What was the world coming to when a spindly fingered spell of death couldn’t be bothered to hop to its feet and be about its business? It was insulting—
And that, he supposed, was going to be the last useless thought he was going to be thinking for quite some time.
Regardless of whatever else he might have been, Uachdaran of Léige was a first-rate mage. Acair wished desperately for the ability to divide himself in two so that one of him might engage in a friendly duel with the king whilst the other could take copious notes of every spell used. There was hardly time to admire the king’s offerings and memorize them properly before he was forced to answer back with spells of his own.
The king’s hoard was a veritable symphony of sharp things: painful, relentless, unforgiving. One spell was hardly sent off to do its worst before half a dozen others took shape, each seeking out the perfect spot guaranteed to inflict the most damage. Acair found himself stretching for things he didn’t normally use merely to keep the king at bay. Some prissy elven princeling couldn’t have fared better, surely.
Even with as exhausted as he still was, the pleasure of having his magic once again within reach was greater than he’d thought it would be. What was even better was the opportunity to, as his mother would have said, get his hands dirty.
Spells were exchanged, insults were hurled, and threats breathed out with enthusiasm. He was fairly certain the king might have smiled once, but it had been a feral thing that would have sent shivers down his spine if he’d had the energy for it. He thought he personally might have laughed at least twice.
It was also possible, he supposed, that he might have lost his temper at one point and sent a spell slithering the king’s way that was rather beyond the pale. Even the king lifted an eyebrow over it before he ground it under his heel. Acair glanced to his right and made his greatest mistake of the evening.
Léirsinn was watching him, her face white.
He dropped his rather vulgar if not perfectly impenetrable spell of protection in embarrassment and almost died as a result.
The king hurled a piece of magic at him that slammed into him so hard, he thought his soul might have been knocked out of his admittedly weary form. He went flying, landed flat on his back, then slid across a floor that wasn’t nearly as smooth as he would have expected it to be given whose floor it was. He came to a stop with his head against the toes of Léirsinn’s boots, looked up at her, and wondered if the present moment—the one where he was likely not going to draw in all that many more breaths—might be the proper one for a maudlin sentiment.
“I love you,” he said, because it was the best he could do on short notice and, truthfully, he thought he might not have another opportunity to lay bare his tender heart.
Her mouth fell open. “You’re daft.”
“The king is going to kill me,” he said. “I’m sure of it, horse or no horse. I thought you should know how I feel before he kicks me like a piece of refuse off toward the East.”
She gestured quickly toward the middle of the chamber. “He’s coming to perhaps do just that.”
Acair lifted his head to find the king standing at his feet, holding out his hand. He wasn’t entirely sure the man wasn’t hiding a clutch of nettles up his sleeve for use at just such an advantageous moment, but clasped the king’s hand just the same. He was hauled to his feet without much care.
“Ah, look who has come to watch,” Uachdaran said. “Perhaps you know my grandson.”
Acair uncrossed his eyes long enough to find none other than Aonarach of Durial standing just inside the door looking terribly unconcerned about the possibility of being slain by a spell gone astray. He knew the lad, of course, and had seen him loitering uselessly in various locales, looking discontented and dangerous. There were rumors linking him to dark deeds, but who had time to keep up with the ins and outs of dwarvish palace intrigue?
Well, he did when it suited him, though his reward for having indulged in the same during a previous visit to Durial had been a princess-wielded chair against the side of his head.
“Aonarach, see what you can do to him,” the king said with an off-handed wave. “Just short of slaying him, of course.”
“If you like, Grandfather.”
Acair would have pointed out that no one had asked his opinion on anything, but he imagined that would have been a waste of breath. He also would have liked a quiet moment with Léirsinn to at least apologize for what she’d seen, but perhaps there was no point there either. He was who he was. No number of apologies would change that.
And at the moment, his main concern was keeping himself alive. Aonarach had obviously learned his manners from his grandfather. Acair supposed the only reason he hadn’t been again flung against an unyielding wall was because he had been prepared for just that. He put his focus where it needed to be and contented himself with the thought of taking a bit of exercise with someone who didn’t have the power to order his death for hurt feelings.
He suspected that in hindsight, he would count that as the moment when his stay in Léige truly went south.
After that initial bit of bad form on Aonarach’s part, the duel carried on in the normal way. Acair hadn’t expected anything terribly exciting from one of Uachdaran’s lesser progeny and he wasn’t disappointed.
What he hadn’t anticipated, however, was a long-fingered bit of magic that reached out toward him, freezing him in place, stretching into the very essence of him—
“Where in blazes did you find that?” the king demanded.
The spell simply vanished as if it hadn’t been there. Acair leaned over with his hands on his knees and fought not to lose his supper right there. He sucked in desperately needed breaths for a moment or two, then heaved himself upright, fully expecting to find the king striding out to chastise his grandson. But Uachdaran wasn’t watching Aonarach, nor was he wearing an expression of fury.
Acair found that the king was watching him without any expression at all.
“That spell, Grandfather?” Aonarach asked mildly. “I can’t remember exactly. I overheard someone using it recently, but I seem to have missed the final few words.”
“Daft child, have you learned nothing from watching this bastard’s father?” Uachdaran asked.
“Aye, what not to do if one wants the ultimate prize.”
Acair folded his arms very deliberately over his chest and looked at the king’s grandson as if he’d been a butler who had just spilled a bit of wine on his best shirt. What he wanted to do was gape at the fool and demand to know where he had found a spell that was uncomfortably similar to the one Cruihniche of Fàs had written in Léirsinn’s book.
Where in the hell had the lad come by that?
“This is an outrage,” the king said. “But outrages are best left for daytime, I always say. We’ll discuss this tomorrow after breakfast.”