The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(52)

“Are you unwell?”

She realized that she had simply come to a stop on the stairs. She wondered if she had been babbling aloud. She looked at Acair.

“I’m not sure.”

He held out his hand. She looked at it, then at his face.

Magic? Him?

He reached for her hand and pulled. “Don’t start with those looks. If we can gain this man’s chambers, I promise you a very stiff drink. Do you a world of good, I’m sure.”

She walked because he gave her no choice. She supposed she didn’t want to remain behind, especially when she realized that a pair of men standing at the bar, nursing mugs of ale, were looking at her.

“Keep walking,” Acair said under his breath. “Don’t look at them.”

She was happy to comply. She left the inn with him, then kept her head down as he traded places with her and put her farthest away from the street. She would have thanked him for the courtesy, but the truth was, speech was simply beyond her. She was so far out of her normal routine, the routine she’d been engaging in on a daily basis for the past eighteen years, she hardly knew what to do with herself. She was absolutely adrift in a sea full of creatures she fully expected to drag her under at any moment.

The cobblestones were slick and treacherous under her boots, something that only added to her discomfort. She watched them for most of the journey up the hill, desperately latching onto something that looked familiar. She stopped Acair before he walked into a pool of shadow with a casualness that should have alarmed her. That she was only tempted to yawn should have alarmed her more.

Acair caught himself in mid-step, then blew out his breath. “Thank you. The last brush with one of these was rather unpleasant.”

And it had led to those two creatures trying to kill you, was what she thought to say but didn’t. She simply walked around the shadow, then continued up the way.

At one point, she hazarded a glance at where they were headed, then realized that she hadn’t paid any heed to the castle as they’d been on the boat and she definitely hadn’t seen anything of it from their chamber. She stopped still and gaped. She had never in her life seen anything so large.

“Tatty old thing, isn’t it?” Acair remarked. “Don’t know how anyone manages to live here.”

Tatty was not the word she would have chosen, but what did she know? She nodded because speech was beyond her, then continued on with him right up to the front gates. She wasn’t sure how he expected that anyone should let either of them inside, more particularly she herself, but he seemed to have no fear of being rebuffed.

He glanced her way. “My welcome here may not be warm.”

She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it. She was so far out of her depth, all she could do was look at him and hope he wasn’t walking her into some sort of terrible trap from which she would never emerge. He smiled briefly, then turned and knocked on the gates.

She was accustomed to barn doors, not castle entrances, but she had to concede that those gates didn’t look particularly intimidating and there was no portcullis that she could see. Perhaps the garrison was very fierce and the lords who sent their sons there had no fear for their safety. In truth, what did she know of great men and their progeny save Fuadain? He had a handful of sons, but they obviously didn’t care to pass any time with their sire for she hadn’t seen them in years.

A guardsman appeared suddenly, simply bristling with weapons and surliness. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Er, Buck,” Acair said.

“Buck,” the man repeated. He looked over his shoulder. “Another of ’em. He looks to be kin of the one we let in last year.”

“’Tis a family name,” Acair said quickly. “There are many of us.”

Léirsinn would have asked him what the hell he was doing, giving a name that wasn’t his, but what did she know of these sorts of things either? ’Twas obvious that Acair moved in a level of society she didn’t understand. At the moment, she thought she might be rather happy about that.

Another guardsman came eventually to take the first’s place. He looked equally surly yet far less prone to surprise. He sized Acair up, then pursed his lips.

“Family name?” he asked skeptically.

“I fear it might be,” Acair said, “amongst some of my kin.”

“I believe I know the kin that name might find itself amongst,” the man said, “and I’m not sure I haven’t seen you here before a time or two as well.” He considered Acair a bit longer, then shrugged negligently. “Him you’re looking for isn’t here.”

Acair looked at him in frank surprise. “How can you possibly know who I’m looking for?”

“Because I am far less stupid than my fellows, which is why I’m captain of the guard and not one of the regular lads,” the man said. “If you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Oh, please, say on,” Acair said in exasperation. “Where the hell is he, then, if not here where he’s supposed to be?”

“Off on holiday.”

Acair’s mouth moved but no sound came out. Léirsinn thought he might be the one who needed a stiff drink sooner rather than later. He finally shook his head enough that apparently he shook sense back into it.

“On holiday where?” he demanded.