Or a strand of dream.
Whatever it was, it definitely belonged to Soilléir’s cousin. Aisling put it in a pocket, then caught up to Soilléir who was simply watching her with a faint smile. Perhaps if she asked him enough uncomfortable questions, he would spend the morning avoiding answering her and she wouldn’t have to discuss what Rùnach was doing at the moment behind silent wooden doors.
Libraries.
She’d known there was a reason she’d wanted to avoid them.
Two
Rùnach of Ceangail was swimming in deep waters.
That seemed to be his lot of late, though not a lot he would have chosen. He had almost drowned in the underground river that had brought him along with Aisling to Cothromaiche several days earlier. He’d felt as if he’d been drowning in all the details he’d been attempting to glean from the king’s library for the past pair of days, details that he was fairly sure would be critical to any future success. But at the moment, what was about to suffocate him was the torrent of words he was being subjected to from the woman in front of him, a woman he hadn’t seen in a score of years.
“You are betrothed to me!”
He hesitated. Perhaps the present moment was not the one to point out that she was mistaken. He had considered it, that was true. Her father, the second son of the current king of Cothromaiche, hadn’t been opposed to the possibility of a match, that was also true. But Rùnach certainly hadn’t felt at liberty to do anything until his father had been seen to. He’d only been a score and eight at the time. Man enough, perhaps, but still very young to be choosing a bride.
He was willing to admit that Annastashia had seemed like the perfect choice for him at the time: royal enough to suit his family but far enough away from her own grandfather’s crown to satisfy a lad with no aspirations to any throne. Whether or not he had been a good choice for her was still up for debate.
He fought the almost overwhelming urge to bid Anna a pleasant morning and be on his way to find that intriguing Bruadairian lass who had abandoned him without any show of remorse, but supposed he wouldn’t make it past the woman in front of him unscathed. She might have looked too elegant to do aught besides direct servants with a languid hand, but he suspected that in a good brawl, she would leave him a bloody mess.
Perhaps he had grown timid during his time in Buidseachd or perhaps he had simply matured enough to understand the true nature of his peril, because he could say without equivocation that she scared the hell out of him.
“It has been a few years,” he said carefully, when she paused for breath.
“A few years?” she bellowed. “It’s been a score of years, you imbecile! Where in the bloody hell have you been?”
He started to speak, then shut his mouth. There was little use in telling her the details of his adventures. She had found the fact of his parentage distasteful enough a score of years earlier. Telling her exactly what had transpired with his father at the well was pointless. Admitting that he’d been lodging at Buidseachd courtesy of her cousin could be, in a word, fatal.
“Father said you had gone to ridiculous lengths to slay your sire,” she said coldly, “and that you had failed.”
Rùnach nodded. “So we did.”
“He also said you’d died in the attempt.”
“Obviously not, though it was a very near thing.” Again, no sense in cluttering things up with particulars she didn’t need to know. She wouldn’t care at all for the things he’d had to do to survive as he had crawled away from the well, unable to bury his mother, unable to find his siblings, unable to feed himself save with what he’d been able to catch and kill with his teeth—
“Yet here you are,” Anna continued briskly. “Accompanied by some waif of a girl who looks as if she’s never in her life had a moment of instruction in deportment.”
“She’s been sheltered,” he conceded. “But what of you? Surely you haven’t been swathed in mourning garb for the past twenty years.”
She drew herself up. “The shock was not insignificant, of course. In spite of that, I did press on.”
He imagined she had. He thought it might not be inappropriate to suppress a shudder at the thought of a life with the woman in front of him. She was lovely and titled and all the things he’d once thought he needed to be happy. Now, he suspected his life would have been an endless procession of evenings spent socializing in clothes that itched and shoes that were too tight.
“I’m surprised you haven’t pressed on to the altar,” he said before he thought better of it.
“I’m still sorting through all the offers,” she said shortly. “And there are at least a dozen.”
And that, Rùnach supposed, was the absolute truth.
“Your face is scarred,” she said, scrutinizing him with a frown.
“It was much worse, believe me.”
“You also seem to have become a bit rough around the edges.”
“Blame your cousin,” Rùnach said, deciding abruptly to throw Soilléir to the wolves in order to spare himself. “I’ve been his guest.”
Her eyes narrowed. “So I heard earlier this morning. I wonder why he couldn’t bring himself to inform me of that fact?”
“Perhaps he thought that telling anyone I was alive would put my life in jeopardy.”
“How utterly ridiculous,” she said with a snort. “Who would want you dead? Well, save me, of course, when I found out you’d been in hiding all these years. Who else would possibly care?”
He smiled. “No one, of course. But you know your cousin. He tends to be overly cautious from time to time—”
“He’s a fool,” she interrupted, “with an overinflated sense of his own importance in the world. Now, get rid of that mousey wench and we’ll proceed with our original plans.”
“Anna—”
“Rùnach,” she said, steely-eyed, “don’t be difficult.”
“I’m not being difficult,” he said. “I’m on a quest.”
She blinked, then laughed, a tinkling thing that he might have found attractive a score of years earlier. He didn’t find it attractive at present.
