Fourteen
Sarah stood near the fire, holding her hands to the blaze and purposely ignoring the fact that her fingers were well past the point where any fire could warm them. She wasn’t afraid, never mind that she was leaving a place of safety and comfort—and that she should have found either in a clutch of mages was alarming in and of itself—or that she was walking into a future filled with no safety and likely very little comfort—also filled with mages, but of a different sort entirely.
Nay, she wasn’t afraid.
She was speechless with terror.
It was one thing to sit at a loom of such quality she half fancied she could have woven spiderwebs into something that would have been sung about for centuries to come and know that taking up the task of looking for her brother, stopping his stupidity, and aiding Ruith in whatever small, inconsequential thing he contemplated was still comfortably far in the future.
It was another thing to know that future was now waiting just outside the door.
She didn’t want to think about that future or where it might lead her, so to distract herself, she began a list of things that seemed to be in her favor. She was still without gold or home, but she was wearing very sturdy boots, warm leggings and a tunic, and the cloth she had woven had been gifted—no doubt by Soilléir himself—a measure of glamour that she was confident would hide her if necessary. She was wearing a pack that she hadn’t filled herself, but had been assured by Rùnach would contain all she needed for at least the beginning of the trek. She had drawn a map of what she’d seen in her dream, which Ruith had studied as well and nodded over.
So, if she were to look at the quest without putting herself in the middle of it, it was a simple one and easily accomplished. She would lead Ruith from spell to spell, he would stuff them in a safer place than his boots, then when they had them all, he would destroy them. That would leave his bastard brothers nothing to want to kill him for and leave her free to imagine Daniel attempting to convince some poor village he was equal to being their local wizard.
She couldn’t think any further than that. She didn’t want to think about which of the ten princesses Ruith would learn to love, want to wed—
“Sarah?”
She looked up from her contemplation of the fire to find Ruith and Soilléir standing to her left. Ruith was dressed as she was and looked as if he too might have been contemplating his assets. She supposed he had a few more than she did, but then again, he had a larger burden to bear.
She couldn’t think about that either.
She smiled at them both—or attempted to, rather—then took a deep breath. “Ready?”
“Almost,” Soilléir said. He pulled up a chair for her, then motioned for Ruith to sit in the one next to her. He sat, then looked at them with a grave smile. “Before you go, I have gifts for you both.”
“Nay,” Ruith protested. “Soilléir, you have already given us more than we needed already.”
“That was done willingly,” Soilléir assured him. “However, there are other small things you’ll need that I can provide.” He looked at Sarah. “My dear, I have a spell for you.”
Sarah looked at him in surprise. “A spell? What would I need with that?”
He smiled gravely. “’Tis a spell of Discernment. It may serve you when things before you become unclear.”
“But surely it would be of more use in someone else’s hands,” she protested. “Someone with magic.”
“The spell comes with a sort of magic wrapped around its warp threads, if you care to think of it that way.” He shrugged. “Many can wield spells, some can wield weighty spells, but the truth is, most mages are blind because of it. It is easy to use a spell and affect a destiny without thought. More difficult is to see how the patterns of lives are woven and how they might be bettered. It takes a certain sort of magic to offer naught but a single word or a simple thought, then stand back and allow things to progress as they will.”
Sarah supposed trying to convince him she wasn’t even equal to putting her oar in occasionally was futile, so she listened to the spell, memorized it, then repeated it dutifully when Soilléir asked her to. She felt nothing, but she hadn’t expected anything else. Soilléir obviously had more faith in her abilities than she did, but the words were pleasant, so she was happy to tuck them away.
“I fear I’ve loaded you down with books,” he said apologetically, “but in addition to the poetry and the lexicon, I left you a very small history. It contains two other spells and a bit of my genealogy, if you’re interested. One of those spells will be useful to you if your Sight begins to trouble you. The other ... well, the other you’ll find a use for in time.”
She took a deep breath. “Are you offering single words and simple thoughts now, my lord?”
He laughed a little. “How quickly you see through my attempts at doing nothing. Aye, I’m offering you nothing more than that, which is enough for now. We’ll see, though, how your friend there reacts to something more than single words.”
