with a smile.
She shifted, feeling slightly uncomfortable. “Ruith—”
“I courted my ten princesses.”
“You didn’t. You barely spoke to them, and there were most certainly not ten of them.”
“I danced with nine,” he corrected her. “I then threatened to kiss Miach and avoided any encounters with a barmaid I’m fairly sure had a moustache which left me, if memory serves, finding you in the stables of that disgusting inn and kissing you. And we both know what you are.”
She put her hands on his chest and looked up at him. “Do we?”
He smi
led gravely. “Apart from everything else, Sarah my love, you are a weaver of dreams. You have woven yourself into mine so thoroughly I can’t remember the last time I had a nightmare, or dreamed of darkness, or woke in terror of things I couldn’t name.”
“Makes up for the daytime, then,” she managed.
He smiled, bent his head, and kissed her softly. “Aye, love, it makes up for the daytime. Hopefully the daytime will throw off its unpleasantness as well.”
She put her arms around his neck and held on tightly. She couldn’t tell him that she hoped so desperately for that to be true because the thought of it was so tenuous, she wasn’t sure she could entertain it with any seriousness at all.
She had told him, all those many days ago that felt more like years and in not so many words, that she wasn’t opposed to a future with him. She could readily see how the thread of her life might wind alongside his for whatever length of life they were granted. But, somehow, the thought of being Sarah of Cothromaiche, daughter of royalty, and not just Sarah of Doìre, uninteresting by-blow of the witchwoman Seleg, was a leap she couldn’t quite bring herself to make.
Not yet.
“You think too much,” he murmured, just before he bent his head toward hers.
“Why, there’ll be none of that!” a voice bellowed from behind them.
Sarah was quite certain she missed landing upon her—well, not upon her feet—because Ruith caught her. He kept his arm around her, then looked over his shoulder at Franciscus who was standing just inside the door, wearing a very stern look.
“Forgive me, Your Highness,” Ruith said politely. “I didn’t mean to take liberties.”
“Of course you did,” Franciscus said with a snort. “I can see I’ll have to do a better job of chaperoning you two until something more formal is arranged.”
“I think your time might be better used in chaperoning our good Thoir outside.”
“Oh, I swaddled the young git in a comfortable little spell of binding and tied it with a pretty bow,” Franciscus said, rubbing his hands together and smiling. “He’s not going anywhere. Why don’t we take the tour, children, and see if this little house provides any useful clues.” He looked at Ruith pointedly. “You might give her a little room to breathe, lad.”
Ruith reached for Sarah’s hand instead, then looked steadily at Franciscus.
Sarah found herself exchanging a shrug with her grandfather.
“You raised him for a goodly part of his youth,” she reminded him.
“Very well, lad, keep her hand, but don’t think you’ll have it permanently without a proper request. Let’s go do a little investigating whilst we have the chance here.”
Sarah smiled at Ruith, had a very brief kiss as her reward, then walked with him after Franciscus, who seemed particuarly interested in seeing what sort of refuge Gair had provided for himself.
An hour later, she could honestly say she no longer cared how many sitting rooms, salons, or ballrooms Ruith’s father had built. She wanted out of a place that for all its obvious expense was the coldest, most lifeless and unpleasant place she’d ever set foot in. She left Ruith with Franciscus as they considered a doorway that seemingly required some manner of spell to unlock and made her way without delay outside.
Or, almost outside.
She looked down as her foot was hoving over the threshold and wondered if she were seeing things.
A single thread lay there, golden, glinting in the sunlight. She leaned over to have a closer look at it only to have it fade, as if it didn’t want to be seen. She straightened and frowned, then stepped over the threshold and looked back.
It was gone.
She started to go back inside, but had the distinct impression that she shouldn’t. She wasn’t one to shun that sort of thing, given that it had spared her untold grief over the course of her life, so she shrugged and turned away to look at other things.
Thoir was, as Franciscus had promised, trussed up snuggly in spells she could see weren’t nearly as unpleasant as they could have been. She couldn’t say the same for the cloth someone had thoughtfully stuffed in his mouth. He was furious, but obviously very well contained. She was tempted to point out to him that black mages were never happy, but refrained. If he hadn’t learned that yet, he never would.
She looked the other way. Seirceil and Ardan were imbibing something Oban was pouring out of a silver pitcher Sarah was fairly certain she’d watched Oban snatch up as they’d all fled his house several fortnights earlier. Ardan didn’t look particularly impressed with his brew, though the glance he cast at the silver goblet in his hand was less critical than it might otherwise have been. Ned was standing behind them, his arms folded over his scrawny chest, looking fierce.
