Twenty-two
Sarah walked alongside Ruith and contemplated the twists and turns of her life, things her mother never could have imagined, much less enjoyed.
She was traveling in style at least. Not only were her traveling clothes made of the finest material, her boots were sturdy and warm, and her cloak apparently imbued with not only a bit of glamour but the ability to repel even the most unpleasant weather. Given that she was walking through a torrential storm up to the gates of an enormous castle that had suddenly appeared in the midst of equally enormous trees, she thought she might have been in a position to offer an opinion on that.
Her method of travel hadn’t been without its discomforts, though she supposed she was the only one who thought so. The flying didn’t bother Ruith, though she wasn’t sure there would ever come a point in her life where she could attempt it and not shriek.
Their mounts, or more particularly, Tarbh, had informed Ruith that he would wait for them outside the gates. He’d changed himself into a mighty owl and flown up to perch majestically in a tree. Ruathar, who had continued the journey whilst residing in her pack, had apparently been content to remain there. Ruith had been happy not to argue, pointing out the handiness of having a shapechanging horse nearby for potential emergencies.
Sarah had had no desire to know what sorts of emergencies he might be anticipating, though she could speculate readily enough. She knew how King Uachdaran had felt about An-uallach and the queen who apparently ruled there with an iron hand. If there hadn’t been a pair of Gair’s spells there—and very powerful ones, if her sight could be trusted to determine such a thing—she was convinced Ruith would have gone another way.
Sarah put her head down against the rain, then noticed something she hadn’t before. She put her hand out on Ruith’s arm to stop him. She would have happily credited that small slip of parchment that seemed to glow on its own to merely lantern light glinting on wet cobblestone, but she couldn’t. She reached down, retrieved what she’d seen, then handed it to Ruith.
“Do I want to know what that is?” he asked as he pocketed it without looking.
“I imagine not.” She swallowed with difficulty. “Have you invented something for us here? Identities, I mean?”
He sighed. “Queen Morag is a hard, shrewd woman with a very long memory. I’m not entirely sure she would recognize me, though I fear I look enough like the men of my mother’s family that she would infer some relation. I don’t think I can hide who I am.”
“And who will I be?”
He hesitated again, only briefly. “For your own safety, I think you’ll be a cousin, related to my grandmother Eulasaid. She had six sisters who reproduced prodigiously. You do look a bit like my aunts and cousins from that side and a pair of them were flame-haired, so the possibility isn’t out of the question.” He looked at her seriously from inside his dripping hood. “There are times when a title comes in handy.”
“I’m beginning to realize that.”
“Then Sarah of Aireachan shall you be and we’ll at least have a decent meal before we go off to ransack their bedchambers. And now that I think about it, the queen has six daughters.” He looked at her in mock surprise. “How fortunate for me that I might tick so many off my list in one locale. A dance with each won’t take more than an hour, leaving me well on my way to pursuing other, more interesting things.”
“You would think,” she began severely, “that you would have other, more serious things on your mind than romance.”
“You would think,” he agreed, “but apparently not.”
Sarah supposed he was trying to take her mind off other things, but she couldn’t say he’d been all that successful. They were facing yet another gate leading into yet another place she didn’t want to go. Only this one, she was certain, wouldn’t lead to either the loveliness of Soilléir’s chambers or the security of the dwarf king’s hall.
The guards were surly, which didn’t surprise her. She listened with half an ear as Ruith talked their way inside the gates, but she found she couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. It hadn’t occurred to her before that the keep might be covered in magic, but now she wondered why not. She hadn’t felt it until she walked through the barbican gate with Ruith, but perhaps that was because she hadn’t been looking for it as she should have been.
The edges of the spell fell down behind them as surely as the gates had closed, but it was a spell she couldn’t quite see. She frowned thoughtfully as she walked with Ruith through the courtyard and up to the keep itself. Buidseachd had been a fortress that intimidated with sheer size alone, never mind the spells that had been layered over it to add to that impression. Léige had been overwhelming not only because of its imperviousness, but because it gave every impression of having been carved out of the mountain behind it. An-uallach was a different sort of place entirely.
