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

  Acair’s library was less extensive, true, but still jammed full of the written word. She should have expected to find numerous examples of all sorts of books written about all sorts of subjects sorted lovingly into their proper order.

  She had just never expected to find something she had seen so often in her parents’ hands sitting on someone else’s shelf.

  She trailed her finger along the spine. Her parents hadn’t owned very many things that she could bring to mind, though what did a child remember? Hers had been a home full of laughter, enough to eat, horses to ride, and tales read before the fire every night.

  Tales from books exactly like the one she was looking at.

  Actually, there had been three books. Each had had its own particular color on the cover: blue, green, and brown. Those covers, from what she remembered, had been engraved with mythical creatures. That trio of books had been stored in a prominent place on a shelf, a comfortable distance from the fire but well within reach of anyone who might want to take them down and linger in their pages.

  She remembered it had been her brother to first deface one of them. She’d found him leaning over the final empty page, drawing a knight brandishing a sword and preparing to go off on his warhorse to do noble deeds.

  She had gasped at his audacity, but he’d been unrepentant. A lad with questing in his future, she remembered him saying, needed to get an early start. Why he thought scribbling in the back of a book was the appropriate way to set off on that sort of path she couldn’t have said. He’d written his name in bold letters under the knight, so perhaps he’d had a point.

  Because of their unbreakable code of camaraderie, she had stood should-to-shoulder with him to face their parents’ wrath. Their younger sister had followed their examples and taken his other side.

  Her parents’ punishment had consisted of a serious lecture on the precious nature of books in general and extra barn chores for the three of them for at least a month. She had overheard them later discussing with affection what a fine thing it was to have children so loyal to each other, so perhaps they hadn’t been all that angry. She had loved horses, so more time with them hadn’t seemed like anything but a relief from the other studies her mother and father had thought appropriate for their children.

  Her parents had also decided at that point that each of them might claim one of the books if their early artistic works were confined to the last page. Endpapers, her father had called them. Hers had been blue, the color of the sky and, from what she’d been told as a child, the color of the sea under the right conditions. Her brother’s volume had been brown.

  She looked at the green spine of the book in front of her and forced herself not to leap a conclusion that might not be true.

  Printers made copies of books, surely. Children’s books likely provided them with a decent income, so why not press numerous copies of each?

  And of course the cover would be the same. After all, why not create an engraving plate that would stamp the same image in relief on scores of the same book, much like blacksmiths created forms for the making of horseshoes and nails and all the other useful items they produced? No sense in having to reinvent something every time one wanted to make a copy of it.

  Surely.

  She could see her mother running her finger over the raised image of the pegasus there on the cover. She could hear her father laughing over the notion of a faery leading that same pony and a witch trailing after them wanting her mount back. Brooms, Muire, don’t allow for a decent saddle, as you surely know by now.

  Her mother would have failed miserably at sending him a stern look, her father would have laughed and leaned over the book to kiss her, and she would have been watching them and wondering how it was that she had been so fortunate to have such parents as those.

  She closed her eyes briefly, gathered the last vestiges of her good sense, and pulled the book from its spot on the shelf. What she was certain of was that she wouldn’t find her sister’s addition to the final page.

  She opened the book and started from the very first story, a tale of an elven princess who left her home, looking for an elusive stranger who had once passed through her father’s land and stolen her heart. After that followed tales of faeries, kings, evil sorcerers, and workers of magics of all sorts.

  All the things her sister had loved.

  She had to admit that she read more slowly than she needed to, but she came to the end far sooner than she wanted to. She stood there for far longer than she should have with her fingers gingerly holding the last page.

  She finally gathered her courage and turned the page before she could think about it any longer.

  A child’s drawing was there of a horse, a girl, and a boy.

  She closed the book with a snap and almost shoved it back on the shelf, but found that all she could do was hold it and try to catch her breath.

  Why did that book find itself in Acair of Ceangail’s private library? It wasn’t possible that he’d had anything to do…

  Anything at all…

  Surely, not.

  She stood on the edge of something that terrified her and couldn’t find the courage to look at what lay there. Books found their ways into the hands of those who loved them through strange and unusual paths, no doubt. That her sister’s sole possession should find itself so many leagues away from where her sister had once held it meant nothing.

  But if it did—

  She gathered the tatters of her courage, then stepped up to the edge of that abyss and looked into its depths. Admittedly she had seen things that had called into question everything she believed. It was also true that Acair of Ceangail had likely done things she wouldn’t want to know about.

  But she had seen him in the king’s garden in Tor Neroche, standing there perfectly balanced between good and evil and she knew what was in his soul.

  She took a step backward from that terrible place and that great pit faded to nothing. There were things she could believe of many people, but believing that of a man who had wept over her, who knew that her parents had been slain when she was a child, who in spite of perhaps several other things he would rather have been doing, had promised to try to heal her grandfather?

