Spellweaver (10 page)

Soilléir studied her for a moment or two, then moved to kneel down by the low cot on the floor. He took her hand that lay atop the blankets in his, then ran his fingers over it gently. He took a deep breath, sighed it out, then wove a simple spell of Camanaë over her skin. The words hung in the air, then dissipated, leaving behind the scent of clean, wholesome herbs that refreshed in a way that eased Ruith as well. The angry red disappeared from the lines that wrapped themselves around her arm like vines, but the black remained.

Soilléir frowned, then looked up at Ruith. “That’s odd.”

“Very,” Ruith agreed.

Soilléir put his fingers on several of the lines and wove a more complicated spell. Ruith wasn’t familiar with it—though he memorized it immediately, out of habit. He supposed it was a spell of Caochladh and was faintly surprised that Soilléir had used it aloud.

The lines faded, but they didn’t disappear.

Soilléir sat back on his heels for a moment or two, then rose and resumed his seat in his chair. “That sprang up from your father’s spell of Diminishing, did it?”

“Aye. Half of it, at any rate.”

“That, my lad, is a mystery there. Simple healing will not work, nor will attempting to change the essence of what’s left buried in her flesh.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Let me see your arm.”

Ruith pushed his sleeve up and held out his arm. He could see nothing, but when Soilléir traced trails on his skin, similar vine-like marks flashed silver. They remained for a moment or two, remained remarkably painful for just as long, then faded to nothing.

“Interesting.” Soilléir sat back in his chair and stared into his fire for quite some time before he looked at Ruith. “Memorized that spell I used, did you?”

“You shouldn’t have spoken it aloud,” Ruith said placidly.

“I should have checked your pockets for poached rings of mastery on your way in before I blurted it out, I suppose.”

Ruith pursed his lips. “I don’t want them.”

“Not even for a chance to have all my spells?”

“Not even for that, my lord.”

Soilléir studied him for a moment or two in silence. “Could you earn them, do you think?”

Ruith shrugged, though now found that the question felt a bit more serious than it had when Sarah had asked it. “I’ve spent twenty winters in a place with a library that, for all its remote location, rivals what you have downstairs—”

“And you would know, given all the time you spent in the bowels of this keep, looking for obscure spells,” Soilléir conceded.

“I would,” Ruith agreed. “So, without being a braggart, I can say that I think I am familiar enough with lore and craft to satisfy the masters below.”

“And your collection of memorized spells no doubt rivals Miach of Neroche’s,” Soilléir agreed.

“Since we appropriated many of the same things together, I suppose that might be true.”

Soilléir studied him for several minutes in silence. “But you didn’t come here for rings.”

Ruith suppressed the urge to shift uncomfortably. Nay, he hadn’t come there for rings, but the truth of it was, what he had come to Beinn òrain for was something he couldn’t even begin to admit to himself.

Because if he did, it meant a change in his life that would leave him never being able to retreat to that safe, fairly comfortable, undeniably isolated house on the mountain where all he needed do to carry on was worry about what he would have for supper.

“I came here for safety,” he said, when he realized he hadn’t responded.

“You could have provided that for yourself.”

Ruith opened his mouth to protest, but found he couldn’t. He drew his hand over his eyes, then looked at Soilléir.

“I don’t want to continue this conversation.”

Soilléir only raised one pale eyebrow.

Ruith looked at him evenly. “It is, as I said, the only safe place I could bring to mind on short notice.”

“Not all magic is evil, you know. Your legacy is more than your father’s spells, which Sìle would tell you, were he here.”

“Fadaire is smothered by Olc more often than not,” Ruith said.

“If you believe that, Ruithneadh, then you do not give your mother’s power its due. However, if you fear losing control of yourself and undoing the world with your mighty power, then I can understand your reticence.” Soilléir smiled pleasantly. “You always were a hotheaded, impetuous boy.”

“I have outgrown whatever you think you imagined in me,” Ruith said with a snort. “And I was never hotheaded.”

“Then what have you to fear?”

