Spellweaver (43 page)

“And who do we have here?” she asked, cutting Ruith off in mid-flattery.

“A distant cousin,” Ruith said. “Sarah of Aireachan.”

Morag smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant one. “Come now, my prince, we are able to be honest with each other, are we not? If this is one of Lodan of Camanaë’s great-granddaughters, then I am Yngerame of Wychweald.” She pinned Sarah to the spot with a look that felt more like a blow. “Who is this gel who cowers beside a mighty elven prince of a house she surely wouldn’t dare approach save on her knees?”

Sarah would have taken umbrage at that, but she was too terrified to speak. Besides, Queen Morag had it aright. She was standing beside a glorious elven prince, and she was most definitely cowering.

“She is who I say she is,” Ruith said. “And she is under my protection.”

Sarah was startled enough by his tone to look at him, though she realized immediately that she shouldn’t have. It was dangerous to look away from a coiled snake. The queen laughed, a cold, hard sound that reminded Sarah of the stinging hail that fell occasionally in Doìre when a chill wind blew down from the north. Whether against her mother’s workroom window or her own head out in the forest, it was unpleasant.

“You are entitled to your little dalliances, of course,” Morag said with another laugh that hurt Sarah simply to listen to it. “I’ll see chambers provided for you. A discreet distance away from each other.”

“That won’t be necessary, for what should be obvious reasons of propriety,” Ruith said, in that same low, dangerous voice, “though we certainly do appreciate your hospitality, Your Majesty. We have come merely to seek shelter for the night. We won’t trouble you longer than that.”

“It is no trouble, Prince Ruithneadh,” Morag said smoothly. “Of course.”

Sarah thought it might be wise to simply keep her mouth shut and see if she couldn’t stay out of Morag’s sights. She listened to Ruith and Morag make a bit more small talk, then tried not to weep with relief when Morag motioned for one of her servants to come forward and show the guest and his, ah,
cousin
to their chambers. She didn’t argue with Ruith when he put her in front of him as they made their way out of the great hall, then up stairs and down passageways until the servant stopped in front of a doorway. Sarah wouldn’t have cared if it had been nothing more than a closet in which to discard used linens; she was simply happy to know that there would soon be somewhere for her to hide.

The servant withdrew a discreet distance and looked away, but not before Sarah saw the smirk on his face. She looked at Ruith.

“Well,” she said, because she couldn’t manage anything else.

Only his eyes betrayed his fury. “I will come to fetch you, my lady, for supper.”

“Thank you.”

“Do not leave this chamber, Sarah.”

She let out a shaky breath. “I wouldn’t think to.”

He opened the door for her, then stood back. “Sleep if you can. You’ll be glad of it later.”

Aye, when they snuck out of their chambers and scurried about the keep, looking for things Queen Morag shouldn’t have had in her possession. She nodded, though she didn’t imagine she would manage sleep anytime soon. She walked into the chamber and closed the door behind her. A spell slid down to the floor, the same sort of thing Ruith had put over the door in Slighe. She let out a shuddering breath, then turned in a circle to look at her luxurious accommodations. They seemed nothing out of the ordinary, though painfully small. Not quite a closet for bedclothes, but close.

A knock startled her into dropping her pack on the floor. She picked it up with trembling hands, set it on a chair, then turned to open the door. A servant stood there with a gown draped over her arms.

“From Her Majesty,” the girl said, bobbing a curtsey. “For your pleasure, my lady.”

Sarah found the gown thrust into her arms, then the door pulled shut in her face. She wouldn’t have minded that so much if she hadn’t found herself suddenly in a great deal of pain. The wound on her right arm where Gair’s spell had left its mark flamed into a burning that left her gritting her teeth in order not to cry out. Her left arm pained her equally, which surprised her. She quickly put the gown over the back of the chair, then stepped away from it. She realized that she was trembling badly and that it didn’t come from standing in the middle of a stone-cold chamber. She would have made a fire, but there was no wood. She didn’t dare take apart one of the chairs.

And then she realized there was something else about the chamber, apart from its unrelenting inhospitality, that bothered her.

Something that smelled of death.

She walked over to the window, which was unfortunately not large enough for her to jump out of, and opened the shutters. The rain-soaked breeze was a welcome relief from the stench of the spell she hadn’t noticed at first, the spell that lingered inside the chamber. She looked out into the mist for quite some time before she could bring herself to face the thought that had been tugging at her mind.

She might have the means to see what sort of spell lay in her chamber, hidden from view.

She took a deep breath of bracing spring air, then turned and leaned back against the wall, which felt comfortingly steady beneath her hands. It took her longer perhaps than it should have to muster up the courage to try the spell Soilléir had given her. She wasn’t sure she believed it would do anything but hang there in the air, then blow away like so much smoke.

Believing is seeing
.

Soilléir’s words, spoken offhandedly at some point during her stay in Buidseachd, came back to her as if he’d been standing there next to her, whispering them afresh. Her mother had always held to the opposite view, that she wouldn’t believe something until she’d seen it with her own bloody good eyes, as she would have said. Sarah imagined now that Soilléir had chosen his words and their particular order with great care.

She closed her eyes briefly, gathered up all the faith in herself she could lay her hands on, then repeated faithfully the spell he’d given her. The words seemed to come with a power of their own, a power she certainly hadn’t felt the first time she’d said them. She took another deep breath, then opened her eyes.

And she wished she hadn’t.

