The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(105)

“Pointy swords and all that.”

He shivered. “That as well.”

“Yet here you are without magic just the same.”

“Because I cannot use it at the moment doesn’t mean I don’t still have it,” he corrected. “A distinction Soilléir of that damned place on the other side of the mountains that I will definitely be giving a closer look to in the future knows very well.”

She pulled on a pair of gloves. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” She shot him a look. “Miach knows all his spells, you know.”

“Hence the idea I’ve been toying with for several months now of waylaying your husband some evening on his way home from the pub and torturing those spells out of him.”

She smiled. “They won’t let him go to the pub by himself anymore.”

“Do you honestly believe his ministers frighten me?”

“Does Miach frighten you?”

He straightened the collar of his cloak and followed her away from the gates. “I don’t want to answer that.”

“Should your magic frighten him?”

He clasped his hands behind his back as they walked, then looked at her. “Are we riding or walking?”

“I had horses prepared, but you might prefer to fly.”

“I would, but obviously I can’t indulge.”

“I’ll change your shape for you, if you like.”

“That would be terribly kind of you.”

She looked at him, then laughed. “You do this all day, don’t you? And so you don’t have to ask what I’m getting at, I mean you avoid questions you don’t like and spew out courtly pleasantries without thinking.”

“Bad habit, I’m afraid.”

“No doubt.” She paused, then considered. “Dragonshape or something else?”

“Dragonshape,” he said, “and if you give me wee wings that leave me gasping for air as I flap along behind you like a fat little pig, I will never forgive you for it.”

She looked at him seriously. “Nothing more dire than that?”

“You are a woman, half-sister or not. I do not damage women.”

“Men?”

“Don’t ask.”

She smiled and suddenly she was gone. In her place was a sleek, unadorned, black dragon. It was something he would have chosen for her himself if he’d been about the choosing, so he approved thoroughly of her taste in fire-breathing creatures.

He stretched his own wings out only to find they were approximately two feet long. The laughter at his expense from the gates was everything he’d expected it would be.

To his sister’s credit, however, once he had attempted a pair of unsuccessful leaps up into the air—accompanied, of course, by more guffaws from lads he would have a year ago repaid with dire things indeed—on the third try, his wings stretched out to a proper length and he leapt up into the air as what he had to admit was one of the most impressive beasts he had wished for a still lake in which to admire.

He contemplated taking a bit of a detour over the heads of those lads who had mocked him, but two things stopped him. One, they were quite suddenly all looking at him in slack-jawed astonishment; and two, Mhorghain’s voice whispered over his mind with a very firm, don’t you dare.

He sighed in resignation. If he snorted out a bit of fire that sent the more vocal lads scrambling for cover as he rose majestically into the sky, what could he do but vow to offer his most sincere regrets later?

You are incorrigible.

Indeed he was, but he was also off the ground under his own power and damned grateful for the pleasure. He followed after his sister and decided that she was rather a sterling lass in spite of her heritage of gilded elven magic. Her time had obviously been well spent in that pit of swords and terrible food on the Island of Melksham.

? ? ?

A pair of hours later, he was standing on the edge of a road in his own shape, pushing his hair out of his eyes and hoping he looked as fierce and unyielding as he felt. He hoped Mhorghain wouldn’t mind if he was a bit more rumpled in his dress than usual.

“He’s waiting for us in the inn through those trees,” she said.

“Are you coming too?” he asked her in surprise.

“If you don’t mind,” she said. “Miach thought I should keep the pair of you from killing each other.”

“Don’t you have a bairn to see to?” he asked in an effort to get rid of her.

“Young Hearn is with his father,” she said, “so not to worry. I’m here to keep you company the entire time.”

That was exactly what he was trying to avoid. He tried another tack. “I don’t think you’ll want to watch what I’m going to do to him,” he warned.

“I think I’ll survive it.”

He imagined she would. He also imagined that she had spent her share of time intimidating the rich and powerful, so perhaps she had little room to criticize him.

Which she didn’t seem to be doing, oddly enough.

He walked with her up the road and stopped her just before she reached for the door. “As for your question back at the palace, if I had any sense I would be afraid of your husband, especially on his own soil. His power is staggering.”

“And yours?”