“You are a silly boy,” she said, reaching out to pat his cheek indulgently.
Well, he was certainly no longer a boy and he was sure he’d never been silly. He sat back against the table and held on to its edge, tapping his fingers against the underside of it, beginning with his pointer finger and working outward and back inward. It occurred to him, as he used it as a way to control his temper, that he hadn’t had to resort to that in twenty years—or been able to use his hands to do so, as it happened.
His life had changed, indeed.
“I’ll arrange for supper,” she continued. “Grandfather is still out hunting grouse, or so I understand, not that he would make an effort merely for you anyway. I’ll see to it all, as usual. We’ll have dancing.”
“I think—”
“Yes, you have managed the like in the past and I imagine you’ll do so again occasionally in the future, but your input is not required now. Be prompt. That is the limit of your responsibilities tonight.”
He continued to drum his fingers silently against the underside of the table because it was somehow soothing. It helped him stay where he was and listen to Anna’s plans that seemed to include more than just supper. He bit his tongue as she began to pace in front of him, discussing the arc of his life now that he was back in proper society instead of lounging uselessly about the schools of wizardry.
He shook his head at the realization that at one point, he might have thought that her plans for him sounded reasonable. Residence at either his grandfather’s palace in Tòrr Dòrainn or muscling his way into a suite of rooms in Ainneamh. Glorious parties, endless suppers, countless sets of dance, all accomplished whilst using all his charms to propel Annastashia—and himself, it had to be admitted—to ever more astonishing heights of exclusivity.
Perhaps he’d misjudged Annastashia. He wasn’t looking at a woman who wanted to simply bett
er herself; he was looking at a woman who wanted to rule a country.
She would have been terribly disappointed if she’d had any inkling what his plans had been less than a handful of months before. Perhaps she would have approved of his having liberated himself from the schools of wizardry in order to attend the nuptials of his younger siblings, and she might have agreed that it was foolish to think he could go back to hiding again in the shadows, but she never would have agreed to the plan to turn his back on his elven heritage and aspire to a life as an ordinary swordsman in an obscure garrison.
He’d had skill enough with a sword in his youth and he’d long since given up the idea of ever using a spell again during the course of what he’d known would be an enormously long life. She would have argued with him when he’d left his paternal grandparents’ house at Lake Cladach and set out to hone his warriorly skills. She definitely would have balked at watching him go inside Gobhann.
Which was, he supposed, just as well. Getting his sorry self inside Gobhann hadn’t resulted in acquiring enviable skill, it had resulted in the acquisition of a woman whose eyes continued to haunt him and whose quest for a mercenary had compelled him to offer himself in service to her.
Though perhaps that was simplifying things where he shouldn’t have. Aisling had been sent to find a mercenary, but had discovered recently that perhaps her role in Bruadair’s salvation might be quite a bit more substantial, she who had grown to womanhood in a country where crossing the border meant instant death, spinning meant more death, and saying the name of her country aloud was a capital offense. She had done all three without harm. Either Bruadairians lied about those sorts of things or Aisling was much more than a simple weaver.
He suspected the latter.
For himself, he’d found himself first drawn to her quest, then to the woman herself, though that wasn’t as true as he might have wished. He’d gotten a good look at her, then ruthlessly decided he wanted nothing further to do with her. Falling helplessly into eyes whose color he had yet to determine even after all the time he’d known her had made a mockery of that initial determination. She was artless and honest and courageous.
That and she had thought elves nothing more than pointy-eared myths for at least the first pair of fortnight he’d known her. How could he not have loved her for that alone?
“Are you listening to me?” Annastashia demanded.
Rùnach focused on her, then nodded. Listening to her, perhaps, but being damned grateful that his future wasn’t going to include her. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to make that plain to her without facing her over blades, either magical or steel, but perhaps he could put off worrying about that for another few hours.
“You know, there’s still something about you I don’t care for.” She looked down her aristocratic nose at him. “Something that wasn’t there before.”
Good sense was on the tip of his tongue, but he was nothing if not politic, so he simply smiled and attempted to look pleasant.
“Something dark and unwholesome,” she announced. “Find it and rid yourself of it before we wed.” She looked at his sword propped up against a chair. “Perhaps it is that thing there. I can only assume you’re still engaged in that foolishness.”
“Amazingly enough, yes,” Rùnach said. “A useful skill, that.”
She snorted delicately. “I daresay.” She paused and looked him over. “Bathe before supper.”
“When have I ever not?”
“Well, I will allow that your grooming has left nothing to be desired in the past, but I fear that after where you’ve been loitering recently, you might have forgotten how civilized people live. I shudder to think of the habits you’ve learned from Léir in that cave he continues to dwell in.” She wrinkled her nose. “Who knows what horrible habits you’ve learned from the company you’re currently keeping.”
“Please don’t disparage her,” Rùnach said evenly. “She is on a very difficult quest. If you knew what it was, you might appreciate her efforts a bit more.”
“I doubt that. Don’t be late for supper.”
And with that, she turned and marched out of the library.
Silence descended. Rùnach was terribly tempted to simply stretch out on the sofa near the hearth and have a nap, but that seemed a poor use of his time when he had a betrothed to find.
