He didn’t need to. She’d been caught on the way to the stables that morning by his cousins, women who had seemingly felt compelled to fill her ears full of Acair’s conquests. One of the twins, she wasn’t sure which, had been very clear that he traveled in circles so far above their own social station that they couldn’t say for certain but suspected he had toppled more than just thrones.
Léirsinn wouldn’t have been at all surprised.
He dusted the snow off a stone bench pushed up against the house, then invited her to sit. He collapsed next to her and groaned.
“I’ve done all I can to this damned nest of hers,” he said, shaking his head. “If she poisons me, it will be a mercy. And don’t look at me that way. I will absolutelynotadmit to anything that might paint me in an unflattering light.”
She smiled, because he was absolutely incorrigible. “Do you ever have to use threats,” she asked, “or do you just charm your victims?”
He drew his hand over his eyes. “Ye gads, self-reflection,” he said with a shiver. “The places you’ve forced me to go, woman.”
She watched him watch her with eyes she suspected had seen far more things than he would ever admit to. They were beautiful eyes, though, she had to concede.
He looked at her, sighed, then shook his head. “I have lived a long, indulgent life full of things I might regret and many other things I don’t regret in the slightest. My lack of contrition over any of it is what keeps me heart protected, oy, as my mother would say. But since we’re sharing secrets—”
“Are we?”
He shot her a look that made her smile. “We are,” he said distinctly. “And given that such is the case, perhaps ’tis time you told me what happened to you in young Miach’s garden.”
“I deserve this,” she said grimly. She looked over his mother’s snow-covered ground for a bit before she turned to him. “I saw... things.”
“More than just pools of shadow and my superior swordplay?”
“Your swordplay was spectacular,” she agreed, “and I thought you fared very well against Prince Rigaud, who definitely looked as if he would have liked to have slain you. He is very powerful.”
He went very still. “Why do I suspect you’re not talking about his abilities with a blade?”
“BecauseIsuspect you have a very suspicious nature which is no doubt what keeps you alive,” she said without hesitation. “And aye, I saw more than I bargained for. I stepped in that shadow that I hadn’t seen—”
“Itwasthe middle of the night,” he said.
“Or close to it,” she agreed. She took a deep breath. “I don’t think I want to think too long about what it did to me.” She paused. “I’m not sure what itdiddo to me, but I could see Prince Rigaud’s magic.”
“What did you see of me?”
She blinked in surprise. “You’ve finished hearing about him?”
“Rigaud of Neroche is an ass who careens from one fashion disaster to another, apparently unable to find a polished looking glass,” Acair said without hesitation. “I’m far more interested in all the lovely things you’ll say about me.”
She would have thought he had begun to take himself just a bit too seriously, but he had taken her hand in both his own and was stroking the back of it in much the same way she would have soothed a frightened pony.
She strove to match his light tone. “Your ruthlessness was terrifying.”
“And all is right with the world,” he said in satisfaction. “What else?”
“I’ve forgotten,” she lied.
He looked a bit startled. “Is my power failing? Am I rusting from the innards out?”
“Nay, you seemed to be in perfectly foul condition, but what do I know? Now, if you had thrush, I might be able to discuss that with you for hours on end.”
He shot her a disgruntled look, which she appreciated. He obviously knew she wasn’t telling him the entire tale, but he didn’t press her and she didn’t volunteer anything. She wasn’t going to be responsible for sending him in a direction he might regret. If he didn’t already realize what was hiding in his own soul, she would have been surprised.
“I think my feet are fine,” he said slowly, “but I thank you for the consideration. As long as my power seemed to be not leaching out of me, I’m content.”
She nodded, then looked at her hand in his for longer than perhaps she needed to. It was better that than remembering how he had looked in the garden at Tor Neroche, standing there in all his terrible, undeniable power.
She was no coward, however, and she couldn’t put off any longer facing the things she needed to. If that meant acknowledging things that made her uncomfortable, so be it. “Doyousee?” she asked him.
