The Prince of Souls (The Nine Kingdoms Book 12) Read online

  She viciously suppressed the urge to wrap her arms around herself. “I don’t understand how any of this works.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders and smiled. “Despite what most workers of the stuff would have you believe, there isn’t much to it. You repeat the words of a spell, they’ll rummage about in your veins for a bit of power to take to themselves, and there you have it.”

  “Rubbish,” she said.

  “It certainly seems like it at times,” he agreed, “but as the king said: useful. I suppose before we get to the work of the afternoon, I should see if the king is as good as his word.” He stepped away, then spoke a handful of words and opened his hand.

  A ball of light appeared there as if by…

  She blew out her breath as Acair closed his hand and the light disappeared. He turned and faced the door grimly, looking as if he fully expected a spell to come tearing through the wood and slay him. After a moment or two, he turned to her and shrugged.

  “Still breathing.”

  “Thankfully.”

  He smiled and stepped back to stand next to her. “Let’s carry on, then.” He gestured toward the pile of kindling. “There’s your intended.”

  She looked up at him. “I’m not sure that’s the lad for me.”

  “Well, if you want my opinion on the matter,” he said slowly, “the spell that gives you the most trouble is always a good place to start.”

  “Or I could try to work up to it with other things,” she said. “Like a small pony before a feisty stallion.”

  “True, but these aren’t horses.”

  She reached for something else reasonable to say, then realized with a start that perhaps there was nothing simpler than the spell he’d given her.

  She turned and walked away because she thought better when she was moving, not because she wanted to escape. It took her one entire turn about the bloody chamber before she could force herself to stop next to a man who had likely made fire before he’d been able to walk. She wanted to glare at him, but all she could do was look at him and hope her expression wasn’t as bleak as she felt.

  “This is the simplest thing, isn’t it?” she asked reluctantly.

  He started to speak, then sighed. “It is the first thing I learned from my mother.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Old enough to have a pressing need to set my eldest brother’s trousers afire.”

  She wasn’t accustomed to bursting into tears, but she was closer to it than she thought she might have been since that first night in her uncle’s barn when she’d realized at the tender age of eleven what the rest of her life would look like.

  He closed his eyes briefly, then carefully reached out and gathered her to him.

  “I’m not going to stab you,” she said, her words muffled against his shoulder.

  “What I’m afraid of is that you’ll set me on fire, if you want the truth of it,” he said, sounding not in the slightest bit concerned. “Fiery hair, fiery temper is what I always say.”

  “You say nothing of the sort.”

  He hugged her tightly, then pulled back and took her face in his hands. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but having him kiss the end of her nose and walk away was not it.

  He fetched a pair of stools from near the king’s gallery, then brought them over and set them down one behind the other. He sat, then patted the stool in front of him.

  “I don’t feel weak,” she said crossly.

  “I know. I thought that I would, lecher that I am, indulge in a fond embrace whilst you were distracted by other things.” He paused. “’Tis possible that you’ll also be less likely to bolt if I’m holding onto you.”

  He had a point, though she wasn’t going to admit it. She sat down, cursing and feeling entirely out of sorts. Acair wrapped his arms around her and took her hands in his. She wasn’t entirely certain he hadn’t kissed her hair briefly, no doubt to inspire either courage or outrage.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” he said very quietly.

  She dug her wrist into one of her eyes because she had an itch, not because she was trying to avoid any untoward displays of emotion. “That horse is already out of the barn, don’t you think?”

  “I didn’t want to say as much,” he said quietly, “but aye, you’re right about that.” He took a deep breath. “Very well, let’s attempt this together and see what it gets us.”

  There was something about a mage of terrible power and awful spells being willing to help her with things he had, regardless of what he’d said, likely been able to do the minute he could string words together that left her wanting to indulge in either weeping or howling. That he was being kind about it almost made it worse.

  But she was no coward, so she took hold of her good sense and nodded. “What do I do?”

  “The first thing to do is clear your mind.”

  “It was empty before,” she said miserably.

  “What a terrible falsehood,” he said, sounding as if he might be smiling. “’Tis impossible with yours truly right here, no doubt inspiring thoughts of lust and riotous living. Just do your best. As for your business here, we won’t be making any fire today, we’ll be calling it.”

  She felt rather ill. “Is there a difference?”

  “There is, but I guarantee you won’t care what it is. Just trust that there is fire out in the great, wide world that is chomping at the bit to come do your bidding. I’ll give it a little whistle first so you can see how ’tis properly done, then you try.”

  “You’re insufferable,” she said, knowing she sounded as if she were choking but unable to do anything about it.

  “Yet still so damned charming,” he said. “Prepare to be astonished.”

  She listened to him use the same spell he’d given her while she’d been sitting outside his dungeon cell not a handful of days earlier, the one that in her hands had set the king’s hall—and his beard—alight. Now, she not only heard the words but felt the air shudder as fire came from nowhere and gathered itself onto that tidy pile of wood on the floor in front of her.

