Six
Sarah smoothed her hands over the dress she’d chosen from a selection of things contained in that dressing room that seemed to have been provided for just her comfort. The gown was made of exquisite fabric, far too glorious for her humble self. She knew her possession of it was destined to last as long as her peace of mind.
Which she suspected wasn’t all that long.
She paused with her hand on the door of that very luxurious bathing chamber, unsure what she should do. Her plan had been to wake, beg something with which to break her fast, then ask for an escort to the front gates where she would happily leave magic and all its practitioners behind.
But then she’d woken to find Ruith and Soilléir gone, which had left her unable to ask for anything given that her only companion had been that hulking shadow who seemed to ever hover constantly at the edge of the firelight. She wouldn’t have asked him for a cup of water if she’d been perishing from thirst. She’d escaped to the little chamber off the main solar, then decided that whilst she was there, she might as well take the chance to bathe again. Afterward, she’d remained near the small fire in that chamber, swathed in a robe of glorious softness, drinking sweet tea and trying not to think of anything at all.
Unfortunately, she’d been assaulted more than once by memories of waking briefly during the night to find Ruith lying on the floor next to her, holding her hand as if he truly thought she might flee if he didn’t keep her from it. Master Soilléir had been sitting in a chair in front of the fire, staring into it with a look of such deep contemplation that she had hardly dared breathe lest she disturb him.
Now, as she stood with her hand on the heavy wooden door and wondered why it was there had been no traveling clothes among what she’d found apparently made especially for her, she began to give thought to things she hadn’t had the leisure to the night before—namely the kindness of mages.
If such a thing were possible.
Soilléir had given them not only a place to hide, but comforts he hadn’t needed to, without having been asked. Ruith had left the anonymity of his mountains to aid her with her quest, grudgingly, but simply because she’d asked it of him. It wasn’t as if he’d known she would be able to dream his father’s spells and see their location in those dreams. And, worse still, even when he’d had those spells in his hands and had them taken from him, he’d chosen to look for her instead of going off to look for them.
But now those spells, along with however many others there might be, were out in the world. Along with her brother. And Ruith’s half brothers. It made ignoring the fact that she might be of some use to Ruith suddenly less easily done than it had been the day before.
And since that was a thought she couldn’t face at the moment, she wouldn’t. She took a deep breath, then opened the door and walked out into Soilléir’s chamber. She quickly sidled by his servant, who was standing in his usual place, his hands tucked up his sleeves and his face hidden by his hood, only to find that the chamber was no longer empty.
Ruith was sitting in front of the fire, making arrows. A bow stood there, propped up against the stone. More gifts from Soilléir, perhaps. Ruith looked up at her before she could back away and return to her hiding place.
“Good morning, Sarah,” he said gravely.
She nodded quickly, then turned away before she had to look at him for any length of time. Perhaps if she put some effort into it, she could turn away from her quest with the same sort of ease. She could stay another day or two, sleep, eat, and then be on her way without any undue discomfort.
Surely.
She almost walked into the long table set near the windows before she realized what she was doing or that Soilléir was standing behind one of the chairs there. He pulled it out and inclined his head slightly.
“Breakfast, my dear?”
She was not at her best. That was the only reason she couldn’t latch onto a decent excuse for why she wasn’t hungry. She sat, because she couldn’t think of a good reason not to, and accepted the plate that Soilléir prepared for her, because she apparently didn’t have an independent thought in her head. She smiled uncomfortably, then set to her meal as single-mindedly as possible.
She was tempted, once she’d finished, to push her plate away and bolt, but again, there was the problem of not knowing exactly how she would get herself free of Buidseachd. She wasn’t quite sure how to go about asking that, so she put off the necessity of it by sipping a very lovely tea for several minutes before she realized her doom was simply sitting across from her, waiting for her to finish procrastinating. She set the cup down, sighed, then looked at her host.
He was only watching her with a small smile.
“I appreciate the meal,” she said politely.
“You’re welcome, Sarah.”
She shifted uncomfortably. Good manners perhaps demanded that she at least make a bit of polite conversation before she thanked the man for his hospitality and fled for safer locales. She wondered if mages made polite conversation, or if they could sense discomfort, or if she could simply think her thoughts very hard and hope Soilléir could read them without her having to say anything. She honestly didn’t doubt the last was possible. Soilléir had a way of looking at her that made her feel as if he were looking through her. It was extremely unnerving.
“Who are you?” she managed.
“Just a man,” Soilléir said dismissively.
“Liar,” Ruith muttered.