Sarah looked at Ruith to find him watching Soilléir carefully, as if he wasn’t precisely sure what to expect. He glanced at her, smiled, then looked back at their host.
“Advice?” he asked.
“You don’t need any more of that,” Soilléir said. “I thought you might find a use for a spell or two.”
Ruith was suddenly very still. “And which ones would those be, my lord?”
“Return and Alchemy.”
Ruith pushed himself back in his chair as if he didn’t care for what he’d heard and wanted nothing but to be away from it.
“Don’t,” he said harshly. “Léir, don’t.”
“You could stick your fingers in your ears, I suppose,” Soilléir said with a shrug. “You wouldn’t be the first one to do so.” He paused and frowned. “Though truth be told, I can only think of one other person over the centuries who begged me not to give him a spell.”
“I’m not sure I dare ask who that was,” Ruith managed.
“Yngerame of Wychweald,” Soilléir said with a smile. “Perhaps he feared he would use it on his son.”
“Which he didn’t.”
“Which he didn’t,” he agreed. “I have confidence that you’ll exercise the same sort of control. And if you’re interested in the whole tale, Yngerame only pretended to stick his fingers in his ears.”
Sarah shivered. They were speaking of things that could truly undo the world, yet Soilléir seemed to find them simple enough. Or perhaps that wasn’t the case. He might have been affecting a casual air, but she was quite sure he’d given his offer a great deal of thought.
She shifted so she could look at Ruith without seeming to stare at him. He was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped, watching the floor as if it might provide him with better answers than he could find elsewhere. He finally sighed, smiled at her wearily, then looked at Soilléir.
“I won’t say I don’t want anything you’ll give me,” he admitted slowly. “I will say that I won’t use your spells on my sire.”
“I know.”
“At least I hope I won’t.”
“I know that too.”
He took a deep breath. “Very well. If you must.”
Soilléir smiled a little, then gave him the spells. Sarah listened to the words, then watched them hanging in the air, shimmering there between Ruith and Soilléir for a moment or two, each spell in turn, before they simply winked out of existence, as if they’d been sparks cast from a fire.
Ruith considered them for quite some time before he looked at Soilléir seriously. “Could I heal Sarah’s arm with Alchemy? I assume you’ve tried it on Rùnach.”
“I have,” Soilléir said gravely. “Unfortunately, there is something in both their wounds that a change of essence won’t touch.” He paused. “I fear it has to do with your father’s spells, though I’ll admit to being thoroughly baffled as to what. ’Tis another mystery to add to your tally, I suppose, for I certainly don’t have the answer.”
Sarah was tempted to say she would have rather had that answer sooner rather than later, simply because her arm pained her more often than not, but she was also fairly certain that answer didn’t lie in a pleasant place. Ruith was watching Soilléir thoughtfully.
“Alchemy wasn’t what you used on Sarah’s arm that first night.”
“It wasn’t,” Soilléir said mildly. “That was a spell of Confinement. Also a very useful thing to have under one’s hands.”
“That makes three of your spells I now know.”
“And yet the world continues to turn.”
Ruith smiled, apparently in spite of himself. “I suppose that leaves us no choice but to march into the fray and see that the rotation continues.”
“I daresay you have that aright. But, if you don’t mind, I do have a favor to ask.”
“Anything,” Ruith said, then he shut his mouth abruptly. “Or perhaps not. It depends on what you want.”
“Nothing too taxing,” Soilléir said with a smile. He rose and walked over to his desk, then fetched a sword Sarah hadn’t noticed there before. He came back over to the fire and held it out to Ruith. “I need this carried to Uachdaran of Léige. I thought since you intended to travel his way, it might not be too much of a burden.”
Ruith took the sword slowly. “Do you have a message to send as well?”
Soilléir shook his head. “The blade is message enough. You could, if you needed to, use the blade yourself. It has suffered from inattention, I daresay.”
Sarah watched Ruith draw the blade halfway from the sheath, then felt her mouth fall open. The blade was covered with the same sort of runes as her knives, but there was something else there, something that looked remarkably like a layer of spells. She looked at Soilléir in surprise, but he only lifted an eyebrow briefly in answer.
