He put his head down and decided that if he survived the night in any fashion, it would be a bloody miracle. There were, of course, several people he could blame for his current straits.
First on the list was his own mother who had given him a name and a suggestion to raid her mother’s private books which had led to his grandmother’s having given him a map that had led him to his own home. Uachdaran of Léige had furthered the misery by dropping a grandson with a terrible spell in his path, likely not simply to entertain him. And then there was the most egregious meddler of all, Soilléir of Cothromaiche, who had practically handed him the key to his grandfather’s library and invited him to come in and nose about in the man’s books.
If he’d been on his own, his extensive repertoire of terrible spells at his fingertips and no pressing supper plans on his calendar, he would have been skipping merrily off to wreak a bit of well-executed havoc.
Instead, he was, at least outside his own gates, as defenseless as a prince of Neroche in a gilded ballroom, he was continually being reduced to tears by the courage of a spectacular horsewoman, and he was endlessly being hounded by a mage who seemed to think that lurking in the shadows and attempting to look intimidating was going to convince the rest of the world he possessed any power at all.
“You think too loudly,” Léirsinn murmured.
“Do I?”
“You do,” she said. “Go to sleep, darling.”
He smiled, closed his eyes, and gave himself up for lost.
Ten
Léirsinn stood on the threshold of an unrepentant black mage’s lair and felt as if she’d wandered into a dream.
She had seen the sea before, of course, having lived within a decent walk’s distance of it, but she had never seen such a perfect stretch of it. The pale-hued sand gave way to a glorious blue-green water that she had to admit looked a bit like Acair of Ceangail’s equally lovely eyes. She could hardly believe he possessed a place so beautiful yet so rarely stayed there.
He was a mystery, that lad.
She pulled the shawl he had given her earlier more closely around herself, leaned against the doorframe, and simply breathed in the healing breeze. It was so perfectly normal, she never would have guessed in whose doorway she stood. She’d woken that morning to find him bringing the fire back to life through ordinary means. She’d told him that he hadn’t needed to, but he’d shrugged and admitted that he rarely used magic on those even rarer occasions when he was home. He hadn’t volunteered a reason for that and she hadn’t asked him.
Perhaps he too needed moments where he was simply a man going about his daily affairs without being overwhelmed by the impossible things that made up the rest of his life.
Those impossible things seemed to have become a part of her world as well, though, whether she wanted them to or not. Kings, elves, magic, mages chasing after Acair to slay him. She would have said she felt completely out of her depth, but standing there in the doorway of a house that overlooked the sea, she realized that wasn’t what she was feeling at all.
She felt…safe.
She couldn’t remember a time during the past score of years when she’d felt anything like it.
She suspected it might not last as long as she would like, but she was going to enjoy it while it did. Who knew that perhaps she wouldn’t find herself a spot like what she’d seen up the coast from the vantage point of Sianach’s back the day before. A few more coins, a bit of luck, and perhaps a man who had too much land and needed a buyer for some of it.
She wondered where she might find one of those.
She continued to stand there until even her luxurious wrap became no match for the chill. She stepped back inside, then closed the door and wondered what she was meant to do with the tassel hanging there. She had pulled on it to release the spell and open the door, but she hadn’t gone far enough outside for it to close behind her. She finally stepped away from it only to hear a spell click as surely as if it had been a proper lock.
She gave the damned thing another tug, and the spell unlocked itself just as it had before.
Perhaps Acair was right and magic did have its uses. She suppressed a shiver just the same, then turned and walked slowly back through his house.
She stopped on the threshold of his library. The doors had been pushed open and lights set all about the room at exactly the right height. A fire burned in the hearth with two inviting chairs set to either side. The walls were lined with bookshelves containing more books than she’d ever seen in the whole of her life. A table was set in front of windows on one wall, placed in just the proper spot for making use of sunshine or starlight. There were other things as well: sideboards, other chairs for reading, the odd stool standing ready to provide that extra height to reach things just beyond one’s fingertips.
It was a place created by a man who loved better things than counting his piles of gold.
The man who obviously loved books and comfort, however, looked as if he might not care about either at the moment. He was standing with his hands on his table, swearing, and looking as if he’d spent a good part of the morning dragging his hands through his hair.
She wondered if she should clear her throat to announce her presence and avoid being impaled by the pencil he was holding as if he intended to slay someone with it. He glanced at her, then straightened.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I didn’t see you.”
She smiled. “All that apologizing is going to ruin you for polite company.”
“I fear you might be right.” He tossed his pencil onto the table, looked at her, then froze. “What’s wrong?”
She walked into the middle of that beautiful room full of comfortable things and stopped, mostly because she had no idea where to start in describing where her thoughts were leading her. She could have said that she worried her grandfather would be slain before they could get to him. She also could have said that she’d spent the night dreaming about the mage who stood just behind the edges of Acair’s spell, waiting for them, and she feared there was no way to best him.
Or she could have admitted the worst thing of all which was that no matter how long she looked at the sea, she couldn’t stop wondering how she was going to spend the rest of her life with magic she had most certainly asked for but wasn’t sure she could live with running through her veins.
She rubbed her arms suddenly. “When will your fire heat up?”
“Almost immediately after you drink that brandy I’ve set on the mantel to warm for you.”
“I’m not sure I can,” she said with a shudder. “I’m not sure how you drink it.”
“So says the gel who tossed back all that whisky last evening with the enthusiasm of a Meithian princess trying to forget her last encounter with a prince of Neroche.” He walked over to the hearth, fetched her the glass that was indeed sitting on his mantel, then brought it back and handed it to her. “You’ll be warmer, at least.”