Dreamspinner (39 page)

“You have led a very sheltered life, haven’t you?”

Aisling took a deep breath. “I’ve been in a weaver’s guild all my life. Well, all my life I can remember.”

“I understand completely,” Mhorghain said promptly. “Nicholas gave me a marvelous education, for which I am most grateful, but I was in Gobhann for six years. That was enough to lead me to disbelieve anything I couldn’t poke at with my sword.” She paused. “I understand, though, that you can see quite a few things others can’t.”

“Aye,” Aisling said uneasily. “I touched a spinning wheel in an old woman’s house, fainted, then woke with this…ability.”

“Well, it might serve you in a good skirmish, so I wouldn’t shun it,” Mhorghain said. “And about the rest, well, do you want the truth? Can you bear the truth?”

Aisling laughed a little, a very little. “I’m not sure I want it, but I think I must have it.”

“Then I’ll give it to you,” Mhorghain said matter-of-factly, “but no more than that, lest it prove too difficult at present.” She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and looked at Aisling very seriously. “Elves do exist, as do dwarves, and mages. Some are good, some are evil, but all have magic.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t change the world, though, does it?”

Aisling took a deep breath. Rùnach watched her as she pulled away from him and shifted slightly so she could look at him.

“Do you have magic?”

He took a deep breath, then shook his head. “I don’t.”

“Does your horse?”

“Yes.”

She frowned slightly, then looked at Mhorghain. “Do you have magic?”

Mhorghain didn’t flinch. “Yes.”

“Does Miach?”

“Yes.”

“Is it evil?”

Mhorghain reached for Aisling’s hand. She held it, hard, for a brief moment, then released her. “Aisling, not all magic is evil, not all mages are evil. There is magic that is…” She took a deep,
steadying breath. “It is so beautiful, it would leave you weeping.” She started to say more, then shook her head. “To tell you anything else would be to tell you too much, I think.” She looked at her husband. “They are weary and need more than just a picnic here in the hay. Can you not use your influence and find them a place to wash and rest?”

“Already done,” Miach said, uncrossing his ankles and sitting up. He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I understand hospitality has been extended and a servant awaiting their pleasure. I’m sure discretion is still advised as they traverse the halls, but since their errand is a private one, perhaps that will suit.”

Rùnach stood, helped Aisling to her feet, then embraced Miach briefly, slapping him perhaps with more vigor than necessary on the back of the head in return for the smirks barely suppressed. He shot his brother-in-law a warning look as he released him, then reached out and pulled his sister into his arms.

“Thank you,” he whispered against her ear.

She only hugged him tightly, then leaned up and kissed his scarred cheek.

“I like her.”

He had nothing to say in response to that, because he did too. Unfortunately, nothing would come of it. She had a quest and he had an ordinary life in front of him. He could only imagine her fury when she discovered exactly what he was…or, rather, had been.

Mhorghain looked at Aisling, then very carefully put her arms around her and embraced her briefly. She pulled back and smiled at her.

“It is difficult,” she said honestly, “to realize that the world is not what you thought it was. I’ll promise you this, though: it will grow easier with time.”

“Have you always had magic?” Aisling asked, her voice not quite steady.

“Heavens, no,” Mhorghain said promptly. “Didn’t know I had it, and I would have cut it from my veins if I’d been able to when I found out I did. It can be useful now and again, though I prefer
seeing to things with my sword.” She looked at Aisling closely. “Do you have any, do you think?”

Aisling shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” She glanced at Rùnach, then back at Mhorghain. “I can spin.”

“That’s handy,” Mhorghain noted.

“Water,” Aisling added. “And air, I think.” She looked at Rùnach. “Would you say that’s all?”

“I would say that Miach needs to go find a drink before he chokes to death,” Rùnach said, giving the king of Neroche a bit of a shove in the right direction. He looked at Mhorghain. “She has some unusual gifts. What they mean, I couldn’t possibly begin to guess.”

“You might have more success at that after a nap,” Miach said with a smile. “Morgan and I have our duties to scamper off and see to. We’ll catch up for supper, if you like.”

Rùnach nodded, thanked his hosts for their hospitality, then waited until his sister and her husband had closed the door behind them before he looked at Aisling.

“Shall we?” he asked politely.

She smiled faintly. “Your sister is very kind.”

He smiled in return. “I thought you might like her. Let’s see if we can’t take advantage of what hospitality we’ve been offered, then perhaps have a nap. I’m exhausted; what of you?”

“Terrified,” she said frankly.

He gathered up their gear, pulled his hood over his face, then opened the door for her. “We’re safe here, Aisling. The world can turn a bit longer without us, I imagine.”

She looked up at him seriously. “And yet it still turns and time grows short.”

He made the appropriate noises of agreement and ushered her out the door, but adjusted his plans as he did so. He would indulge in a bath and wee nap, but then he was going to take up the hunt again.

For her sake and his.

Because she had taken Lothar of Wychweald’s spells and spun them on a wheel of air, and it just didn’t seem possible to him that an unremarkable girl from nowhere in particular should have that skill.

A
isling was beginning to wonder if she would ever manage to keep her mouth closed. She was fairly certain she’d been gaping since they had landed without fanfare a goodly distance from the castle and ridden under its walls that leaned out just the slightest bit, as if the keep itself wanted to make certain anyone brave enough to ride under them understood just how perilous their situation was. That had been just the beginning of the things at Tor Neroche that had left her astonished.

