“Dare I ask?”
“I wouldn’t,” Miach advised, “and definitely don’t tell Hearn when next you see him. Luath will carry you where you need to go, then you might send him back. I don’t want to answer to Hearn for your activities.”
Rùnach blew out his breath. “Thank you.”
“You should also, if I might be so bold,” Miach said carefully, “wear a spell of Un-noticing. You never know who might be watching.”
“And then how will Aisling see me?”
Miach looked at him knowingly. “Going after her, are you?”
Rùnach drew his hand over his eyes. “Aye, fool that I am.” He looked at Miach instead of Mhorghain because he knew that his brother-in-law would understand perfectly the thoughts that tortured him. “With a black mageling on my heels and absolutely no way to protect her.”
“I could possibly, with enough effort and thought, make it so the spell took a wee rest when you were within a certain distance of your love. If you like. Or, even better, have it respond to your voice. You could call it or dismiss it at will. It won’t protect you, but it will hide you.”
Rùnach closed his eyes briefly. “You are too generous.”
“My worst fault.”
“And annoying.”
Miach laughed and gave him a pair of useful words to use with the spell he cast over him. “This will cover your lady as well when you meet.”
“If we meet.”
“Fly hard,” Miach suggested.
“And be careful,” Mhorghain said quietly.
He pulled her into a quick, tight hug, slapped her husband on the back of the head, then mounted and held on as Luath leapt into the air without any of the grace of Iteach. He wasn’t entirely sure Miach hadn’t instructed the beast to make the journey as rough as possible.
He wouldn’t have been surprised.
An hour later, he was walking into a glade. His weapons were behind him, his pack hidden in the woods, his mount long gone. He saw Aisling first, sitting on a log, facing a man who was sitting across a small fire from her. It was the same tableau he’d seen from the air, but it was substantially more distressing to see it right there in front of him. Aisling didn’t look as if she’d been harmed, though she was very pale. He stopped with Aisling on his right, the fire in front of him, and one of his bastard brothers sitting on a log to his left.
At least it wasn’t Acair. He supposed he should have been grateful for small favors.
“Well, who have we here?”
Rùnach looked at his half brother, sixth out of seven, and forced himself to maintain a bland expression. “I imagine you’ll divine that, with enough time.”
Gàrlach shook his head, wearing a faint smile of disbelief. “I could hardly credit it when your little wench there blurted out your name, but miracles never cease.”
“So they don’t,” Rùnach agreed. He nodded toward Aisling. “Do you mind if I sit?”
Gàrlach waved expansively. “Be my guest. I’ll make tea, shall I?”
Rùnach supposed anything Gàrlach did to keep himself busy could only be considered a good thing, so he nodded, then walked over to sit down next to Aisling on the log. She was trembling.
“How are you?” he murmured.
“I’ve had better days.”
“I can sympathize.”
She looked at him. “Sorry I hit you.”
“I fully intend to exact an excruciating penalty.”
She blanched. He realized immediately that perhaps she hadn’t told him nearly as much as she should have about her past. He shook his head just the slightest bit.
“Do you care to know what it will be?”
“Not particularly, but if you must tell me, say on.”
He smiled briefly. “You must allow me from this moment on to shamelessly coddle you at all times.”
She looked at him from rather bloodshot eyes. “You are a terrible man.”
“Is that why you ran?”
“Nay, I ran because…” She sighed. “Well, you did nothing more than I did, but you’re more important than I am, so it was worse.”
He laughed a little. “When I come up with the reply that deserves, believe me, you’ll hear it. Quite possibly quite loudly.” He nudged her companionably with his shoulder. “Will you survive it?”
She blinked rapidly a time or two. “I truly don’t understand why you are kind to me.”
“Let’s scamper off somewhere else, and I’ll see if I can’t explain it to you.”
“Will we manage that, do you think?”