Ruith found himself standing in the midst of a trap he hadn’t realized he was walking into. Obviously he had been out of the world too long. He didn’t waste time answering, for there was no answer that satisfied. Soilléir only looked at him, but said nothing. Ruith didn’t bother to wonder if he agreed or disagreed. With Soilléir, one just never knew.

“And you know, all this could have been Fate,” Soilléir continued with a shrug, “shoving you in a direction you needed to take for reasons you have yet to discover, reasons we’ll look at later.” He dropped his booted foot to the floor and put his hands on his knees. “I don’t think your lady will want a midnight supper, but you might. Then you can toddle off to bed and curse yourself to sleep.”

Ruith cursed him just the same, but it was without any true malice. He would admit, almost readily, that he had always rather liked Soilléir of Cothromaiche. If he were to be entirely truthful with himself, he would have to admit that more than once he had wished his mother had wed the man instead of Gair of Ceangail. He had come with his mother to Buidseachd several times and found Soilléir’s chambers to be where he felt most comfortable. No pretentious trappings of nobility, though he knew Soilléir’s lineage was a noble one. His forefathers, many of whom Ruith assumed were still alive, were content like Hearn of Angesand to simply tromp about in their boots, doing whatever it was those lads from Cothromaiche did. Weaving spells that truly would have undone the world if they’d gone awry, no doubt.

Yet Soilléir had chosen none of those things for himself. He could have walked down any street in any large city in the Nine Kingdoms and passed himself off as a youthful, not hideous-looking man of no especial distinction. Not even those with any powers of seeing would have recognized him as the keeper of the spells of Caochladh, had Soilléir not revealed himself as such.

But there was no reason Ruith couldn’t glare at him a bit, just to make himself feel better.

“And perhaps you would indulge me in a game of chess after supper,” Soilléir suggested, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

Ruith looked at him sharply. “What sort of chess?”

“With pieces fashioned from marble,” Soilléir answered, looking at him with wide, innocent eyes. “Is there any other kind?”

They’d played chess often enough in the past, but the pieces had been ones fashioned out of their imagination, leading to glorious battles on a board that had continually expanded to suit their needs, often growing to cover a sizeable block of Soilléir’s floor.

“Don’t corner me, my lord,” Ruith warned.

“I don’t corner,” Soilléir said cheerfully. “I nudge.”

“Aye, like a battering ram.”

Soilléir laughed and rose. “I’ll go fetch supper, then we’ll play. You should put another blanket over your lady, for she shivers.” He paused. “Her dreams are unpleasant ones.”

“Of me, no doubt.”

“Actually, Ruith, I think you might be right.”

Ruith cursed him, but had only a faint smile in return. Nay, he didn’t care for the nudging, though he was no fool. He couldn’t remain in Buidseachd forever, nor had he intended to. But what galled him the most was that he’d needed refuge in the first place.

He stood with his hand on Soilléir’s mantel, looking down into the fire. There, in front of him, was the vision he’d had in the mountains of Shettlestoune, the vision of that river of Fadaire, laughing and singing as it tripped over rocks and rills and cascaded around his feet. As beautiful as that had been, the truth was, the bedrock of that river had been Olc and Lugham and half a dozen other dark magics his father had taken and blackened with his own twisted powers.

And Ruith wanted nothing to do with any of them.

And if that meant that his own powers would remain buried for the next several millennia, perhaps that was for the best. He would figure out, sooner rather than later, just how he intended to keep Sarah safe from what hunted them with just his steel.

He supposed that might take a while.

He fetched a blanket, draped it over Sarah, then stared down at her by the light of the fire for several minutes in silence. He looked about him, then sighed. It was surprisingly lovely to be in a place where he was known, where his past lay layered with pleasant memories, where he was known by someone who entertained the odd, kind thought about him.

And that was something he supposed Sarah had never enjoyed.

He wished, quite suddenly, that he could provide her with that.

“Ruith?”

He looked up and nodded at Soilléir, then reached down to brush Sarah’s hair back from her face before he went to help Soilléir bring a table over in front of the fire for supper.

He would eat, satisfy Soilléir with a game of chess, then have a decent night’s sleep for a change. And then on the morrow, he would decide how it was he was going to carry on with the rest of his life.

All he knew was that magic wouldn’t be a part of it.

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.