Four
Sarah slipped her hands up her sleeves and walked alongside Ruith with as much energy as she could manage—which wasn’t much. She didn’t dare lose her way, though. If her first views of Buidseachd had left her with little liking for the hulking keep sitting atop its bluff, scowling down on the poor inhabitants of Beinn òrain, a closer acquaintance with it had only worsened her opinion. She’d seen the spells draped over the walls and falling to the bulwark like heavy drapes, though she would admit, reluctantly, that most of those spells hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary. She hadn’t wanted to look any closer on the off chance that she might see something she didn’t like.
She put her shoulders back as best she could and marched on doggedly. She wouldn’t know what other sorts of echoes of cast spells filled the place because she had no intention of being there long enough to find out. Her mother, surprisingly, would likely have agreed. Seleg hadn’t done anything but disparage the university every chance she had, without giving any specifics as to why she might have disliked it so. Sarah had assumed that had been because Daniel had been so keen to attend it, which her mother had no doubt considered a slight to her own magical tutelage. For herself, Sarah could hardly face the irony of her situation. Her recently made vow to have nothing to do with mages was still fresh in her mind, yet now she found herself surrounded by no doubt the largest nest of them in all the Nine Kingdoms.
She turned a jaundiced eye on the blond man walking but a pace or two in front of them. He had, she could say with absolute certainty, simply stepped out of thin air and stopped that other agitated mage from asking all sorts of questions she’d been sure Ruith wouldn’t want to answer. It wasn’t possible that he was a master of anything but the most rudimentary of spells given that he didn’t look any older than Ruith. Perhaps he was an apprentice, or an underling sent by someone to fetch Ruith, or had just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
She squinted upward, just to help herself feel as if she were still in the world and not lost in some terrible dream full of spells and mages and things she couldn’t begin to understand. The sky was already dark with heavy clouds, but she found that the morning had grown even darker, as if a strange and unpleasant fog had suddenly sprung up.
She realized she had wandered away from Ruith and their guide only after she found herself standing at a convergence of passageways. She had lost all the light she’d had, lost Ruith, lost everything but an overwhelming desire to find a place to sit down and rest. There was a cool, not unpleasant breath of air coming from the passageway on her right. She turned toward it and started to walk only to have someone catch her and jerk her backward. She spun around, curses halfway out of her mouth, only to find Ruith standing there with the mage at his side. They were looking at her with no small bit of alarm.
“I’m tired,” she said crossly, because it was all she could manage. She pulled her arm away from Ruith’s hand. “I wasn’t lost.”
Apparently he didn’t believe her. He took her again by the arm and the pain was so intense, she thought she just might faint.
She realized only as she woke that she had done just that. She watched a door be opened by a tall, frightening-looking man, then realized all that was alarming about him was the fact that his face was completely shadowed by a deep cowl. An odd thing to be wearing inside a chamber, but perhaps the chambers were very cold.
“Put me down,” she said, attempting to crawl out of Ruith’s arms. “Damn you, put me down.”
He complied reluctantly, though Sarah wasn’t sure what he thought she was going to do. She certainly wasn’t going to go back out into that passageway without some sort of guide or perhaps a map. She was absolutely not going to attempt any sort of journey without at least an hour to sit and rest. With any luck, she would manage a meal as well.
She looked around her to see if she might find the latter. The solar was enormous, but what left her turning round and around again—and forcing Ruith to turn with her given that he wouldn’t let go of her arm—was the light. The day outside was dark, she knew that, but somehow the windows that stretched from floor to ceiling captured what little light shone on that bleak morning without and drew it inside where it could happily tumble through the air.
Whatever else might be said about the man who inhabited the place where she stood, it had to be supposed that he didn’t care for shadows.
Their rescuer followed them inside, sending dogs she hadn’t noticed following them bounding into the chamber before him. They turned on her and sniffed her enthusiastically.
“Leave off,” the man said with a half laugh. “I don’t know why I keep the damned things.”