He tried to maintain an air of carelessness, but he feared he had failed to do it properly. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m less armed for this than I would like to be.”
“I have an idea.”
He started to tell her absolutely not, but he realized he might not have a choice. “Let us have a bit of pleasant conversation here, then we’ll conclude the interview. We’ll see if your idea suits then, shall we?”
“Very well.” She leaned against him. “Is that truly your brother?”
“Half brother,” he admitted. “Appalling, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think he’s very nice,” she said very quietly, “though he did nothing untoward to me.”
Yet was Rùnach’s first thought, but he thought it might be wise to keep that to himself. If he didn’t get them both away soon, the misery would be spread about equally.
Again, at least it wasn’t Acair.
He accepted a china cup and saucer from Gàrlach, watched Aisling do the same thing, but knew he didn’t have to tell her not to drink.
“It has been a year or two, Rùnach,” Gàrlach said. “We thought you were dead. I’m surprised, since you seem to be quite alive, that you haven’t made a visit.”
“Oh, with this and that,” Rùnach said waving a hand dismissively, “one neglects these sorts of social calls. You look as if you’ve been traveling. Somewhere interesting?”
“Shettlestoune,” Gàrlach said, fixing Rùnach with a look utterly empty of all emotion. “I wonder if you know who I found there?”
“I’ve heard,” Rùnach allowed. “How is the old rapscallion?”
“Let’s just say Ruithneadh isn’t going to want to be planning any pleasant strolls through Doìre any time soon,” Gàrlach said with a smirk. “Father was not pleased with his current accommodations.”
“And did you offer aid?”
“Are you daft?” Gàrlach snapped. “I don’t want him free, I want his damned book!”
“Didn’t you have his book?” Rùnach asked, frowning as if he were truly puzzled. “I thought it would be in the library at Ceangail.”
“It was initially, for all the good it did me,” Gàrlach said curtly. “I could never find it. There was some damned spell on the spines of everything there.”
Rùnach didn’t suppose there was any use in telling him that the original idea for that spell of his father’s that did indeed hide all the books there had been his and that he’d created a counterspell that worked beautifully.
“What a shame,” Rùnach said with a heavy sigh.
“Oh, I’m much less broken up over that than I was before,” Gàrlach said smoothly. “Now that I have you.”
“And what could you possibly want with me?” Rùnach asked, affecting an innocent look. “Recipes for teatime delights?”
“I believe I’ll have your power first.”
“I have no power,” Rùnach said, then he heard his teacup shatter. That was likely because he had dropped it against something; a rock, most likely.
He had forgotten over the years just how powerful all his bastard brothers were. They might have been fools, but they were full of a terrible legacy. Gàrlach’s ransacking of his soul was almost enough to kill him, truth be told. He felt Aisling’s hand clutching the back of his cloak, keeping him from falling backward off the log. It took him a moment or two before he stopped seeing stars, but he managed it eventually.
 
; “You’re telling the truth,” Gàrlach said, sounding stunned.
“I told you so,” Rùnach gasped.
“No matter,” Gàrlach said coldly. “I know what you have memorized.”
“Sorry, don’t have that either,” Rùnach managed. He stood up and pulled Aisling up with him. “We have to go now,” he whispered frantically, “or we won’t manage it at all.”
She was shaking so badly, he wasn’t sure which of the two of them would fall over first. He stepped in front of her, then turned to give her time to get over the log without being in his half brother’s sights.
The spell slammed into his back, sending him sprawling over Aisling and the log both. He staggered to his feet, braced for the next volley, certain it would mean his death. But at least it would allow Aisling time to flee—
But instead, she began to spin.
He vowed right there that he would find a way, any way, even if he had to beg spells that worked on their own without anything from him besides pulling them from his pocket, to keep her safe.
His brother froze, watching as she created an enormous wheel from air.
