Ten
Sarah woke to singing.
It wasn’t the sort of singing she was accustomed to, that off-key bit of warbling her mother had engaged in, peppering the ends of her phrases with curses and snorts. This was glorious, a hint of something she couldn’t quite hear, as if it lingered on the edge of memory or dreaming.
It was definitely elvish.
She opened her eyes and looked up at the canopy over her head made by those trees that no longer twinkled with lights not of this world but were no less beautiful in spite of it. They were beginning to bloom with fragrant white flowers that were particularly lovely. And all through their rustling flowed their song, one of magic, woven with names she didn’t recognize—and some she did. Sìle, Brèagha, Làidir, Sorcha, Athair, Sarait, Ruithneadh: the list was endless and spoken with love.
Fadaire was draped over everything like a particularly lovely snow, intertwined like ivy around the trunks and through the boughs of the trees. She stared at it for quite some time, watching the colors of not only leaf and flower shift with the gentle breeze, but the magic as well. She allowed herself to wonder, as she rarely did, what it would have been like to have been an elven maid with that loveliness to call one’s own every day. To have had that sort of magic to string on a loom made from air and fire and use to weave tapestries of such beauty and perfection—
She sat up abruptly, because it was either that or weep over what she could never have, a sentiment which she realized she was suffering from enough without any sentient botanical aid. She looked at the cloak draped over her. It was spectacular, fashioned of a green silk the color of her eyes and lined with the softest white wool she had ever put her hand to. She thought at first that perhaps the garden had conjured it up for her, then she remembered that Ruith had released his magic the day before at the gate. She had seen him do it, which had surprised her, then watched it wash over his soul like a river over dry, cracked earth, healing it.
She envied him.
She knew she should have gotten up and walked or run or done something to escape her useless thoughts, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She was sitting in a garden more beautiful than even her rampaging imagination could ever have conjured up, and she was being serenaded by trees. If she’d had any sense at all, she would have sat for another moment or two and committed the moment to memory.
Which she did. She smoothed her hands over the silk of the cloak spread over her, watched the threads of Fadaire it was fashioned with shimmer as she touched them, and listened to the names that trees continued to weave in and out of their song. She became familiar with them, though she found herself growing slightly amused, as time went on, that the trees seemed particularly fond of Ruith’s mother’s name for they whispered it again and again.
And then she frowned, for the name that figured so prominently into their song wasn’t Sarait.
It was Sarah.
She found her hands were buried in her cloak, clutching it in a way that would likely take a hot iron to smooth over, but there was nothing to be done about it now. She looked up at the trees, feeling hot tears stream down her cheeks.
They knew her.
Hard on the heels of that realization came another one.
She couldn’t run. Not away from her past, or her present, or her future, because if she ran, the time would come when places like the garden she was in would be overcome. She had no doubt that Daniel was alive—he’d always had an uncanny ability to land on his feet—and she knew what he could do. He wasn’t Ruith’s half brothers, of course, but he wasn’t a village whelp either. If there was something she could do to stop him, she had to.
No matter the cost—
She had to turn away from that thought before it robbed her of the last of her breath. She crawled abruptly off Ruith’s cloak, then picked it up and shook it out. She hesitated, then picked up the cloak he had made for her and pulled it around her shoulders. She knew she would pay for it eventually, but for the moment she would allow herself the very great pleasure of wearing something she never would have dared weave for herself, and damn the consequences.
Ruith was nowhere to be found, but she didn’t imagine he had left her to herself. She found a handy bench sitting under the trees at the edge of the little glade and made herself at home on it. She wished she’d had something useful to do, such as wind yarn or knit, but as she didn’t, she simply sat with her hands folded in her lap and tried not to think. That was difficult given that she was in a place where her entrance had been granted thanks to a man she was trying to forget.
I want more than an hour, Sarah.
She closed her eyes and bowed her head, partly to shut out the almost overwhelming sight of the magic-drenched garden in front of her and partly to shut out his words. He wanted her for what? To find his father’s spells for him? To keep him company as he plunged into darkness? She couldn’t imagine it was for any more romantic purposes, not that she was interested in anything of that nature with him. He was an elven prince—
Who was, she discovered as she opened her eyes, walking toward her.
He was dressed as he had been the day before, in his usual simple homespun. If she’d been looking at his clothes alone, she would have thought him nothing more than a man from some rustic mountain village, hardened to the labor of carving a living from where it didn’t want to be carved.
But she made the mistake of looking at his face. She supposed that by now she should have become accustomed to the perfection of it, his flawless features, his bluish green eyes that had seen more than they should have, his dark hair that looked for a change as if he hadn’t been dragging his hands through it in frustration, but she hadn’t. As much as she wished she could have denied it, the truth was she was startled every time she looked at him.