She shut her mouth and put on her most unaffected expression. Already she could see where discretion was useful for more than just his spells, though that feat was made a bit more difficult by the fact that she suspected what was written on that blade might have as much to do with her as what was written on her knives. She watched Ruith resheath the blade as if he saw nothing especial about it. He thanked Soilléir in a rather perfunctory fashion.
Interesting.
Ruith looked at her. “Ready?”
She nodded, though her mouth was substantially more dry than it should have been. She tucked her hands into her sleeves to try to warm them, but that was fairly useless as well. She walked with Ruith over to the door, then turned to bid farewell to their hosts. Rùnach took her hand and bent low over it.
“Fare you well, my lady,” he said in his hoarse, ruined voice. “It has been a tremendous pleasure for me to watch you weave. I will always be a grateful recipient of any of your castoffs.”
“I’m sure I’ll manage something for you in the future,” she said, feeling a bit more flustered than she likely should have been. She wanted to point out that he had all the glories of Tòrr Dòrainn at his disposal and needed nothing from her, but perhaps he preferred the genteel luxury of Buidseachd.
Ruith scowled at his brother before he embraced him, patting his back several times in a manly fashion.
Rùnach pulled away. “I’ve been invited to Mhorghain’s wedding. Perhaps you’ll be there as well.”
“We will, if we manage what we must,” Ruith agreed. “If we’re late, don’t let them wait for us. We’ll make the journey to Tor Neroche to see them. Afterward.”
Rùnach didn’t ask what Ruith meant by afterward, and Sarah wasn’t about to volunteer any opinions on what might come before—or if she would still be part of Ruith’s life then. She merely thanked Rùnach again for his lovely manners, then followed Ruith and Soilléir from the chamber and down the passageway. And if Soilléir went first and Ruith followed behind her, as if she needed to be protected, she pretended not to notice. She considered the spell Soilléir had given her and was tempted to just repeat it aloud whilst wishing it might work for her, but she didn’t want to potentially set alarm bells to ringing. Better that she save it for another time.
Soilléir led them down to the kitchens and through a door that led outside the keep. There were stables set just a bit away from the castle, which were apparently his destination. Two horses stood there already, saddled, and behaving quite nicely. Sarah looked up at Ruith quickly, but he only frowned.
Soilléir took the reins from a stable lad and sent him off with a nod, then turned to them. “These are yours.”
“But I haven’t paid—” Ruith began.
“Consider them a gift,” Soilléir said, “and consider that gift when you’re overseeing my wallowing.”
Sarah wasn’t sure why that made Ruith smile, but there had obviously been conversations she had missed out on at some point during their stay.
“Very well,” Ruith relented. “You have my thanks.”
“And mine,” Sarah added fervently. “I wasn’t looking forward to walking.”
Soilléir handed her a set of reins. “I will admit, my dear, that I was mostly thinking of you when I considered these fine lads here. They are actually gifts from my father to me, stallions I assure you the good lord of Angesand would salivate to have in his stable, so keep a close eye on them lest you find some enterprising son of Hearn’s stalking you. Yours is Ruathar and Ruith’s is Tarbh.”
Sarah looked at Ruathar and was fairly surprised at the look he gave her in return. Either she had only ridden dim-witted nags before or those ponies in front of her were an entirely different breed of horse. Ruathar didn’t chafe at the reins or try to bite her. He merely stared at her, then turned his head just so, apparently so she might better admire him.
She laughed as she reached out to stroke his neck, then realized Ruith was having an entirely different experience with his mount. There was a battle of wills going on there, one that looked to be breaking Tarbh’s way for a bit, before he grudgingly lowered his head and blew out his breath.
Soilléir smiled, looking pleased. “I thought they might suit. And in case neither of you has noticed, these steeds not only have minds of their own, but shapechanging magic of their own. All you must do is tell them what shape you require and they will assume it.”
“Shape?” she echoed incredulously.
“Dragon, hawk, eagle.” Soilléir shrugged. “I imagine they would suffer through the indignity of masquerading as milch cows if necessary, but I would suggest you limit yourselves to more heroic sorts of things to save their pride.”
