At least they hadn’t encountered any pools of shadow—
She frowned and considered that, probably more grateful than she should have been for something to think on besides how far off the ground she was. Just as she hadn’t in Eòlas, she hadn’t seen a single spot of shadow in Acair’s grandmother’s house. She hadn’t seen any pieces of Acair’s stray soul lying about there either, but it was possible she’d been more distracted than she’d realized.
Either way, it was odd.
She also hadn’t seen anything untoward at Acair’s mother’s house—save the witchwoman of Fàs herself, of course—but perhaps nothing was able to grow in the shadow of that mighty tree.
She considered that for a bit, then shook her head. The women in Acair’s family were powerful witches who likely didn’t allow anything unusual to take root on their land and in Eòlas, but she’d been too distracted by circumstances to have a proper look at anything.
Surely.
“Léirsinn.”
She pulled herself away from her thoughts only to realize how far they’d come without her having noticed it. The sky was beginning to grow light in the east. She twisted a bit to look at Acair.
“What?”
He looked grimmer than she’d ever seen him before.
“We’re going to have to go faster.”
Damn that fear she hadn’t been able to entirely dismiss. “Why?” she managed, her mouth utterly dry.
He pointed over his shoulder, but perhaps that hadn’t been necessary. It wasn’t a cloud of mage following them, nor was it a darkness made by things she imagined Fionne of Fàs could send scampering with her wand.
It was something entirely different.
“Hold on,” was the last thing he said before Sianach turned himself into something just a bit more substantial than a terrifyingly fierce bit of wind.
She hoped she could.
Sixteen
Acair had never thought all those years spent honing the ability to bolt past his brothers in absolute silence no matter the terrain would ever be so critical to his survival.
Of course, he’d been silent as a cat whilst about many of his own nefarious activities over the course of his lifetime, but that had been almost always simply for sport. There was nothing quite like the deliciousness of poaching something valuable from under the very nose of some snoozing royal or other and escaping without being marked.
The inescapable fact, however, was that his life had never hung in the balance during any of those pilferings because there had never been a moment, from the first time he’d set one of his brothers’ knickers on fire, that he hadn’t had magic to use for escape.
That he was currently running for his very life without any ability to magically rescue himself was, in a word—and one he rarely used unless he was applying it to how he was certain he appeared to others—terrifying.
What he wanted perhaps more than anything was to wrap his hands around a certain Cothromaichian prince’s neck, but he knew that wasn’t going to help him at the moment. For all his faults, Soilléir of Cothromaiche was not a liar, damn him anyway. If he claimed he hadn’t fashioned the spell following Acair like a lovestruck princess committed to a spectacular piece of rebellion, he’d been telling the truth.
Not that any of that aided him at present, of course. He was fleeing like a common criminal from an enemy he could sense like a bitter wind but couldn’t for the life of him see, and he couldn’t do a damned thing about it.
He had initially hoped his pursuer might simply be one of his gran’s henchmen taking matters into his own hands, but those lads tended to stay close to home where they could corner their prey without overly exerting themselves.
He had also considered the possibility that the storm behind him was just the usual cloud of black mage out for a bit of exercise on a winter day, but dismissed that with equal certainty. Even after Sianach had plummeted to the ground and their little company had continued to flee on foot, the storm of mage hadn’t gained on them.
Very odd that something that reputedly wanted him dead wasn’t trying to catch up to him and kill him.
And then, very much out of the blue—nay, that wasn’t accurate. With time, after having settled into a swift and steady run, it had occurred to him that what was following him wasn’t a random mage out for a bit of sport or a clutch of lesser lads taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity for retribution.
They were being followed by the mage who had slain his tailor and stolen his spell in Eòlas.
He couldn’t say how he knew that. Perhaps with a bit of time and a decent mug of ale, he could have nailed down why his thoughts led him in that direction, but at present, he didn’t have the luxury for it. He could only continue to run and be grateful for the stamina of his companions.
He forced himself to try to work out in his head exactly where they were, though he didn’t have as much success at it as he would have liked. They had flown for the whole of the previous night and the better part of the current day before he’d decided that attempting to blend into the forest below them might be a way to throw their hunter off the scent.
They had run for what felt like hours, though he was certain it had only been a pair of them. The sun had already begun to sink into the west behind them, which merely left him, for the first time in his life, not relishing the thought of a run in the dark. He had an excellent sense of direction, but the woods they were in were too close to the border of Durial for his taste. It was not a country he wanted to get lost in, for reasons he didn’t particularly want to examine.
He cursed enthusiastically under his breath at the irony of his situation. He was where he found himself in a grander sense precisely because he’d refused to travel to see Uachdaran of Léige, king of Durial, and apologize for a minor piece of mischief that had likely not inconvenienced the king in the slightest. Many monarchs had rivers of power running under their kingdoms. Indeed, he couldn’t think of a one who didn’t have some sort of magic flowing through his land in some fashion.