Iteach landed with as much grace and gentleness as Rùnach could have wished. He slid off the saddle and landed on the ground with substantially less of both. He let go of the breath he felt as if he’d been holding for hours. He’d expected to feel some bastard brother’s claws in his back every moment of that horrendous journey during which he’d cursed himself so often and so thoroughly for not having any magic, he was sure he’d used up an elven lifetime’s share of curses.
He felt Aisling’s hand on his arm. He hadn’t heard her dismount, but he supposed that wasn’t a surprise. He was definitely not at his best.
“Rùnach?”
He was too weary to even open his eyes, much less lift his head from where it rested against Iteach’s withers. He felt for Aisling’s arm and pulled her closer to him that she might lean on him if she felt the need. “Aye?”
“There are elves over there.”
Thank heavens. “How do you know they’re elves?” he asked wearily.
She considered for a moment or two. “They hurt to look at.”
Well, that would do it, he supposed.
“You know, they’re also pointing arrows at us. A dozen of them, as it happens.”
Obviously there were a few lads from a lesser elven realm out that morning for a bit of sport. He sighed. “Hell.”
“Gauche,” said someone from behind him in tones so chilly, it was tempting to shiver, “but what can you expect from our rustic neighbors to the east?”
He frowned. He was standing in Tòrr Dòrainn. Elves were particular about their borders, true, but why would elves from Ainneamh have arrows trained on him given that he was in his own country?
“Are we in the right place?” she asked. “There is a very thin blue line over there to our right. A rather crooked thing, actually—”
“The line is straight and true,” came the angry retort. “And you are on our side of it.”
Rùnach lifted his head quickly to look over Aisling’s shoulder to find that there was indeed a rather wobbly blue line about ten paces from where they stood. Unfortunately, they were standing to the west of it, which most definitely put them on the wrong side of the border. He pulled back so he could glare at Iteach. And damned if that pony didn’t simply shrug.
Rùnach sighed, reached up to push his hood back from his face only to realize his head was bare. He muttered another strengthening curse or two before he resigned himself to the reaction he was absolutely sure his face would inspire. He smiled very briefly at Aisling, then turned around to face the arrows and those holding them.
Elves fell back, dropping their arrows and shielding their eyes while giving vent to artistically executed gasps of horror.
“Please spare me,” Rùnach said coolly. “I’m sure you’ve all seen worse. Surdail, inform your lads they can dispense with the histrionics.”
Surdail of Ainneamh, captain of King Ehrne’s guards, considered, then waved off his men, who left off with their howling and picked up their arrows. They didn’t, however, put those arrows back in the quivers where they belonged; they nocked them. Rùnach folded his arms over his chest and glared at his cousin’s captain.
“Tell them to lower their weapons.”
“I think not,” Surdail said smoothly. “It isn’t often, Prince Rùnach, that we have a guest of your breeding and beauty to adorn our dungeons. I can hardly let that opportunity pass me by.” He waved toward his men. “Take him and the woman.”
Rùnach blinked. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m always serious about rabble found wandering inside our borders without permission.”
“You forget who my mother was,” Rùnach said.
“Perhaps,” Surdail said, inclining his head, “but I haven’t forgotten who your father was.”
“His father is your king’s uncle!”
Surdail shrugged. “I can’t help that.”
“This is preposterous,” Rùnach said with as much hauteur as he could muster, which, given the events of the past few days, wasn’t all that much. “We’ve had a spot of trouble and merely landed inconveniently. We’ll be going—”
“Halt,” Surdail commanded. “The only thing that saves you being slain on the spot, Your Highness, is the fact that you obviously have no magic.”
Rùnach froze, then turned back around and looked at him in surprise. “What did you say?”
Surdail looked down his nose. “You rustics in Tòrr Dòrainn may not be able to see past the length of your arms, but here in Ainneamh, we enjoy a finer vision. It is perfectly obvious that you have no magic. I can only speculate on where it is you might have lost it.”