“To torment your guests?” Ruith asked pointedly.
Sarah looked at the blond man, who only sent the dogs off to their places with a stern look, then turned a much lighter look on her.
“Welcome to Buidseachd,” he said, making her a small bow. “I am Soilléir. And you are Sarah of Doìre, I believe.”
She felt her mouth fall open. “How did you know?”
He smiled. “A good guess.” He glanced at Ruith. “I don’t suppose you and I need introductions, do we, Prince Ruithneadh?”
Sarah looked at Ruith quickly to see what his reaction would be to someone else—and possibly a servant, no less—calling him what he was. He only pursed his lips.
“I don’t suppose we do and I don’t suppose you need to break with the tradition of calling me lad, given that you’ve called me that the whole of my life.”
“The first ten years of it, at least,” Soilléir agreed. He turned to Sarah. “What will you have first, my dear? Food, sleep, or a bath?”
“All,” she said, then realized Ruith had said the same thing at the same time.
Soilléir laughed and it was like the first bit of warm sun after an endlessly brutal winter. “Perhaps a bath first, then the rest to follow in short order.” He nodded toward the back of the enormous solar. “There’s a wee chamber back there to the left of the hearth, Sarah, complete with a hot fire and even hotter water. I fear I have no maidservant to attend you, but perhaps you might make do just the same.”
Sarah wasn’t particularly comfortable simply marching off into someone’s private bathing chamber, especially since she wasn’t entirely sure Soilléir wasn’t just a servant, but if he was going to have the cheek to invite her to make free with his master’s things, she wasn’t going to argue. She managed to slur out her thanks, then walk unsteadily across the polished stone floor. She avoided going too near that frightening-looking man standing near the window, then continued on her way, weary beyond belief, almost too weary to be terrified.
She found the door to the chamber set back in an enormous alcove to the left of the equally large hearth that dominated one end of the room, then paused with her hand on the doorknob and looked over her shoulder.
Ruith and Soilléir were standing in the middle of the solar, talking quietly. They were of a height and similarly built. Soilléir with his golden hair was all light and clearness, though she could almost see under it all a core of steel, as if his secrets were not dark ones, but were nonetheless unyielding. He was, she had to assume, who Ruith had come to see, though she couldn’t imagine why. She frowned, then looked at Ruith.
He was as she had always known him, sunlight behind a cloud. Now, she suspected that sunlight was more than what it appeared. It was his magic, an enormous, unlimited, unending source of power. The darkness that shadowed it had nothing to do with that magic, though she supposed he wouldn’t have listened to that from her if she’d shouted it at him.
She yawned, then turned away. The truth was, she wasn’t at all accustomed to seeing so much male beauty on endless display in front of her—Shettlestoune was not known for its handsome men, after all—and having to look at the two behind her was a bit much in her current state.
She let herself into the little chamber, then shut the door behind her. And there, as promised, was not only a hot fire in a modest-sized hearth, but an enormous copper tub filled with steaming water, buckets full of equally steaming water for rinsing, and a lovely selection of fine soaps for her use. There was also, set near the fire, a tray full of heavenly smelling, delicate-looking edibles that she had to force herself not to fall upon like the starving woman she was.
She took a deep breath, reminded herself she was a lady and not a tavern wench, then made herself at home. She would bathe, eat a bit, then hopefully feel slightly more herself so she could make her plans.
Which, she reminded herself sharply, would not include mages.
An hour had surely passed, perhaps longer, before she managed to pry herself from the bath that seemed to be perpetually warmed to just the right temperature—she supposed there was some use in knowing a mage, but a bath hardly made up for all their other flaws so she tried not to feel too grateful—and dress herself in something she found in a wardrobe full of things that seemed to be just the right size.
More magic at work, apparently.