He looked up from his contemplation of the grass beneath his feet, saw her, then stopped.
And she knew, with a finality that rivaled what she’d felt thinking about Daniel, that her task was not limited to finding her brother. She would have to help that man there with his task, no matter where that task led him. Because she could see the spells and he couldn’t. Because he had been willing to accept his birthright the night before. Because his mother had been willing to turn her back on all the beauty Sarah was surrounded by, been willing to risk leaving her children behind, been willing to sacrifice her very life to try to keep the world safe.
Sarah could do no less.
The trees sang their approval.
Ruith cocked an ear and listened to them for a moment or two, smiled faintly, then continued on his way toward her. Sarah felt her breath catch, again. She wondered if there would ever come a day when she could look at him and yawn.
The truth was, it wasn’t because he was handsome, even though he was. It wasn’t because he was skilled with a sword and could protect a gel against any number of thugs in a tavern, even though he certainly could. It wasn’t even that she could see that those rivers that ran through him were now full of Fadaire, sparkling, laughing, delighted to course through a soul that had been born to their power. Nay, it was none of those things.
It was that he, an elven prince from a house of elven kings, had wanted her to stay with him.
It was also possible that she was still trying to breathe normally after having been faced with a doom she now knew she couldn’t avoid, but perhaps that was something better left for examination at another time.
She watched Ruith approach and found it in her to scowl. He might have wanted her to keep him company for the moment, but that wouldn’t last. The world would discover that he was alive, and then he would have scores of princesses falling over themselves to be first in line to court him. He would spend his days in glittering elven palaces, taking tea with other princes and princesses, exchanging royal pleasantries with kings and queens—if he lowered himself to do so.
She had no illusions about the elves of Tòrr Dòrainn, for Franciscus had taken particular pleasure in telling her their tales. They were an exclusive lot, finding themselves superior to the inhabitants of Ainneamh, surely, and especially to the other elves and half elves Franciscus had told her about who lived in the east and were dwindling in number in the north. Nay, once Ruith stepped back out onto the world’s stage, he would have no use for her, which meant she would be wise to escape whilst she could—
“Oh, nay, not this,” Ruith said, catching her.
He had to catch her because, she realized, she was in mid-bolt through the bower.
He turned her to him and looked down at her gravely. “You promised to stay.”
“I promised to stay the night,” she managed, never mind what sort of unwholesome agreement she’d come to with the trees just a handful of moments past. “The sun is up.”
His expression didn’t change. “And what must I do to win another day?”
Deny your birthright and let’s go hide would have been the first sensible thing she’d said in two months, but that was as impossible as the thought of his even looking at a mortal woman, which she most definitely was.
Do elves ever marry ordinary gels? she had asked Franciscus one evening in her youth as she’d sat at his worktable and watched him sort lavender from the widow Fiore’s garden.
Some do, he had conceded. But never the elves from Tòrr Dòrainn. Their king, Sìle, is particularly adamant about that.
He’s not much of a romantic, is he?
Franciscus had laughed. Nay, gel, he isn’t. He’s proud and protective of his family and so gloriously elvish, a body can hardly look at him without his eyes catching fire.
She hadn’t thought to ask him how he possibly could have known that, though now she wondered why not. It wasn’t possible Franciscus had known Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn himself ... Then again, she’d never considered it possible that Franciscus might be some sort of mage, but now she knew differently.
And she was looking at Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn’s grandson, who was almost leaving her eyes catching fire himself.
Or, rather, trying not to look at him. Because it hurt her to do so.
“Your sight bothers you,” he said quietly.
She nodded, because it was easier than giving him the list of all the things that bothered her.
He reached out to pull her into his arms, but she stepped backward so quickly, she almost tripped. She turned away from him because she honestly couldn’t think clearly when she was looking at him. She was almost to the point where she was seriously considering marching back up to that horrible keep and demanding that Soilléir put back whatever he’d ripped off her eyes. She was finished with seeing too much.
She stopped at the edge of the circle of trees and looked down into the city. The trees were quieter than they had been earlier, as if they too held their breath.
Sarah felt rather than heard Ruith come to a stop behind her. He freed her hair from the collar of her cloak, then ran his hand lightly over it.
“Will you answer one question for me?” he asked quietly.
She didn’t want to, but she supposed the trees would drop a branch on her head if she didn’t, so she sighed heavily. That was as much an assent as anyone could expect from her.
“If you had never known my parentage, or if I had simply been the grandson of Sgath of Lake Cladach, would you feel differently?” He paused. “Did you feel differently a pair of fortnights ago?”
“It makes no difference—”
“Aye, Sarah, it does.” He turned her around to face him. “It does.”
She dragged her sleeve across her eyes. The whole situation was profoundly ridiculous. She had a quest to manage, mages to elude, her conscience to somehow satisfy before she turned her back on it once and for all—again, her bargain with King Sìle’s garden aside. Her tally was full with no room for elven princelings.