  She could believe many things of him, but not that.

  She dragged her sleeve across her eyes and was momentarily blinded by a few Fadairian sparkles that seemed to have worked their way through the fabric of her sleeve. She took a deep, steadying breath and wondered what she was to do now.

  “Léirsinn?”

  She looked at the doorway to the library and wondered how long Acair had been standing there.

  “Are you unwell?”

  “I’m fine,” she croaked.

  He walked across the beautifully patterned rug comfortingly free of shadows and came to stand in front of her. He frowned.

  “You don’t look well.”

  “I was reading.”

  “Tales of horror and woe?”

  She shook her head and held the book out. “I found this.”

  He peered at it, then shot her a dry look. “Faery stories?”

  She found that all her protestations aside, all she wanted to do was stand there and weep. She felt as if she were holding onto a hinge-pin that trapped her between her past and her present and was making a horrendously loud noise as it turned.

  “Do you remember where you got it?” Her hand was trembling, but she hoped he wouldn’t notice. “I’m just curious.”

  He took the book, studied it, then smiled wryly. “I do, as it happens, for it cost me a ridiculous amount of my own coin.” He looked at her again, then frowned. “You’re very pale. Let’s find somewhere to sit—”

  “I’m fine,” she said, perhaps more sharply than she intended. She attempted a smile. “Sorry. I’m just restless.”

  “Well, I understand that.” He ran his f
inger over the cover, tracing the shape of the pegasus there.

  Léirsinn suddenly wished she’d agreed to the idea of a chair.

  “You know, this is a strange little book. I was skulking about somewhere I shouldn’t have been—in Bruadair, if memory serves—and a peddler almost ran me over on the sidewalk with his cart of treasures. I gave his wares a look, because you never know what you’ll find in a dusty corner, and he insisted that I needed this.”

  “Oh,” was the absolute limit of what she could manage.

  He shrugged a bit sheepishly. “Foolish, I know, but ’tis a lovely thing, isn’t it? But I’m always a bit dazzled by a tooled leather cover, truth be told.”

  “Beautiful,” she agreed.

  He looked at her and smiled. “If you tell me you had one as a child, I will refrain from pointing out how jaded you’ve become in spite of it.”

  She took the book as he handed it to her. “Something very like it,” she lied. “You can blame my parents for filling my head full of this sort of rubbish.”

  His smile faded. “I’m sorry,” he said carefully. “The memory must be difficult.”

  She shook her head. “Actually, it isn’t,” she said, finding it was true. She took a step back. “I’ll keep looking.”

  “I’ll read to you tonight, if you like.”

  “From this or from that book King Uachdaran gave you about terrible mages?”

  “Your choice. The content will be about the same, I’m guessing.” He nodded toward the door. “There’s stew, if you’re hungry. Coming?”

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” she said. “I’ll put this back.”

  He nodded, looked at her with another faint frown, then walked toward the door. Léirsinn turned to the bookcase, but found she couldn’t place the book back where she’d found it. There was something about it that wrenched at her heart in a way she couldn’t begin to describe.

  Acair had bought it from a peddler. Her relief over hearing those words was as terrible as the abyss she’d almost stepped into at the thought that he might have gotten it another way.

  “Léirsinn?”

  She couldn’t turn around. “Aye?”

  She heard him come to stand next to her but she couldn’t look at him.

  “Is that your book?” he asked quietly.

  She had to take a deep breath. “My sister’s.”

  His breath caught.

  She looked up at him then. He looked as surprised as she’d ever seen him, but his eyes were full of the terrible thoughts she’d already entertained.

  “How do you know?” he asked, looking as if he wished they were speaking of anything else.

  She held the book out. “Look in the back.”

  He took the book with a hand that was no steadier than hers, then held it with both hands for a moment or two, as if he hardly dared open it. She watched him take a deep breath, let it out carefully, then flip the book over and simply open the back cover.

  Marching into the middle of the fray instead of lingering on the edges. How like him.

  He studied the childish drawing there, then looked at her. “Not much of an artist, was she?”

  Léirsinn supposed she might have made a noise that sounded a bit like a sob, but she couldn’t be sure.

  “She was only nine,” she managed.

  He lifted his eyebrows briefly. “Then I’m being overly critical.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “Did she look like you?”

  “I think so,” she admitted. “I don’t remember any longer. My brother didn’t have red hair, if that lets you sleep better at night.”

  “Got it from your mother, did you?”

  “To my father’s horror, no doubt.”

  He closed his eyes briefly, then handed her the book. “Did you think I’d murdered them for it?”

  “Oh, Acair,” she said, and damn her traitorous eyes if they didn’t start up that ridiculous burning again. “Not in truth.”

  He looked a little shattered. “Are you certain of it?”

  “Would I be here if I wasn’t?”