She smiled and turned away. Things had definitely changed.
She considered wandering about for a bit, then felt herself freeze before she could take a single step. Being inside had apparently left her feeling far too comfortable for it was only then that she realized she had let down her guard.
There was someone watching them.
She walked over to Ruith’s pack, because it gave her something to do and perhaps might leave the watcher thinking she hadn’t noticed anything amiss. She picked up the black leather bookcover Thoir had dropped and put it into Ruith’s pack for safekeeping, then noticed that someone had helpfully removed Thoir’s half of her map from his person and put it together with Ruith’s half. She picked up both halves and made a production of smoothing them out. She yawned, patted her mouth in a ladylike fashion, then looked around her as if she searched for somewhere comfortable to sit and relax.
Urchaid of Saothair was standing under a tree some hundred yards away.
She considered what she should do, but decided that running screaming back into Gair’s hideout was likely the worst choice. As long as he was simply standing there, watching instead of casting spells at them, perhaps he could stand there a bit longer. She looked up again at the sky, which had cleared a bit and saw nothing untoward, nor was there anything creeping along the ground toward her, so perhaps he was content to merely stand there and watch.
She made herself at home on Ruith’s stool, then looked at the two halves of the map she held in her hands. She would have spelled it back together, but she had no magic. She would have sewn it back together, but she didn’t have needle or thread. There was nothing she could do but stare at both halves and watch the way the sun either shone down or darkness fell upon them, depending on what the clouds were doing overhead.
She noticed, absently, that the fires were no longer lit on the map, fires she’d been able to see since she’d first begun to dream them after she’d left Doìre. The spots were now simply Xs on a map, plain and unremarkable.
She glanced at Urchaid to make certain he was still where he was supposed to be, then looked back at the map. She put the two halves together, facing each other lengthwise, primarily because she had nothing else to do. It was rather startling, actually, to see how well the locations of the spells matched up, as if they were two paths converging on the same spot.
And that spot happened to be Gair’s refuge.
As she considered that, several other things occurred to her.
All Gair’s spells were scorched along the edges, which meant they all had to have been in the fire at Ceangail at the same time, perhaps even still as part of Gair’s book. That fire had happened after Gair had been to the well and was presumed to be dead, which meant the spells had to have been scattered after Gair was presumed to be, again, quite dead.
But who would have scattered them?
And why?
It wasn’t possible that it had been done by Gair himself, mostly because she believed Ruith when he said he was sure his father had died at the well. And even if by some miracle Gair had somehow survived what had slain most of the rest of his family and subsequently been the one to hide those spells on his way north, why wouldn’t he have hidden them all in the same place instead of moving from
spot to spot on the same latitude whilst allowing those spots to come closer as he worked his way north.
She looked at the map again and tried to study it dispassionately. The only thing that made sense to her was that whoever had hidden the spells had taken one trail north, then another on his way back south. But the question was still why.
She couldn’t bring herself to believe that the who was Gair.
She fussed with the map a bit longer, then folded it in half as she saw Ruith and Franciscus coming out of Gair’s front door. They were deep in conversation, no doubt about more ballrooms and kitchens. They paused long enough to give Thoir a warning look before they came to stand in front of her.
“I also think it might be wise to be on our way before it begins to rain,” Ruith said with a sigh. “Wherever it is we go from here.”
“Any ideas as to where?” Franciscus asked him.
Ruith shook his head. “That is the piece of the puzzle I fear I just don’t have. I thought we would follow the trail, then have all our answers. I’m not sure where the trail leads from here.”
Sarah had risen, thinking that Ruith would be ready to leave right away, but it looked as if the pair was perfectly content to stand there and discuss possibilities well into the afternoon. She sat back down with a yawn, then attempted to focus on the map, just to keep herself awake.
“I have wondered,” Franciscus said after a very long discussion about dwarvish trade routes, “why it was the spells were moving.”
“Mages were picking them off and carrying them off?” Ruith suggested.
“To where?”
Ruith started to speak, then shut his mouth abruptly. “I have no idea. I didn’t think to pay attention to where they were heading. It was unsettling enough to know they were moving.”
Franciscus shrugged. “It likely means nothing. ’Tis a pity we don’t have anyone nearby who might have answers we could use.”
Ruith nodded back over his shoulder. “That one there?”
“Which one?” Sarah asked, looking up at them. “Thoir or Urchaid?”