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

  That, she decided abruptly, was what leaping straight into the fray got a woman. Commitments to activities that merely thinking about left her almost speechless with terror.

  “Perhaps I should wait by the fire.”

  “Oh, nay,” he said, continuing to tug. “This is why one should be careful when negotiating with a ruthless worker of evil.”

  “Acair,” she said miserably.

  He stopped and turned to her, pulling her into his arms. “A poor jest, darling. I won’t force you to do anything you don’t care for. I braved horse work, of course, but if this is too much for you…”

  She pulled back and tried to find something in her not-so-limited collection of slurs to call him that wouldn’t hurt his feelings but might put him in his place. Unfortunately, all she could do was stare at him, torn between terror and a rather unsettling twinge of something she might have termed curiosity if she hadn’t known where that sort of thing led.

  He looked at her seriously. “You do love me.”

  “At the moment, I can’t remember why,” she said, finding her mouth appallingly dry. She searched frantically for a reason why she couldn’t do what she’d agreed to do, then hit upon her salvation. “How will we come back through your spell?”

  He blinked a time or two, then swore. “Damnation, but that’s inconvenient.”

  “My heart breaks over it, but there it is,” she agreed.

  “I suppose you’re then left with my stew.”

  She could have been left with much worse than that, she supposed.

  She walked with him from the library to go in search of supper and reminded herself that if anything held true in Acair of Ceangail’s world, it was that he didn’t lie.

  Not that she would have needed to have heard him confess anything. She had seen what lay in his soul.

  It was enough.

  A pair of hours and a decent bowl of stew later, she sat with him on the floor in front of his fire in the study. He was stretched out next to her, his cheek propped on his fist, watching the fire. She reached out and brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes.

  “I am sorry,” she said quietly. “About before.”

  “Would you like to know what the worst part of it was?” he asked, still watching the flames. “Well, aside from the fact that you think me capable of murder.”

  “You boast about it endlessly.”

  He shot her a disgruntled look. “You needn’t take me that seriously.”

  She wrapped her arms around her bent knees. “What is the worst part?”

  “That it hurt,” he said with a sigh. “Me, the lad with no feelings to wound.”

  “Does it still hurt?”

  He looked at her. “Thinking to make it better somehow?”

  “Are you always this unrepentant a flirt?”

  “’Tis wooing, Léirsinn. A different dance entirely.”

  “And how many times have you danced that dance, my lord Acair?”

  He pursed his lips. “This is my first turn on that particular ballroom floor, which is likely why I seem to be doing it so poorly.”

  “I don’t think you’re doing it poorly.”

  He sat up and thanked her properly for her trouble, she would give him that. She also tried to give him a bit of a nudge to put another piece of wood on the fire, then ended up doing it herself. She sat back down and found he was watching her in what seemed to be one of his favorite positions, cheek on fist.

  “Would you care to hear the very worst?”

  “Must I?” she asked, pained.

  He shook his head. “I’m not poking at you about that and you needn’t have apologized. You had good reason, and I’m sorry for that. Nay, the worst of this is that I’m afraid I might never manage to go back to what I was before.”

  “Unrepentant flirt or terrible black mage?”

  “Oh, the first is definitely in my past. The second, though, is what worries me. If word gets out, how will I ever enter another chamber of nobles and be satisfied with simple greetings instead of wails of terror?”

  “Poor you,” she said dryly.

  “I will hold you responsible.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  “My mother will hold you responsible.”

  She blinked. “Now, that’s a terrifying thought.”

  “If that doesn’t give you terrible dreams, I don’t know what will.”

  “Odious man.”

  He shot her a small smile. “But you adore me.”

  “’Tis hard not to.”

  He put his hand on her back. “If you go fetch that book, love, I’ll read to you. Or you can read to me, if you’d rather. I’m interested to find out what your parents put into your wee heads.”

  She pushed herself to her feet, retrieved her sister’s book off his shelf, and resumed her place in front of the fire. She looked at the pegasus on the cover, then shook her head. She never would have imagined that such a thing existed, never mind that she might one day ride one. She looked at Acair to find him watching her gravely.

  “Why did the peddler think you should have this?” she asked.

  “I have no idea, though I’m not one for coincidence.”

  “You and King Sìle share that opinion.”

  “Don’t tell him. He’ll never sleep well again.” He sat up and held out his hand. “Make yourself comfortable and I’ll take up reading duties for tonight.”

  She stretched out on the floor next to where he sat crosslegged with his back against a chair and sighed.

  “Thank you.”

  He reached out and put his hand briefly on her head. “My pleasure, darling.” He paused. “Perhaps that peddler had a feeling that this might someday find itself back in the proper hands.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “At the moment, Léirsinn, I hardly know what to think. My mind is full of things that feel like broken pieces of a polished glass that need to go back together but seemingly have no way to do the same.”

