“Here is the most of the truth I can give you,” he said finally. “Would you prefer to sit as you listen?”
“I’d rather stand,” she said, her words muffled against his cloak. “Easier to run that way.”
“Very well,” he said. He looked around briefly to make certain they were still alone, then considered what he could say without causing that spell of death that had seemingly come along with them, no doubt clinging to Falaire’s tail, to fall upon him and slay him. “The truth is,” he said gingerly, “I fear that somehow my stepping in that spot of darkness alerted someone to my presence.”
“You being an important mage and all.”
He didn’t miss the mockery in her tone and wondered that she managed it whilst still sniffling into his shoulder. “Aye, that. You saw the results, which left me feeling less than comfortable in Sàraichte. Hence our journey to Beinn òrain.”
“And since you didn’t find your friend, you want to continue on looking for him.” She pulled away and looked at him. “Is that it?”
“I must,” Acair said. “I can’t believe these words are leaving my lips, but he is the only one who can save me.”
“In Tor Neroche.”
“Aye, in Tor Neroche. ’Tis a bit of a slog on the best of days, which is why I need your horse.”
“I don’t want to go with you.”
He understood that. He didn’t particularly want to go with himself either. The last time he had been in that corner of the Nine Kingdoms, he’d been the guest of one Lothar of Wychweald—an unwilling guest, it had to be said—and he’d barely escaped with his life. He had most definitely left his dignity behind in the haste and unpleasant nature of his leave-taking. But that was a tale better left for a different day and then only after a substantial amount of very strong drink. At the moment, necessity left him little choice in his selection of places to visit and his current straits dictated how quickly he needed to travel there.
He put his hands on Léirsinn’s shoulders, which she didn’t seem to care for, so he fussed instead with her cloak that was completely inadequate to the chill that he could already feel settling into the air. If he’d had magic to hand, he would have conjured up something very luxurious and wrapped it around her. As it was, all he could do was hope to eventually beg a cloak from someone else.
He paused, then an idea struck him. “I could leave you somewhere safe, with people who have sterling reputations. That way, you could remain in comfort whilst I see to my business.”
“If I loan you my horse so you can go off to find this Master Soilléir.”
“Aye.”
She walked a few paces away from him, then turned to look at him. “I don’t think I believe in magic.”
“You just rode a pegasus partway across the Nine Kingdoms.”
She shivered. “I’m not sure I didn’t dream that.”
“Well, you were in a bit of a faint for most of the journey.”
“I’m tempted to indulge again.”
“The rest of the journey might pass more comfortably that way,” he offered, “though I think you would miss a delightful view. One way or another, the sooner we’re gone, the better.”
She wrapped her arms around herself and looked thoroughly miserable. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I can go back to Sàraichte.”
“I don’t think so, either,” he said as gently as he could manage. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t pop in and out to liberate your grandfather when the time comes for it. But there are things we—I, rather—must do first.”
She took a deep breath. “I feel like I’m trapped in a nightmare. Or a very bad faery tale.” She looked at him. “It seems very foolish at my age to wish for a Hero to come rescue me.”
“Not foolish,” he said, though he knew several of the lads those tales had been patterned after and had always found them to be far more priggish than the tales told. “A rescue might be perhaps a bit out of reach at the moment. You are, poor gel, left with just me and your flying horse.”
She looked as if she couldn’t decide which was worse, but he thought it might be best to not press her for a decision on that. He was more relieved than he likely should have been when she nodded, then walked with him over to Falaire. A few days of travel, a few games of cards to win them supper, then a very pointed conversation with the man he needed to see. Things would then return to normal. He would see her off to somewhere safe, then he would be back to the business of magic and mischief.
He could hardly wait to begin his list of whom he would ply his usual trade on first.
• • •
Several hours later, he suspected he knew exactly who would claim the coveted first spot on that list.
He wasn’t a complete failure with maps and he’d had the wit to choose an excellent rider to manage their steed, yet as the sun was rising, he realized he had misjudged the lower corner of a country he definitely hadn’t wanted to visit and he and Léirsinn had just been shot out of the sky.
Falaire was the most great-hearted animal he had ever encountered, the pony’s propensity to gnaw on things he shouldn’t have aside. The noble steed managed to get them to the ground before he went down on his knees, folded his wings, and didn’t move again save for very labored breathing. Acair fell out the saddle, rolled up to his feet, and was marshalling his worst spell of death with the most painful accompaniments possible when he realized he was facing the captain of Ehrne of Ainneamh’s guard on the wrong side of the border.
He remembered his half-brother Rùnach having described a fairly recent, choice encounter with the elves of that realm, something he’d dismissed at the time as the babblings of another elf with hurt feelings. Now, given the sight of half a dozen elves with arrows pointing directly at his own black heart, he knew better.
He drew himself up and pointed a finger at the guard captain. “Heal him.”
“I beg your pardon?” the elf asked mildly. “Heal who?”
“Heal that horse, Surdail, damn you to hell,” Acair snarled. “The innocent beast you just shot out of the sky. Heal him!”
“A rather pedestrian looking animal,” Surdail of Ainneamh said, looking down his long nose in Falaire’s direction. “I think perhaps we should just put him out of his misery.”