It seemed a little ridiculous to put on nightclothes—painfully soft and luxurious—and swathe herself in a gorgeous brocade dressing gown—silk she guessed, not having ever touched the stuff before—during the daytime, but since her plan was to retire to a corner as quickly as possible and sleep away the hours until dawn, she supposed she might be forgiven for it. She was modestly dressed. They couldn’t ask for anything more than that.
She took her knives with her, slipping them into one of the deep pockets of the dressing gown. They were nothing more than a false bit of security, but since they were all she had, she wasn’t going to give them up.
She saw Ruith immediately, sitting in front of the fire, freshly scrubbed as well and dressed in clothing that was quite a bit simpler than hers was. She imagined that if he’d exited his bath to find lord’s garb, he had put up a fuss.
She yawned before she could stop herself. Perhaps the rest of her life could wait for another day until she’d slept off the trauma that had led her to where she was at present.
Ruith rose the moment he saw her. “Feel better?” he asked, looking at her gravely.
She nodded, because she couldn’t say anything without saying too much. She didn’t want to forgive him, she didn’t want to understand him, and she definitely didn’t want to look at him and feel her heart softening toward him. She looked away to find one large pallet laid there before the fire, looking as fine as what she’d always imaged the princes of Neroche would have slept upon in their royal palace. She looked at Ruith.
“Where are you going to sleep?”
“Right there. With you.”
Softening feelings for the man? She realized abruptly that she didn’t have to wring her hands over the potential for those any longer.
“You most certainly are not,” she said sharply.
“I don’t want you escaping before I can have speech with you.”
“You forget, Your Highness, that I’ve no interest in anything you have to say.”
She said the words with vigor, but she found that she sounded less angry than shrill and that wasn’t in her nature. Or at least it hadn’t been before she’d embarked on a quest that had turned out to be far more difficult than she’d anticipated it might be.
“One bed will suffice,” he said.
“Aye, because you will be sleeping on the floor,” she retorted.
The hooded man standing against the wall made a muffled sound of ... something. She didn’t think it was polite to glare at him—nor did she have the courage given that he was easily as tall as Ruith was and much more intimidating—so she settled for glaring at Ruith. She was half tempted to march back into that luxurious bathing chamber, change into something suitable for travel, and leave, but she wasn’t sure how she was going to get from her current locale to the gates without running afoul of spells she might not be able to see.
“Sarah.”
She looked at Ruith coolly, but said nothing.
He clasped his hands behind his back. “I apologize for the things I said on the way here. I feared that if what followed us thought I held you in any esteem, you might be in danger.”
“You could rather have used your magic, I think.”
“That wasn’t an option.”
Then what good were you to me was almost out of her mouth, but she stopped the words just in time. It was something her mother would have said, having been the sort of witch to look at things, animals, and people with a jaundiced eye and judge them according to their usefulness to her.
The unpleasant truth was, Ruith had kept her as safe as could reasonably have been expected along their journey, never mind that he had said terrible things to her in Ceangail. Those were things she knew he had said in an effort to get her away from his bastard brothers so he could instead die at their hands. Apparently, he’d done the same thing again on the plains of Ailean.
She drew herself up and wrapped as much of her tattered pride around herself as she could manage. “Well,” she said, reaching for all the haughteur she could muster, “the next time we’re faced with death by a thousand spells, I would like you to simply keep your mouth shut instead of treating me like a servant.”
“I will.”
“And just because I don’t have any magic doesn’t mean I can’t do some fairly important things,” she said, though she couldn’t bring a damned one of those things to mind at present. Hopefully Ruith wouldn’t want any examples.
“I watched you before,” he said very quietly, “and I agree. You have strung your loom with warp threads of courage and determination, then woven us all into a pattern that would have been the envy of any mage I know.”
She scowled. “Prettily spoken, but I’m still not going any farther with you.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t trust you.”
“I haven’t given you very many reasons to.”
That was unfortunately not true either. He had been willing to sacrifice his life to save hers. That he’d taken her into a place where that had been necessary was a bit problematic, but to be fair, she hadn’t given him much choice.