First, there had been that very frank conversation with Rùnach’s sister, Morgan. She had spoken about the most appalling things—magic, mostly—as if they were as normal as the endless training that went on inside the unforgiving walls of Gobhann. She’d still been shaking her head as she’d been separated from Rùnach—a rather alarming turn of events, actually—and led off to a chamber where she’d luxuriated in a bath better suited to the needs of a princess. She’d wondered briefly if commenting on the fact that the water was hot instead of icy cold and clean instead of
less-than-pristine had been inappropriate, but the servants had been too discreet to react.

She had been swathed in a luxurious dressing gown and offered a seat in front of a roaring fire after which her hair had been combed for her and allowed to dry as she had been left briefly alone with her thoughts. She had wondered just what it was that Miach did in the castle that had won her such delights, but decided perhaps it was better not to know.

She had then been offered the choice between a gown or a tunic and leggings. She had hesitated, but the lure of the gown’s fabric had just been too strong to resist. She’d put skirts on over leggings, just in case she needed to make a quick getaway. She had been draped in a cloak that was very light yet so deliciously warm she thought she might never want to take it off. A liveried servant had been waiting just outside the door to take her to she knew not where, but she had followed him just the same.

All of which led her to where she was at present, standing outside a heavy wooden door and watching it be opened by someone who at first glance looked like a prince.

She realized with a start that it was just Rùnach. He thanked her escort, then took her hand and drew her inside a chamber that was so large, her mouth resumed its previous posture of hanging open. She turned around in a circle, looking upward toward a ceiling that she couldn’t make out clearly because it was so far above her. The chamber itself was no less magnificent. It wasn’t particularly large, she supposed, but it was extremely fine, full of comfortable places to sit, an enormous hearth at one end, and murals of heroic scenes painted upon the walls.

She started to ask Rùnach why they’d been given such a place of luxury, but she made the mistake of looking at him.

He’d had a bath as well, she could tell, and been dressed in clothing that was very discreet, but very well made. She was, after all, a weaver, and could spot poorly made cloth from fifty paces. She realized he had shut the door behind her and was simply leaning against the wall, watching her.

“What?” she asked uneasily.

He shook his head with a smile. “Nothing. Just watching you and wondering what you’re thinking.”

She gestured weakly to the chamber. “This is…well, it is…” She had to take a deep breath. “I thought Lismòr was spectacular, but this is something else entirely. That is to say, I’ve
read
about glorious things of this nature, but I never thought to experience them for myself.” She looked up at him. “I feel like I’m
in
one of those tales, if you know what I mean.”

He winced, closed his eyes briefly, then looked at her. It was terrible, she decided abruptly, that a man should be so perfectly beautiful. She had stopped seeing his scars long ago. All she saw at present was someone who had been kind to her for reasons she couldn’t fathom. He would go off, she was sure, to be fawned over by beautiful women, but for the moment, she was surprisingly glad he was standing there in front of her.

He had, she had to admit, the most amazing pair of green eyes she had ever seen.

Which had absolutely nothing to do with her current quest, of course. She ruthlessly recaptured her good sense and reminded herself of the task before her. She had to find a swordsman willing to go to Bruadair with only the hope of riches and glory as motivation, though now that she was standing there perfectly comfortable and no longer hungry, she had to face the truth she had known full well before but hadn’t been willing to acknowledge. To get a soldier to Bruadair she would either have to tell him where to go or lead him there herself. And if she told him where to go, she would fall under the curse and die. But if she led him there herself, she would be captured, labeled a renegade, and put back in the power of her parents and the Guild, because her birthday wasn’t until summer, and until the sun set on that birthday, she was not legally emancipated.

Death of her body or death of her soul. It was no wonder she had avoided thinking on it before.

“Aisling.”

She pulled her gaze away from nothing and looked up at Rùnach. “Aye?”

He was still leaning against the wall, but she suspected that was a casual pose designed to put her at ease.

“I think I could help you,” he said carefully, “if you would give me a few more details about your village.”

She shook her head. “You know why I can’t.”

He looked at her gravely. “Death if you don’t find a swordsman, death if you speak of your village, death if you flee the Guild. Is it a land of death, then?”

“I don’t know,” she said helplessly. “I only saw the inside of the Guild and the pub where I went on the sixnight’s end. I don’t think the people were happy, but who is?”

He looked at her in astonishment. “Why, many people are, I daresay.”

“How can they be?” she asked. “Working from dawn to late in the evening, one day a week where there is freedom from endless, unrelenting greyness, but having not enough money to do anything but pay for a meager meal and go back to a terrible bed in an overfilled dormitory to sleep uneasily until rising and doing it all over again the next week?”

He looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. “Was that how it was?”

She reached for the door. “I think I need to walk.”

He caught her before she opened the door, then turned her to face him. He put his hands gently on her shoulders. “Please let me help you.”

“I cannot,” she said. She looked up at him and realized that her eyes were burning, she who had never wept, not even as a child. “I don’t want to die.”

He drew her gently into his arms. She began to have trouble breathing, but perhaps that came from gasping for air. And she supposed that came from realizing that for the first time in her very long, weary existence, she was being presented with the opportunity to feel safe courtesy of a man who was offering that safety simply because he was kind.

She let out her breath slowly and allowed herself to indulge in something besides an intense urge to flee. She considered for a
moment or two, then slowly put her arms around his waist. It shouldn’t have been difficult. She had, after all, ridden on a pegasus for the better part of four days with Rùnach’s arms around her, though she supposed that was just his making sure she didn’t fall off.

Yet another courtesy offered where he hadn’t needed to.