“I think we should land,” Acair said, shouting over the wind. “I might fall out of the saddle, else.”
She had no reason to disagree, so she patted his shoulder in answer, then held on as Sianach did a respectable job getting them out of the sky and onto a decent-looking road. She clambered off his back and had to stand there for a bit before she thought her legs would work as they should.
“Where are we, do you think?”
“Hopefully outside the king’s border,” he said wearily. “I think Soilléir’s spell will provide enough anonymity that we might cross through the land without worry. The place is bloody cold, but we’re dressed well enough for it. Let’s walk for a bit, then we’ll take wing again, pop in and out of the palace, then be off on our errand before another day passes.”
She nodded and walked with him along the road. The air was chilly, but the sky was cloudless. She discovered that if she looked carefully enough, she could see the spell that surrounded them. She reached out and touched it, then jumped a little as she realized she could feel it. It was an odd thing, as if threads of silk were draped down in a curtain around them, floating along with them as they walked. It was beautiful, though, and she found herself becoming slightly disoriented as she looked at it.
It made her wonder if that was its intent.
She wasn’t at all certain how long she walked in the morning sunlight, but it was long enough that she managed to take one of the threads and wrap it around her finger. The magic didn’t seem to mind and given that she felt as though she were walking in a dream anyway, she supposed she didn’t mind.
Walking into Acair’s outstretched arm, though, brought her back to herself with a start.
She looked in front of them and found that they were sharing a road with people she hadn’t noticed before. She supposed they were dwarves, though she wasn’t entirely sure how to tell. Some of the men were of a shorter stature, others rather tall. They were sharp-eyed, those lads there, and carried weapons that mostly seemed to include battle-axes and the occasional highly polished sword.
A man stood in front of them all. He was shorter than the rest, but that was more than made up for by the height of the crown he was wearing. He was looking at them, yet not seeing them apparently.
“Uachdaran of Léige,” Acair murmured.
She jumped in spite of herself. It was that moment, she supposed, when things truly began to go south for them.
It should have occurred to her that she was holding on to a thread of Soilléir of Cothromaiche’s spell and that any sort of violent movement on her part would result in something untoward happening to that spell. Of all the things she expected, though, having the whole damned thing fall down in a heap around them was definitely not it.
The king’s eyes widened and he pointed a finger sternly at Acair.
“You!”
“Ah,” Acair began, “Your Majesty. A pleasure as always. Allow me to introduce my companion, Léirsinn of Sàraichte—”
“Seize him,” the king commanded, then he paused and looked at Acair closely. “I heard you are forbidden to use your magic. Is that so?”
“Well,” Acair said smoothly, “that is a bit of a—”
“Seize him!” the king shouted.
And that, Léirsinn supposed, was that. She looked at Acair as the king’s men swarmed around him.
“Sorry,” she mouthed.
He lifted his eyebrows briefly, but that was the last she saw of him as he disappeared under a cloud of dwarf and spell.
She reached for her own magic, but it was as if someone had handed her the reins to a mythical beast with six feet and fangs. She fumbled a bit with things she had absolutely no idea how to use, then finally looked at the king of the dwarves. He was watching her narrowly.
“Haven’t figured out how to use it yet, eh, missy?”
She shook her head. “Not yet.”
He grunted at her. “Come along, then. If you’re keeping company with that little wretch from Ceangail, I’m not sure what I’ll do with you, but you’ll be safer inside my walls than out.”
Léirsinn supposed he had a point, but she wasn’t sure she was looking forward to discovering where he thought to house her.
Life was, as she had reminded herself more than once over the past pair of weeks, so much simpler in a barn.
Twenty
Acair sat in Uachdaran of Léige’s dungeon and thought he might want to consider a new and goodly work of perhaps going about the Nine Kingdoms, extolling the virtues of forgiveness.
He wished he’d had the chance to discuss the same with the king of their current locale before the man had sized him up for any magical tools, then left his lads to wrap him in a spell of fettering and carry him off to a place where there were no doors. Not that there needed to be any doors on his current cell. The spells were, as it happened, impenetrable.
Was that a light?
His heart leapt at the hint of something besides unrelenting darkness, though he wondered why. The king was likely having him hauled upstairs so he could be summarily put to death.
He was rather surprised when, after his eyes had stopped burning, he looked out of his cell to find Léirsinn standing there. She sank down to her knees and set the candle aside.
“Are you hurt?”
“Me?” he croaked. “Never been more fit and full of good humors. You?”
“He offered me a guest chamber,” she said uneasily. “I pointed out to him that his favorite mount had thrush.”
“You’re handy.”
“You’ve no idea.” She paused. “I might also have come close to setting his audience chamber on fire. I believe it unnerved him.”
Acair smiled in spite of himself. “Do tell.”
She shifted. “I lost my temper. I think one of the tapestries nearest his hearth might still bear a singe mark or two as a result.”
He would have laughed, but he wasn’t sure he had the energy for it. “And then?”
She looked at him. “He’s going to put you to death.”
“Is he?” Acair asked lightly. “Such a pity.”
“He doesn’t like you.”
“The feeling, as it happens, is quite mutual.”
She looked at him with a frown. “I thought all was forgiven, forgotten, and left in the past. What did you do to him?”
Acair shifted. “The tale is long and tedious.”
“I’m completely free of engagements for the afternoon, so say on.”
He leaned his head back against the wall. It was freezing, which was a boon for the state of his pounding head. It was also damned cold, which was less pleasant for his backside, but he didn’t imagine he was in a position to complain.
“The truth is,” he admitted, “I may or may not have spirited away one of his daughters for a fortnight of pub crawling.”
She rolled her eyes. “He has daughters?”
“Several. A son or two as well, I think. Terrifying souls, all.”
“And?” she prodded.
“Are you curious about the results of too much quaffing of ale or how Papa Uachdaran reacted?”
She smiled. “I suspect there is much more to the story than a few mugs of ale.”