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

  What he wanted was a moment to properly contemplate the woman’s ability to encounter so many awful things without flinching, but he thought sleep might serve him better. He shoved his rune of death down the front of his boot, then caught Léirsinn before she simply tipped over off the sofa. He put her to bed, took off her slippers, then covered her up with a blanket.

  He stretched out on the floor in front of the fire. Guardsmen were lurking outside the door, Léirsinn was obviously too weary to work any magic that might go awry, and his spellish shadow was sitting on a stool at his feet, watching him with those soulless eyes.

  “Not to worry,” he told it, “He bested me as well.”

  The spell drew its feet up onto the stool with it, wrapped its arms around its knees, and looked almost as unsettled as he felt.

  He looked up at the ceiling and suspected sleep wouldn’t come easily, despite how weary he was. It had been years, decades really, since he’d had so few reserves that using magic had left him that exhausted. Then again, fighting off the king’s assault had left him digging deeper than he had in almost that long.

  Then there had been that spell of Aonarach’s…

  He closed his eyes. One more day. One more day for Léirsinn to recover and for him to slip in and out of Uachdaran’s solar to see if a piece of his soul might have been left there.

  Then they would leave Léige one way or another.

  Six

  Léirsinn tossed another forkful of hay into the empty stall where the king’s prized bribe was wont to spend his days, then paused to rest. ’Twas possible she should have remained in bed for another day, but she hadn’t been able to. Not just the habit of tending horses every day without fail, but the chance for a distraction from the chaos in her head had driven her outside at dawn.

  She set aside the pitchfork and ushered the stallion back into his stall. She shut the door, but lingered there, pretending to fuss with the latch. That left her looking very busy, something she hoped would discourage anyone—namely King Uachdaran—from reminding her that he’d wanted her to go below with Acair and learn to use her magic. With any luck, she might be able to put that off for quite a while.

  Besides, it wasn’t as though she didn’t know any mighty mages capable of doing anything she might need done. She turned and leaned back against the stall door where she could look at one of those across the aisle snoozing peacefully atop a bale of hay. She folded her arms over her chest and studied him dispassionately.

  Acair of Ceangail made a very pleasant sight in spite of his apparent ability to pull terrible spells out of his pockets. She supposed the king of Durial had no room to criticize there, for his magic had been just as full of shadows. Watching the two of them go at each other the night before had been more than a little unsettling.

  Then there had been that strange business with the king’s grandson, something she would have rushed out to stop if the king hadn’t caught her by the arm and shaken his head slightly. Watching that spell stretch across the chamber and reach toward Acair’s soul had been horrifying. She’d waited for the king to stop the madness, but he had only watched it all as if he’d planned the whole thing.

  Whatever she thought she might be able to do with the magic she couldn’t control was nothing compared to what she’d seen, which left her wondering what in the hell she’d been thinking to ask for any of it in the first place. If Aonarach of Durial had come at her with that piece of nastiness, she would have simply fainted from terror.

  In all honesty, it had been that last spell to send her out to the barn before dawn that morning. Busying herself with ordinary work that she knew how to do had seemed like a good way to forget what she’d seen.

  She’d groomed three horses before she’d realized she had acquired a keeper in the person of that painfully handsome man over there. He had started the morning sitting on that bale of hay, but as time had worn on, he’d listed further and further to his right until he’d simply fallen over, asleep. At the moment that was fairly handy because it gave her a chance to watch him for a change.

  Very well, so she’d known of what he could do because everyone he met seemed determined to remind him of all his bad deeds. But those had, in the end, been nothing but words.

  Seeing it for herself the night before had been terrifying.

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t encountered frightening things before. A handful of stallions that could have stomped her to death, surely. That shapechanging monster she’d lunged in Hearn of Angesand’s yard, definitely. But in an arena, she knew how to tell her fear to take a seat and wait until she’d done what she needed to do.

  But magic and that man there who had so much of it? That was something else entirely. She could hardly believe she’d insulted him so freely without having any idea of what he was truly capable of. Very well, so she had seen, seen, what warred within his soul in the king’s garden in Tor Neroche, but she hadn’t understood just what the dark contained. She half wondered if he knew.

  It left her wondering what the other half of his soul might be holding within itself.

  She knew what buckets held, though, and the one that had been set precariously on the saddle tree near him was about to lose what it contained right onto his head.

  She had hardly begun to leap forward to grab it before she heard words be blurted out next to her, words that left the grain stopping in its tracks.

  The stable lad she hadn’t noticed standing nearby was obviously as quick with his hands as he was with a spell. He caught the bucket before it landed on Acair, scooping the grain back into it as he did so, while she stood in the aisle with her hands outstretched. She realized how foolish she looked and brushed off the front of her clothes in yet another attempt to look busy at anything unmagical.

  “Good day to ye, mistress,” the lad said breathlessly, setting the bucket on the ground. “Wouldn’t want to wake such a one as this one here, aye?”