  She took a deep breath. “You know I think this is ridiculous.”

  “Even now?”

  “You’re just engaging in theatrics.”

  “Well,” he admitted, “it is what I do.”

  “It doesn’t look all that evil, you know.”

  His breath caught on a bit of a laugh. “Thank you, I think.” He took her hands and turned them palm up. “I’ll save that for later. For now, you try that not-evil rubbish. Be ginger this time.”

  “No oomph behind it, is that what you mean?”

  “You’ve been listening to my mother.”

  “She’s the only witch I know.”

  “So far, and you’re stalling.”

  She was and she didn’t want to admit how comfortable she was doing just that.

  He put his hands under hers and rubbed his thumbs over her palms several times. She imagined that was to soothe her, though she wasn’t sure anything would at the moment. She took a deep breath, then breathed most of it back out before she said the five words that had given her so much trouble before.

  A modest but perfectly suitable fire spluttered to life atop that same tidy pile of wood.

  She gaped at it.

  Then she gasped out a hearty curse.

  The fire erupted into a bonfire-sized business that Acair smothered with a spell she didn’t bother to listen to. He put his arms around her and laughed.

  “Better,” he said, resting his chin on her shoulder. “You should try again, perhaps without the oomph.”

  She rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes and got hold of herself.

  “Perhaps ’tis only that,” she said. “My being so overwrought with worry about you, I mean.”

  “You wouldn’t b
e the first lass to work herself into a state over my delightful self, but perhaps those are details you don’t need at the moment.”

  She sighed deeply, then turned around on her stool so she could look at him. “You aren’t at all what they say you are, are you?”

  He caught his breath and looked as if a horse had just run him over. Having seen the results of that sort of thing more than once, she thought she might be qualified to judge the same.

  “What a terrible thing to say,” he managed. “After what you saw last night?”

  She shrugged with a casualness she most definitely didn’t feel. “We all have our flaws.”

  “My ability to wield a nasty spell is hardly a flaw.”

  She smiled because she suspected he was not quite as awful as he wanted everyone else to believe. “Even the worst horse can be reined in with the right master, you know.”

  “Your lack of respect for my mighty power is appalling.”

  She felt her smile fade. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  He looked as if he were still trying to catch his breath that had run off to points unknown. “I’m torn between assuring you that you should be and being flattened that you have me so tamed.”

  “Let me know when you decide.” She started to face her charred pile of wood, then something occurred to her. She looked at him. “I could just light evil mages on fire, I suppose.”

  He looked genuinely shocked. “What a horrible idea.”

  “What would you do?”

  “Humiliate them with a well-chosen spell or two, then leave them on their knees in front of me, begging me for their lives,” he said with a shrug. “I would then look over their pitiful magic and walk away only after having pointed out to them that it wasn’t worth the effort of pilfering.”

  “How is that any different?”

  “Because I don’t think you could burn someone to cinders,” he said carefully.

  “Could you?”

  “Please don’t ask.”

  She supposed she shouldn’t. “Then I’d best work on the other so you can do what you must.”

  “That might be best,” he agreed.

  She turned back to face what was left of the pile of wood in front of her, then decided perhaps she would take the king at his word and just believe. She felt ridiculous, but she repeated the words faithfully and with as much detachment as possible.

  Fire appeared atop the wood as surely as if she’d brought it to life there by normal means. More to the point, it stayed where she’d put it.

  Briefly.

  She was certain she hadn’t added anything to it, but it suddenly burst into an inferno that she supposed would have singed them both if Acair hadn’t doused it immediately.

  “Well, I daresay ’tis as we thought: your foul temper causes your spells to run away with you,” he said. “You might want to learn to control that.”

  She made a rude gesture at him, one she wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t learned from his spell of death. He only breathed out a bit of a laugh, but she imagined he’d seen far worse.

  She looked at her hands in his and supposed he was too much the gentleman to notice any stray tears of frustration she might have wept. She waited until she thought she could speak without her voice catching, then spat out what she’d been thinking for the past several days but hadn’t been able to say.

  “What if I can’t do this?”

  “I’m not sure we need to discuss what I’m willing to do to see that you don’t have to,” he said quietly. He squeezed her hands gently, then stood up, pulling her with him. “Let’s take a healthful walk about the chamber and examine your victim from all sides. I find it’s very useful to make a list of possible failings to point out during the appropriate moment.”

  She nodded, but didn’t look at him. If he walked with her for more than a single turn about the king’s chamber, he didn’t make note of it.

  She stopped by the door, set aside the very tempting idea of making use of it, then looked at him.

  “I’m ready.”

  He leaned forward, kissed her on the cheek, then took her hand. “Again, then.”