A spell lay in the middle of the chamber, bubbling up from some unseen source. She would have leapt out of its way, or hopped up onto the bed, or used a chair as a last resort, but she didn’t have the chance. It wrapped itself around her feet before she could blink, then crept up her like a noisome vine, but more rapidly than any earthly thing ever could have.

And that was just the beginning.

She tried to move only to find she couldn’t. She would have cried out for aid, but every time she took a breath, the vines tightened about her chest, stealing her air. She stood there and watched helplessly as the bubbling spring sent forth more things that grew and blossomed in a way that left her watching in horror, mute.

Morag had said she was a farmer.

Sarah had never dreamed just what sorts of seedlings she might have cultivated.

Twenty-three

Ruith walked quickly down the passageway toward Sarah’s chamber. He wasn’t particularly concerned that he might be late for supper, never mind Queen Morag’s insistence that he not be. He was, however, quite concerned that Sarah not find herself in the woman’s sights again alone. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have given the queen’s reaction to Sarah any especial thought. Sarah was a very beautiful woman and Morag had six daughters—never mind that he wouldn’t have looked at any of the six even if his heart hadn’t been given. The queen obviously sensed a threat and had lashed out accordingly. There should have been no mystery there.

But they were in An-uallach, and he knew very well that things were not as they seemed.

Especially given that he was sure that if Morag hadn’t killed Athair and Sorcha of Cothromaiche outright, she’d seen it done by someone else. And if what Uachdaran had hinted at was true—that daughters often resembled mothers to an astonishing degree—it stood to reason that Morag might find another murder committed in the near future to be no more difficult than the first two.

He had retired earlier to his chamber and forced himself to sleep for an hour before he’d risen and been about his own investigations in another guise than his own. He had, unfortunately, turned up nothing more than what he would have expected. The keep was full of miserable servants, vicious guardsmen, and spells that reflected an old, unpleasant sort of magic that he was fortunately not very familiar with. It wasn’t his father’s bastardization of Lugham, nor was it of any elven derivation. It wasn’t even as if it had sprung up from the wells of power he could sense lingering beneath the keep’s foundations. It was as if someone during the centuries of An-uallach’s existence had simply taken what was required from other magics, then created something else out of it. It was powerful, though, for all its flaws, so he didn’t take any of it lightly.

He stopped in front of Sarah’s door and knocked. He could see that his spell hadn’t been disturbed save for the servant who had brought Sarah a gown so he was confident she was still inside, unmolested. He sincerely hoped she’d gotten a decent bit of sleep. He had hoped to find where his father’s spells were by himself, but unfortunately Sarah would have to do the honors. He could only hope they weren’t languishing under Morag’s bed. Her husband Phillip likely wouldn’t have minded his rummaging about, but Ruith suspected Morag most certainly would.

He realized that Sarah hadn’t answered. He knocked again, more loudly that time, but still no answer.

“Sarah?” he called, ruthlessly squelching a sudden bout of panic. His spell hadn’t been breached; he could sense it still hanging there, just inside her door.

Yet she didn’t answer.

He turned the knob, broke the lock with a spell, then shoved the door open.

Sarah was standing next to the window, so pale he half feared she was dead. Tears streamed down her cheeks, though, and she was gasping very carefully for breath. He started inside the chamber only to realize why she was standing where she was. He laid no claim to any special sort of sight, but even he could see what lay inside the minuscule bedchamber.

Spells of Olc and that other rot that passed for magic in An-uallach covered every conceivable surface, hung down from the ceiling like spiderwebs, wrapped themselves around Sarah in a vile embrace.

He destroyed them all with a single word—or tried to, rather. It took him a handful of moments to wipe out everything there, which irritated him further. He slammed the door shut behind him, locked it with a spell of Wexham he’d appropriated from Miach of Neroche, then strode over and pulled Sarah into his arms.

She wasn’t hysterical, but she was close. He held her tightly with one arm, then smoothed his hand over her hair again and again, whispering what soothing words he could lay hold of. It was difficult when all he wanted to do was stride off into the keep, find the queen, and ...

He channeled his anger into more useful things, such as creating for Sarah the chamber she should have been offered. He couldn’t say his was overly luxurious, but it wasn’t a soot-encrusted, spell-strewn closet just one step up from a cesspit. He lit a fire, draped tapestries from the walls and laid them on the floor, then created as much light as he could. And when Sarah finally managed to breathe normally again, he swept her up into his arms and carried her over to the bed, a much more comfortable rendition of the like than what he’d found there before.

He laid her down, then perched on the edge of the bed. “Have you been standing there this entire time?”

“Aye.”

He drew his hand over his eyes. “Forgive me, love. I had no idea.”

“I’m afraid I did it.”

He blinked in surprise. “What do you mean?”

She tried to mop up her tears with the hem of her sleeve. “I didn’t like how the chamber felt, so I thought I would try one of Soilléir’s spells, just so I could see what needed to be changed.” She looked at him from bloodshot eyes. “I think I should have kept my mouth shut. Whatever I said woke up whatever was here before.”

He smiled and put his hand over hers. “Give me Soilléir’s spell again, won’t you, just for curiosity’s sake. I fear I didn’t listen very well to it in Buidseachd.”

She repeated it, but with a wince, as if she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted it to work for her again. He considered the words. It was like nothing he’d ever heard before, but it had been from Soilléir and that one had a repertoire of spells which Ruith could only hope one day to acquire.

“And what happened when you used it?” he asked. “To you, I mean, not to the chamber.”

She looked at him helplessly. “I saw. More than I usually see, truth be told.” She paused. “I’m not sure how to turn it off.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t,” he said slowly. “Until we leave.”