“I’m not sure I would bother,” Rùnach said shortly.
Surdail shrugged. “Agreed. Now, come along quietly and it will go well for you.”
Rùnach wished he could say he couldn’t believe his ears, but unfortunately he could. The political machinations between his grandfather’s kingdom and the kingdom of Ainneamh were too tedious and long-standing to contemplate at present, though he supposed if he wound up in Ehrne’s dungeon—if such a thing even existed—he would have time enough to reflect on their twists and turns.
“On second thought, I don’t like the look of the woman,” Surdail said with a deep frown. He waved to one of his archers. “Kill her now.”
Rùnach pulled Aisling behind him before she could gasp, though she indulged in a good bit of raspy breathing once she was out of sight. “You harm her at your peril.”
Surdail frowned. “Better that than have her loose in our land. She has an odd magic I don’t care for.”
“I don’t have any magic,” Aisling protested.
“She doesn’t have any magic,” Rùnach agreed, though he had to admit he was beginning to find it very curious indeed that so many people seemed to be convinced she did.
Perhaps it had something to do with Nicholas’s book she kept in her satchel, though if that were the case, he was fairly sure he would have seen the book’s magic. He looked at his cousin’s guardsmen and wondered things he hadn’t had time to before.
Were they seeing magic of another sort in her that he couldn’t?
He shook aside the thought because it surely wasn’t possible, conceded that the subject might warrant a decent think when he wasn’t worried about finding himself in chains in Ainneamh’s dungeon, then glanced over his shoulder to see what condition Aisling found herself in. She was pale, but he had expected that. What he hadn’t expected to see was what hovered in the air near her hand.
The hint of a spinning wheel.
It struck him suddenly as very odd, the sight of that, even though it wasn’t the first time he’d seen her make flywheels of various things, including water, air, and fire. He’d then watched her spin onto them water, fire, and spells—
That was curious enough, wasn’t it?
He dragged his thoughts away from that tantalizing mystery and focused on what was before him. He wasn’t sure exactly what she intended to do with that flywheel, so he thought it wouldn’t be inappropriate to ask her.
“What are you planning?” he murmured.
“I’m not sure yet.”
He smiled. “I can scarce wait to see what you decide.”
She looked as if she might soon be ill. “Will they kill me, do you think?”
“I’m not sure they know how to use their bows, hailing as they do from a country full of lesser beings. Besides, to get to you, they will have to go through me.”
“And you do make a rather handy bulwark to hide behind.”
“See?” he said cheerfully. “Nothing to worry about. Go ahead with what you were doing. I’ll keep the rabble at bay for another moment or two.”
She smiled then, a bit less sickly than before. He winked at her, then turned back to try to negotiate something sensible with the stubborn fools in front of him—to buy Aisling a bit of time, if nothing else. That might take his mind off the fact that he was being forced yet again to allow Aisling to save his sorry
arse. He would find a way to keep her safe even if it meant casting aside what was left of his pride to beg spells from those with the power to gift them to him so they would work without any input from him.
He turned back to the problem at hand and tried to maintain a neutral expression instead of snarling at the lads in front of him. He had to admit—grudgingly—that he had forgotten in all his years at the schools of wizardry just how terrible those elves from Ainneamh were to look at. His kinsfolk in Tòrr Dòrainn were likewise handsome, but those lads from Ainneamh were the stuff of legends and rightfully so. Still, that was no reason to humor them any more than necessary.
Rùnach gritted his teeth. “You can’t be under any illusions about what King Sìle will say when he finds out what you’ve done with us.”
“We are not frightened by the lesser magic and provincial stylings of an old elf who cannot possibly compare—”
Surdail fell abruptly silent.
Rùnach supposed he had reason. He found that he preferred to have his mouth open, because that made it easier to gape at what was going on around him.
The world was shrieking.
