The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(107)

“Whom did you offend this time?”

“I could have offended the entire world and it wouldn’t change the fact that I need to use my magic without being slain for the same!”

“Humor me.”

Acair would have preferred to do damage to him, but there were many reasons why Soilléir couldn’t aid him if he were dead, so he had another fortifying drink of his ale and dredged up the last remaining shreds of his patience.

“I’ll be brief,” he said, lest Soilléir think they were going to be chatting all day. “I stepped in a spot of shadow, apparently stirred up a hornet’s nest, and I’ve been trying to keep myself alive ever since by running from an ever-increasing collection of black mages. Is that clear enough for you?”

Soilléir only lifted an eyebrow. “I’d prefer to have a few more details, actually. If you wouldn’t mind.”

Acair minded very much, but he was also a realist. He would have nothing out of the fool sitting across from him until the man had satisfied his curiosity. But if he knew what was good for him, he would consider that curiosity satisfied sooner rather than later.

“Léirsinn,” Acair said, “the lass running the stables where you sent me to serve out my hellish sentence, had been seeing spots on the ground, things that are only shadows of shadows. I found them unusual, so I thought I would investigate the same by stepping in one, just to see what it would do to me.”

“Of course you did,” Soilléir said mildly. “Your curiosity, Acair, will someday be the last thing you indulge. Very well, what happened then?”

“It assaulted me,” he said, “and I’m still trying to forget the great tussle I had trying to rip myself out of its midst. I’m not too proud to say I believe I left a part of myself behind.”

“Flesh?”

“Soul.”

Soilléir considered the depths of his cup for a moment or two, then looked up. “Did you see these spots anywhere besides Sàraichte?”

“Lake Cladach and Aherin. I believe there was one in Beinn òrain as well, but my memory fails me about the particulars of that. I was rather occupied at the time.”

“Busy being chased by Droch?” Soilléir asked politely.

“Aye, and finding that you’d done the unthinkable and flitted off on a bloody holiday,” Acair said pointedly. “Who do you think you are taking days of leisure when there is evil afoot in the world?”

Soilléir looked at him for a moment or two in silence, then glanced at Mhorghain. “There are times I don’t think he listens to what comes out of his mouth.”

Acair cursed him. “I’m not talking about my sort of evil—and aye, I hear everything that comes out of my mouth. Sometimes I repeat the pithier statements to myself at bedtime to send me off properly into a blissful slumber, but that isn’t the point here. Those spots are in places I wouldn’t expect them to be. Why would anyone put anything untoward in Aherin?” He looked at Mhorghain. “Have you seen anything like them at Tor Neroche?”

She shook her head, wide-eyed. “I haven’t. I’m not sure I would have thought to be looking for them, though.”

“Well, if you do see any, I suggest not stepping in them. I am no woman when it comes to pain, but pulling myself free from that damned thing was quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever felt.”

“And then what?” Soilléir asked.

Acair looked at him narrowly. “And then, as I said, I found my life in peril, beginning with a pair of mages trying to murder me in my sleep in Sàraichte. If Léirsinn hadn’t put crossbow bolts in them, I would be dead. I wasn’t at my leisure to examine those bolts and we unfortunately left them behind in our haste to flee that damned barn, but I suspect they were enspelled.” He blew out his breath in frustration. “Who knows who has them now.”

“That was ill-advised,” Soilléir offered. “Leaving them behind, that is.”

“And you almost got me killed, which was perhaps just as ill-advised,” Acair shot back. “You and your vaunted Seeing. Did you not see this coming down the road toward you? Nay, toward me, rather?”

“’Tis possible to make mistakes.”

Acair wasn’t entirely sure Soilléir wasn’t mocking him, but he was quite certain he didn’t care for where those words might be leading. “I wish you wouldn’t admit that. It leaves me a little uneasy about the fate of the world, if you must know.”

“I suppose you’ll have to shoulder a bit of the burden.”

“Me?” Acair hardly knew how to respond to that. “Thank you, but nay. I am utterly uninterested in any more do-gooding—”

“Why not you?” Soilléir interrupted. “Your ancestors are noble. Your father’s are, definitely. And I think you might give your mother too little credit.”

“I give my mother just as much credit as she deserves, the old harridan,” Acair said with a snort. “If you think she longs for a happy, peaceful world, she has beguiled you as thoroughly as she does most everyone who walks through her door.”

“I think she has perhaps stepped back from the issues of good and evil,” Soilléir conceded, “which leaves her in a unique position to simply watch the world as it unfolds before her. She is, as you well know, a very committed diarist.”