Acair supposed the only reason he managed to take a step back from a place of fury such as he’d never before experienced was that he felt the arm of Soilléir’s damned spell go round his shoulders. He wasn’t entirely sure the thing hadn’t blown in his ear as well. He shook it off in annoyance, then took a deep breath.
“Please,” he said through gritted teeth. “Please heal him.”
Surdail looked at him in astonishment. “Did I hear a polite word in there, little one?”
Acair let slip a few suggestions about what Surdail could do with his condescending attitude, then he bit back the rest of what he wished desperately he could say. He indulged in a brief moment where he honestly couldn’t decide if he should or shouldn’t take his chances with trying to destroy the spell standing beside him so he could slay the elf standing in front of him, then he took hold of his good sense and attempted a bit more polite speech.
“Please,” he repeated, making a great effort not to snarl. “Not for my sake, but for my companion’s.”
Surdail looked at Léirsinn and his eyes widened. Acair suspected that might be the reaction she got everywhere she went. The woman was truly more beautiful than she had any right to be. And that hair . . .
“And what sort of mischief do we find here on my humble soil?”
Acair closed his eyes briefly at the sound of that voice, dripping as it was with monarchial self-importance. If Surdail of Ainneamh was intolerable, his lord and master King Ehrne left everyone in his vicinity wanting to kill themselves quickly to avoid having to listen to him talk any longer than necessary. The sad t
ruth was, if there was one thing Ehrne of Ainneamh loved, it was the sound of his own voice.
He looked at the king and forced himself to incline his head in as much of a bow as he could manage. “Your Majesty. A pleasure, as always.”
Ehrne looked at him coldly. “Give me a single reason why I shouldn’t slay you on the spot.”
“You wouldn’t manage it,” was out of his mouth before he could stop himself.
“You are within my borders, whelp, and I am able to manage quite a few things you wouldn’t care for,” Ehrne said sharply.
“Acair, he’s dying.”
He looked behind him to find Léirsinn sitting at Falaire’s head, stroking his face. Her cheeks were dry, which concerned him more than what he’d seen before. He met her eyes, winced, then turned back to Ehrne.
“Heal the horse your men tried to slay,” he said in a low voice, “and I will stand here and take whatever abuse you care to heap upon me.”
“Anything?”
“Anything,” Acair agreed. He had to swallow not only his pride but his gorge. “Please.”
Ehrne looked at him for so long in silence, Acair wondered if the man had died from surprise or merely from the memories of all the misery he had inflicted on those around him. Acair honestly wouldn’t have been surprised by either.
Then Ehrne walked over to Falaire. If nothing else, the elf had a soft spot for horses. He knelt down and put his hand on Falaire’s forehead. He stroked the horse gently, then looked at Léirsinn.
“Yours?”
“My uncle sold him to Droch of Saothair,” she said bluntly, “and we stole him. So, not mine by exchange of funds, but mine by affection.”
Ehrne looked over his shoulder. “Who shot this beast?”
One of the guardsmen suddenly found himself standing in front of his fellows who had immediately taken a pair of steps back.
“Surdail, strip him of his privileges and set him outside the border.” He turned back to Falaire, put his hand on the beast’s neck, then closed his eyes.
Acair didn’t hear the words spoken, but since the result was all that concerned him, he was happy enough when Falaire leapt to his feet and whinnied at the king of their current and quite unfortunate locale.
“Well,” Ehrne said huffily, heaving himself to his own feet, “I’m not the one who shot you and I disciplined that lad well enough. You may leave off with your snorts. Surdail, have him fed and tended. Now, tell me again who you are, girl?”
Acair watched Léirsinn scramble up to stand next to her horse, gaping at the king as she did so. He wondered if he dared intervene or if that would simply make matters worse.
“I’m no one,” Léirsinn said, sounding stunned, “but thank you for, ah . . . whatever it was you just did.”
“What we call it here, you rustic miss, is magic. Have you learned nothing from that reprobate you’re obviously keeping company with? You also, if it hasn’t escaped your notice, own a shapechanging horse.”
“I didn’t know he could do that,” she said. “And if you’d told me a fortnight ago that he could, I would have called you a liar. I don’t believe in magic.”
“You know Acair of Ceangail well enough to travel with him yet you don’t believe in—” He stopped suddenly, then frowned. “There’s something here I’m missing.”
“And here we go,” Acair muttered under his breath. If he allowed the king to put even a single foot to that path, they would be standing there for a fortnight, listening to him blather on.
He wasn’t above using whatever connection he had with the elves in question in order to get himself and Léirsinn out of Ainneamh before Ehrne heard more than he needed to, so he turned his best smile on the king.
“Cousin,” he said pleasantly.
Ehrne wasn’t one for family, something Acair knew but had hoped he might successfully ignore. The king pointed a finger at him.
“Do not call me that,” he said haughtily, “you piece of filth. How dare you imply that we have any connection.”
“My father is your uncle’s son—”
“And you are your father’s bastard son,” Ehrne thundered. “Which makes that woman there—” He paused and looked at Léirsinn. “Who are you again?”
