“I didn’t ask,” she said. “I didn’t know there was a difference in, ah, you know—”
“There is,” the king said. “I imagine your lad behind us could discover the truth of it given how he’s forever turning over rocks he should leave alone simply to see what’s under them.” He snorted. “What I would like a peek at is what’s running through his veins.”
“Mine, Your Majesty?” Acair asked politely.
The king swore at him. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Léirsinn didn’t want to ask, but the question was out of her mouth before she could stop it. “It is elven magic?”
“To Ehrne of Ainneamh’s everlasting disgust, aye no doubt, but that is the least of it.” He sent Acair a calculating look over his shoulder, then looked back at her. “What comes from the land of Fàs is terrifying and shrouded in secrecy, which I’ll admit is just how Cruihniche likes it. If that lad there had any idea what he could claim from his mother’s side rather than Gair’s, none of us would be sleeping well at night.”
“Perhaps it’s best he doesn’t know then,” she offered.
“Perhaps,” the king agreed, “though I daresay he’ll find out sooner than any of us is comfortable with. But until that terrible day, it seems as though the task of keeping him alive falls to you. Best to put a saddle on your magic and take it out for a trot this morning.”
“While I appreciate the thought, Your Majesty,” she said, making one last effort to spare herself, “I don’t think—”
“Exactly,” Uachdaran said, not unkindly. “That’s half the trick of it, gel. If you think, the moment will pass and your lover there will be dead. Not that I would suffer any pangs of regret over that, of course, but you might.”
“I feel a bit of a fever,” she protested. “Perhaps even upset in my innards.”
The king lifted an eyebrow. “No magic is wrought without a price, Mistress Léirsinn. There are times that price is very dear, indeed.”
“You don’t, if I might be so bold, look to pay any price,” she said, because the idea that not only having magic but using it might be what finished her off had never occurred to her.
Uachdaran shrugged. “I’ve been doing it for so many years I don’t notice weariness. I am also master here and Durial is an endless source of unyielding strength. You have only yourself to use, so be prepared for a bit of weariness.”
She took a deep breath, but that did nothing to settle both the unease she felt and the unusual lethargy even using that simple spell had left her with.
“Food,” the king suggested, “then take that bastard downstairs and see what you can learn. I’ll do him the very great favor of keeping his spell busy for a bit. For your sake and the world’s.” He reached out and patted her on the arm. “You’ll have to master at least the rudiments of it, my gel. Magic can be beautiful, brutal, and damned terrifying, but it is useful. Think of all that grain you won’t have to sweep.”
“I have stable hands for that,” she said weakly.
The king only smiled and nodded toward the door.
An hour later as she stood in the king’s cavernous exercise chamber, she wished she’d kicked up more of a fuss. She was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Acair, looking at a pile of wood twenty paces in front of her and wondering if it might be too late to simply bolt for the door.
“I can outrun you.”
She glared at him. “I doubt that, and stop peering into my head.”
“You’re not very good at hiding your thoughts,” he said. “And for the record, I won’t force you to do this. I would have advised against—” He blew out his breath. “Never mind.”
She viciously suppressed the urge to wrap her arms around herself. “I don’t understand how any of this works.”
He put his arm around her shoulders and smiled. “Despite what most workers of the stuff would have you believe, there isn’t much to it. You repeat the words of a spell, they’ll rummage about in your veins for a bit of power to take to themselves, and there you have it.”
“Rubbish,” she said.
“It certainly seems like it at times,” he agreed, “but as the king said: useful. I suppose before we get to the work of the afternoon, I should see if the king is as good as his word.” He stepped away, then spoke a handful of words and opened his hand.
A ball of light appeared there as if by…
She blew out her breath as Acair closed his hand and the light disappeared. He turned and faced the door grimly, looking as if he fully expected a spell to come tearing through the wood and slay him. After a moment or two, he turned to her and shrugged.
“Still breathing.”
“Thankfully.”
He smiled and stepped back to stand next to her. “Let’s carry on, then.” He gestured toward the pile of kindling. “There’s your intended.”
She looked up at him. “I’m not sure that’s the lad for me.”
“Well, if you want my opinion on the matter,” he said slowly, “the spell that gives you the most trouble is always a good place to start.”
“Or I could try to work up to it with other things,” she said. “Like a small pony before a feisty stallion.”
“True, but these aren’t horses.”
She reached for something else reasonable to say, then realized with a start that perhaps there was nothing simpler than the spell he’d given her.
She turned and walked away because she thought better when she was moving, not because she wanted to escape. It took her one entire turn about the bloody chamber before she could force herself to stop next to a man who had likely made fire before he’d been able to walk. She wanted to glare at him, but all she could do was look at him and hope her expression wasn’t as bleak as she felt.
“This is the simplest thing, isn’t it?” she asked reluctantly.
He started to speak, then sighed. “It is the first thing I learned from my mother.”
“How old were you?”
“Old enough to have a pressing need to set my eldest brother’s trousers afire.”
She wasn’t accustomed to bursting into tears, but she was closer to it than she thought she might have been since that first night in her uncle’s barn when she’d realized at the tender age of eleven what the rest of her life would look like.
He closed his eyes briefly, then carefully reached out and gathered her to him.