  She tapped the cover of the book. “Faeries and heroes. You’ll feel better after you indulge.”

  “I seriously doubt that, but I’ll humor you.” He opened the book and started to read.

  She thought she just might love him in truth, unrepentant worker of terrible spells and possessor of a tender heart that he was.

  He was so thoroughly not what she’d expected to find anywhere along that road that had begun at her own family’s hearth with that same book, but she wondered how she could have expected anything else.

  Thirteen

  Acair dragged his sleeve across his forehead and sneezed. He wasn’t one for tidying with his own hands when magic could do it for him, but his current project of digging about in a trunk he’d found stashed behind a winerack in his cellar seemed to suggest that was the proper way to go about it. The whole damned thing reeked of something foul.

  Dust, definitely. Magic, possibly.

  He’d thought it best to proceed gingerly.

  Or so he had when he’d first found the trunk, which for a change hadn’t been just after dawn. He’d managed to sleep well past sunrise, thankfully, but he’d woken with a pounding headache for his trouble. A finger or two of whisky hadn’t done anything but make him short tempered.

  Léirsinn had promised him she wouldn’t apologize again for thinking him capable of slaying her family, which he’d begged her through his haze of pain and irritation not to do, then given him a wide berth.

  Left to himself and firmly caught between regret for his reputation and fury that the thought of attempting to recapture the vileness of the same going forward left him feeling slightly uncomfortable, he’d donned the proverbial hairshirt and decided he would do things he didn’t particularly feel like doing.

  Digging through the garden shed was one and that had gone ab
out as he’d suspected it would, leaving him muddy and cross.

  Rummaging about in the cellar had been but another slide down into a pit of misery and frustration. He could remember with unfortunate clarity the precise conversation he’d had with his very mortal master craftsmen whilst they had been about the noble labor of building his home.

  What of this trunk, my lord?

  Leave it, I’ll attend to it later.

  So said every cavalier lad who hoped later meant several hundred years in the future when the bloody thing will have disintegrated.

  He straightened, groaned at the ache in his lower back, and wished that he hadn’t started in the other end of his very large house. If he’d come straight to the cellar—yet another in a long series of lessons learned—he would have found the trunk before he’d wasted half the day looking for things he’d imagined he wouldn’t want to see. And what had he found at the very end of his tedious morning?

  Horseshoes.

  He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. Those damned nags were going to be the death of him.

  The trunk was full of all sorts of other things he supposed might have been useful in a barn. A record book listing the incomings and outgoings of necessities, several useful pieces of tack, and, as he’d already noted to himself, half a dozen horseshoes that he suspected not even Léirsinn would want.

  He retrieved one just the same, slammed the trunk shut, then kept himself warm and happy with a few choice words as he climbed back up the stairs to the kitchen. He dropped the horseshoe on the table, glared at his horse-turned-useless-puss who was currently snoozing comfortably on the hearth rug, then took himself off to rid his clothes and person of dust and cobwebs.

  Half an hour and a few more sneezes and curses later, he walked into his study with the sole purpose of finding something very strong to drink. He didn’t usually indulge before sunset, but it had truly been that sort of day so far. He almost plowed Léirsinn over before he realized she was coming out where he intended to go in. He caught her by the arms, looked at her, and cursed those bloody magics in his chest that were making absolute ruination of his poor heart.

  He pulled her into his arms and held her perhaps for a bit longer than was polite, but she wasn’t elbowing him in the gut so perhaps she didn’t mind.

  “Acair, I—”

  “Don’t.”

  “I wasn’t going to apologize,” she said, her words muffled against his neck. “I was going to show you something interesting.”

  He didn’t move. “Will I enjoy it?”

  “It has to do with magic.”

  He sighed and loosened his grip on her, but found that he couldn’t let her go. “I’m not sure I want to see it. Let’s go find something else to do. I have some ideas that involve you, me, and copious displays of affection.”

  She laughed a little as she pushed away from him. “You’re impossible, and you’re still going to want to see this.”

  “Might I have more whisky first?”

  “Nay, you may not. Do you know what’s interesting?”

  “My fetching, manly form?”

  She rolled her eyes, then paused. “Well,” she conceded, “that too, but look at this.” She held out her arm.

  “Beautiful,” he said, fighting the urge to simply side-step her and head straight for the only thing he thought might save him.

  “Nay, look more closely.”

  He conceded the battle. There were few others in the world, he was certain, who possessed his unwholesome ability to concentrate on the task at hand until that task surrendered with a wail of defeat, but he thought he might be facing one of them in the person of that glorious red-haired gel there.

  He looked at her arm, then at her face. “It pains me to admit as much, but I have no idea what you’re trying to show me except your lovely self which is leading to more thoughts of doing anything but the difficult work that lies before us.”

  “I’m flattered,” she said, holding her arm up closer to his face. “Look again at the spot you healed.”