“Dragon?” Sarah knew there wasn’t any sound to the word but didn’t bother trying to remedy that. She was too busy gaping at her horse and wondering how she was possibly going to manage the rest of her quest when she couldn’t bring herself to put her foot in the stirrup.
Soilléir put his hand on Ruathar’s neck, had some sort of mageish conversation with him, then reached down and picked up the miniature statue that suddenly stood where Ruathar had been. He held it out.
“Put him in your pack, Sarah, my dear, then call to him when you need him and he’ll resume his proper shape. He agreed to travel in this shape as often as you need him to.”
“Handy, that,” she managed faintly, accepting the minuscule statue gingerly. “How did your father teach them to do this?”
“He didn’t,” Soilléir said. “There is, you might say, something in the water at home.”
“Hearn of Angesand would agree, no doubt,” Ruith said with a snort. “I’m equally sure he’s been trying over the course of his very long life to divine what that particular something is.”
“He tries,” Soilléir agreed, “but fails, repeatedly. He’s not much for the shapechanging of animals, but he would readily accept their fleetness of foot, which I daresay will please you two as well.”
Sarah had to admit that that would, though she hoped she would survive whatever else they did long enough for her to enjoy that speed.
Ruith led his pony off a ways, then stopped and looked at it. Tarbh tossed his head, then in the next heartbeat, became a dragon from dreams, glorious, glittering, and absolutely ferocious-looking. If he’d swooped down from the sky toward her, she would have looked for the first handy clutch of brush and dived underneath it to hope for the best. Soilléir only laughed.
“Pray there are no archers in the area. They’ll shoot you out of the sky for the value of the gems encrusting his breast.”
Sarah was less worried about that than she was staying on his back, but perhaps that was something she could think about later, when she was safely back on the ground.
Ruith left the dragon stretching his wings and came back across the little courtyard to embrace Soilléir.
“Thank you,” he said, with feeling. “You have saved us countless hours of dangerous travel on the ground.”
“I did it for Sarah, of course,” Soilléir said smoothly.
“I never doubted it,” Ruith said with a snort, “but I appreciate not being forced to trot along after her, as it were.”
“But,” Sarah protested, because she could hardly believe she was being faced with a saddle that belonged on something far more equine, “I don’t see any, um, reins.”
Ruith shot her a look. “Then ’tis fortunate we’re such good friends,” he said with hardly a hint of a smirk, “that you won’t be unwilling to hold on to me.”
“Did you plan this?”
“Believe me, Sarah, I couldn’t possibly have dreamed up a scheme so perfectly suited to my lecherous preferences as this one. Blame Soilléir.”
Sarah was tempted to, but he’d gifted them things kings would have willingly begged for, so she instead embraced him, thanked him sincerely for all his aid, then watched him walk back inside the keep with the ease of a man who wasn’t currently contemplating a trip off the ground where no sensible soul would wish to be. She was appalled to realize there was a part of her—an alarmingly large part—that wished she were walking back inside with him.
She took hold of her terror, shouldered her pack with her horse inside, then turned to Ruith. “What now?”
“We’ll be off.”
She’d been afraid he would say that. She couldn’t think of any reasonable-sounding reason to dawdle, so when Ruith walked over to their mount, she dragged her feet behind him. He looked over his shoulder, then stopped and put his arm around her shoulders.
“I won’t let you fall.”
“I wasn’t worried about what you would do,” she managed. “I was planning on holding on very tightly and concentrating on not screaming.”
“Already my plan yields benefits,” he said with a small smile. He nodded toward the dragon, who seemed to sense that he was about to be carrying at least one rider who wasn’t precisely thrilled about his shape. “The view will be spectacular, I promise.”
“How would you know?” she asked faintly.
“How do you think I know?”
“What I think is that you are not at all who I thought you were,” she said with a shiver. “But since that seems to be the usual fare where you’re concerned, I likely shouldn’t think anything of it.”
“Consider me your very dear friend with a tumultuous past,” he said, turning her toward him. “And since we are such dear friends, perhaps you’ll indulge me in a friendly embrace to settle my nerves.”
“Your nerves,” she huffed, then found she couldn’t say anything else. It was a miserable start to what she was now convinced would be a miserable journey. If she couldn’t even set foot to the path, how was she to continue on it when things became truly dangerous?
