The White Spell (9 page)

“You wee babe,” his great-aunt said, clucking her tongue. “Never had strong drink, eh?”

“I'm afraid 'tis true,” he managed, wishing he'd sent Léirsinn off with enough coin for something for him that wouldn't feel as if it had just peeled a layer of flesh from off the inside of his throat. “And whilst I'm accustoming myself to this delicious brew, might I ask why you find yourself here?”

“Because it was the most interesting place available.”

Acair didn't like to argue with age—very well, he relished arguing with anyone older than he so he might put his mighty wit and magic on display. At least he had until he'd acquired a damned shadow in the person of that spell that seemed to be ever watching him for the slightest misstep. It was a novel sensation, that not wanting to draw attention to himself. He could only hope that was an aberration that would eventually pass.

“I don't know, Auntie,” he said, dredging up what he hoped would pass for a respectful tone. “It seems a bit on the dull side to me.”

“I despair for the future of the race,” she said, shaking her head. She reached out and cuffed him on the ear. “Everything flows through here, whelp. Tales, magic, mages. Everything. And don't think a decent amount of all three doesn't come through this market.”

“But,” he said gingerly, “why do you care?”

“I like to be in the know.” She patted her hair carefully. “Keeps me attractive, you see, to the lads. Don't know that I won't find one I fancy one of these days and have myself a bit of an amorous adventure.”

The thought made him want to go have a little lie-down. The woman was twelve hundred years old if she was a day.

“And don't think I haven't had several very important and handsome lads pursuing me of late,” Cailleach added.

“Of course,” he said quickly, fearing she might cuff him again
if he didn't express his agreement with the proper amount of enthusiasm. She had reached for her walking stick and was fingering it purposefully. “I wouldn't think anything else. I also wouldn't presume to ask for their identities lest it ruin the surprise when one comes calling very soon and you choose to announce the name of that fortunate lad.”

“I'm surprised at your discretion, but perhaps you're growing up. You didn't answer my question, though. Why are you trailing after Léirsinn like a lovesick pup?”

He didn't bother to take issue with her term. The woman was nothing if not a hopeless romantic. He also supposed he wouldn't be rubbishing any terms of his sentence if he told her as much truth as he could stomach. He sighed heavily. “The tale begins with the fact that I am on a penance tour.”

Cailleach blinked, then a corner of her mouth twitched. “Trying to make up for a bit of that magic-stealing you did last year, eh?”

“Among other things,” he said grimly. “'Tis a ridiculously useless exercise given that I didn't achieve my nefarious designs thanks to that damned elf-spawn I must unfortunately admit is a brother.”

“Rùnach paid a heavy price for your sire's evil,” Cailleach said seriously. “He deserves every happiness. You, though? I'm not sure what you deserve.”

“A hot fire, cold ale, and a handsome wench or two,” Acair said distinctly, “and in that order.” He looked at his aunt. “That my needs are so few makes me feel old.”

“And that spell following you will age you further very rapidly if you tangle with it. But I've interrupted you. You were on a penance tour, and . . .” She looked at him expectantly.

He suppressed the urge to swear. “To finish off my miserable year of do-gooding, I was given two choices: apologize to Uachdaran of Léige for I haven't a clue what or be without magic for a century.” He wasn't about to tell her just what he'd been up to in that accursed country of Durial on the off chance that he managed to return and finish that glorious piece of business. Better to leave
that undisturbed. “I bargained it down to a year,” he continued. “I was sent here, if you can believe it, for my own safety, and that bloody thing there watches me to make certain I don't stray off the path.”

“And if you do, its task is to slay you?”

He pursed his lips. “As I said. I suppose that's preferable to Soilléir's alternative which was to turn me into a birdbath and set me in some garden full of elves or faeries.” He shuddered. “I don't like to think about it, actually.”

“I'm surprised he didn't promise to send you to live with your sire in that magic sink he occupies.”

“I would prefer death.”