Actually, that was just the border shrieking because Aisling had somehow managed to get a part of it up onto a bobbin she had apparently created out of thin air. He clapped his hands over his ears, because he simply couldn’t listen to the sound any longer.
And then a hand came out of nowhere and stopped the wheel of air from spinning. Rùnach looked and saw that the hand was attached to his grandfather, who had apparently not quite finished his toilette for the morning. His hair was rumpled, his eyes were wide with shock, but at least he was dressed.
“Oh,” Aisling said, drawing her hand back. “Sorry.”
Rùnach bowed his head and laughed. He simply couldn’t help it. He glanced over to his left to see what, if anything, was left of Surdail and his lads. He wasn’t terribly surprised to find that they had been joined by Ehrne, king of Ainneamh, who looked every bit as startled as Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn, though perhaps that was because he had obviously had his slumber interrupted.
“Lovely nightcap,” Rùnach said, then winced as his grandfather reached over and flicked him sharply on the ear. He would protest that later, when he was certain the world wasn’t about to split in two.
For the moment, though, he supposed there was no time like the present to get on the right side of things. He clicked at Iteach who wasted no time hopping elegantly over the border hanging there in the air, caught as it was on Aisling’s bobbin made of nothing. Rùnach leapt over it as well, then reached under it and pulled Aisling over onto the proper side of things. No one noticed, he supposed, given that most of the attention was focused on the two mighty elves standing there glaring at each other.
Aisling eased closer to him. “I wonder,” she began slowly, “if perhaps that was a mistake.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said dryly. “There’s nothing like ripping apart kingdoms that have stood for millennia to get a morning off to a rousing start.”
“I could fix it,” she whispered. “I think.”
He shook his head. “Let’s wait a bit and see how the game progresses. I don’t think anything will be solved either soon or easily, but when it comes to relations between these two kingdoms, I’m cynical.”
She looked up at him. “Who are these people?”
“Well, that is my grandfather Sìle standing nearest us, holding onto your flywheel. The rumpled-looking curmudgeon over there in the striped headwear is my paternal grandfather Sgath’s nephew Ehrne.”
“Your cousin?”
“To his continued disgust, aye.”
She considered a bit longer. “Are those elves standing with him still going to shoot us?”
“I would imagine not,” Rùnach said. “Not given that we have our own set of lads interested in a good brawl.”
Aisling looked over her shoulder and jumped a little. “I didn’t notice them.”
“Not to worry, my lady,” said a voice from behind them. “This hardly merits us bringing weapons. A few fierce frowns will send those cowards there scampering homeward.”
Rùnach looked over his shoulder at his grandfather’s guard captain and smiled. “And so it would, Dionadair.” He turned back to the arguing going on in front of him and wondered how it would all work itself out. Ehrne’s elves had put up their arrows, which Rùnach appreciated, but he didn’t imagine the border dispute was going to be so easily attended to.
“They seem to know you here, Prince Rùnach.”
He smiled slightly because Aisling had said it so gently. “Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose they might. Mythical creatures that they are.”
She pursed her lips. “I’ll allow that there are quite a few things that exist in the world that I hadn’t imagined before.” She looked at his grandfather for several minutes in silence. “And that is the king of the elves.”
“Of Tòrr Dòrainn,” Ehrne put in loudly. “As if that is something to boast about. I am the king of the elves of Ainneamh, which is the only land in existence worth claiming. Ehrne is my name, though I suggest you don’t use it.”
“Oh, I don’t know that I ever would have anyway,” Aisling said.
Rùnach rubbed his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. He knew that Aisling hadn’t meant any offense, but obviously for the king yonder, the thought of anyone not waiting breathlessly for any opportunity to speak his name was simply not to be believed. Rùnach supposed he shouldn’t have enjoyed the huffing and puffing that ensued from across the border, but he did. Ehrne drew himself up and so stiffly, Rùnach was half surprised he didn’t hurt himself.
