Spellweaver (47 page)

She certainly felt like it.

Ruith continued to look at Phillip. “I have a spell for you, Your Highness.”

“What sort—” Phillip licked his lips nervously. “What sort of spell, Prince Ruithneadh?”

“A spell of protection,” Ruith said quietly. “I don’t know if you have the power to use it, but you could certainly try.”

“I’ll stretch myself.”

“That might be wise.”

Sarah listened to him give Phillip the spell, watched the prince consort attempt to use it—badly—then watched Ruith nod briskly at him. He pulled his spell of un-noticing over himself again and walked swiftly toward her.

“Let’s go.”

She’d hardly gotten halfway across the chamber with him before the door burst open again and guards spilled inside.

Ruith took her by the arm—her right arm, unfortunately. She almost fainted from the pain.

“We’ll need to shapechange,” he whispered harshly.

She gaped at him. “But I cannot—”

“Trust me.”

The next thing she knew, she was running along behind him, hugging the wall and praying no one would step on her very long tail. Either Ruith had chosen their colors well, or the guards were simply too busy shouting at each other to notice two plain brown mice skittering along underfoot. Sarah found herself almost felled by the unaccustomed smells assaulting her nose alone, but she ignored them and pressed on until she and Ruith were at her door.

Guards were there, trying to get past not only the lock but Ruith’s spell he’d covered both the inside and outside of the door with. He paused so suddenly that Sarah ran up his back before she realized what she was doing.

We’ ll need to change again.
His voice whispered across her mind.

I can’t
—

We’ll try air this time
.

She was going to kill him. If she ever had hands again, she was going to find some slow, painful, unpleasant way to do him in. She tried to concentrate on that, but it was too difficult. She found herself somehow wrapped up in Ruith as he pulled her under his spell and through the doorway with him.

She regrouped—or
was
regrouped, as it were—near enough to the fire that she was a little surprised she hadn’t rolled right into it. Ruith materialized out of thin air and went sprawling half over her.

“Get off me,” she squeaked, because squeaking was all she could manage. She patted herself frantically and was very relieved to find she was herself and not something for which squeaking might come more naturally.

Ruith conjured up a cloak and pulled it over her, sending sparks flying. He looked down at her, his eyes full of wildness. It was mageish delight at becoming something he wasn’t, no doubt.

“I have to go,” he said, sounding a little breathless. “I’ll be outside before they manage to get through my spell. Feign ignorance.”

She had every intention of doing just that. She looked up at him. “I think I’m going to be ill.”

“Puke on Morag.”

“You, sir, have absolutely no compassion for the unmagical.”

He bent his head, kissed her cheek—rather near her mouth, actually—then pulled away. She caught him before he could get to his feet.

“Don’t ever do that again, damn you,” she warned. “You turned me into a mouse!”

He smiled at her. “And the breath of air?”

“I still feel scattered.”

“I understand, believe me,” he said with a bit of a laugh. He pushed himself to his feet. “Hold them off as long as you can.”

And with that, he disappeared.

She cursed him again but had to clap her hand over her mouth. She lay on the floor, feeling truly very ill, and listened to the pounding on the door continue.

“Coming,” she called weakly.

There was a sudden silence. Sarah knew without being told that Morag was now standing just outside the door. She could only imagine the terrible spells that would accompany the woman. She had no way of knowing where Ruith was, how he would get himself on the other side of the door, or what he would do when Morag realized he had his father’s spells stuck, as usual, down the sides of his boots.

She decided it was better to meet the storm on her feet, as it were, so she heaved herself up—and almost into the fire. She clung to a chair until a violent wave of nausea passed, then staggered over to the door.

“Open this door,” came the voice that cut through the wood and spells as if they hadn’t been there.

Sarah shuddered. She was frankly terrified to stand alone—for however long that might be—against a woman so ruthless as to take a child and order her to be killed—

That was something she was going to have to come to terms with, she suspected, very soon.

She put her hands on the door to hold herself up, then suddenly found herself stumbling backward. Morag towered over her as if she’d been a thundercloud, accompanied by a dozen spells Sarah could see surrounding her and half out of her mouth. It was one of the single most horrifying things she’d ever seen, and that included what she’d been witness to at Ceangail.

She realized abruptly that she was going to be ill.

So she did the first sensible thing she’d done in a fortnight.

She took Ruith’s advice and sicked up her supper on the queen.

Twenty-five

Ruith put himself between Sarah and the queen as Morag let her hand fly. She caught him full across the face, which troubled him not at all. It was rather bracing, actually, and cleared his head of the last of the shapechanging magic. He backed up a pace, only because he wanted more room to fight, if necessary.

“Where did you come from?” Morag spat.

Ruith pointed toward the passageway. “There. I believe I knocked over a pair of your guardsmen on my way in.”

The truth was lying there in a heap, struggling to get back to their individual feet. Morag spun back to glare at him.

“Where have you been?”

Ruith raised his eyebrows and put on his grandfather’s best none-of-your-bloody-business look. Morag was—predictably—unimpressed, but he didn’t dare give her any ground.

“I was trying to rest,” he said haughtily, “when I was disturbed by what sounded like the castle falling down around my ears. Knowing that couldn’t possibly be the case given the perfect condition of your hall, I thought perhaps there had been an assault of some sort. How disappointing to find it was only your guardsmen disturbing my lady’s rest.”