She managed to dredge up another scowl. “I imagine you’ll want my apology now for not having been particularly forthright about my lack of magic.”
He shook his head slowly. “There is nothing to apologize for.”
“Since you likely knew from the beginning.”
“I didn’t, and it made no difference to me once I did, except to be profoundly tempted to bring spells to life under your hands—”
“Stop it,” she said sharply. “Stop being kind to me.”
He looked at her, then nodded slowly and went to sit back down in front of the fire.
She looked out the windows for a moment, then glanced up at the ceiling. The firelight flickered against it, revealing it to be covered with all sorts of lovely carvings of heroic scenes. She wondered, absently, if any of the masters of Buidseachd had been a part of those, or if Soilléir simply enjoyed contemplating someone else doing the deeds depicted there.
She took a deep breath, then looked at Ruith again.
He looked impossibly tired. He was also watching her with a very grave expression on his unnaturally beautiful face. She didn’t want to feel comfortable around him—he was who he was, after all—but there was something so ordinary about the sight of him sitting there, she almost let her guard down.
Almost.
The truth was, it had hurt her far more than she wanted to admit to trust him and have him betray her—never mind that she was well aware of his reasons. And if she were to face a bit more truth, she would have to admit that what bothered her the most was not that he was a mage, it was that he was an elven prince. She was not his equal in any way.
Unfortunately, he didn’t act much like an elven prince.
“Did you eat already?” she asked, because she had to say something.
He shook his head. “I waited for you. That, and I didn’t want to be distracted by food and possibly have you escape without my noticing.”
“You don’t need to worry about that. When the time comes—and it will come, I assure you—I will go openly. I’m finished with all this business of mages and magic,” she added, on the off chance he’d forgotten her plans.
“Hmmm,” was all he said.
Sarah found his lack of interest in a fight profoundly unsatisfying. He did seem to be interested in food, though, which she agreed with. She refused his hand when he offered it, just on principle, but if he was determined to hold out her chair for her, or see her served first, or pour her wine as if she’d been a fine lady, who was she to argue? He was no doubt brushing up his manners for the endless line of princesses who would be eyeing him purposefully once word got out he was available.
“So,” she said, once they’d finished their meal and the silence began to make her uncomfortable, “who is this Soilléir person and where is his master?”
Ruith smiled faintly. “He is the master here.”
“Impossible,” she said promptly. “He can’t be any older than you are.”
Ruith shrugged. “I would say he’s been here several centuries, but my knowledge of the schools of wizardry perhaps isn’t what it should be.”
She felt her mouth fall open. “Centuries?”
“He’s every day of two thousand, I daresay,” Ruith said thoughtfully. He smiled. “Doesn’t look it, though, does he?”
“Nay, he does not, though I’m increasingly alarmed at how poor a judge I am of these things.” She felt her eyes narrow. “How old is Sgath? The same?”
“At least,” Ruith agreed.
She pushed back from the table, then rose and began to pace, because she had to. She wanted to tell Ruith she didn’t want to know any more, but she was afraid if she allowed too much silence, he might be tempted to fill it by asking her what she was thinking to leave her brother possibly alive out in the Nine Kingdoms to bring them all to ruin. Then he would likely point out his need for her to come with him and find the spells he had stuffed down his boots.
Which, she realized, she couldn’t see.
She looked at him in surprise. “Where are the spells?”
He had to take a deep breath. “I lost them. Well,” he amended, “not precisely that. They were taken from me after we were overcome and whilst I was senseless. I still have the cloth you so cleverly filched from Connail of Iomadh’s chamber, but nothing else.”
She sank down in a chair opposite him because it was the closest thing available to keep her from landing on the floor. “Who took them, do you think?”
“I have no idea. Whoever it was didn’t take the trouble to slay me whilst he was about it, though he certainly could have. I was covered in an Olcian spell of protection by someone I can’t name, then relieved of the pages by another mage who slit through the first spell with another spell of Olc—all whilst I was senseless.” He shrugged. “An interesting mystery, I daresay.”
