The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(72)

“It must have been difficult to have him start over with someone else,” she said quietly.

“Especially given what brats he sired on her,” Acair said with a shudder. “Awful souls, every last one of them.”

She nodded and walked on with him. She was silent for so long, he finally looked at her. She was watching him out of the corner of her eye.

“You don’t have to tell me more,” she said.

“I’m honestly not sure I can,” he said. “And stop looking at me with those eyes of yours that see too much. ’Tis no wonder no stallion in your barn manages to be about a decent bit of mischief with you watching.”

“I am a good judge of hearts.”

“Don’t judge mine.”

She only smiled briefly, then turned back to watching the path in front of them. He wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t murmured too late under her breath, but he wasn’t about to ask her to repeat it so he could be certain.

He said nothing more, for there was nothing more to say. She could peer inside his black heart all she liked, but she wouldn’t find anything good. He had burned it all out decades earlier. No matter what horrors that Fadairian spell of healing had done to him, in the end, there was nothing left of his heart but the ashes from too many evil deeds.

More the fool was he for indulging in even the slightest wish that things could be different.

He gathered up a few thoughts of mayhem and wrapped them about him like a cloak. They were comforting and left him feeling much more at ease. He nodded briskly to himself and marched on with purpose. He would stash Léirsinn comfortably at Sgath and Eulasaid’s lovely palace, then be off on the hunt for that lazy meddler from Cothromaiche so he could have that damned spell of death properly disposed of. Once that was done, he would solve Léirsinn’s mystery of those annoying spots of shadow, rescue her grandsire, and see her settled somewhere safe. He would then be back to his normal way of doing things.

He hadn’t the heart for anything else.

? ? ?

A pair of hours later, he supposed it might take him a bit longer to be on his way than he’d feared. He was sitting in the very cozy nook of a welcoming kitchen, enjoying a glass of excellent wine and watching the three other souls there discuss—what else?—horses.

Sgath was a keen horseman, Acair knew from rumor alone. Angesand foals occasionally found their way into Sgath’s stables, something Acair knew was so rare as to be relegated to the stuff of legends. Eulasaid was just as enthusiastic and Acair imagined she was the one who managed, on those rare occasions when managing was accomplished, to talk Hearn of Angesand out of his beasts.

He watched his father’s parents chat with Léirsinn, interrupting each other with affection, finishing each other’s sentences with smiles of good humor. He had to use a great deal of energy to ignore a pang of something that might have been called envy. He had no memories of his father ever having had anything to do with his mother and, if he were to be completely honest, he thought it might have been better that way. If ever two were not meant to live together in bliss, it had been those two.

He couldn’t help but wish that he’d attempted a visit to his current location much sooner.

He set his glass down, smiled, then pushed his chair back. Too much sentiment was obviously detrimental to his health. “I’d best go see to . . . er, the out of doors. Rather.”

“Wouldn’t want it scampering off,” Eulasaid said with a smile. “Go ahead, darling. Walk all you like.”

He was ninety-bloody-eight years old, yet he left his pride behind at that damned table and bolted. It took him a dozen turns about the garden before he thought he might have gotten control over his traitorous heart. Damned thing. He should have told Rùnach to rip it from his chest, not heal it—

He ran bodily into his father’s sire before he realized what he’d done. “My apologies,” he said, reaching out to steady Sgath.

His grandfather only laughed. “I’m not so far into my dotage as all that, lad, but I thank you for your pains just the same.” He nodded toward the path. “A decent moon tonight, as well as your grandmother’s spells of lamplight tucked artistically into the trees, which I’m sure you’ve already noticed. Another few turns about the old place, aye?”

“Ah, I’m sure I have something to do elsewhere—”

“And I’m fairly certain that whatever that thing might be, it will wait. Don’t you think?”

Acair looked at Sgath evenly. “Are you taking me out to the proverbial woodshed, Your Highness?”

Sgath only grinned at him. “Too late for that, young one, so I suppose we’ll just have to take a walk and see if that keg of ale I stashed behind one of your grandmother’s prized rosebushes has survived the fall prunings. Interested?”

Acair couldn’t deny that he was, so he nodded and walked with the man who had watched his own son turn away from everything he’d taught him and choose a far different, more unpleasant path.

“You could have come sooner,” Sgath said mildly, at one point.

Acair looked at him quickly. “Would you have allowed me inside the gates?”

“After a trip to the woodshed, most likely.”

Acair almost smiled. “Just as I thought.”

Sgath clasped his hands behind his back. “I hear you’ve been making a few social calls over the past several months.”