Sarah pursed her lips and looked at Soilléir. “I suppose His Highness would recognize that sort of thing,” she said, “given how many of them he’s indulged in recently.”
There, that made her feel a bit more herself. She was drawing battle lines in the sand. Ruith might have been kind to her recently and he had certainly dredged up a decent apology, but he had also lied to her endlessly and without remorse for far longer than he should have.
Soilléir laughed a little. “Good heavens, gel, but you are hard on him.”
Sarah looked over her shoulder at Ruith, but he was only continuing to sharpen an arrow. She frowned, then realized there was not one, but two bows leaning against the rock. And the arrows he was currently working on weren’t as long as the ones they’d left behind with an obliging farmer. Perhaps he intended to take someone else along on his quest, which should have left her feeling quite content.
But somehow it didn’t.
“Who are you making those for?” she asked in surprise.
He looked up. “You. I promised you I would.”
She closed her eyes and turned away, then opened them to find Soilléir watching her. She took a deep breath. “I’m considering forgiving him,” she said, finally. “I’m not sure I’ll ever trust him again, though.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t,” Soilléir said with a grave smile, “though you know as well as I that he had good reason for what he did.”
Sarah would have preferred to ignore that last bit, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t look at Ruith that she didn’t think on the daggers he’d given her, the attempts he’d made to keep her safe, her quest that he’d taken on initially simply to aid her. She also owed him for the magnificent dress she wore thanks to the generosity of a man she never would have met without Ruith’s having brought her to his solar.
And in Ruith’s defense, he had tried to leave her behind during the more perilous parts of their quest, and he hadn’t actually told her a flat-out lie. Then again, she’d never asked him if he happened to be related to the most evil black mage in the history of the Nine Kingdoms.
“Have you read many histories of the Nine Kingdoms, Sarah?” Soilléir asked mildly.
She dragged her attentions back to Soilléir. “I haven’t, actually,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
“Just making conversation,” Soilléir said with a shrug. “Do you know many tales of black mages?”
“I don’t,” she said uncomfortably, “and I don’t want to.”
Soilléir smiled. “I imagine you don’t, my dear.”
She feared that he did. She was very afraid, now that she’d had five minutes of conversation with the man, that her entire life was laid before him, for him to look over. The nights she had spent in the barn of her own volition, the many more she had sought refuge there because she’d been barred from her mother’s house. The overwhelming desire to belong somewhere, to have a home where she had a place that was her own—
“So, was Ruith’s floor clean, or was it littered with manuscripts?”
She was grateful to be pulled from her thoughts before they overwhelmed her. “Clean enough, though I didn’t have much time to look at it very closely before he shoved me out his front door.”
“His mother would have been disappointed in him,” Soilléir said, clucking his tongue. “I wooed his mother, you know.”
Ruith threw an arrow. It whizzed past Soilléir’s ear to stick quite firmly in the wood of the window frame behind him.
“Very well,” Soilléir conceded, “I wanted to woo his mother. I was terribly fond of her, but once I realized she couldn’t stand the sight of me—”
“Lying,” Ruith said. “Again.”
Soilléir smiled. “So, because I couldn’t help myself, I sent Ruith his first gift, which was, if I may say so, a marvelously fashioned rattle that whispered Soilléir is the one each time he shook it. Sarait sent it back, I’m afraid.”
Sarah smiled in spite of herself. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, I did,” Soilléir assured her. “And she did send it back. But she also brought him along every time she came here, just to soothe my tender feelings. Well,” he added slowly, “except once.”
“Did she come over the walls?” Ruith asked.
“Aye, and it wasn’t my solar she was interested in.”
Sarah started to ask which chamber she had been interested in, but she suspected she could answer that question without aid. If Ruith’s father had been as entangled with Olc as Ruith had hinted at, then perhaps the fair Sarait had been looking for things of that nature.
From that horrible mage, Droch.
“Why don’t you tell me of yourself, Sarah,” Soilléir said, leaning back and smiling, “and how it was you came to brave the trek up the side of the mountain to knock on Ruith’s door.”
Sarah was happy to think on something else besides Droch, which said much about her aversion to him if speaking of her brother’s evil was preferable. “I needed aid,” she began, “to stop my brother from nefarious deeds. I thought Ruith to be the ancient, curmudgeon of a mage who had lived in that house for centuries. His manners certainly denoted as much. At first, I should say. He followed me on my way to Bruaih and was good enough to share his bread with me, burned as it was.”