  “Probably not,” she agreed. She watched the boy hurry off, then walked over and felt her way down onto Acair’s roost.

  Things were occurring to her that hadn’t before.

  If an innocent stable hand could use a spell such as that with such success, well…why couldn’t she? It wasn’t a mighty magic, obviously, but she was never going to be a powerful mage.

  She might manage something simple, though, and that simple thing might be enough.

  Besides, that was the sort of business that would serve her well in many situations. She could watch a bag of oats burst, then mumble a few words and save herself looking for a broom. She could keep the contents of buckets where they belonged. If she took a notion to experiment with something darker, she could corral flies and do them in all at once, saving any number of horses endless torment.

  For all she knew, she might be able to keep a certain spell of death sitting on its hands while a man she thought she might just love did what he needed to do.

  She reached over absently to settle Acair’s cloak over him more thoroughly. He murmured something that sounded like thank you, then drifted off again. She watched him for a moment or two, not begrudging him his slumber. Every time she’d woken the night before, she’d found him standing at the window staring out into the darkness, no doubt contemplating things she hadn’t wanted to know about. She imagined no one would be looking for him in a barn, so perhaps he was safe enough on his own for a bit.

  She looked about herself casually for a particular stable boy. It didn’t take long to spot him, mostly because he was the one lad there who looked as if he’d just narrowly missed sending a black mage into a towering temper.

  Not knowing exactly how one went about the pilfering of a spell, she supposed the best she could do was simply ask. The lad in question didn’t bolt at her approach, which was promising. She stopped and leaned back against the wall next to him.

  “What was that spell?” she asked casually.


  He gulped. “Spell?”

  She gave him the look she normally reserved for lads lying about having done their chores and hoped it would be enough.

  “I learnt it at my ma’s knee,” he said. “Child’s magic. Useful for keeping hens where they’s meant to stay, aye?”

  “Very useful,” she agreed. “Can you teach it to me?”

  “Oh, mistress,” he protested, “’tis below the likes of you.”

  “I’m always on the hunt for new spells,” she said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. “If they’re less than five words, so much the better.”

  “If you say so,” he said doubtfully.

  “Do I have to wave any wands or make shooing motions at the victim—er, at the hens, or oats, or whatever is being, um…”

  He looked as if his doubt might soon blossom into outright panic. “Nay,” he said faintly, “just the charm.”

  She patted herself, but found she had nothing to use as a bribe. Her satchel was back in her bedchamber and she suspected Acair had not only her notebook but his spell of death secreted somewhere on his person. She was starting to see why he tended to acquire the odd item for use in the current sort of business. The best she could do was a roll she had begged from the kitchens earlier and put in her pocket just in case. She retrieved it and held it out.

  The boy shook his head. “I’ll give it ye freely, as ’twas given me.”

  Léirsinn put the roll back in her pocket for later use, then braced herself for some unintelligible bit of gibberish. To her surprise what the lad said made perfect sense to her. It was as if all that was required was to choke out a handful of words that wove themselves together like a net and caught whatever was trying to escape. Very useful in a barn, to be sure. Perhaps just as useful outside it, under the right circumstances.

  She thanked the boy for his gift, then considered where she might test the spell without destroying everything around her. She repeated the words silently as she wandered out of the barn into the courtyard. The air was very cold and the sky full of heavy clouds, which she supposed was a good thing as it seemed to have driven most sensible souls indoors.

  It was a perfect day to be about foul deeds.

  She looked about herself for a likely victim, ignoring the fact that she felt like Acair of Ceangail on a less-murderous errand, then noticed a rather innocent but sturdy horse trough not twenty paces from where she stood. It had been recently filled, obviously, and the ripples from that filling were leaving water sloshing up against the sides.

  Well, there was no time like the present to make an utter fool of herself. Besides, if a simple stable lad could do what she contemplated, why couldn’t she? At least she was working with water, not fire.

  She found a bucket lying tipped over next to a wall, an untidiness she never would have allowed in her barn, and tossed it into the trough. As the water was splashing over the sides of the stone, she quickly said the appropriate words.

  She was slightly surprised to find most of the water was then contained inside the edges of the trough where it belonged. The bucket, however, was flung up into the air with far more force than she’d used tossing it into the water thanks to a geyser of water pushing it there.

  Unfortunately, other streams started to tear randomly through her…ah…well, she supposed she could term it her spell, but even just the words sent a shudder through her that left her feeling decidedly not herself.

  What she could say with certainty was that in the end, her spell hadn’t done a very good job of containing anything.

  She soon found herself surrounded by stable hands gaping just as she was at what was going on there with the water. She was starting to understand why Gair had had so much trouble with that damned well. Magic was more capricious than she’d suspected.

  A single word was spoken from next to her. She watched, unable to move, as the water retreated back to where it had come from and the bucket fell down toward her upturned face. A hand reached out and caught it before it likely would have broken her nose. She took a deep breath, then looked to her right, fully expecting to find Acair there.