That was understating it. She wasn’t sure what, if anything, she could possibly say. Ruith’s expression was inscrutable, though she knew that was a ruse. He had to have been greatly surprised to find himself alive but very upset over the loss of what they had so carefully collected.
It occurred to her abruptly that he’d had to decide between searching for the spells and searching for her.
She put her hands over her face for a moment or two, then took a deep breath and looked at him. “Thank you for coming after me.”
“The choice was easily made, believe me.” He looked at her gravely. “Sarah, I truly do regret what I said on the way here and at Ceangail. In the keep, I had no other way to take Díolain’s attentions off you. On the plains, I feared our hunter might have been someone from Ceangail, so it seemed prudent to carry on with that charade.”
She nodded, though that cost her quite a bit. It also took her quite a bit longer than she supposed it should have to manage a decent breath. She cast about quickly for something else to discuss before she had to think on the forgiveness she should no doubt offer after such a flowery bit of sentiment.
“Tell me of this place,” she said, hoping she sounded more casual than pleading.
Ruith sat back and fussed absently with the spoon he’d used to stir honey into his tea. “The school has been here for a pair of millennia, perhaps longer. My grandmother, Eulasaid, was here at its founding, and she’s at least that old. It was begun to formalize the training of mages, as you might imagine, though over the centuries it has perhaps evolved into less of an elite school for the finest of mages and more of an all-encompassing place where even a village lad might earn a ring or two to call his own.”
“My brother wanted one,” she admitted. “He wasn’t disciplined enough to even attempt to gain entrance here, though.”
“I understand it isn’t easy,” Ruith conceded.
“Did you never think about—” She shut her mouth before she went on with that question. Of course he wouldn’t have thought about coming to the schools of wizardry. He had been too busy living in seclusion, no doubt trying to forget who he was. She stole a look at him, fully expecting him to be offended, but if he was, he didn’t show it.
Damn him anyway. She would have felt better about insulting him if he’d actually given her a fight about something.
“Actually, in my youth, I considered it beneath me,” he said with a shrug, apparently willing to answer the question she hadn’t finished. “Now? I don’t want any of it, but for different reasons. Others, though, want the seven rings of mastery very badly indeed. Very few lads manage all seven. I imagine Soilléir could name all those who have without having to scratch his head once.”
“Is he one of the seven masters, then? I assume each ring has a master who gives it.”
“It does,” he agreed. “And whilst Soilléir could certainly offer the instruction that is associated with each ring, he doesn’t. There are other mages here, mages not associated with the levels of mastery, who teach things that not everyone should know—or would want to know, for that matter.”
Immediately, the memory of that dark-haired man came back to her. She looked at Ruith and swallowed with a bit of difficulty.
“Who was that?”
“Droch of Saothair,” Ruith said very quietly, obviously knowing exactly of whom she was speaking. “He is master of the spells of Olc.”
Sarah shivered in spite of herself. “Was that his passageway I ...”
“Aye.” He paused. “’Tis how he amuses himself, leading novices astray until they find themselves tangled so fully in his spells that they cannot free themselves without aid.”
“And you would know?” she asked casually.
“I would know,” he agreed. “’Twas a good thing my mother was so protective of us and always knew where we were. I was caught in his trap for only a moment or two before she swooped down and rescued me. Ironic, though, that I didn’t recognize spells fashioned of my father’s favorite magic.”
She sat back and shook her head. “I don’t understand how your father could use that when that wasn’t his lineage. I thought you could only use what you had a bloodright to. My mother could only use Croxteth.”
“Indeed,” he said, sounding faintly surprised.
“We didn’t discuss it often, as you might imagine, but she was rather proud of her roots.”
He toyed with his spoon a bit longer. “Did she vex you because of, er—”
“Aye,” she said shortly, “she did, but let’s talk about you instead. Why did your father choose Olc? It isn’t a pleasant magic, is it?”
