The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(63)

“Is it possible that there is anyone left for him to ply his black magic on, do you think, Surdail?”

“I daresay there might be, Your Majesty. The world is a very large place.”

“Large and uninteresting when it doesn’t find itself within our borders.”

“True, my liege. Very true.”

Acair wondered if breakfast might be forthcoming if he looked hungry enough. He had begun shifting a good half hour before, but he decided the time had come to perhaps make his position a bit more obvious. He yawned, stretched, then looked about himself purposefully for what he hoped might be a servant bearing a tray laden with fine edibles.

Ehrne glared at him. “Are you listening?”

“I grew bored,” he said, before he could stop himself. “In truth, I don’t believe I’ve heard anything but a great, bloviating bit of hot wind. Odd for this time of year, but there you have it.”

Ehrne spluttered, gestured when words seemed to fail him, then glared at his captain. “Throw that little whoreson in the dungeon.”

Acair looked at him in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“Aye, you’ll do that and more before I send you to your death. Surdail, put the woman there with him. Who knows who she truly is.”

“Not her,” Acair said immediately. “She knows nothing.” Good lord, elves. Such mercurial blowhards with absolutely no sense of humor. There was a reason he avoided Ainneamh so religiously. He would never make the mistake of misjudging that border again.

“She might be a black witch,” Ehrne said darkly.

Acair suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “There are no such things,” he said, “and I would know, wouldn’t you think?”

Ehrne ignored him and looked pointedly at Surdail.

Acair held out his hands. “Not her,” he said quickly, trying not to sound as unnerved as he suddenly was. “Put her across the border and content yourself with just me. In truth, she knows nothing of me or my business—”

Ehrne shot him a look that Acair had to admit he would have admired in different circumstances. He shut his mouth because he wasn’t a fool. Saying anything else would get him nowhere. He could scarce believe how things had unraveled so quickly, but he had little trouble recognizing the feel of hands on his arms as he and Léirsinn were escorted away.

“My horse,” Léirsinn protested.

“He’ll be fine,” Acair managed. He didn’t dare hope as much for either of them, but Falaire at least would be well cared-for.

Damn that Soilléir of Cothromaiche. If he survived the next few hours, he would find him and repay him. It wasn’t possible that the man would be peering into the gloom, as it were, and see their rather dire straits, then come to rescue them, was it? Nay, he would have to see to things himself, as usual. He turned his attentions to memorizing the path to the dungeons. He would need it so he might retrace his steps when he managed to liberate himself and his companion.

A year with no magic. What had he been thinking?

If things didn’t change very soon, he wasn’t going to be thinking any longer because he was going to be dead.

He put that thought aside as something to think about later, then concentrated on making certain he could get them back out of where he most certainly didn’t want to go.





Thirteen





Of all the places she had ever thought she would find herself, Léirsinn had to admit a dungeon was the very last.

They had been escorted there politely, all things considered, though with a fair amount of suspicion. She thought that might have had to do with Acair. She couldn’t imagine it had had anything to do with her.

She currently sat on a stone bench that was as cold as she would have expected it to be and looked at the man sitting under the window who was not at all what she expected him to be.

She wasn’t sure what to think at the moment. She had listened to him plead for the life of her horse, volunteering to suffer what had sounded rather like the word anything if the king would heal Falaire, then listened further to a rather thorough and robust recounting of his past misdeeds. It had been a list that had made her hair stand on end.

Was it possible to drain the world of its magic?

Magic. She could hardly believe she was allowing the word to take up any sort of residence in her head. It was just too ridiculous a notion to take seriously. She supposed that if she repeated that often enough, she might be able to ignore all the things she had seen over the past pair of days, things that had left her wondering about the world in a way she never would have otherwise.

She started with the thing she had closest to hand, namely the man sitting across the dungeon from her. She studied him and tried to reconcile what she was seeing with what she’d heard about him. If she’d met him at a grand ball, she likely would have thought him terribly handsome but too important for someone as simple as herself. If she had encountered him first in a barn, she would have thought him impossibly easy on the eye but absolutely useless with a pitchfork.

She paused and considered that. Perhaps he’d never had to use a pitchfork before. If he possessed unusual means to see to his business, then he certainly wouldn’t have had to do any sort of manual labor. Indeed, it was possible he didn’t know how to do any manual labor.

She realized with a start that he was watching her. She wondered briefly if she should be afraid of him, but hard on the heels of that came the memory of how far he’d been willing to go to save her horse.