“I wouldn’t have given you permission anyway—”
“Ehrne, you are an ass,” Sìle said shortly. “Do be quiet and let me see to this.” He moved to stand on Aisling’s far side where he proceeded to study his border caught up in her spinning. “We seem to have ourselves a bit of a situation here, my gel.”
“A situation?” Ehrne bellowed. “She used whatever vile magic she possesses to destroy my rights!”
“And attempt to steal your land, Your Majesty,” Surdail added. “A capital offense, that one.”
Rùnach found that Aisling was looking at him as if he were all that stood between her and the jaws of hell. He sent her his most encouraging smile, then clasped his hands behind his back so he wouldn’t be tempted to walk across the border and bloody Surdail of Ainneamh’s nose. He had spent a fair amount of time in his cousin’s kingdom—to the disgust of his grandfather Sìle—in his eternal quest to find things to stop his sire, so perhaps he had had more opportunities to become annoyed by Ehrne’s captain than he might have otherwise.
Aisling cleared her throat with apparent difficulty, then looked at Sìle. “A situation, Your Majesty?”
“Well”—Sìle gestured toward the border—“it would seem that you’ve taken a bit of my border with that wasteland to the west and spun it up onto, ah, whatever you’ve spun it onto.”
Aisling took a deep breath. “I didn’t know what else to do, Your Majesty. Those men were threatening to throw Rùnach in prison and let him rot there.”
Sìle shot Ehrne a look of undisguised loathing. “Aye, well, they could have attempted it, I suppose.”
“And succeeded,” Ehrne said imperiously. “Unwind my border, you silly peasant, before—”
Rùnach stepped forward into his grandfather’s hand, realizing only then that Sìle had stepped in front of him and Aisling both. Sìle didn’t bother to look at Rùnach, which he supposed was just as well. He took a careful breath and stepped back, conceding the fighting of the battle to his grandfather.
“Insulting my guest is no way to get what you want, whelp,” Sìle said crisply. “Why don’t you toddle backward a few steps into that swamp you call home and let me see to this. Or perhaps I can simply allow this lovely girl to continue to rip up your border and set it back down where she cares to.”
“So you can increa
se your holdings at my expense?” Ehrne demanded.
“I wouldn’t have any of your paltry bits of soil if you fell on your knees and begged me to take them.”
“You arrogant old fool!”
“You uncouth young cretin!”
The insults continued to fly. Sgath had often told Rùnach that in his youth, Ehrne had been a fairly pleasant sort, but perhaps the crown had gone to his head over the centuries. There was obviously a reason Sgath preferred Lake Cladach to his boyhood home.
Aisling stepped past Sìle to stand next to Rùnach. “Is that truly the king of the elves—”
“Of Ainneamh,” Ehrne said loudly. “Which is, again, all you need to know about the only elves worth discussing. Or not, as we prefer.”
Aisling frowned. “I’m not sure I like him.”
“I don’t care who you like,” Ehrne snapped. “Just repair my damned border!”
Sìle ignored Ehrne and looked at Aisling instead. “I wouldn’t bother with him,” he said seriously, “but you could do this for me, if you would. Keeps the undesirables out, you see.”
Rùnach watched Aisling look at his grandfather, then turn to consider her work. She took a deep breath, then carefully unwound what she had caught up. Her wheel disappeared. The border fell back to the ground readily enough, but that was when the true trouble began.
“That’s too far into my side,” Ehrne insisted.
“Now, now, Ehrne, my lad, I realize you were but a sapling when we finally resolved the border dispute—”
“I’m as old as you are, you fool!”
Sìle drew himself up. “I am a full three hundred years your senior, you ridiculous boy, and you will accord me the respect due me!”
Rùnach took Aisling by the arm to pull her behind his grandfather’s guards. He supposed they could have continued on for quite a distance and still heard the two monarchs exchanging slurs, but it was a long walk to Seanagarra and he held out hope that his grandfather might provide a carriage or something else useful if he didn’t get too far out of reach.