He looked at her briefly, then set his spoon down. “’Tis a seductive magic,” he conceded, “but the seduction doesn’t come without a heavy price. It eats at the mage’s soul, something he doesn’t realize until it’s too late.”
Her brother had been dabbling in Olc. She suspected that was what had destroyed her mother’s house.
Ruith rose and went to fetch a blanket. She thought to decline it, but she realized as he wrapped it around her that she was far colder than she should have been.
“Tell me something else,” she said, wishing quite desperately for anything else to discuss. “What does Master Soilléir do here if he doesn’t dole out rings? Obviously he’s not involved in—” She had to take a deep breath. “Well, in that dark sort of business.”
“He holds the spells of Caochladh,” Ruith said, sitting back down in his chair and rubbing the fingers of his hands as if they pained him somehow. “Spells of essence changing. He rarely gives them out, and then only to lads who hold the seven rings of mastery. Actually, I’m not sure how many of those ring-holders have proven themselves to be trustworthy enough for his spells. I understand the process to win them is ... arduous.”
“Are those spells so powerful, then?” she asked doubtfully.
He looked at her seriously. “Powerful and terribly complicated. Of course, there are easier ways to effect a change, with a spell of reconstruction, perhaps, which would change something into something else for a fixed amount of time—usually not more than a day or two. Rock to water, air to fire, man to toad.”
“Tempting.”
“Isn’t it, though?” he said dryly. He looked at his hands thoughtfully. “With the spells of essence changing, however, you change the substance in question permanently. Air to fire, rock to water, man to beast. And thus it remains until the mage changes it back again, though I understand that it is enormously difficult, even with great power, to have the restoration be complete. I suppose that is what keeps a mage from turning his valet into an end table on a whim.”
“Does Master Soilléir ever use the spells himself?” she asked faintly.
“You could ask him,” Ruith said. “I’m quite certain he keeps Droch in check with the threats of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s had the occasional pointed conversation with other black mages of note from time to time.”
“Would you want those spells, Ruith?” she asked, before she thought better of it.
He looked at her evenly. “Don’t ask.”
She wasn’t sure why the question bothered him so. Perhaps he feared if he had those mighty spells, he might turn all his bastard brothers into mice and set a herd of starving cats upon them.
She nodded, consigning all conversation about spells and their wielders to hell where they should have been, then pushed back from the table. “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired. I need my rest if I’m to be on my way tomorrow.”
He nodded. “Of course. It has been a very long journey here.”
She didn’t fight him when he pulled out her chair for her, then escorted her over to the fire. He sat and looked at her.
“You can sleep in peace here,” he said, nodding to his knives hanging on a hook near the hearth. “I’ll keep watch for a bit.”
She paused unwillingly. “But surely you’re weary.”
“Soilléir will want details of our adventures so far,” he said with a faint smile. “When he returns from the bit of scouting I’m sure he’s done, I’ll satisfy him, then sleep as well.”
“I hope you’ll find the floor comfortable.”
“I hope you won’t step on me in the night on your way to the loo.”
She scowled at him, because it made her happy to do so, then nodded briskly, because she could do nothing else. She didn’t want to think about a mage who could turn her brother into a flea taking the time to make certain she and Ruith were safe. She didn’t want to think about what lay outside walls she had feared would be worse than a prison. And she most definitely didn’t want to think about a man who had put his blades where she could see them, that she might fall asleep without fear.
She lay down on a pallet that somehow managed to feel like what she’d always imagined a bed for a princess might, then closed her eyes, partly to block out the sight of Ruith sitting there, staring into the fire, and partly because she was past the point of exhaustion. She reminded herself that such luxury was only to be hers for a single night and then she would be on her way to places where magic was nothing more than rumor the locals spoke about in hushed tones down at the pub. She would be happy to leave them to it and leave mages, including grave and silent elven princes, behind.
Truly.