“No one,” Léirsinn said. “No one at all.” She took a step closer to Falaire. “Just a stable hand.”
Ehrne frowned at her, then went to stand next to his captain. “Surdail, there is something going on here that escapes me and, as you know, nothing escapes me. I must give this more thought.”
“Wise, Your Majesty.”
“Your Majesty?” Léirsinn echoed. “Are you a king?”
Ehrne started to splutter. Acair would have enjoyed that, but he was in too much of a hurry for it. That, and he’d traded his pride for Falaire’s life. That payment had yet to be exacted, but he thought it might be a bit more bearable if Ehrne didn’t have too many details beforehand. Too much chit-chat and the king would find out all sorts of things he didn’t need to know.
“She means nothing by it,” Acair said quickly. “She’s been sheltered the whole of her life in the country. Elves are nothing more than marvelous creatures from myth to her. You can safely assume you’re in your rightful place in the heavens in her eyes.”
“But she knows who you are,” Ehrne said, “and therefore what you are . . . or does she? And whilst we’re about these mysteries, why didn’t you heal that horse yourself?”
Acair would have given much to have had any sort of tale to tell other than the truth. The laughter at his expense would be unpleasant, but he had the feeling things would go further south very rapidly once Ehrne realized just how powerless he was to repay that laughter—or anything else, for that matter.
He didn’t hear Léirsinn come up to him, but he felt her suddenly standing next to him. He looked at her.
“You may not want to stand too close.”
“Heal Falaire?” she asked. “What does he mean you should have healed him yourself?”
Acair didn’t have the chance to begin to explain before Ehrne was interrupting him.
“Hold your tongue, you wee mortal,” the king said, “and leave me in peace to find the beginning of this tangle and start there.” He folded his arms over his chest and studied Acair for a moment or two. “You didn’t heal the horse, your little miss there doesn’t believe in magic, and here you are in my land without making mischief or tossing about your mighty spells.”
“So it would seem—” Acair began.
Ehrne cut him off with a look, then turned to his captain. “Surdail, I believe we have a situation on our hands.”
“There does seem to be something unusual going on, Your Majesty,” Surdail agreed. “Perhaps Prince Gair’s son would care to enlighten us.”
“Prince Gair?” Léirsinn echoed. “Who is that?”
Acair looked at her quickly. “Don’t ask.” He turned to the king of the accursed soil under his boots and attempted an appropriately contrite expression. “I am under a curse, if that would describe it adequately, and cannot use my magic.”
Ehrne blinked. “A curse? Explain further.”
“I’d rather not.”
“And I’d rather see you full of arrows, but I am nothing if not magnanimous and generous to all those around me. Now, spew out the details, you little bastard, before I forget all my better qualities and wield a bow myself.”
Acair knew he had no choice. “Very well,” he said, as politely as he could manage under the circumstances, “I agreed to spend a year not using any spells.”
Ehrne’s mouth had fallen open. “And what,” he managed, “will befall you if you do?”
Acair pointed over his shoulder without looking. “A Cothromaichian spell of death will fall upon me and do its worst.”
“Do they have spells of death there, Your Majesty?” Sur
dail asked. “I suspect Prince Gair’s wee one there would know, wouldn’t you imagine?”
Ehrne likely couldn’t imagine anything past his next meal, but Acair thought it wise to keep that thought to himself. He watched the king scratch his head, as if he were truly puzzled by the whole thing.
“I feel as though I’m still missing something,” Ehrne said slowly. “Why would Soilléir waste time to send one of his spells trotting after you . . . unless there is something else involved.”
“Soilléir,” Léirsinn said. “Isn’t that—”
“Aye,” Acair said quickly. “That’s the one.” He looked at the king. “I think it might be enough to—”
“Wait,” Ehrne said holding up his hand. “I heard some ridiculous tale that you’d been on a sort of penance tour for the past several months, cozying up to rulers and magistrates and everyone else you’d made miserable.” He began to smile. “Soilléir’s making you do more of that, isn’t he?”
Acair looked down his nose at his cousin. “I think I’m finished with this conversation.”
“And look you there, Surdail,” Ehrne said, nodding toward Léirsinn. “She hasn’t any idea what we’re discussing. He hasn’t told her.”
“I wonder, Your Majesty, if perhaps he’s not allowed to say anything about himself. It seems that might be an added insult, wouldn’t you agree? For a black mage of his reputation to be forced to crawl about as a mere mortal?” Surdail looked at Acair. “Is that the case, Master Acair?”
Acair glared at him. “I cannot enlighten anyone new as to my identity, aye. Those who already know me are, of course, free to bring to mind my past deeds and tremble in fear.”
Ehrne began to smile. “No magic and no ability to intimidate with your reputation alone. I do believe Soilléir has hit upon the perfect combination. What a pity that you must take the barbs and insults reserved for lesser men.”
“Perhaps, Your Majesty,” Surdail said thoughtfully, “we should discuss a few things for which he might deserve those barbs.” He looked at Acair blandly. “So his little miss knows exactly whom she’s keeping company with, since I suspect he hasn’t seen fit to tell her yet.”