“Then all those years perfecting your recipe weren’t wasted, eh, Ruith?”
Another arrow whizzed by Soilléir and terminated in his window frame.
Sarah almost smiled. “I was grateful for it—and even more grateful that he didn’t hold against me my knocking him upon his, ah—”
“Arse,” Ruith supplied.
“Aye, that,” Sarah agreed. “He ignored the indignity of it, thankfully, and continued to help me along a path I soon found I couldn’t walk alone.”
Soilléir studied her for a moment or two. “How did you find your first views of the land beyond Shettlestoune?” he asked.
Sarah thought it an odd question, but she answered him just the same. She continued to recount her journey, but he seemed to be most interested in what she had seen. And not just seen, but seen. Then again, he was a mage, and they were no doubt interested in all sorts of things she wouldn’t have cared to examine too closely.
She did understand an invitation for chess, however, which she happily accepted, grateful beyond measure to concentrate on something that didn’t involve spells or magic or things beyond her ken.
“Who taught you to play?” Soilléir asked as he held out a chair for her at the board.
“The alemaster, Franciscus,” she said, “though now I believe he’s less alemaster and more mage.” She looked at Ruith, who was watching her in silence. “You didn’t see him after the castle collapsed, did you?”
He shook his head. “I was in a tearing hurry to take up your trail. I suppose given how many of Gair’s bastards escaped we can safely assume Franciscus escaped as well.” He shrugged. “I thought to do a bit of looking for him amongst lists of notable mages I’m sure will be found in the library downstairs. Just to pass the time, of course.”
“Why don’t you pass that time quickly,” Soilléir said wryly, “before you eat through my larder—nay, no more arrows my way, Ruith.” He smiled at Sarah. “Tell me he’s behaved better than this on your way here. His mother did try to instill manners in him, you know.”
Sarah didn’t dare look at Ruith. She would have happily trotted out all manner of terrible stories about him, but she couldn’t. She considered for a few minutes, then looked at Soilléir seriously.
“He was a perfect gentleman,” she said honestly. “He protected me, tried his best to leave me behind when there was danger ahead, then he lied to keep me safe when we were in the great hall of Ceangail.”
“Was he polite about that last bit?” Soilléir asked, politely.
“Not at all.”
Soilléir smiled. “Very sensible of him. And what did you think when you found out who he was?”
“I wanted to kill him.”
“Yet you rescued him instead.” Soilléir finished laying the pieces out on the board. “How did you do that, exactly? Given, as it were, your ... ah ...”
“Lack of magic?” she finished for him. She found, to her surprise, that admitting as much to Soilléir wasn’t as painful as she might otherwise have thought it would be. She shrugged. “I could see the strands of the spells woven around him.”
“Could you indeed?” he asked, sitting forward. “How did you break them?”
She reached down to pull one of her knives from her boot to realize she wasn’t wearing boots, she was wearing soft shoes. “I slit them with a knife Ruith bought me,” she said. “I’ll fetch the pair of them.”
She found them on the chest where she’d found clothes, then brought them back and handed them to Soilléir.
He froze.
She started to ask him what was amiss, but before she could find her tongue, he had taken the knives and was looking at them as if he noted nothing especial about them.
“Interesting,” he said with absolutely no inflection to his voice.
“Can you make out the runes?” Ruith asked, looking up from his whittling.
Soilléir set them down next to the chessboard. “I think there might be a book in the library below that would be useful in translating them. I’ll see if I can’t remember the title of it.” He looked at Sarah and smiled easily. “You say you slit the spell binding Ruith with one of them?”
“Aye,” she said, sinking down into her chair. “It was easily done, once I realized it was wrapped around him like thread around a spindle.”
“Intriguing,” Soilléir said. He gestured toward the board. “Your move, Sarah, my dear.”
Intriguing was what she’d just seen—or, rather, not seen—in Soilléir’s reaction. There had been something about the knives that had given him pause. She couldn’t imagine what that had been, but what did she know of any of it? He was a mage, and mages were prone to bouts of capriciousness, as her mother would have said.
She turned her attention to the chessboard, happy to concentrate on something besides talk of spells and knives and things she fully intended to have nothing to do with as soon as possible.
“A spell is an interesting thing,” Soilléir said, studying the board thoughtfully.
“Is it?” she asked, trying to sound as uninterested as possible. She was certainly indebted to him for his many kindnesses to her so far, but that didn’t mean she had to do anything past listen politely. “Do you use them often?”