“Your
lady
,” Morag said, her words dripping with disdain. “You are as foolish as Athair of Cothromaiche, to look so far beneath you.”

“Am I?” Ruith said coldly. “Then perhaps I should take care to make certain I don’t suffer his same fate.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Morag blustered. She tried to push past him, then glared at him when he wouldn’t move. “I want to look in this chamber for something I believe was stolen from me.”

“Are you accusing my lady of stealing?” Ruith asked sharply.

“Nay, I’m accusing you,” Morag said without hesitation. “And unless you want me to kill you where you stand, you’ll step aside and allow me my look.”

Ruith held her gaze for a handful of long, highly charged moments before he pulled Sarah behind him and stepped aside, waving the queen into the chamber with an expansive, mocking gesture. The woman’s gown was still soiled from Sarah’s efforts, but she seemed to have forgotten that in her fury to find what she thought had been taken from her.

He could only hope she wouldn’t look down his boot.

The queen was thorough, he would give her that. She delved into every cranny, every drawer, under the bed, behind the tapestries. She found nothing save Sarah’s pack—Ruith had hidden his on a quickly made hook he’d driven into the ceiling—which she emptied out onto the bed. She reached out to touch the statue of the horse, but pulled back in revulsion at something she apparently saw there.

Ruith didn’t want to know what that might have been, but he was quietly very thankful for a horse who apparently could still be useful even cast as he was in very fine marble.

“What rubbish,” she said stiffly. She turned and swept toward the door. “Your gel there is nothing but a common strumpet.”

Ruith gritted his teeth. “Your Majesty, you are obviously overwrought by your loss, but that hardly excuses the discourtesies you’ve favored us with. I will not tolerate any more slurs directed toward my lady.”

“And just what are you going to do about it?” Morag asked mockingly. “Intimidate me with your pitiful magic?”

“Tell tales on the Council of Kings?” he returned before he could stop himself.

Morag’s fury was truly impressive. She looked at him as if he’d been a bug she intended to crush under her shoe, then turned and swept from the chamber. Before Ruith could open his mouth to ask her what her intentions were, the door had slammed shut and the entire chamber had been enveloped in a spell of containment that he could tell immediately was going to be difficult to break through.

Nay, not difficult.

Impossible.

It only took one attempt to slice through the spell with his own magic to tell him that. He dragged his hand through his hair, then turned and pulled Sarah into his arms. She didn’t seem at all opposed to it, nor did she protest when he set her down in a chair, spelled the vile water she’d been left with into something drinkable, then handed her a cup so she could wash out her mouth. She handed it back to him, then looked up at him blearily.

“You told me to puke on her.”

He laughed, pulled her out of the chair, then sat down and drew her onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and leaned his head back against the wood.

“You did a credible job of it, love.”

She let out a shuddering sigh. “Are we trapped?”

“For the moment,” he said dismissively. “We’ll escape soon enough.”

She fell silent. Indeed, he would have thought she had fallen into an uneasy sleep if it hadn’t been for her hand that occasionally trembled as it rested upon his chest. “Ruith?” she said finally.

“Aye, my love.”

“What is a dreamweaver?”

He’d wondered how long it would take her to ask. He had to take a deep breath before he trusted himself to answer. “I’m afraid I know next to nothing about them and what bits I do know may not be terribly accurate.”

“Are you finished with your caveats?”

He might have taken her words personally, but he could feel her fighting something. Sobs, most likely. Sobs, he imagined, that didn’t come from fear of being locked in their chamber for the rest of her days.

“Very well, this is what I know,” he said, reaching up to drag his fingers through her hair. “They aren’t mortal, nor are they elvish. They are who they are, souls that move in and out of dreams at will. I’ve
heard
—which is rumor only—that not only are they able to weave anything into cloth, they spend a great deal of their time stringing the looms of the world with their dreams and using our destinies as their weft threads. Unbeknownst to we poor fools who think we’re in charge of our lives.”

“You can’t be serious.”

He shrugged. “I’m repeating rumor. Now, if you want to know about Cothromaichian history, I can tell you about a bit of that with better accuracy.”

“Because of Soilléir?” she asked quietly.

“Well, I always have admired him,” Ruith admitted with a smile, “and my mother was terribly fond of him even if my grandfather wasn’t.” He paused. “I think perhaps we might find a few more of their tales in that last little book Soilléir gave you.”

She shook her head sharply. “Not today.”

He wasn’t going to push her. He simply nodded, then continued to stroke her hair. He covered her left hand with his own and closed his eyes, feeling remarkably peaceful, considering the circumstances.

“Will we escape?” she asked.

“I’m working on it.”

“And here I thought you were snoozing.”

He smiled. “Just enjoying a brief respite with you in my arms.” He pressed his lips against her forehead, then pulled away before she could hit him.

Though she didn’t seem particularly inclined to do so.

He closed his eyes again and considered their tangle. They had horses—if they could get to them—and magic—even if it might not surmount Morag’s spells. He considered half a dozen things he could throw at anyone who dared come through the door.

And then he realized, quite suddenly, that things coming through the door wasn’t what he had to worry about.

The chamber was contracting.

It was almost imperceptible, which was likely why he hadn’t noticed it at first. He looked up at the ceiling and watched with a goodly bit of alarm as it crept downward.

“Ruith?”

“Just thinking,” he said, forcing himself to sound calm. “About our leisurely escape.”

“Will Morag let us go?” she asked. “In truth?”