  It was Aonarach, the king’s grandson.

  He handed her the bucket. “Might want to work on that,” he said mildly.

  She clutched it and watched him walk off toward the palace where he would no doubt enjoy a hot fire, cold ale, and vats of magic he could likely control without any thought. If she’d been one prone to envy, she might have indulged.

  “You’ve been busy, I see.”

  She found that the king himself was standing next to her. She would have apologized for plying her dastardly trade on his courtyard, but he shook his head before she could even begin.

  “Water was a good choice,” he said approvingly. “And not entirely bad work there, missy. Striking out on your own, are you?”

  She realized she’d given him the look she usually gave to cheeky stable hands only because he huffed out a brief laugh.

  “I deserved that, I daresay,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I think, though, that you’ve avoided proper lessons long enough this morning. ’Twould be a pity to use that spell of containment on good Master Acair’s wee companion and have it fail.”

  “It would, indeed,” said a voice behind her.

  Léirsinn caught the look of disgust the king directed toward the man apparently standing behind her and supposed Acair had definitely endured worse. She wondered, though, how long he’d been there and how much he’d seen.

  “Luncheon,” the king announced, “then a bit of work for you Mistress Léirsinn. Not that I care overly for the condition of your would-be lover there, but I do have strong feelings about the state of the world as a whole. Come along, lass, and we’ll leave that mage there to follow us.”

  Léirsinn would have protested, but she couldn’t come up with a decent excuse why she shouldn’t agree to both so she simply fell in alongside the king as he tromped back through the puddles she’d left in his courtyard. Perhaps he considered those an improvement over smoldering ruins.

  He paused on the steps leading up to his hall doorway, then looked at her thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose Prince Soilléir told you what it was he put in your veins.”

  “I didn’t ask,” she said. “I didn’t know there was a difference in, ah, you know—”

  “There is,” the king said. “I imagine your lad behind us could discover the truth of it given how he’s forever turning over rocks he should leave alone simply to see what’s under them.” He snorted. “What I would like a peek at is what’s running through his veins.”

  “Mine, Your Majesty?” Acair asked politely.

  The king swore at him. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  Léirsinn didn’t want to ask, but the question was out of her mouth before she could stop it. “It is elven magic?”

  “To Ehrne of Ainneamh’s everlasting disgust, aye no doubt, but that is the least of it.” He sent Acair a calculating look over his shoulder, then looked back at her. “What comes from the land of Fàs is terrifying and shrouded in secrecy, which I’ll admit is just how Cruihniche likes it. If that lad there had any idea what he could claim from his mother’s side rather than Gair’s, none of us would be sleeping well at night.”

  “Perhaps it’s best he doesn’t know then,” she offered.

  “Perhaps,” the king agreed, “though I daresay he’ll find out sooner than any of us is comfortable with. But until that terrible day, it seems as though the task of keeping him alive falls to you. Best to put a saddle on your magic and take it out for a trot this morning.”

  “While I appreciate the thought, Your Majesty,” she said, making one last effort to spare herself, “I don’t think—”

  “Exactly,” Uachdaran said, not unkindly. “That’s half the trick of it, gel. If you think, the moment will pass and your lover the
re will be dead. Not that I would suffer any pangs of regret over that, of course, but you might.”

  “I feel a bit of a fever,” she protested. “Perhaps even upset in my innards.”

  The king lifted an eyebrow. “No magic is wrought without a price, Mistress Léirsinn. There are times that price is very dear, indeed.”

  “You don’t, if I might be so bold, look to pay any price,” she said, because the idea that not only having magic but using it might be what finished her off had never occurred to her.

  Uachdaran shrugged. “I’ve been doing it for so many years I don’t notice weariness. I am also master here and Durial is an endless source of unyielding strength. You have only yourself to use, so be prepared for a bit of weariness.”

  She took a deep breath, but that did nothing to settle both the unease she felt and the unusual lethargy even using that simple spell had left her with.

  “Food,” the king suggested, “then take that bastard downstairs and see what you can learn. I’ll do him the very great favor of keeping his spell busy for a bit. For your sake and the world’s.” He reached out and patted her on the arm. “You’ll have to master at least the rudiments of it, my gel. Magic can be beautiful, brutal, and damned terrifying, but it is useful. Think of all that grain you won’t have to sweep.”

  “I have stable hands for that,” she said weakly.

  The king only smiled and nodded toward the door.

  An hour later as she stood in the king’s cavernous exercise chamber, she wished she’d kicked up more of a fuss. She was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Acair, looking at a pile of wood twenty paces in front of her and wondering if it might be too late to simply bolt for the door.

  “I can outrun you.”

  She glared at him. “I doubt that, and stop peering into my head.”

  “You’re not very good at hiding your thoughts,” he said. “And for the record, I won’t force you to do this. I would have advised against—” He blew out his breath. “Never mind.”