He moved a pawn to a more advantageous place. “Actually, I don’t. I prefer to simply watch events unfold and not tamper with them. I’ve found that people generally make the decisions they’re going to make without any magical sort of help from me and that things work out as they should.”
She noted the trap he was laying for her on the board and moved to counter it. “Even if those people are black mages?”
He shrugged slightly. “Am I to turn them all into toads? We then wouldn’t be able to sleep for the noise.”
Ruith snorted, but said nothing.
“But they cause so much pain,” she said.
He looked up at her. “They do, my dear, but if that is their choice, who am I to take it away from them? Not all suffering is needless and not all evil is final. If there were no evil, what would there be to fight against?”
“Nothing,” Ruith said with a snort, “which would leave us all warming our toes quite comfortably against our fires.”
Soilléir looked at Ruith with a smile. “I think I’ve had this same conversation quite recently with someone else, but I can’t call to mind whom. I’ll think on it and tell you later.”
“Your memory is failing you quite regularly this afternoon,” Ruith said dryly.
“’Tis all about timing, my lad,” Soilléir said, “as your lady knows now that she’s distracted me from the game and I am in peril. Sarah, tell me of your plans whilst I think on a way out of this trap you’ve laid.”
“I had no plans for a specific place,” she admitted. “It was initially enough just to be free of Shettlestoune. I can earn my way by weaving, so perhaps there is some remote village somewhere in need of my particular skills.” She paused. “Somewhere where I can simply be ... well, not involved in magic any longer.” She wanted to give him an entire list of reasons she loathed magic and its practitioners, but that was a little difficult when she was sitting with a man who held so much power in his hand, yet seemed so ordinary.
And also considering who was sitting there in front of the fire, making arrows for her with his own two hands. Because he’d promised her he would.
“Remote?” Soilléir asked, moving his queen to a more advantageous position. “That sounds a little unpleasant, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not afraid of being alone.”
He looked up. “Why would you be?”
Because whilst she wasn’t afraid of being alone, she was very afraid of the dark, and she feared the dark because she’d seen in it things that would have sent her mother pitching over in a dead faint. She had seen things she couldn’t possibly hope to counter with harsh words and her hunting knife that she had lost somewhere between Ceangail and Buidseachd. She didn’t dare hope that even her knives that lay next to the chessboard would keep her safe. So aye, she was very afraid of the dark.
But she wasn’t going to admit as much.
“We all have things that frighten us, Sarah.”
“Including you?” she asked in surprise. “Surely you could simply use your magic—” But nay, he’d said he wouldn’t. She supposed, judging by just looking at him, that he could defend himself well enough with a blade if he had to. Against a mortal enemy.
But a mage?
He tipped his king over. “If a spell were necessary, I would use it. Judiciously.”
“If you were fighting against, say, Gair?”
Soilléir met her eyes. “Aye.”
She swallowed with difficulty. “And could you, if you wanted to, go off to some far distant place and be just a man? Or would your past follow you there?”
Soilléir looked at her gravely. “Those are terrible questions I’m not sure I can answer, though I can’t blame you for asking them. I also don’t blame you for wishing you could leave all this behind.”
“I have no magic,” she said. “Nothing anyone would want me for.”
He only smiled. “I think you underestimate your gifts, my dear.”
But she suspected she wasn’t underestimating his. She cleared her throat. “Could you tell me if my brother’s still alive?”
He leaned back and looked at her for a moment or two in silence. “Aye, I could.”
“But he won’t,” Ruith put in.
Soilléir smiled briefly at Ruith. “I think it would be unwise to.”
“Even if you could sort this whole sorry business for us?” she asked, pained.
“And what would that leave you to do, Sarah?”
“Go hide in an obscure little village in the middle of farmland and weave,” she muttered.
“And how would that serve you in your life’s journey?” he asked mildly.
“I wouldn’t be dead,” she said. “Or terrified.”
“Everyone dies at some point,” he said with a shrug. “More important is how you live.”
“And I would like to live out my life in obscurity, if it’s all the same to you,” she said without hesitation. “This business of mages and magic and books of spells is far beyond my ken. I would much prefer a little house with space for a loom, a fire in the hearth, and rain outside.”
“It sounds as if Chagailt might be the place for you,” he mused.
Sarah had her opinions on where she would have preferred to live, but even the thought of it was so far beyond her reach, she couldn’t bear to think about it.
“Though perhaps not yet, for you have realities to face,” he continued relentlessly. “Daniel is still out in the world, no doubt looking for more of Gair’s spells. Gair’s bastard sons now know a legitimate heir is alive, also looking for those same spells. And you’re being hunted by trolls and mages and things you cannot see.”
