“What is it?” she asked.
He simply shook his head and drew her into his embrace. “Nothing,” he said hoarsely. “Nothing at all.” He pulled away. “We’d best continue on our way. Soilléir likely distracted that mage only to the count of a hundred before he lost interest and wandered off to the nearest pub.”
She imagined that wasn’t the case, but she didn’t want to linger in the area to find out. “A safe haven would be useful,” she offered. “So you could show me what I need to know, if it weren’t so utterly ridiculous to think I might be able to, well, you know.”
He smiled, pained. “I do know, darling. We’ll find somewhere, right after I nip in and out of Léige.”
“Didn’t you just say that was the last place you wanted to go?”
“It still is, which is why we won’t be making a lengthy visit. In and out with as little notice as possible. We’ll find a safe haven down the road.”
She couldn’t argue with that. She listened to him call for his horse, then prepared herself for another journey much farther off the ground than she wanted to be.
•••
There was something, she had to admit after a night spent flying on the back of a marginally well-behaved dragon, about conceding that the world was full of things she hadn’t known existed before.
Barn work was a sturdy, reliable bit of business that had shaped her days and given meaning to her life. She had relished the chance to ride glorious horses and, for the most part, avoid the doings of men much loftier than she was herself. Her life had been simple, predictable, and ordinary.
Then she’d watched Acair of Ceangail fumble with a pitchfork and known instinctively that her life would never be the same.
She had seen elves and kings and runes that sparkled with a light of their own. She’d survived a night or two in a witch’s Lesser Parlor and slept uneasily on the back of a horse who had turned himself into something just slightly more substantial than a gust of wind. She had seen things that shouldn’t have been there, but had been in spite of anything she thought.
She had set trees on fire with magic that had been dropped into her veins like a plague.
She still wasn’t entirely certain how she felt about the latter, or if she even believed it. She had set trees on fire thanks to repeating words given to her, but that could have just as easily been something Soilléir had done to make sport of her.
With all she’d seen, she had to admit that she was as she’d been before.
Skeptical.
She turned her head and rested her cheek against Acair’s back, primarily to block out the wind, but partly because it was comforting. She looked at the spell she could see hanging over them like a fine mist. It was something Soilléir had done, that much she knew. Un-noticing, she thought he had called it.
“I think we should land,” Acair said, shouting over the wind. “I might fall out of the saddle, else.”
She had no reason to disagree, so she patted his shoulder in answer, then held on as Sianach did a respectable job getting them out of the sky and onto a decent-looking road. She clambered off his back and had to stand there for a bit before she thought her legs would work as they should.
“Where are we, do you think?”
“Hopefully outside the king’s border,” he said wearily. “I think Soilléir’s spell will provide enough anonymity that we might cross through the land without worry. The place is bloody cold, but we’re dressed well enough for it. Let’s walk for a bit, then we’ll take wing again, pop in and out of the palace, then be off on our errand before another day passes.”
She nodded and walked with him along the road. The air was chilly, but the sky was cloudless. She discovered that if she looked carefully enough, she could see the spell that surrounded them. She reached out and touched it, then jumped a little as she realized she could feel it. It was an odd thing, as if threads of silk were draped down in a curtain around them, floating along with them as they walked. It was beautiful, though, and she found herself becoming slightly disoriented as she looked at it.
It made her wonder if that was its intent.
She wasn’t at all certain how long she walked in the morning sunlight, but it was long enough that she managed to take one of the threads and wrap it around her finger. The magic didn’t seem to mind and given that she felt as though she were walking in a dream anyway, she supposedshedidn’t mind.
Walking into Acair’s outstretched arm, though, brought her back to herself with a start.
She looked in front of them and found that they were sharing a road with people she hadn’t noticed before. She supposed they were dwarves, though she wasn’t entirely sure how to tell. Some of the men were of a shorter stature, others rather tall. They were sharp-eyed, those lads there, and carried weapons that mostly seemed to include battle-axes and the occasional highly polished sword.
A man stood in front of them all. He was shorter than the rest, but that was more than made up for by the height of the crown he was wearing. He was looking at them, yet not seeing them apparently.
“Uachdaran of Léige,” Acair murmured.
She jumped in spite of herself. It was that moment, she supposed, when things truly began to go south for them.
It should have occurred to her that she was holding on to a thread of Soilléir of Cothromaiche’s spell and that any sort of violent movement on her part would result in something untoward happening to that spell. Of all the things she expected, though, having the whole damned thing fall down in a heap around them was definitely not it.