“It doesn’t change anything, Ruith. And I’m not sure why we’re discussing this anyway. It isn’t as if you will be interested in me—not that you were to begin with—once word gets out.”
“I assure you, Sarah of Doìre, I will still be very interested, no matter what word gets out.”
“And just how could you possibly know that?” she said, trying to bolster what was left of her pride. “You don’t know what’s available.”
“I have been off my mountain,” he said. “Many times, in many places, in many guises.”
She looked at him before she thought better of it. It was like looking into the sun, but she supposed if she was going to blind herself, she might as well enjoy the process. “You?” she asked with disbelief. “In disguise?”
He lifted one eyebrow. “Once I wore an eye patch.”
She shut her mouth when she realized she’d allowed it to fall open. “You didn’t.”
“I did. Another time my hair was long enough to catch up with a black ribbon.”
“And I imagine that impressive disguise left everyone completely baffled as to your identity—and not that it matters. You have your quest and I have my ... well, whatever it is I have.” She looked at his pulse beating in his throat for quite some time before she managed to meet his eyes. “I’m thinking about running, if you must know.”
He reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I think, love,” he began slowly, “that you could run for a bit, but things would find you. I would, of course, follow you to keep you safe.”
“I was planning on running away from you,” she said, even though it was quite possibly the last thing she wanted to do. Well, the very last thing she wanted to do was meet Droch of Saothair in a darkened pub, but running from Ruith was fairly high on that list as well. “I don’t want the darkness,” she managed. “And if I stay another day, that’s what awaits me in your vicinity.”
He fussed with her cloak, then clasped his hands behind his back and looked at her gravely. “And if I said I would use magic to keep you safe?”
“I won’t be responsible for that choice,” she said promptly. She took a deep breath. “The fact is, Ruith, we are fish and beast, water and air, fire and oil.”
“Potent combinations,” he said mildly.
“And doomed ones,” she retorted. She took a step backward. “I have things to do, important things, and no time for dalliances.”
“Why would you think I was interested in a dalliance?”
She viciously suppressed the urge to burst into tears. “Even I am quick-witted enough to know that elves do not wed mortals, especially elves of Tòrr Dòrainn. Perhaps you forget what I am and who you are.”
“And you think I would feel any more comfortable in their glittering halls?”
She scowled. “I’m not sure you’ll have a choice.”
“I always have a choice.”
She tried to walk past him, but he caught her hand. Her left one, fortunately. She turned toward him slightly, looked down at his hand around hers, his hand that could work any magic he wanted surrounding her hand that could do nothing but weave string into cloth. She looked for quite some time before she managed to look up at him.
“I have spent my entire life being less,” she said finally. “I don’t want to spend the rest of it that way.”
He tilted his head slightly. “Have I added to that? Well, apart from what I said in Ceangail—and on the plains—but that was the only way I could think of to take attention off you. But in other ways, have I?”
“Nay,” she admitted reluctantly.
He smiled faintly. “The trouble is, love, that I’m fairly besotted. I’m just not sure how to go about winning your affections.”
“You’re mad,” she said, because she could think of nothing else. He didn’t look mad, or unserious, or daft. He looked all too serious. “I can’t believe the world is falling apart and this is what you’re discussing.”
“I would actually prefer to be discussing where you would like me to build you a house after my quest is finished, but I thought you mind find that ... presumptuous.”
“Your quest?” she echoed. “It’s my quest.”
He only smiled, as if he’d expected her to say nothing else.
She scowled at him, turned, and walked into a tree she was fairly certain hadn’t been there before. She cursed it, had a shower of white petals on her head as a reward, then turned and backed up until the tree wouldn’t let her go any farther. She surrendered with another curse and looked at Ruith. He was still watching her, grave and so beautiful she could hardly look at him.
“An elven prince,” she spluttered, gesturing inelegantly in his direction.
“And a weaver of destinies,” he said with a very faint smile. “A tale for bards to sigh rapturously over for years to come.”
“I’ve never heard a bard spin tales before.”
“I vow you will, when this is all finished.” He paused. “I think, though, that despite it all, you should wait here with Soilléir, for I think him best suited to protect you.”
“I’m not waiting anywhere,” she said, though just the saying of it felt as if she’d just taken a step off the edge of a cliff into thin air. “You can’t see the spells.”
“I’ll manage.”
“You can’t be serious,” she said, realizing that she’d already said that, perhaps more than once. She looked at him and realized he was all too serious. “You can’t go without me.”
“I’m not taking you with me,” he said mildly.
She drew herself up and glared at him. “You most certainly are.”
He set his jaw. “We will not argue about this.”