“I’m not being hunted,” Sarah said hastily. She pointed to Ruith. “He is.”
“Which is why Mosach and Táir followed after you,” Soilléir said. He looked at her, clear-eyed and unperturbed. “Or do I have that wrong, my dear?”
She sees, Táir had said. Sarah wished she could forget that. She put her shoulders back.
“An aberration.”
“When dealing with mages, Sarah, ’tis always best to assume that if they’ve stirred themselves to move away from their fires and mugs of ale, they are not pursuing an aberration.”
“They’ll forget about me.”
“A woman who can see spells?” Soilléir asked. “An interesting talent to have, if I might offer an opinion. Some might call it magic. I suspect there are at least two mages from Ceangail who share that opinion.”
Sarah felt her mouth become appallingly dry. “Are you trying to frighten me into continuing on with a quest I don’t want? Or merely attempting to talk me into helping Ruith when he could be helping himself?”
“I’m only making conversation,” Soilléir said. “My friend leaning against the wall behind us has heard all my conversation, so I like to trot it out with guests as often as possible and spare his ears.” He began to reset the chess pieces. “But perhaps you would care for something else to do besides listen to me. I think there’s a loom languishing somewhere in the bowels of the keep. I’ll have it fetched for you, if you like. I might even manage to find yarn.”
“I would repay you,” she managed, feeling very grateful. If she could even begin to weave something, repay him somehow for the yarn, then perhaps make a bit of profit to use to buy other wool. It was a very great gift indeed.
“I’ll be satisfied simply with looking at what you make,” he said with a smile. He finished with the chessboard, then rose. “I’ll go see what I can find.”
Sarah watched him go, then looked out the window for quite some time before she could bring herself to look at Ruith. He was leaning back in his chair, a half-finished arrow across his knees, simply watching her. She took a deep breath.
“I think Daniel’s dead,” she offered, hoping if she said it often enough, she would begin to believe it.
Ruith only looked at her steadily. “Perhaps.”
“Are you,” she began, then had to clear her throat. “Are you continuing on? Looking for Gair’s spells, that is.”
He hesitated only briefly before he nodded.
“You’ll find them,” she said quickly. “I’m sure of it. You certainly won’t need any help in that endeavor.”
He raised his eyebrows briefly, just once.
“I can’t help you,” she blurted out. “I have no magic.”
“Neither do I.”
“Of course you do,” she said, happily latching onto irritation. It drowned out quite nicely her feelings of guilt at running away from her quest. “You just won’t use it.”
“You’re right,” he said very quietly. “Which makes it rather useless.”
She found herself on her feet, though she couldn’t bring herself to pace. She could only stand there with her arms wrapped around herself. “I can’t go any farther with you, Ruith. The thought of ... well, I just can’t.”
He looked up at her solemnly. “I understand, Sarah.”
She turned and walked away from him, because it was all she could do. She couldn’t help him any longer. He wasn’t just traipsing after Daniel of Doìre, a bumbling mangler of spells, he was following after bastards sired by Gair of Ceangail on heaven only knew whom. Those lads were powerful beyond belief. She was a simple village witch’s magic-less daughter. She couldn’t hope to stand against them, and she couldn’t bear to even consider facing them when all that stood between her and a horrible death by a terrible magic was Ruith’s sword—which he no longer had.
She paused in her pacing and watched him bent again over his work, patiently fashioning an arrow to fit the bow he’d obviously made for her. His dark hair gleamed in the firelight, and firelight caressed what she could see of his terribly beautiful face. His long-fingered hands were sure as they worked the wood, his very aura was one of competence and knowledge—as long as one was dealing with what to put into the stewpot or how to keep the fire going.
But dealing with mages?
She couldn’t believe he intended to walk into darkness and allow himself to be killed, but the forces he was facing could not be bested with ordinary weapons. And as long as that was all he was going to allow himself, she wasn’t going to be anywhere near the battle.
There was nothing wrong with wanting to be simply Sarah who carded wool and spun it into yarn before she wove it into cloth, was there? She didn’t have to be Sarah who saw spells and dreamed pages from Gair’s book. Obviously her time in Soilléir’s solar and the uncomfortable discussions she’d had with him had been more deleterious to her peace of mind than she’d feared. In truth, there was no reason to feel guilty about turning her back on her quest or worrying that Ruith might not manage his task without her.
She wondered how many times she would have to tell herself that before she began to believe it.