She spun fire, pulling the spells Gàrlach was soon spitting out as quickly as possible into that fire, then sending what she was spinning around him as if he’d been a simple bobbin made just for her purposes. Rùnach realized he was gaping at her just as his half brother was, but the truth was, he couldn’t help himself.
The fire continually swirled around Gàrlach, leaving him standing there helpless in the midst of a vortex of his own spells. Rùnach felt Aisling fumble for his hand and pull him along with her. He stumbled after her, ignoring the shouting going on behind him, not daring to ask how long she could make it last.
Iteach appeared in front of them suddenly, looking very fierce. Rùnach stumbled with Aisling to fetch their gear, speaking the word that called to Miach’s spell as they went, hoping fervently that it would work as promised. He hooked gear onto Iteach’s saddle, then boosted Aisling up onto his back. He crawled up after her with much less grace, but the new howls of outrage he heard from Gàrlach left him feeling slightly less panicked than before. He and Aisling were obviously quite safely invisible.
Iteach leapt up into the sky and climbed fiercely on wings Rùnach couldn’t remember having seem him acquire. It was not a pleasant ascent, but Rùnach didn’t think to ask for a better. He was too busy trying not to lose what was left of supper from the night before, though he couldn’t decide if that was from the unpleasantly turbulent ride or the aftereffects of his bastard brother’s ministrations.
He simply closed his eyes and held on to Aisling as tightly as possible until his head stopped swimming and Iteach settled down into something a bit more measured. He would have loosened his embrace but when he started to, Aisling clutched his arms and shook her head.
After an hour, he realized he simply wasn’t going to make it if something didn’t change very soon.
“We have to land,” he shouted over the wind.
She almost fell off the saddle. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to be violently ill and don’t particularly want to puke down the back of your cloak.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, then she smiled. “You’re serious.”
“Painfully. Miach gave me a spell, though, that will keep us covered. No one will see us.”
“I know,” she said. “I’ve seen it. But that man—”
“Details, later,” he said, closing his eyes and praying he would make it back to the ground before he fell senseless. “Iteach, find a secluded…spot…”
The descent was worse than the ascent, as was the subsequent landing he made directly on his face as he fell out of the saddle.
He was, he decided after he’d finished retching past where any man should have had to in front of a woman he thought he might like to impress, going to have to rethink his strategy when it came to being out in the world. It was obvious that his plan to be a simple soldier was simply not going to work.
And that was the last thought he managed before he slid helplessly into darkness.
Twenty-six
Aisling paced in the shadows of what could have charitably been called a glade but was perhaps better termed a very slim parting of trees that seemed determined to close back in above her. If she hadn’t known better, she might have begun to suspect those trees were sentient.
Then again, given all the things that had turned out to be anything but what she’d thought they were, she wouldn’t have been surprised.
She glanced to her left. There in the trees stood an enormous hound of such ferocious mien, she almost quailed. Well, she might have if he didn’t occasionally look at her and wicker, as if to remind her that, aye, he was still, under all that fierceness, merely Rùnach’s horse.
She finally sat down on a half-rotted stump and looked down at the felled son of a black mage who lay at her feet on a bed of pine needles that she hoped were as soft as they looked. She had been convinced that his brush with disgorging whatever it had been that had ailed him would be what finished him off. He lay where he had fallen simply because he was too heavy for her to move. So she’d drawn his sword and propped it up against her shoulder where she might have a better chance of simply bringing it down on a miscreant’s head and rendering him unconscious enough that he could do further damage.
Now, though, Rùnach’s sword was resting next to her on her right, Rùnach was resting next to her on her left, and she was trying to keep breathing normally instead of gasping in terror.
She did not care for black mages or their unscrupulous get.
