She fretted over that thought until she realized the sun was setting behind them. The only thing that accomplished was to leave her absolutely desperate to find somewhere relatively flat to lie down and sleep. She forced herself not to think about the man who was running to catch up with them. The last thing she suspected Acair would want was sympathy. Flattery, perhaps, or a decent glass of wine to enjoy while describing his latest piece of mischief—
“Down there,” Mansourah shouted suddenly.
She almost fell off Sianach’s back in her surprise. She took a deep breath and looked down to her right, past dragon wings that were only slightly more substantial than a fond wish.
“In the clearing,” Mansourah croaked.
She wondered if Mansourah might be delirious or if he knew where they were. She had told Sianach where they were meant to go, Mansourah had made certain the pony—er, dragon—had some idea of where that spot might be located, and she had trusted that Acair had given the naughty thing decent directions in the bargain.
“Have you ever been here?” she asked.
“Never.”
She wasn’t sure how that was meant to be useful, but she supposed the sooner they were on the ground, the better.
The truth was, something—or someone—had caught up to them a pair of hours earlier. It couldn’t have been Acair because whoever—orwhatever—it was obviously possessed enough magic to fly so hard on their heels. That she was simply noting that without shrieking was perhaps the most unsettling realization she’d had in at least a fortnight.
Sianach at least seemed to find that hint of a clearing in the forest to be a suitable place to land. Léirsinn didn’t argue with him. Instead, she closed her eyes and hoped that the damned pony wouldn’t run them into the ground.
To her surprise, he landed with a surprising amount of care, folded his wings, then dipped his head. Léirsinn didn’t bother to comment. She simply sighed, then tumbled off her mount and landed on Mansourah who had wound up sprawled atop a decent amount of snow.
She got to her knees, which seemed to be as far as her shaking limbs would take her. Sianach stretched out his neck and rested his head next to her which gave her the excuse of scratching him behind his scaly ears until she had caught her breath.
Feeling that things were likely as peaceful as they were goingto get, she ventured a look around. There was a house to her right; that much she could tell by the light streaming out the open front door. A woman who looked remarkably like a slightly younger incarnation of Cailleach of Cael stood there, apparently waiting for company to arrive.
Léirsinn left Sianach to his own devices, then helped Mansourah up into a sitting position. He cradled his arm against his gut and shivered.
“We’ve arrived,” he said.
Léirsinn didn’t dare ask any details, so she kept her hand on his back and wondered if it might leave her looking cowardly if she used him as something to hide behind.
“I understand the witchwoman of Fàs has spells at all her doorways,” he murmured, sounding as if he very much wished to avoid encountering any of them. “I suppose if I offer to share secrets of state with her, she won’t slay us.”
Léirsinn found that her mouth was suddenly quite dry and it had nothing to do with hours of, er, flying. “Do you think so?” she managed.
“I have no idea, actually,” he said. “The rumors of her magic are many and terrifying.”
“Worse than her son’s?”
He glanced at her. “I’m not sure I’m equal to comparing the two, actually, but I would say they are definitely cut from the same cloth.”
That’s what she was afraid of. “Then how do we proceed?”
“I’ll make introductions and we’ll hope for the best.”
Léirsinn wasn’t sure there was anything else to be done, so she nodded and helped Mansourah get to his feet. She hardly flinched at all as their dragon jumped up in the shape of his own surly equine self, but it had been that sort of day so far. Shepulled Mansourah’s good arm over her shoulders, then walked with him across the front yard toward a woman who was watching them with only mild interest.
Acair’s mother had no witchly wand to hand, but perhaps she didn’t need sticks to do her business with.
The resemblance to Mistress Cailleach, the fishwife she knew in Sàraichte, was uncanny. To learn that Cailleach was not the ordinary old woman selling her wares Léirsinn had believed her to be but instead a witch had been ridiculous.
That Acair’s mother was Cailleach’s niece and therefore possessed a full complement of otherworldly skills was absolutely believable.
Mansourah made the woman a low bow and almost went pitching forward onto his face for his trouble. Léirsinn hauled him back upright and steadied him. Mansourah coughed a time or two, then carefully inclined his head.
“Mistress Fionne of Fàs,” he said faintly, “if I might introduce myself—”
“No need for that, young prince of Neroche,” the woman said. “I know who you are.”