  He walked away. She watched him go rest his hand on the mantel over the elegant stone hearth and wondered if he planned to toss himself into the fire there, or toss her in instead. In the end, he simply stood there with his head bowed for longer than she would have thought possible, but the man was patient, she supposed.

  She also supposed he would stand there all day if she didn’t make the first move. After all, she was the one who had suspected him of murder. She took a deep breath, stuck her sister’s book on a shelf, then walked over to stand next to him. She put her hand on his back as he had done to her so many times and thought she might understand why he did it. He smiled briefly at her, then looked back into the fire.

  “I have done things I regret,” he said quietly, “and other things I’m not sorry for in the least. But I have never harmed a woman or a child.”

  “And that, my lord, is why I’m still here.”

  He looked at her then. “Of course that’s not the reason. You’re here because you’re mad for me and the thought of life without my sparkling self in it is just too tedious to contemplate.”

  “That might be true,” she agreed. “Thank you for keeping her book safe.”

  “We’ll read it to our children.”

  “Aren’t you a presumptuous ass.”

  He only looked at her as if he wasn’t sure what, if anything, he should do. She supposed that if he could march into the fray without edging up to the battle, so could she. She ducked under his elbow, then straightened and put her arms around him. If it took a moment for him to return the embrace, well, she supposed she couldn’t blame him.

  “I am a vile man,” he said finally.

  “Of course,” she said easily. She laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. “What is the worst thing you’ve done? Go ahead and confess. You’ll feel better if you do.”

  “In what sense of the term worst?”

  She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. What would I consider horrifying? Or put yourself in Prince Soilléir’s shoes. What would he want to know?”

  “Nothing, given that he knows it all already,” Acair muttered. “Which list would you like me to make first?”

  “Start with the worst things,” she said, closing her eyes. “We’ll leave the noble items for after supper.”

  He sighed deeply. “Very well. I’ve wreaked havoc and made people miserable all over the Nine Kingdoms. I’ve left kings weeping over their favorite treasures that I nicked without so much as a twinge of conscience. I’ve vexed my brothers and several of Sarait’s children until I was almost satisfied they would lose their wits.”

  She hadn’t met his brothers, but she imagined they might have deserved at least a little trouble.

  “What else?”

  “I brought an entire mountainside down on my half-brother Rùnach and his bride. Does that count?”

  She pulled back and looked at him them. “Did they live?”

  “Aye, but no thanks to me.”

  “Well, that might qualify as something rather terrible,” she said. “Anything else?”

  He sighed and pulled away, but she realized he had only gone as far as the chair set near the fire. He held open his arms and looked at her expectantly. She supposed she might have more answers than not if she kept him pinned in a chair, so she went to sit on his lap.

  “Well?”

  He looked more hesitant than she’d ever seen him. She considered fetching him a large glass of whisky, but she supposed that what he had to tell her might be too serious for even that.

  “There was once a mage in Tosan,” he began slowly.

  “Sladaiche?”

  He shook his head. “Not him. Not a man without power, either, and one who favored my father’s magic.”

&nb
sp; “Were you defending your father’s honor?” she asked.

  “Hardly,” he said with a snort. “We were simply insulting each other with words and spells, as mages do absent anything else useful with which to amuse themselves, and I didn’t care for the way he treated his wife.”

  “You?”

  He smiled wearily. “Aye, me, the one always in the running for the mage everyone wants to slay.”

  “Very near the top, I daresay.”

  “Thank you.”

  She smiled. “Go on.”

  “I drove him mad until he lost all sense and ran off the edge of a cliff into the sea.”

  “I see,” she said slowly. “And what did you do to his widow?”

  “For,” he corrected. He considered, then shrugged lightly. “It doesn’t merit a mention.”

  She only watched him silently.

  He blew his hair out of his eyes. “Very well, I gave her a purse that endlessly spilled out Nerochian gold sovereigns. The spell was constructed to outlast her until the youngest of her ten children had breathed his last.”

  “You,” she said seriously, “are shockingly bad at black magery.”

  “Do not spread that about, woman. I will deny it to my dying breath.” He dragged both his hands through his hair. “I either need to fly or kiss you until we’ve both forgotten this recent conversation.”

  “Why not both?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Now, there’s a thought. Would you like to fly with me? I could change your shape for you.”

  “Could you?” she squeaked.

  Damnation, tears and sounding like a ten-year-old gel. She wondered what else the day might lay upon her that would be worse.

  “Darling, you might be surprised what I can do.”

  “I imagine I might not be.”

  He didn’t move. “Do you trust me that far?”

  The gods help her, she actually did. She took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Then let’s go.” He helped her off his lap, then took her hand and pulled her toward the library door. “What do you fancy?” He slid her a look. “In shapes, of course. We can discuss the other later, after we’ve returned.”