The overall impression should have been one of grandeur, but despite the vastness of the land the walls enclosed and the quite impressive size of the keep rising up in front of her, there was something about the entire place that seemed a bit shabby, as if what should have gone to maintaining it hadn’t. The clothing of the guardsmen was just a little tattered about the hems, their swords not exactly bright, their helmets a bit rusty in spots. The walls were sturdy—or they should have been sturdy. She found that if she looked hard enough, she could see that they were crumbling in spots, as if the noble family that lived within those walls couldn’t be bothered to have them repaired—or perhaps didn’t have the funds for the like.
She thought back to Ceangail with its cracked foundations and spell-stained walls, all held together with a web of absolutely vile spells. An-uallach didn’t have that same reek of evil, though the spell it was covered with was unpleasant enough to give her pause.
Ruith reached for her hand and pulled it into the crook of his elbow. “We’ll hurry.”
“I don’t like it here,” she murmured.
“Neither do I, but we’ve no choice. See anything interesting yet?”
She could only nod, partly because she couldn’t quite put into words what she was seeing and partly because she thought if she spoke any more, she would shout that they should turn around and bolt whilst they had the chance—which they couldn’t do. There were spells in the keep that she had to help Ruith find. She’d known it wouldn’t be easy.
She just hadn’t expected the task to be so distasteful in a magical sense.
The guard led them up the stairs to the door of a keep that boasted the same lack of care shown the outer walls. They were shown into an antechamber full of formal guards, then through another set of rather weathered doors that opened onto a great hall. Massive hearths were set into the walls and a pathway was set into the stone of the floor, a pathway that led to a raised dais in the distance. Sarah wondered how she was going to walk that entire distance without her knees betraying her unease, but found that wasn’t going to be a worry. A gaggle of maidens startled from their chairs on that dais much like a small flock of birds, squawking and flapping about before they seemingly regained their composure and formed a sedate little line that marched down the path toward where she and Ruith had been stopped in the midst of the chamber.
She supposed, judging by the guardsmen who accompanied them, that the lassies coming their way were Morag’s daughters. They were certainly dressed the part, as if no expense had been spared in fashioning their garb. Sarah would have wondered what sort of lad might have been interested in any of them if he’d judged them by the condition of their hall, but she made the mistake of looking at the first gel who stopped some ten paces away from them. She caught her breath.
Ruith did too, but he was a man so she supposed he couldn’t help himself.
The truth was, the foremost princess was absolutely stunning. Sarah could hardly take her eyes off her. She was tall, slender, with a waterfall of dark hair that fell artistically over one shoulder and down to her waist. It was her face, however, that was almost too beautiful to admire. She wasn’t elvish, that much was clear, but she was something else equally as splendid. The girls fanned out behind her, giving Sarah a perfect look at the six of them, each more beautiful than the last, which left the youngest very lovely indeed.
Sarah realized, with a start, that there was nothing to the gels. They weren’t wraiths, for there was form enough to them, but they were shadows of what they could have been, as if they had grown up under a mighty evergreen that had stolen all their sunlight.
The eldest princess folded her arms over her chest and lifted her chin.
“Announce yourselves before I have you thrown out.”
Ruith pulled his hood back from his face. The five other sisters made appreciative noises, which Sarah understood, but the first did not, which Sarah couldn’t fathom. Either her vision was so poor she couldn’t see what was in front of her, or she was attempting to increase Ruith’s admiration of her by perpetrating a strategy of disinterest.
Sarah decided abruptly that she had been fortunate not to have grown up in a palace.
“We are as we said we were,” Ruith said in a soothing voice Sarah was certain he’d learned at some noble house or another in his youth. “We gave our names to your gate guards, Your Highness, but I will happily give them again to you, if it pleases you.”
The dark-haired princess’s chin went up a notch, allowing her perhaps a better view down the length of her perfect nose. “They mentioned Ceangail, but that is full of naught but bastards, and we’ll have none of them here.”
“I am no bastard,” Ruith said with absolutely no change in his tone that might have reflected the taking of offense. “I’m sure your genealogist could delve further into it, should you care to ask him.” He made the princess a very slight bow, which was perhaps all that a prince of Tòrr Dòrainn could possibly be expected to offer in such circumstances.
Sarah felt a bit like a small, brown mouse standing there next to him, insignificant and plain. She was, as usual, sadly out of her depth.
But she was equally sure she would drown in that depth if she gave any indication of it, so she put her shoulders back as unobtrusively as possible and pretended that she had some sort of noble blood running through her veins, no matter how thin it felt at the moment.