  He did, then shrugged, finding himself truly at a loss. “I’m torn between apologizing and telling you that you’re welcome.”

  She took him by the hand and pulled him over to the window. A fine mist had already rolled in from the sea, but the soft light that remained was ample to see by.

  “Watch what happens,” she said. She pressed on the little pool of Fadaire that lingered there on her skin. “See how it scatters, then pulls back together?”

  He put his hand over his chest protectively. “I’m afraid to look in a polished glass now.”

  “Nay,” she said impatiently. “Remember how Falaire shattered those shadows, then they drew back together?”

  He frowned. “In Sgath and Eulasaid’s barn?”

  “Aye. Isn’t that strange? And look at how this does the same thing, only this comes back together in a lovely way. That pool of shadow in your grandparents’ barn was far different.” She looked at him. “Why does evil have all those pointy edges?”

  He felt his mouth go dry. “Like shards.”

  She nodded slowly. “Odd, isn’t it?”

  He felt as if his entire being had become one of those ridiculous pools of shadow that Falaire had stomped to oblivion. The pieces came at him from all directions, then clicked back into a perfectly miserable whole.

  Shards, shadows, his spell in Diarmailt that cast shadows, a mage who created shadows that stole souls…

  He would have felt his way down into a chair, but he was no fainting miss. He staggered artistically over to his sideboard and poured himself a large glass of whisky. He tossed it back without so much as a gasp and came back up with his throat on fire but his head absolutely clear. He could hardly believe he hadn’t seen it before.

  That shard-spewing mage was the one making those pools of shadow.

  He leaned his hands on the sideboard, grateful he wasn’t shaking badly enough to leave bottles rattling, and let that thought simply stand there in front of him it in all its simplicity where it might possibly be joined by other useful thoughts.

  If that same mage was creating those shadows and the purpose of those shadows was to steal souls, then that mage’s intention was to steal souls.

  But if that were the case, why now?

  He bowed his head and blew out his breath, then forced himself to start from the beginning and walk again down the path he’d been on, searching for things he might have overlooked.

  He’d first noticed the lads following him when they’d left Aherin. He’d been so damned distracted at the time by his fury over Soilléir’s leaving him helpless that he couldn’t have said if the mage outside had been in that pack of jackals or not. The first sense he’d truly had of a single mage with mischief on his mind had been when Miach had handed him that bloody, overdone missive.

  He’d realized soon after leaving Tor Neroche that the cloud of mage had turned into a single hunter, but he’d assumed that lone mage had been someone he’d done dirty in the past who had decided the time had come for revenge. Coming face to face with the man and watching spells come out of his mouth in impossibly sharp spears of darkness hadn’t changed his opinion.

  I’m the one with all the spells.

  Well, that was a ridiculous boast, but if one had a spell to steal souls, perhaps all the other spells in the world simply didn’t matter.

  He straightened and rubbed his hands over his face, wishing he’d questioned Soilléir a bit more thoroughly in that glade. He remembered with unfortunate clarity the man rambling on about spells and souls and missing one of the former, but the conversation had been distressingly empty of particulars.

  The one thing he thought he could allow to stand as fact was that the mage following him had stolen his spell in Eòlas, which meant he had also likely slain Odhran, and left behind that childish note. If he was als
o the one making those shadows, then it was obvious that while he claimed to have mighty spells, he was missing at least one piece of the spell he likely wanted the most.

  His hands twitched before he could stop them. What he wanted was to put them comfortably around a certain essence-changing prince’s throat, but perhaps that wasn’t a useful thought to be entertaining at the moment. He rubbed his hands together to keep them busy, then continued on the path that seemed to be unfortunately laid out in front of him.

  Soilléir’s had said that the spell stolen from his grandfather’s library was the same spell—a copy, no doubt—that Acair had tossed into the fire all those decades ago. That was a spell for stealing souls, however, not creating shadows.

  But if—if—the mage outside was the same one who had stolen Seannair’s spell—whatever its true purpose was—then that made that man standing under the trees of his forest the orchardist that he himself had insulted all those many years ago.

  Ninety years was a very long time to wait for revenge.

  It wasn’t as if there hadn’t been ample opportunity for the man to see to it long before the present moment. He himself had spent decades going about in the open, walking along dusty roads with no one guarding his back, gliding across ballrooms with naught but a woman’s gown to hide behind.

  So many opportunities to execute a deft piece of payback, so why not before now?

  Unless that mage outside didn’t want revenge.

  He would have said that he couldn’t understand that, but unfortunately he did, all too well. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have had to look much further than his own family tree to find Gair of Ceangail perching there as the absolute embodiment of patience whilst about the vile work of herding his prey along an ever-straitening course that led to the end of the maze where there was no escape. There were others, to be sure, but he thought he might need to take a seat before he began scrutinizing that list.

  Nay, he was missing something and he scarce had the stomach to wonder what.