“I imagine Soilléir knows that.” She tilted her head and studied him for a moment or two. “And so you wound up at Fuadain's stables at Briàghde, took one look at that red-haired angel, and lost your heart.”

“My mind, rather,” Acair said. “My heart, black as it is, remains untouched.”

Cailleach laughed. “Ah, Acair my lad, you are a sorry thing, aren't you? You should be so fortunate to have someone like that gel look at you twice.” She took the flask from him, had a healthy swig, then looked at him knowingly. “I can't imagine you aren't about some piece of mischief or other, never mind what Prince Soilléir might have intended for you.”

“Now that you mention it,” Acair said, “I am curious about a few things. One thing, actually.”

“Of course you are. What thing?”

“This will sound daft.”

“Acair, I would call you many things—and have, believe me—but daft is not amongst them.” She reached out and patted his hand with surprising gentleness. “Tell Auntie what you've seen.”

He looked about him for eager ears, but saw nothing but the usual rabble that loitered about in such a locale. He turned back to his great-aunt. “I've seen shadows.”

“Those are the souls of those you've slain, love.”

He considered, then leaned closer to her. “I refuse to admit to actually having slain anyone,” he said, “but don't spread that about.”

She gave him what for her was an affectionate shove. “You've had more than your share of souls die of fright on your watch, which you must admit.”

“I won't say that I haven't helped a few continue on the path they'd already chosen to that peaceful rest in the East,” he conceded, “and perhaps with more gusto than necessary, but that seemed the least I could do.”

“Altruistic.”

“I know,” he said with a sigh. “One of my greatest failings, and one that has caused me no small amount of grief over the past year.” He glanced about himself once more, unwilling to provide fodder for any eavesdroppers, then looked at his aunt seriously. “About those shadows: I don't like the feel of them.”

“Know who created them?”

“I haven't had a chance to investigate properly yet.”

“Leaving me to do your dirty work for you,” she said with a sigh. She heaved herself to her feet. “Let's go for a little stroll and see what's there to be seen.”

“You might be robbed whilst we're gone.”

She only smiled in a way that left him doubting that such a thing would ever happen. She nodded to a small, sharp-nosed lad who took over her spot and her walking stick. Acair had the feeling he would use both to their best advantage.

Léirsinn was nowhere to be found, which he supposed should have alarmed him a bit, but he counted on daylight to at least be of some aid to her and continued on with his aunt. They didn't have to go far.

“There,” he said, nodding to a spot ten paces in front of them. “By the wall.”

Cailleach watched as someone stepped into that shadow, paused, then stepped out of it.

Acair looked at her closely, but her expression gave nothing away. He waited, though, because whatever she lacked in manners she more than made up for in experience and canniness.

She finally shook her head, then looked at him. “I don't think you should get involved in that business there,” she said very quietly. “
I
certainly wouldn't.”

“But, Auntie, your magic gives even me pause.”

“I should hope so, Acair. What flows through your veins is half ours, you know. Gair is nothing but flash and theatrics. The real power, the power that will come to you when his is blown off like chaff?
That
is what you should have been chasing after all these years.”

He didn't believe that for a second—

He paused, then studied his aunt for a moment, seeing her with a clarity he'd certainly never taken the time for before. The woman who stood before him, as demure as her booming fishwife voice would allow her to be . . . aye, he'd underestimated her. Badly.

She gave him a knowing look. “Arrogance was your sire's downfall.”

“I'm working on humility,” he promised.

She blinked, then threw back her head and laughed. Again. He would have been offended—indeed, he was, rather—but perhaps a string of endless days shoveling horse manure had done a goodly work on him somehow because his first instinct was to protest his innocence, not drop a spell of death on her head. She looked at him as if she knew exactly what he was thinking, reached out and pulled him into a fragrant embrace, then patted him rather gently on the back.

“You're a horrible little piece of refuse,” she said, shoving him away and smiling, “but perhaps there is a hope of your improving at some point. Not enough to merit that one coming our way, but perhaps someone more shrewish and unpleasant.”

