The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(5)
Well, perhaps it didn’t matter what the book had contained given that it was now safely tucked behind an impenetrable wall of his own spells, spells apparently he couldn’t unlock for at least a year. He would have pointed out that fact to Rùnach—it was Rùnach’s book, after all—but he’d been too damn distracted to.
A year without magic. Absolutely preposterous.
And all because he’d simply attempted a rather substantial theft of the world’s magic and failed spectacularly. If that hadn’t been enough, he’d taken a blade to the chest and almost lost his life. Rùnach had been the one to heal him with some damned elvish rot that Acair was convinced had left something untoward behind where the wound had been. He’d been suffering ever since from foul dreams and the like. Add that to the sad truth that Soilléir had been stalking him for the past several months, threatening him—still—with life as an inanimate object if he didn’t grovel before a lengthy list of offended busybodies . . . well, as he’d reluctantly admitted before, those lads from Cothromaiche gave him pause. He didn’t know their spells, but he knew what they could do.
He didn’t fancy life as a rock.
Given that was the case, he would trot off loudly into the Deepening Gloom, looking appropriately contrite no matter what it cost him, then duck off the road when he could and slip off to some exotic locale where he would lie low until his year’s sentence was up—
Or, perhaps not.
He walked for another half-league before he finally turned around and stared at what had been following him.
A spell.
He wasn’t unfamiliar with spells, as it happened, having a truly staggering collection of them at his fingertips. He created his own spells, of course, though he generally thought it a better use of his time to simply appropriate what he needed. But never in his long life of encountering magic had he ever seen a spell that simply stood there and watched him, as if it had legs. It was an odd spell, though, one that didn’t seem to want to reveal its purpose. For all he knew, it was designed to watch to make sure he followed Soilléir’s instructions to the letter.
He made a rude gesture at that nasty piece of magic, ignored the snort that answered him, then turned and started off toward a destination he absolutely didn’t want to visit.
Sàraichte. Ye gads, what a hellhole. If he’d had so little to do that he would have needed to amuse himself by making a list of places to visit, he suspected that port town in the middle of nowhere would have had very few other locales competing with it for last on the list.
Damnation, it was going to be a very long year indeed.
One
The port town of Sàraichte was a locale with absolutely no redeeming features.
The list of its flaws was long and well-examined. It wasn’t as large as Tòsan, nor as elegant as Taohb na Mara; it was a city of unremarkable size that one tended to forget as quickly as possible in order to erase the unfortunate memory of having passed through it. Its harbor was endlessly needing a good dredging whilst its inhabitants seemed to be perpetually needing a good bath. The food was terrible, the accommodations disgusting, and the scenery flat and uninspiring. There was only one thing about the place that spared it from the need for a good razing.
The stables of Briàghde.
Léirsinn of Sàraichte leaned against an outer wall of Briàghde’s labyrinth of stalls and considered the truth of that. She wasn’t one to be effusive with praise or stingy with censure, which left her looking at the bare facts to judge them on merit alone. And the simple fact was, the horses that came from the stables in which she stood were absolutely beyond compare.
She knew this because she was responsible for it.
It wasn’t something she thought about very often, actually, for a variety of reasons that left her feeling rather uncomfortable if she gave too much thought to them. But the weather was brisk, the barn cats feisty, and the horses very full of themselves. If that had infected her with a bit more spirit than she usually dared allow herself, so be it. Besides, she was the only one inside her head, so perhaps she could be permitted a bracing bit of truth to enjoy privately.
And the truth was, she was damned good at working horses. It was in her blood, or so she understood, which she supposed helped quite a bit. The rest of it was simply years of seeing horse after horse come through Fuadain of Sàraichte’s stables and watching how they matured. She’d had the good sense to know which horsemen to listen to in her youth and perhaps even better sense to keep her mouth shut when it would have been easier to call other men who thought they knew horses idiots.
She was growing rather tired of that last bit, actually.
But biting her tongue allowed her to continue to watch what came and went in Lord Fuadain’s stables and, better still, quietly have charge of their training. Of course she never spoke her opinions aloud, but she and the stable master, Slaidear, had come to an understanding a decade ago. He would stroke his chin and consider the beast on display before him, glance her way to see if she raised a single eyebrow or not, then take her opinion as his own and offer an aye or nay as necessary.
Many fine animals were turned away as a result, left with no choice but to find homes with lesser masters. Only the most spectacular beasts were invited to stay to either be bred or trained, sometimes both. The fees charged for either privilege were so high, Léirsinn was frankly amazed anyone managed to pay them. But they seemed to, and gladly.