She didn’t want to hold on to Ruith so tightly, but she did not like heights of any sort and the thought of clambering onto that dragon’s back and not screaming when he leapt up—
“I could clunk you over the head with my sword and spare you any undue anxiety,” Ruith offered.
She was more tempted by that offer than she wanted to admit. “I don’t think Soilléir’s sword would care for that treatment—oh,” she said in dismay. “I left without the bow you made me. And you forgot yours.”
“Both are stowed in my pack,” he said. “Slightly altered in form for the moment.”
She shivered again. “You have become appallingly accustomed to magic in a very short time.”
“The truth is hard to deny,” he agreed ruefully, “but I’ll admit that if my magic serves us, I’ll use it without hesitation.” He pulled her hood up over her hair. “Shall we go?”
She couldn’t spew out anything that sounded like an assent, but she managed a nod, because the way was clear there before her feet and she had no choice but to walk it. She supposed she might have been forgiven legs that felt like noodles straight from the pot under her. Ruith pretended not to notice, and he did her the enormous favor of hooking her pack onto what was apparently going to serve them as a saddle. Then he helped her up and onto that saddle as if she’d been a feeble old woman.
She realized, as he settled himself in front of her, that she couldn’t breathe. She suspected that if the choice had been between facing his brothers, his father back from the dead, and Droch himself, or facing the thought of that dragon leaping into the air, she would have chosen any of the former three—or all of them together—without hesitation.
Ruith hesitated, then swung suddenly off the dragon. She looked at him in surprise.
“What is it?”
“You steer. I’ll clutch.”
She forced herself to make a noise of humor—it couldn’t have been even charitably termed a laugh—instead of sobbing like the terrified woman she was. “You are a lecherous knave,” she managed.
“But a friendly one,” he said, motioning for her to move forward. “Hurry up, gel. I’m envisioning all sorts of groping whilst you’re busy being terrified.”
She shifted to sit on the forward part of the saddle, which she wasn’t sure was an improvement as it left her looking over the dragon’s neck and ... down. At least the pommel was rather high, which might prevent her from tumbling off the front. Ruith’s arms around her made things better still, but not by much.
“You know, Tarbh would consider it an appalling blow to his dignity if you were to fall off.”
“How do you know?” she asked, her teeth chattering.
“He told me so, of course. He said that all you need worry about is not flinging yourself off his back. He will make certain to keep you in the saddle.”
“Are you trying to be helpful?”
His laugh rumbled in his chest against her back. “We’ll both keep you safe, Sarah.”
“Ah,” she began, then she had no more breath for speaking because Tarbh had apparently decided it was time to take off, as it were, whilst she was otherwise distracted by Ruith’s babbling.
She supposed he was doing his best not to terrify her, but even so, she imagined she was going to consign the first handful of moments of that very bumpy ride to the place where she put her nightmares when she was finished with them.
She was fairly sure she hadn’t wept, but she wasn’t at all sure she hadn’t screamed a time or two and laughed hysterically the rest of the time. Or at least she did until Tarbh leveled himself out and began to flap his wings in a less frantic manner.
“It wasn’t frantic,” Ruith said loudly. “It was measured.”
“Are you reading my thoughts now?” she managed.
“You were shouting them aloud, I’m afraid.”
She imagined she was. So to keep herself from doing so any further, she who hadn’t clutched a pommel in a score of years clutched the pommel of her saddle, because she didn’t dare let go of it. She did manage, after what seemed like a small slice of eternity, to open her eyes. She realized with a bit of a start that they were covered in some sort of spell. It didn’t seem to trouble their steed, flowing as it was around them as they flew. She found the presence of mind to see what it was made of.
Fadaire.
It was one of protection first, then comfort second. She could see the strands woven into it, glittering in the faint starlight, strands of such beauty she could hardly look at them. Then again, it was elven magic, so she supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised.
She squeezed Ruith’s hands. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She took a deep breath. She could hardly believe it, but apparently they were off on their quest, again—in quite a bit more style than the first leg of it. She sincerely hoped riding a dragon into the shimmering twilight was going to be the worst of what happened to her.
But she didn’t imagine it would be.