He counted to an appropriately substantial number to give Anna time to storm off to the kitchens, then retrieved his sword and made his way to the door. He hadn’t but left the library behind before he almost ran bodily into someone who looked rather more guilty than perhaps he should have.
“Did you tell her I was here?” Rùnach asked pointedly.
“Who, me?” Astar of Cothromaiche, yet another of the king’s grandsons and brother to the elegant if not irritated Annastashia, blinked innocently. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re a first-rate bastard, that’s why.”
Astar grinned. “I’ve missed having you to torment. Why Soilléir didn’t see fit to tell me you were still alive, I can’t imagine.”
“I can,” Rùnach said. “You have a loose tongue and no tact. And if you think I’ll be sending you an invitation to my nuptials, think again.”
“I make a brilliant houseguest. Ask anyone who’s housed me.”
“Sìle won’t let you past the border any longer and Eulasaid is too polite to say what an absolute pain in the arse you are,” Rùnach said, then he paused. “Oh, was that too blunt?”
Astar only laughed. “Much, which leaves me no choice but to demand satisfaction from you. Let’s go outside and wreak havoc.”
Rùnach was tempted to pause and try to count from memory how many times Astar had said that very thing to him, mostly whilst leaning negligently against some wall or other in the poshest of salons overseen by the most exclusive of matriarchs. How the man had managed so many invitations from such notoriously discriminating hostesses was a mystery, but there was no doubt he was charming. Rùnach suspected he was also his grandfather’s best spy, but discretion suggested he keep that to himself.
“Unless you’re afraid I’ll humiliate you in front of the delightful Aisling, of course.”
“You know,” Rùnach said, “I might like to maintain a bit of anonymity for reasons you don’t need to know.”
“I can only imagine,” Astar said pleasantly. “But you know there are spells brooding over the lists. I’ll add to them, if your fastidiousness demands it. Trust me, no one will know we’ve been there.”
Rùnach considered. “I wouldn’t mind an hour or two in the lists, true.”
“We’ll bring our lovely Aisling along with us and allow her to be impressed by me. You, perhaps not so much.”
“She is my Aisling, not yours, and she’s seen enough unsettling things. She doesn’t need to watch you attempt to hoist a sword.”
Astar laughed as he slung his arm around Rùnach’s shoulders and pulled him down the passageway. “You know, Rùnach, if it were me, I would keep a close eye on her. Especially given the fact that my sister is roaming the halls.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Then again, perhaps you’re the one who needs protecting.”
Rùnach rolled his eyes and shook off the other man’s arm. “And you’re the one to do that? I somehow suspect—still—that you told your sister where to find me this morning.”
“She would have tortured me if I’d left that little bit of truth untold,” Astar said without hesitation. “She’s actually rather adept with a dagger. I believe she keeps them enspelled with unpleasant things and tucked in her reticule just for me. Trust me, you wouldn’t have wanted an encounter with the same.”
Rùnach had to admit facing her over words had been perilous enough; daggers might have been more than he could have managed.
He walked with Astar through passageways that were comfortingly free of would-be fiancées and was grateful for the peace. If nothing else, he needed another day or two to catch his breath and determine exactly how it was he was g
oing to go off and rescue a bloody country.
“At least your Aisling has had a pleasant morning.”
Rùnach glanced at him. “And you would know?”
“I would,” Astar agreed. “She and Léir were walking in the garden when last I saw them. She was planning to spend the rest of the day spinning.”
“Wool, I hope,” Rùnach said, before he thought better of it.
Astar blinked, then looked at him. “I’m not sure I want to know what you’re talking about.”
“Nay, I don’t think you do.”
“Who is she?”
Where to start? Rùnach considered all the things he could say about her, then eliminated them rapidly as things he shouldn’t say about her. After all, it wasn’t his place to reveal that he was positive that she was not just a simple weaver who had run away from the most oppressive Guild in all of Bruadair, but instead the missing dreamspinner that no one had the thought to look for save those who had to have known where she was.
The final dreamspinner.
The most powerful dreamspinner.
He looked at Astar. “She is someone who needs to be protected.”
“And you’re the lad to do it.”
It hadn’t been a question. Rùnach nodded slowly. “I daresay I am.”
“All the more reason to dredge up a few spells and see if you can use them, eh? Though I worry that you’ll manage it, honestly. You look distracted.”
“It has been a very long year so far.”
Astar smiled. “Rùnach, my friend, I think it’s been a very long twenty years. What were you thinking to hole up with Léir in Buidseachd? Surely there were only so many pranks you could pull on Droch with your mighty spells poached from your sire’s book before you tired of the sport.”
Rùnach walked through the gate out into the lists that were obviously well-loved by King Seannair’s guardsmen, then waited until Astar had joined him. He could safely say that over the course of his lifetime, he had been very choosey about his confidants. His brothers, of course, and more particularly Keir had always had his complete trust. A handful of his cousins at Tòrr Dòrainn, of course, and even one or two princes of Neroche. But outside that rather small circle, the men he had trusted had been few and far between. Soilléir, without question. And though he wasn’t about to burst into tears over the thought, he could safely say that he trusted Astar well enough.