The princess’s expression didn’t change. “I believe until I’ve discussed the matter with someone whose opinion I trust, you’ll wait—”
“Where you are,” said a voice coldly from behind them.
Sarah wasn’t one to panic, but she found she was torn between wanting to flee and being rooted to the spot where she stood. She didn’t dare reach for Ruith’s hand, but she couldn’t help but notice he had moved slightly ahead of her, as if he wanted to be in a better place to protect her, if necessary.
It was hard not to feel a certain fondness for him over that. In fact, if she was to be completely honest with herself, it was becoming increasingly difficult not to allow herself to be more than fond of him. That she was considering that in her present straits said perhaps more than she wanted it to about her state of mind at the moment.
She watched as a woman walked around Ruith to put herself in front of the eldest princess. The girls all gave way immediately, inclining their heads respectfully.
The woman was easily as beautiful as her daughters—and as young-looking—but in a way that was so cold, it made Sarah’s teeth ache.
“Well, who do we have here?” she asked softly. “One of Sìle of Tòrr Dòrainn’s grandsons, perhaps, though I couldn’t say for certain, not having had the time nor the inclination to keep up with the affairs of his very small realm.”
She looked at Ruith expectantly, one eyebrow raised in a way that left Sarah feeling that if Ruith didn’t answer, she would have to.
“I am Ruithneadh, Your Majesty,” Ruith said, inclining his head slightly. “Sarait’s youngest.”
“Ah, the fair Sarait,” the queen said in a faintly mocking tone. “Swayed by the ever-charming but not-so-gallant Gair of Ceangail.”
“She would likely agree,” Ruith said mildly. “Queen Morag.”
“Then you’ve heard of me,” Morag said, looking down her nose at him in a perfect imitation of her daughter. “But of course you have.”
Ruith nodded deferentially. “Your presence on the Council is and always has been a formidable one. Especially for one so young.”
She smiled, as if she knew he was merely flattering her, though she seemed disinclined to disagree with his assessment of her.
“We have a modest kingdom here,” she said with a negligent shrug. “We’re farmers for the most part, growing things that no one else seems to care about. Surely nothing your grandfather would find interesting.”
Ruith made some polite comment or other that Sarah only half heard. She was too busy being the object of scrutiny. If she could have, she would have ducked behind Ruith’s back and disappeared. She held herself where she was by sheer willpower alone as Morag started at the top of her head and took her measure from there down to her feet and back, her eyes missing no detail.
“And who do we have here?” she asked, cutting Ruith off in mid-flattery.
“A distant cousin,” Ruith said. “Sarah of Aireachan.”
Morag smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant one. “Come now, my prince, we are able to be honest with each other, are we not? If this is one of Lodan of Camanaë’s great-granddaughters, then I am Yngerame of Wychweald.” She pinned Sarah to the spot with a look that felt more like a blow. “Who is this gel who cowers beside a mighty elven prince of a house she surely wouldn’t dare approach save on her knees?”
Sarah would have taken umbrage at that, but she was too terrified to speak. Besides, Queen Morag had it aright. She was standing beside a glorious elven prince, and she was most definitely cowering.
“She is who I say she is,” Ruith said. “And she is under my protection.”
Sarah was startled enough by his tone to look at him, though she realized immediately that she shouldn’t have. It was dangerous to look away from a coiled snake. The queen laughed, a cold, hard sound that reminded Sarah of the stinging hail that fell occasionally in Doìre when a chill wind blew down from the north. Whether against her mother’s workroom window or her own head out in the forest, it was unpleasant.
“You are entitled to your little dalliances, of course,” Morag said with another laugh that hurt Sarah simply to listen to it. “I’ll see chambers provided for you. A discreet distance away from each other.”
“That won’t be necessary, for what should be obvious reasons of propriety,” Ruith said, in that same low, dangerous voice, “though we certainly do appreciate your hospitality, Your Majesty. We have come merely to seek shelter for the night. We won’t trouble you longer than that.”
“It is no trouble, Prince Ruithneadh,” Morag said smoothly. “Of course.”
