The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(83)

“I imagine the feeling is mutual.”

“I prefer dragons, actually,” Acair said, because he thought he should make it clear that he wasn’t opposed to everything going about on four feet. “They possess a certain elegance that is unmatched in other things.”

“You are a terrible snob.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment,” Hearn said, before he turned back to the display going on in his arena.

Acair understood. He, as Hearn had so rightly pointed out, knew nothing about horses save which end tended to bite, but even he could see that Léirsinn was a master at her craft. He realized that whilst Falaire was magnificent, he was simply a reflection of one facet of what Léirsinn could do.

He wasn’t sure how long it took—it felt like hours and left him wishing for a stool of some sort to rest on—but Léirsinn finally convinced Garg that he was not going to push her about. Lead horse and all that, he supposed. He’d thought that sort of business daft at the time, but could see the wisdom of it at present. The horse, a stunning yellowish thing that looked quite a bit like sunlight as he trotted around her, was suddenly utterly obedient to her command. He trotted, he walked, he cantered, and generally behaved himself like a proper gentleman. When she stopped him, handed off the whip, and walked toward him, he merely watched her.

He reared once she was on his back. Once. After that, she kept him so busy, he didn’t have time for any mischief.

“I would worry,” Hearn mused.

“You would?” Acair managed.

“Nay, you. If I were you, I would worry.”

Acair looked at him then. “About what?”

“That she’ll do to you exactly what she just did to that pony.”

Acair had something run down his spine at the sight of Hearn’s smile. “I am not a horse.”

“You know what I’m getting at.”

“I am master of my fate,” Acair said, grasping for just the right amount of conviction with which to tinge that statement. He wasn’t sure he’d succeeded very well.

“Says the mighty one who can’t use any of his equally mighty magic at the moment,” Hearn said with a snort.

“And how do you possibly know that?” Acair asked. “I don’t remember telling you anything—”

“Soilléir was here a few days ago, of course.” Hearn shook his head. “How you’ve managed to survive for so long whilst being so dense, I just don’t know.” He sniffed, then chortled. “Ah, how I love the smell of just deserts. Just the thing for a late breakfast, don’t you agree?”

Acair would have made a cutting reply, but he suspected that would have earned him nothing but a hasty booting right out the front gates. He hadn’t had breakfast, as it happened, and there was no sense in losing a decent meal. “Whatever you say, my lord.”

“I say shut up,” Hearn said absently, having apparently lost interest in anything but a study of the display going on inside his fence. “I believe we’re about to see just what that gel can do.”

Acair watched not because he was comfortable watching but because he simply couldn’t look away. Léirsinn might not have had magic, but she obviously knew what she was doing with a horse. He hadn’t doubted it before, but watching her walk into the keep of Aherin and ride what even Acair wouldn’t have gotten close to for the price of a spectacular spell only convinced him further that she shouldn’t go back to Sàraichte.

Obviously she couldn’t go back to stay, but if she didn’t go there, where else would she go? He wondered if she would want to stay in Angesand, but that seemed rather far away from anywhere he might choose to linger.

He wondered with a fair bit of alarm if anyone might have seen that thought cross his face, but a quick look about told him that anyone with sense was watching the woman out there, riding that pony fashioned of sunlight.

He blew out his breath carefully. She was not for him and he was not for her.

Odd how he had to keep reminding himself of that.

Hearn watched her until she walked out of the arena, leading that damned horse who now merely walked docilely behind her, then he turned and leaned against his fence.

“Where are you off to, Master Acair?” he asked. “I’m assuming you have a list of souls you’re considering robbing or frightening to death or whatever it is you do—nay, wait.” He looked at Acair innocently. “You don’t have any magic to hand, do you?”

Acair forced himself to maintain a pleasant expression. “Not at the moment,” he agreed.

“Which leaves you incapable of foisting your usual nastiness off on others,” Hearn said thoughtfully. “An interesting state of affairs for you, my lad.”

“Isn’t it though?” Acair asked, trying to be as polite as possible. Breakfast was, as he had noted before, hanging in the balance. “As for where we’re going, I thought we would make for Tor Neroche.”

“Think little Miach will protect you?”

“Protect Soilléir, rather,” Acair said, “for when I find him, I’ll kill him.”

“I’m sure he trembles at the thought.”

“He should,” Acair said grimly.

Hearn studied him for far longer than Acair was comfortable with. There was something about those horse people that made him uneasy. They didn’t have that Cothromaichian sight, something he was familiar enough with to know how to disparage, but they had something like it. It was perhaps less grand, but rather more terrifying. When they looked at him, he feared greatly that they were able to see all kinds of things he didn’t want to have revealed.