The king’s eyes widened and he pointed a finger sternly at Acair.
“You!”
“Ah,” Acair began, “Your Majesty. A pleasure as always. Allow me to introduce my companion, Léirsinn of Sàraichte—”
“Seize him,” the king commanded, then he paused and looked at Acair closely. “I heard you are forbidden to use your magic. Is that so?”
“Well,” Acair said smoothly, “that is a bit of a—”
“Seize him!” the king shouted.
And that, Léirsinn supposed, was that. She looked at Acair as the king’s men swarmed around him.
“Sorry,” she mouthed.
He lifted his eyebrows briefly, but that was the last she saw of him as he disappeared under a cloud of dwarf and spell.
She reached for her own magic, but it was as if someone had handed her the reins to a mythical beast with six feet and fangs. She fumbled a bit with things she had absolutely no idea how to use, then finally looked at the king of the dwarves. He was watching her narrowly.
“Haven’t figured out how to use it yet, eh, missy?”
She shook her head. “Not yet.”
He grunted at her. “Come along, then. If you’re keeping company with that little wretch from Ceangail, I’m not sure what I’ll do with you, but you’ll be safer inside my walls than out.”
Léirsinn supposed he had a point, but she wasn’t sure she was looking forward to discovering where he thought to house her.
Life was, as she had reminded herself more than once over the past pair of weeks, so much simpler in a barn.
Twenty
Acair sat in Uachdaran of Léige’s dungeon and thought he might want to consider a new and goodly work of perhaps going about the Nine Kingdoms, extolling the virtues of forgiveness.
He wished he’d had the chance to discuss the same with the king of their current locale before the man had sized him up for any magical tools, then left his lads to wrap him in a spell of fettering and carry him off to a place where there were no doors. Not that there needed to be any doors on his current cell. The spells were, as it happened, impenetrable.
Was that a light?
His heart leapt at the hint of something besides unrelenting darkness, though he wondered why. The king was likely having him hauled upstairs so he could be summarily put to death.
He was rather surprised when, after his eyes had stoppedburning, he looked out of his cell to find Léirsinn standing there. She sank down to her knees and set the candle aside.
“Are you hurt?”
“Me?” he croaked. “Never been more fit and full of good humors. You?”
“He offered me a guest chamber,” she said uneasily. “I pointed out to him that his favorite mount had thrush.”
“You’re handy.”
“You’ve no idea.” She paused. “I might also have come close to setting his audience chamber on fire. I believe it unnerved him.”
Acair smiled in spite of himself. “Do tell.”
She shifted. “I lost my temper. I think one of the tapestries nearest his hearth might still bear a singe mark or two as a result.”
He would have laughed, but he wasn’t sure he had the energy for it. “And then?”
She looked at him. “He’s going to put you to death.”
