The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(60)
“I don’t think so, either,” he said as gently as he could manage. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t pop in and out to liberate your grandfather when the time comes for it. But there are things we—I, rather—must do first.”
She took a deep breath. “I feel like I’m trapped in a nightmare. Or a very bad faery tale.” She looked at him. “It seems very foolish at my age to wish for a Hero to come rescue me.”
“Not foolish,” he said, though he knew several of the lads those tales had been patterned after and had always found them to be far more priggish than the tales told. “A rescue might be perhaps a bit out of reach at the moment. You are, poor gel, left with just me and your flying horse.”
She looked as if she couldn’t decide which was worse, but he thought it might be best to not press her for a decision on that. He was more relieved than he likely should have been when she nodded, then walked with him over to Falaire. A few days of travel, a few games of cards to win them supper, then a very pointed conversation with the man he needed to see. Things would then return to normal. He would see her off to somewhere safe, then he would be back to the business of magic and mischief.
He could hardly wait to begin his list of whom he would ply his usual trade on first.
? ? ?
Several hours later, he suspected he knew exactly who would claim the coveted first spot on that list.
He wasn’t a complete failure with maps and he’d had the wit to choose an excellent rider to manage their steed, yet as the sun was rising, he realized he had misjudged the lower corner of a country he definitely hadn’t wanted to visit and he and Léirsinn had just been shot out of the sky.
Falaire was the most great-hearted animal he had ever encountered, the pony’s propensity to gnaw on things he shouldn’t have aside. The noble steed managed to get them to the ground before he went down on his knees, folded his wings, and didn’t move again save for very labored breathing. Acair fell out the saddle, rolled up to his feet, and was marshalling his worst spell of death with the most painful accompaniments possible when he realized he was facing the captain of Ehrne of Ainneamh’s guard on the wrong side of the border.
He remembered his half-brother Rùnach having described a fairly recent, choice encounter with the elves of that realm, something he’d dismissed at the time as the babblings of another elf with hurt feelings. Now, given the sight of half a dozen elves with arrows pointing directly at his own black heart, he knew better.
He drew himself up and pointed a finger at the guard captain. “Heal him.”
“I beg your pardon?” the elf asked mildly. “Heal who?”
“Heal that horse, Surdail, damn you to hell,” Acair snarled. “The innocent beast you just shot out of the sky. Heal him!”
“A rather pedestrian looking animal,” Surdail of Ainneamh said, looking down his long nose in Falaire’s direction. “I think perhaps we should just put him out of his misery.”
Acair supposed the only reason he managed to take a step back from a place of fury such as he’d never before experienced was that he felt the arm of Soilléir’s damned spell go round his shoulders. He wasn’t entirely sure the thing hadn’t blown in his ear as well. He shook it off in annoyance, then took a deep breath.
“Please,” he said through gritted teeth. “Please heal him.”
Surdail looked at him in astonishment. “Did I hear a polite word in there, little one?”
Acair let slip a few suggestions about what Surdail could do with his condescending attitude, then he bit back the rest of what he wished desperately he could say. He indulged in a brief moment where he honestly couldn’t decide if he should or shouldn’t take his chances with trying to destroy the spell standing beside him so he could slay the elf standing in front of him, then he took hold of his good sense and attempted a bit more polite speech.
“Please,” he repeated, making a great effort not to snarl. “Not for my sake, but for my companion’s.”
Surdail looked at Léirsinn and his eyes widened. Acair suspected that might be the reaction she got everywhere she went. The woman was truly more beautiful than she had any right to be. And that hair . . .
“And what sort of mischief do we find here on my humble soil?”
Acair closed his eyes briefly at the sound of that voice, dripping as it was with monarchial self-importance. If Surdail of Ainneamh was intolerable, his lord and master King Ehrne left everyone in his vicinity wanting to kill themselves quickly to avoid having to listen to him talk any longer than necessary. The sad truth was, if there was one thing Ehrne of Ainneamh loved, it was the sound of his own voice.
He looked at the king and forced himself to incline his head in as much of a bow as he could manage. “Your Majesty. A pleasure, as always.”
Ehrne looked at him coldly. “Give me a single reason why I shouldn’t slay you on the spot.”
“You wouldn’t manage it,” was out of his mouth before he could stop himself.
“You are within my borders, whelp, and I am able to manage quite a few things you wouldn’t care for,” Ehrne said sharply.
“Acair, he’s dying.”
He looked behind him to find Léirsinn sitting at Falaire’s head, stroking his face. Her cheeks were dry, which concerned him more than what he’d seen before. He met her eyes, winced, then turned back to Ehrne.