Acair knew he should have protested that he wasn't looking for a woman and wouldn't have wanted a horse girl if he had been, but there was no point. He saw Léirsinn standing twenty paces away,
staring at the patch he could almost see there to the side of the thoroughfare, tucked discreetly near a barrel of—what else?—fish.

“You know where curiosity lands you,” Cailleach said lightly.

“My mother is curious,” he reminded her.

“Aye, but she would have the good sense to exercise some self-control here.” She shot him a look. “Leave this alone, Acair. You won't like where it leads.”

He was tempted to argue with her, but decided that perhaps there was no point in it. He had to wonder, though, just what she had seen to leave her feeling so strongly about something that looked so unremarkable.

He speculated until Léirsinn had joined them, then continued on with that same activity whilst he escorted those two demure flowers back to Cailleach's stand where her lad seemed to be doing an extremely brisk bit of business. He then loitered about uselessly, mulling over what he'd heard until Léirsinn and his aunt had apparently discussed their business to their satisfaction.

He bid his aunt a good day, collected his horse miss, and left before Cailleach could say anything else untoward.

“Chummy, weren't you?” Léirsinn asked. “One would think you knew her.”

“One shouldn't ask questions I can't answer.”

Léirsinn stopped and looked at him in surprise. “You
do
know her.”

“I can't say.”

“You know I'm going to ask her about it the next time we meet.”

“You do that.” He could only imagine what his auntie would decide to reveal about him, so perhaps he would be offering to run errands in town for the foreseeable future to spare Léirsinn any details she didn't need to know.

He supposed he could think of worse things than to be doing something—anything—besides the backbreaking labor of endlessly moving horse droppings from small piles to much larger piles. If one more horsefly landed on his arse . . . well, he couldn't bring to mind exactly what he would do because the choices were so dire—

“Watch out!”

She hadn't shouted, but she'd come close. He waited until an appropriate number of locals had looked at him as if they pitied him for his companion's obviously damaged sanity, then he looked at the shadow in front of him. It was smaller than the others, but even he could see its edges.

He didn't pause to think; he simply ignored the warning bells going off inside his head and stepped into the middle of it.

He lost his breath. Nay, he hadn't lost his breath, it had been ripped from him by claws. The spell continued to tear at him in a way he honestly couldn't describe. His mind, his memories, his very essence was being pulled from him with a ruthlessness that astonished him. It took an effort that was impossible to even begin to calculate to wrench himself out of its terrible embrace—

He stepped back and leaned over, struggling to simply draw in breath, until he could put his finger on what had happened to him.

He had lost a piece of his soul.

It was excruciating.

He was vaguely aware of Léirsinn pulling his arm over her shoulders and taking a good deal of his weight onto herself, but he couldn't find the strength to protest. It was all he could do to breathe in and out.

“What happened—”

“Find a quiet place,” he begged hoarsely. “I'll be fine in a moment.”

“I don't think—”

“
Please
.”

She looked at him in surprise. He imagined he was wearing the same expression. He had never in his life uttered that word—

Well, that was a lie, but he would be damned if he would revisit when he'd last begged for anything.

The next thing he knew he was sitting in a darkened corner of a gathering room, there was a fire within reach, and Léirsinn was fumbling with the purse at his belt.

“I should be enjoying this,” he wheezed.

“First a gambler and now a lecher,” she said sternly. “What else have I yet to discover about you that's worse?”

“Don't ask.” He closed his eyes because the chamber was spinning so wildly, he thought he might lose what breakfast he'd forced himself to ingest that morning.

He suspected he might have slept, for the next thing he knew, Léirsinn was shaking him awake. He pried his eyes open, then accepted something that someone might have termed ale if they'd never tasted the same before. He drank, though, because feeling nauseated from bad ale was better than feeling half dead from what he'd just had done to him. He looked at Léirsinn but could scarce see her. She leaned closer to him.