He wasn’t sure when she’d left him or, more to the point, where she’d gone, which meant he needed to find her before she said or did something untoward and sent Léirsinn fleeing off into the gloom. His horse-mad miss had refused to divulge what she and his dam had spoken of in the barn, but he was certain it couldn’t have been good.
He made his way to the parlor, but it was full of prince and rapacious cousin multiplied by two, so he withdrew silently before he was noticed. The passageways were distressingly free of any red-haired vixens, so he settled for a hasty trip to the kitchen.
It was unfortunately lacking the woman he lo—er, was rather fond of, but his mother was definitely there, sitting in her rocker near the hearth. She was knitting heaven only knew what, but he didn’t see shards of glass sparkling in her yarn by light of the fire so he supposed it might be something as innocuous as a scarf.
His spellish companion was slouched in a chair—actually, it was slouched in what Acair noted was the chair he’d always sat in as a lad. That thing there was looking more like a surly youth with every day that passed, which he supposed he should have found damned unnerving.
He needed to bump find maker of that bloody thing up on his list of things to attend to.
He leaned against a bit of wall that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house and allowed himself to entertain memories he hadn’t in decades, maudlin fool that he was. He would have to share them with Léirsinn later, perhaps as his good deed for the day.
His mother had never lived at the keep, something he’d never thought to question as a child then never had the heart to question as an adult. His father had been a cold, particular man and perhaps the thought of bringing his lover into his home had simply not been to his taste. His mother’s house was roomy enough, but he couldn’t deny that he had rejoiced when each of his brothers in turn had packed up their things and moved on to the keep to live with their sire.
He supposed it could be said that he’d lingered at his mother’s fire longer than he should have, but she hadn’t complained—well, she’d complained endlessly about his cluttering up her salon and eating all her veg. Somehow, he’d still managed to spend an inordinate amount of time at that very table, poring over this grimoire or that collection of magelike scratches. It was a little startling, actually, to see how comfortable that damned spell seemed to be, sitting there as if it wasn’t full of death and destruction.
If he’d been a more superstitious soul, he might have thought he was looking at himself.
He cleared his throat carefully to alert his dam that conversation was coming her way. It wouldn’t have been the first time catching her by surprise had resulted in her flinging a knitting needle and leaving a mark.
“Mother?” he said politely. “Knitting anything interesting?”
“I don’t know,” she said absently. “I’m thinking and it keeps me hands busy.” She shot him a look. “Come and sit. I’ve almost rounded out a few thoughts you might be interested in.”
He imagined she had. He pushed away from the wall, then walked over to the table, yanked his chair out from under that spindly fingered piece of mischief, then sat down. If he stepped on its sorry self as he did so, so much the better.
The spell picked itself up, hissed something foul at him, then went to stand by the fire, silent and watchful. Acair did his best to ignore it, though it was a powerful reminder of just how impossible were his straits.
He waited for his mother to finish her row. She set her knitting aside, then reached for the teapot. She pushed a cup toward him, then paused before she poured. “Tea?”
“If you drink it first.”
She poured him a generous amount, then helped herself to the same. “You still have wood to stack and a roof to tend. I’ll kill you a different time when I don’t need your labor.”
“The gods weep with relief, no doubt,” Acair said.
He waited for his mother to lift her cup before he lifted his, then he waited a bit more before she smiled very briefly and applied herself to her brew. It didn’t fell her immediately, which he supposed was reassurance enough for him.
“What have you discovered?” he asked politely.
She set her cup down and looked at him seriously. “You need to go find pieces of your lost soul.”
He felt his mouth fall open. He was fairly sure that wasn’t attractive, but damnation, the woman said the most appalling things without any warning at all.
“Do what?” he managed.
“You need to revisit the places of your worst deeds and look for the pieces of your soul you’ve left there. You’ll never manage what you need to against what hunts you otherwise.”
“What absolute rot,” he managed. “Rubbish.”
“You came here for answers—”
“Actually, I came here for a list—”
“Which wouldn’t serve you anyway, which is why you’re here for answers,” she finished. “Now, shut up and listen to wisdom.” She started to speak, then eyed him suspiciously. “Are you listening?”
What he was doing, with more commitment to the activity than he was comfortable with, was wondering if his mother had lost her wits. It was a thought that genuinely left him without a single useful thing to say. He could only stare at her helplessly, which he supposed was enough for her.
“Let’s review,” she said slowly, as if she thought he might have reverted to trotting about in short pants. “What happens when a mage uses black magic?”
“Glorious business that leaves every other mage in the surrounding environs wishing he had even half the skill or courage to attempt the same,” he said promptly.
She blew a stray curl out of her eyes. “You wee daft bugger, give me an answer of less than five words.”
Acair rolled his eyes then. “He loses a part of . . .”
He stopped speaking. He did that because he suddenly found that five words were not quite enough for a proper answer. Along with that came a realization that he supposed he should have been clever enough to have made long ago, which was how thoroughly he’d underestimated the woman sitting across the table from him.
He’d done the same thing with his great-aunt Cailleach, of course, and she’d cuffed him so hard for the same that he was fairly sure he would never hear again as well out of his left ear as he had before. But this was his mother, the woman who puttered in her house with her books and her pencils and her quills. This was a woman who spun and knitted and pulled out a cloth now and again to polish her reputation as one of the most terrifying spellweavers in the world.
This was also his dam who chortled over arrogant monarchs laid low and annoying mages brought to their knees with a proper bit of retribution.
He was beginning to think he was more like her than he’d feared.
She was a silent recorder of the madness that went on in the Nine Kingdoms, but he wondered what had made her so. Eulasaid of Camana? had been a ferocious and constant champion of goodness and right. He wasn’t sure what his mother had dabbled in and he didn’t think he wanted to ask her.
But a fool she was definitely not.