  She nodded and walked with him back to their stools. She wasn’t sure she would ever manage to control what her forays into a magical arena produced, but perhaps in the end it wouldn’t matter. For all she knew, Acair would find a way to be able to use his magic and all she would need to do was stand by and, as he might have said, be astonished by his magnificence.

  Surely she wouldn’t be responsible for anything more than that.

  Surely.

  Seven

  Acair finished yet another restless circle of Uachdaran of Léige’s library and came to a stop in front of a surprisingly large window set in unsurprisingly thick walls where he had a full view of the darkness outside. The moon was but a sliver, but that didn’t trouble him. That ability to see well in the gloom was perhaps, as he tended to remind himself as he prowled about darkened solars without knocking over decanters of rare port, the only decent thing he’d inherited from his sire.

  He hoped Gair of Ainneamh, Camanaë, Ceangail, and half a dozen other places the man had claimed as home over the centuries had a perfect view of his shatteringly boring surroundings down there in that barren country of Shettlestoune, no matter the time of day.

  He let out his breath slowly and pushed aside those thoughts. In truth, he tended not to think on his sire overmuch, mostly because it was a perfect waste of energy that could be better used being about his usual business of making the world a better place.

  Which, as it happened, he was in the process of doing at that very moment. Léirsinn was safely ensconced in her chamber with Master Ollamh watching over her whilst the usual trio of the king’s guardsmen was standing post. The king was no doubt looking over his mounds of gems and heaps of vile spells and deciding which pile to count first. He himself had put on his best manners and most trustworthy expression to secure an hour of liberty in the king’s library, admittedly accompanied by the stern injunction not to let anything stray into his pockets.

  That last bit he found rather insulting. As with most everything else in Léige, the king’s books were too large and heavy to be stuffed in any pocket he possessed.

  He supposed he might have put the king’s mind at ease by assuring him that what he wanted to think about was not things that might topple thrones and ruin the peace of various Heroes, but rather the endless parade of horrors he’d seen in the king’s lists the night before—though he supposed those things weren’t mutually exclusive.

  He was beginning to understand why Uachdaran of Léige was rarely invited to gatherings put on by workers of more fastidious magic.

  He leaned against the window casement and thought back over the king’s spells. He’d memorized everything flung his way, of course, with an exactness that might have even impressed his admittedly impossible-to-impress sire. Cataloging the offerings presently was a bit more difficult.

  It wasn’t that he wasn’t familiar in a general sense with Durialian magic. He had nicked a pair of the dwarf-king’s finest over the years, intriguing spells of forcing things to reveal what they didn’t want to and making light where light shouldn’t have been possible. After what he’d seen the night before, however, he was beginning to suspect that those spells had been deliberately left out in the open for any sticky-fingered guests whilst the true business of the kingdom had remained hidden.

  The other truth he’d accepted, midway through fending off yet another volley of things that seemed to want to turn him into solid rock only after having smothered him by degrees, was that he’d been far too casual during his previous forays into Uachdaran of Léige’s solar. If the king had been brandishing the goods without his usual hesitation the night before, who knew what else might be found with a bit of digging?

  As he had noted to himself
more than once, dwarvish magic didn’t include any niceties or polite how-do-you-dos before smashing through defenses and dispensing whatever was necessary to do their business. Whilst he himself preferred a bit of finesse and refinement in his engagements, there were certainly times when it might be easier to simply come to the point of things right off. The king had shown him many tempting morsels. Spells of illumination, spells of containment, spells of stripping away all the dross to leave the true prize? Dazzling, truly. It might be time to have another look and see what the king had stuffed under his own sofa cushions.

  The last thing that almost had him scratching his head was where that moody swain, Aonarach of Léige, had come by that spell of…he hardly knew what to call it. Not magic thievery, surely. He was very familiar with the peerless example of the same that his sire had created. It had been, if he dared venture into the darkness farther than even he might be comfortable going, a damned sight too close to what his grandmother had scribbled in Léirsinn’s book. Not essence changing in the traditional sense, as he’d decided earlier, but definitely essence meddling.

  A terribly intoxicating if not perilous bit of business, to be sure.

  If Aonarach had dug that up in Durial, though, heaven only knew what else was lying about the kingdom just waiting for the right mage to come along and have a wee rummage about the old campfire and see what was lingering there in the ashes—

  “There’s something out there.”

  He stopped himself before he pitched into the heavy glass window. That was something that was going to change right off, that business of being caught off guard. He looked to his left to find the thoroughly unlikable product of dwarvish royalty and elvish princess standing there, looking at him from half-lidded eyes.

  “But I don’t imagine you need me to tell you that,” Aonarach added, resting his shoulder against the opposite side of the window and apparently settling in for a proper chat. “I’m curious about what you’ve seen.”

  Acair would have told the lad tartly to mind his own affairs, but he simply couldn’t bring to mind an appropriately nasty way to do so. The truth was, the man standing next to him made him uncomfortable. That was saying something because there were just so few disreputable sorts that he didn’t care to rub shoulders with.