She closed her eyes briefly. “I’m not sure I have much of a choice. I know what you think already and I’ve made my peace with it, but I will say a final time that Acair of Ceangail has a horrible reputation.”
“He’s not exactly able to do anything to augment that reputation at the moment, as you well know.”
“How is that better?” she asked sharply. “At least with his magic, he could keep his companions safe.”
The man considered for a moment or two. His sight was, hewas the first to admit, sometimes a bit too clear to allow him to sleep easily at night, but, as he told himself more often than he liked, if there were no evil in the world, what would there be for good men to do?
He suppressed the impulse to shift at the memories of all the looks he’d had in return for stating that truth, looks ranging from incredulity to fury.
He let out his breath slowly. “He is a mage of terrible power,” he conceded, “and questionable morals—”
“Wonderful!” she exclaimed, throwing up her hands in frustration. “Again, how is this better?”
“Because he’s also damned clever,” he offered. “He would also be the first to admit that keeping himself alive tops his list of things to do each day. I believe that enthusiasm for continuing to breathe extends to his traveling companions.” He paused. “Well, perhaps not as far as to that prince of Neroche who travels with them, but to the woman he’s obviously fond of? Aye, he’ll keep her safe enough.”
She looked at him seriously. “He would do better with his magic.”
“Which he cannot use, for reasons you understand very well.”
She cursed him as she pulled on gloves, then cursed a bit more as one of her fingers went through the wool. She looked at him sharply.
“Don’t fix that.”
“I hadn’t intended to, actually—” He closed his mouth for the simple reason that he thought she might pull the dagger from her boot and stab him if he didn’t.
“You have no bloody idea how tempting it is to seek out any of the women you’re favoring with your attentions and warn them about you.”
He smiled briefly. “My own reputation already does that, I fear.”
“Then you have sympathy for that black mage wandering off toward Eòlas without anything but his wits to keep his company safe.”
“More than I’ll admit to.”
She pulled her hood up over her head. “I’ve been away too long. I don’t want to be missed.” She took a step or two away, then paused and turned toward him a final time. “Anything to add?”
“I have said too much.”
“You haven’t saidanything.”
That wasn’t true and she knew it, but, as he’d reminded himself earlier, he’d had no choice but to speak more than he’d wanted to and interfere more than he’d been comfortable with. In the previous month alone, he’d sent a black mage off on a noble quest, handed that mage a rune to use to summon him if aid was required, and put the finishing touches on a scheme he’d been reluctantly considering for two decades. The only way he comforted himself over any of it was reminding himself—he’d lost count of how often—that occasionally there were circumstances that required a bit of judicious meddling.
His companion had vanished into the night in a thoroughly unmagical fashion, following after that trio who had also decamped in the same manner, leaving him to either stand there and freeze or build himself a fire by thoroughly magical means. That was possible, of course, but unwise, and he was not unwise.
That he had to stand there for a moment or two and remind himself of that was more unsettling than it should have been, but it had been that sort of autumn so far. Winter was sweeping over the Nine Kingdoms with a fury, which he supposed wasn’t goingto help matters any, but there were things even he couldn’t bring himself to change.
He cast a final glance in the direction of those who held the fate of the world in their unknowing hands, then turned and vanished into the bitter pre-dawnair.
One
Horses. Grain. Manure. Those were useful, reliable things a woman with any amount of good sense chose to fill her life with. Anything of a more untoward or unnerving nature was obviously something that same sort of woman should avoid like a pile of mouldy oats.
Léirsinn of Sàraichte stood in the shadows of a rather disreputable-looking pub, shivered, and made a valiant effort to focus on those things that had made up so much of her life so far. Horses were majestic creatures, grain kept them happy, and cleaning up after them was the price she’d paid for the joy of riding on their backs. It was a simple, predictable circle that had given purpose and meaning to her days. How she had strayed so far from such a pedestrian life, she couldn’t say—
She sighed and stopped herself from even finishing that thought. She knew exactly how she’d come to be where she wasand how barn work had led her to such a terrible place. It wasn’t something she particularly wanted to think about, but she was trapped where she was for the moment and she needed something to help her pass the time. It seemed like the least dangerous of the things she could be doing, so she made herself more comfortable against the outside of the pub and allowed her thoughts to wander.
They wandered without much effort to the moment when her life had become something so thoroughly not what she’d been accustomed to. There she’d been, innocently going about her chores as usual, when a man had arrived at her uncle’s barn looking for work. What she should have done was take away the pitchfork he quite obviously had never used and shown him the quickest way out of the barn.
Instead, she’d stared just a bit too long at his truly spectacular visage and apparently lost all her wits. Not only had she allowed him to remain in her uncle’s stables attempting work he was singularly unqualified to do, she had listened to him long enough to be convinced that her uncle wanted her dead and her only hope was to flee. She had somehow lost her grip on good sense and traded the three things she knew best for other, less comfortable things such as mages, magic, and mythical beasts.