Sarah thought it might be wise to simply keep her mouth shut and see if she couldn’t stay out of Morag’s sights. She listened to Ruith and Morag make a bit more small talk, then tried not to weep with relief when Morag motioned for one of her servants to come forward and show the guest and his, ah, cousin to their chambers. She didn’t argue with Ruith when he put her in front of him as they made their way out of the great hall, then up stairs and down passageways until the servant stopped in front of a doorway. Sarah wouldn’t have cared if it had been nothing more than a closet in which to discard used linens; she was simply happy to know that there would soon be somewhere for her to hide.
The servant withdrew a discreet distance and looked away, but not before Sarah saw the smirk on his face. She looked at Ruith.
“Well,” she said, because she couldn’t manage anything else.
Only his eyes betrayed his fury. “I will come to fetch you, my lady, for supper.”
“Thank you.”
“Do not leave this chamber, Sarah.”
She let out a shaky breath. “I wouldn’t think to.”
He opened the door for her, then stood back. “Sleep if you can. You’ll be glad of it later.”
Aye, when they snuck out of their chambers and scurried about the keep, looking for things Queen Morag shouldn’t have had in her possession. She nodded, though she didn’t imagine she would manage sleep anytime soon. She walked into the chamber and closed the door behind her. A spell slid down to the floor, the same sort of thing Ruith had put over the door in Slighe. She let out a shuddering breath, then turned in a circle to look at her luxurious accommodations. They seemed nothing out of the ordinary, though painfully small. Not quite a closet for bedclothes, but close.
A knock startled her into dropping her pack on the floor. She picked it up with trembling hands, set it on a chair, then turned to open the door. A servant stood there with a gown draped over her arms.
“From Her Majesty,” the girl said, bobbing a curtsey. “For your pleasure, my lady.”
Sarah found the gown thrust into her arms, then the door pulled shut in her face. She wouldn’t have minded that so much if she hadn’t found herself suddenly in a great deal of pain. The wound on her right arm where Gair’s spell had left its mark flamed into a burning that left her gritting her teeth in order not to cry out. Her left arm pained her equally, which surprised her. She quickly put the gown over the back of the chair, then stepped away from it. She realized that she was trembling badly and that it didn’t come from standing in the middle of a stone-cold chamber. She would have made a fire, but there was no wood. She didn’t dare take apart one of the chairs.
And then she realized there was something else about the chamber, apart from its unrelenting inhospitality, that bothered her.
Something that smelled of death.
She walked over to the window, which was unfortunately not large enough for her to jump out of, and opened the shutters. The rain-soaked breeze was a welcome relief from the stench of the spell she hadn’t noticed at first, the spell that lingered inside the chamber. She looked out into the mist for quite some time before she could bring herself to face the thought that had been tugging at her mind.
She might have the means to see what sort of spell lay in her chamber, hidden from view.
She took a deep breath of bracing spring air, then turned and leaned back against the wall, which felt comfortingly steady beneath her hands. It took her longer perhaps than it should have to muster up the courage to try the spell Soilléir had given her. She wasn’t sure she believed it would do anything but hang there in the air, then blow away like so much smoke.
Believing is seeing.
Soilléir’s words, spoken offhandedly at some point during her stay in Buidseachd, came back to her as if he’d been standing there next to her, whispering them afresh. Her mother had always held to the opposite view, that she wouldn’t believe something until she’d seen it with her own bloody good eyes, as she would have said. Sarah imagined now that Soilléir had chosen his words and their particular order with great care.
She closed her eyes briefly, gathered up all the faith in herself she could lay her hands on, then repeated faithfully the spell he’d given her. The words seemed to come with a power of their own, a power she certainly hadn’t felt the first time she’d said them. She took another deep breath, then opened her eyes.
And she wished she hadn’t.
A spell lay in the middle of the chamber, bubbling up from some unseen source. She would have leapt out of its way, or hopped up onto the bed, or used a chair as a last resort, but she didn’t have the chance. It wrapped itself around her feet before she could blink, then crept up her like a noisome vine, but more rapidly than any earthly thing ever could have.
And that was just the beginning.
She tried to move only to find she couldn’t. She would have cried out for aid, but every time she took a breath, the vines tightened about her chest, stealing her air. She stood there and watched helplessly as the bubbling spring sent forth more things that grew and blossomed in a way that left her watching in horror, mute.
Morag had said she was a farmer.
Sarah had never dreamed just what sorts of seedlings she might have cultivated.