“You’re right,” she said shortly. “Argument finished. This is my quest and I’ll decide if I’m going on it or not.”
He frowned.
“And another thing,” she said, supposing it was best she get the rest of her terms of engagement out whilst he was still digesting the first one and before she lost her courage about continuing on with something she had to finish, no matter how the very thought of it chilled her to the marrow, “I want you to court other women.”
His mouth fell open. “I will not.”
“Then I want you to meet other women.”
“I’ve met other women,” he said, beginning to sound faintly exasperated. “I don’t want to meet any more.”
“And they should be princesses.”
He looked at her as if she’d lost all sense. She wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t. A blindingly handsome man had professed ... well, he’d professed something, and she wasn’t swooning with pleasure?
Perhaps she was the one who was mad.
Ruith began to scowl. “And then will you be satisfied?”
She pursed her lips. “You’re humoring me.”
“You’re damned right I’m humoring you!”
“Ten of them,” she said, because it seemed like a goodly number, and because he’d shouted at her. “And if you bellow at me again, I’ll make it eleven.”
He looked as if he were torn between engaging in another bellow or a laugh. He seemingly settled for a heavy sigh. “Very well.”
“And until then, ’tis strictly a quest between us, nothing more.”
“Strictly a quest?” he repeated almost soundlessly.
“Aye,” she said, rubbing her hands together briskly. “I’ll dream your spells, we’ll find my brother and avoid all yours, then we’ll gather everything up in a neat and tidy package and set fire to it all. Then you can go look for your princesses, and I’ll go off and look for a place to settle in and work. I’ll send you a present for your nuptials.”
He looked at her narrowly. “What familiarities am I allowed in this madness of yours?”
“The same you would have had with Franciscus.”
He pursed his lips. “And what will you give me in return for my agreeing to all this?”
Nothing was the first thing that came to mind, but she supposed she should at least offer something in return for his agreeing to all her terms. “What do you want?” she asked warily.
“Full forgiveness and a new beginning.”
“Done,” she said, feeling rather relieved the price hadn’t been higher. Her relief, handily enough, was enough to help her ignore the fact that she’d just committed herself to a quest that would send her into darkness alongside a man she was unwholesomely fond of and couldn’t have, no matter how many princesses he squired about. She wasn’t quite sure how she’d landed herself in that sort of mess, but she supposed it was a little late to be changing her mind.
She found herself suddenly in an embrace that was altogether too comforting for her peace of mind. She put her arms around Ruith’s waist because it helped her keep from sinking to her knees in fear. No other reason.
“I’m not sure,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder, “that this falls into the purview of what comrades at arms would share.”
“You’re not a soldier and neither am I,” he said, running his hand briefly over her hair, “so those rules do not apply.”
“You’re taking advantage of my terror at the thought of what lies in front of us.”
“I might be.” He was silent for a moment or two, then he pulled back and looked at her seriously. “Sarah, I don’t want you to come along.”
“You can’t find those spells without me.”
“I know,” he said reluctantly. He looked over her shoulder for a moment or two, presumably at the city laid out beneath them, then back at her. “If I allow you—”
“Allow?” she mouthed.
“Allow you to come with me,” he said seriously, “then when I pull you behind me and tell you to stay there, you will do it without question. No sneaking off into the night without me, no marching off into the fray alone. And if I leave you behind at some point, behind you will stay or we go not one step further in this bloody venture.”
“I—”
“Don’t have the magic to fight what we’ll face,” he said seriously. “But I do, and I will use that magic to keep you safe. As I should have from the beginning.”
She had to take a deep breath or two before she thought she could speak without her voice trembling. He was right, of course, and she had certainly seen over the past few fortnights just how cold-blooded and indifferent black mages could be. She didn’t like to give up her independence, though, nor admit her limitations. She looked up at him.
“I have knives, you know.”
He pulled her back into his arms and held her so tightly, she almost believed he did have a few fond feelings for her. She allowed herself the safety of it for a moment or two, then pulled away.
“Very well,” she agreed. “Unless I change my mind.”
“Nine princesses,” he said solemnly.
She scowled at him. “Ten and done.”
He rolled his eyes and reached for her hand. “Let’s go back to the keep and find breakfast. We’ll need to make our plans, pack our gear, then sleep a bit. I also have a few pointed questions to ask Master Soilléir before we go.”
She supposed holding his hand wasn’t a too terribly romantic thing, so she wasn’t going to argue with him at the moment. She would, later, when they weren’t in a place that seemed so happy to have him there.
He walked with her down the path, then stopped with his hand on the gate. He looked at her. “We’ll come back.”
She nodded, because she was sure he would be back. She was equally sure she wouldn’t be with him. He would find a princess, wed her, and she would weave them something lovely for their wedding.
He squeezed her hand, then opened the gate. She walked with him out of light—
And into darkness.