The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(43)

“Move,” Léirsinn whispered. “I want to see what they’re planning.”

“A quick return to bed after they scrape the manure from their boots would be my guess,” he murmured.

“They’re in a barn,” she said pointedly. “Unless the world has changed a great deal in the past hour, they’re here for a horse. I have to see which one they’re looking at.”

Acair sighed. Horses. Women. Intrigue. Soilléir couldn’t have given him three things more bothersome if he’d planned it, which Acair wasn’t at all sure he hadn’t.

He stepped aside. “Best of luck to you.”

She hardly glanced at him as she pushed past him, which he supposed shouldn’t have offended him. She was a horse miss, he was a powerful mage with plans to rule the world when his sentence of having to be pleasant had ended. He couldn’t have cared less if she looked at him or not. There were princesses and noblewomen and even the occasional wizardess who found him quite to their liking—

He rolled his eyes. He was losing his wits, that was it. Too much do-gooding was, as he had noted on more than one occasion, very bad for a man.

He took a moment to consider what he might do next. Perhaps he could find a wooded area and live off the land, robbing the occasional unwary nobleman, and refraining from killing the ones who annoyed him. That would surely satisfy that annoying finger-waggler from Cothromaiche and then he would have some peace and quiet.

That might also mean that he would no longer be troubled by manure, minor noblemen with delusions of grandeur, and red-haired stable lassies who had somehow found their way under his skin and troubled him even in his dreams. The sooner he was away from all three, the better.

He swung his cloak around his shoulders and strode off toward the nearest exit. His future awaited and it would no doubt be one full of deeds worthy of song.





Nine





Léirsinn wondered when her life was going to return to normal.

First it had been the shadows that weren’t quite shadows but apparently existed with enough substance to affect those who came near them. Then it had been eavesdropping on men she couldn’t and didn’t want to identify, men who had been instructed to kill Acair because he had—she had to take a deep breath to even dredge up the word—magic. That right there should have been enough to send her off either into gales of laughter or straight to her bed. What a daft idea. Men were men, horses were horses, and things were as she had come to count on them being.

But Acair? Magic?

She pushed aside the thought, though it was difficult to push it far enough away from her to make her comfortable, mostly because she had actually seen two men hovering in the air over Acair like a pair of vultures. She hadn’t imagined it, she had seen them there. And if she hadn’t taken that bloody crossbow and put arrows into both those monsters, they would have slain Acair.

She would be long in forgetting that sight.

She was fast coming to the realization that she would have to concede that there were things afoot in Briàghde, things she didn’t want to get close to. And if murder and mayhem were the order of the day on her uncle’s land, who knew what sorts of things were going on in greater Sàraichte? Given the fact that Mistress Cailleach and Acair seemed to know each other, perhaps there were things in town that might make her uneasy as well. Who knew how far the madness extended?

At least Acair was gone. One less distraction for her. He would be safely off doing whatever he did with whatever supernatural abilities he might or might not have had and she would return to her sensible, normal life. Perhaps even those odd shadows would disappear, then no one would even give her another thought. It wasn’t as if she intended to say a damned thing about them. Perhaps with a bit of luck, she would find a way to earn more and do that more quickly, then she could also be away from Sàraichte and at peace.

She slipped in and out of the shadows, a task made much easier by the utter lack of light in the barn save for where her uncle stood with Slaidear. Their companion had obviously been sent on ahead in the company of Doghail, who had obviously been roused from his bed for that purpose.

She stopped far enough away from her uncle that she was fairly sure he wouldn’t see or hear her, but she could certainly see and hear him.

“My lord,” Slaidear said slowly, “I don’t see—”

“Slaidear, your task isn’t to see, your task is to do,” Fuadain said. “If you won’t kill her yourself, find a man in the village willing to see to it. A rough sort. You know the type.”

Léirsinn could hardly stop herself from making a noise of horror. What was he planning now, to start slaying horses? She quickly ran through the list of mares and wondered which one Fuadain could possibly be talking about—

“But Léirsinn is your niece.”

Léirsinn froze. She would have rubbed her ears to make sure they were functioning properly, but she found she simply couldn’t lift her hands. It was all she could do to allow them to remain by her sides and shake.

“My niece sees too much,” Fuadain said sharply.

“She sees too much of what, my lord?”

“Things you don’t need to know about,” Fuadain said shortly. “If you want to make it as clean as possible, slay her, then blame it on that new lad. Kill him afterward.” He paused. “Odd, isn’t it, that name? Acair?”