She looked off into the trees, unhappily able to recall her encounter with Rùnach’s half brother. She had realized when she’d seen his face that she had made a terrible mistake. And once she’d seen his face, she’d noticed that he wasn’t quite as tall as Rùnach, nor as well built, nor as handsome, though he had been handsome enough. He had invited her to sit on a fallen log, fashioned himself a comfortable seat out of nothing, then created a small fire in front of her. She had supposed at the time she had been fortunate to have heard so many tales of magic or she might have been rather startled at what she’d seen. As it was, she had simply stared at a man she had no doubts belonged in some way to Gair of Ceangail.
Rùnach groaned suddenly, then swore. She knelt down next to him and turned him over, with help fortunately from the patient himself.
“I feel terrible,” he managed.
“You look terrible,” she agreed. “What did you eat?”
“Nothing, unfortunately,” he said. “Here, help me sit up—”
“I don’t think you’re going anywhere for a while,” she said firmly. “Stay where you are.”
He looked up at her, then reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. “You have,” he said hoarsely, “the most amazing eyes I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re feverish.”
He laughed a little. “Probably so, but not for the reasons you think.” He dropped his hand, but only so he had hold of her forearm. “Thank you for the rescue.”
“What—oh, that.”
“Aye, that,” he said. “The things you can do, woman, with thin air—” He coughed a little. “How long will what you spun last, do you think?”
“I have no idea,” she said honestly. “I’m not even sure what that was.”
“A miracle, wrought by you, to save my sorry arse,” he said, patting her arm, then carefully pushing himself up until he was sitting. He put his hand over his face for a moment or two, then looked at her and smiled. “Thank you.”
“Shall we consider it a trade for my having felled you in your brother-in-law the king’s great hall?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
“I have questions for you.”
He sighed. “I imagine you do.” He slid her a look. “And yes, Aisling, I realize I won’t be having any answers from you. I’m going to save my breath and not bother to ask.”
“Thank
you,” she said quietly.
“You find me in a weakened and pitiful state,” he said. “It won’t last, so you’d best take advantage of it.”
“Who are you?”
“You’re not wasting any time, are you?”
She made herself comfortable on the bed of pine needles that she found was not at all sharp. “Talk.”
He leaned back on his hands. “I am Rùnach,” he said with a sigh, “second son of Gair of Ceangail and Sarait of Tòrr Dòrainn.”
“You’re an elf,” she accused.
“Mostly,” he agreed slowly. “Part wizard, if you want to be completely accurate.”
She stopped herself just before she touched him. He caught her wrist before she could pull her arm away, then looked at her with a faint smile.
“Go ahead.”
She shot him a warning look. “You’re laughing at me.”
“I am most definitely not laughing at you.”
“I’m looking for pointed ears.”
“I know.”
She reached out and tucked his hair behind his ears, one side at a time, just as he’d done to her so many times in the past. She met his gaze.
“No telltale signs there.”
“I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it, then,” he said solemnly.
She touched his scarred cheek before she thought better of it. He merely closed his eyes, which she supposed was just as well. That way, he wouldn’t have to watch her try not to weep.
“You were at that well, weren’t you?”
He opened his very green eyes and looked at her. “Unfortunately,” he agreed. “It was a bit dodgy, truth be told.”
She could only imagine. Mistress Ceana had given her the entire tale whilst they had been sorting through black woolen locks, though she hadn’t divulged names. Aisling had thought that just as well. She knew the number and kind of the children, knew what had happened to Sarait and three of the brothers, heard that the youngest brother and wee gel had both disappeared into places that had hidden them for years.
“What happened to you there?” she whispered.
“Ah, well, nothing very interesting,” Rùnach said with a shrug. “You know what my father did there, I believe. Someone—either my mother or my older brother—brought the cap of that damned well down on my hands without realizing it. I don’t remember anything after that, though I suppose someone pulled my hands free. I knew there was nothing I could do for anyone. My younger brothers and my mother were dead, Keir was gone, my father washed away with the evil from the well—or so we thought—and Ruith and Mhorghain nowhere to be found.” He smiled. “I found a place to land and there I’ve been for several years, making a nuisance of myself.”