“But he hadn’t,” Morgan said quietly, “had he?”
Soilléir reached for the bottle of wine and poured himself a glass. “Nay, though I can’t say I was surprised. He had sought out and taken for his own spells that he never should have had. As for his using spells of Olc, nay, that doesn’t surprise me either. The only assumption you’re making that you shouldn’t, Miach, is that Gair would ever beg anything from Droch, or use anything that Droch had laid claim to. To say they were enemies is understating the truth badly. Droch loathed Gair with a fury that bordered on madness and Gair reciprocated in equal measure. Gair was the far superior mage, of course, and used whatever magic suited him, which galled Droch no end—especially when he saw that Gair could bend Olc to his will when he had no bloodright to it.”
“But I can use it,” Morgan said very quietly.
Léir slid her a sideways look. “How do you know?”
She took a deep breath. “I have nightmares, and that seems to be the language of magic that comes out of my mouth during them. I keep dreaming that Miach is Gair and trying to kill him before I realize he’s not.” She paused. “I haven’t had those dreams in a while, though.”
Léir smiled at her kindly. “Your dreams will fade as you settle into yourself and then Miach won’t have to sleep with one eye open any longer. And you can perhaps sleep more easily knowing that even if you use a spell on our good archmage there, he will always be capable of countering it—unless you catch him completely by surprise. Even then, you likely won’t manage to best him.”
“Why not?” Morgan asked.
Miach watched Léir turn to him expectantly and knew there was no point in even attempting a dodge. He turned to Morgan. “Because Olc is a blood magic, like Fadaire or Camanaë. Only those with it in their veins can truly harness its full power, though others who do not claim it as their heritage can use it—with enough power.” He sighed deeply. “If you care for the history, I’ll give it to you.”
“Perhaps you should,” she managed. “I might feel better about it the next time I try to do you in.”
He squeezed her hand briefly. “You might. As for the magic, there are, as it happens, only a handful of well-known practitioners of Olc in the world because they were the only ones to manage to survive into adulthood. The first master of Olc was Duaichnidh. His descendants were in the habit of having children, waiting until they were grown, then killing off all but the strongest lad.”
“What of their girls?” Morgan asked, looking horrified.
“I suppose there are a few of them still roaming the wastes past Aonaranach,” he conceded, “but I wouldn’t want to seek them out. Outside of those few lassies who escaped, the blood has remained concentrated in only a few over the centuries until Dorchadas of Saothair. He had eight sons and killed all but two because he couldn’t choose between them. He set them to fighting each other, but neither prevailed, so in at least that generation, the line was split into two. Droch is one of those lads. I believe he has a pair of sons as well, but you’ll notice they aren’t standing at their father’s elbow, waiting to pour him his wine.”
“Who was Dorchadas’s other son?” Morgan asked.
Miach took a deep breath. “Wehr of Wrekin.”
“Your mother’s grandfather?”
“Aye.”
“You use Olc very reluctantly,” she said softly.
“Very. I make a point of concentrating on those parts of myself that come from more noble ancestors. My mother taught me that much.”
She looked at him for quite some time in silence. “There’s a lesson in there for me as well, I daresay.”
“Aye, I daresay,” he agreed. “Of course, none of it matters when I’m facing Master Soilléir. He sees both the good and the bad regardless of what I might like to hide.” He looked at Léir. “Isn’t that so, my lord?”
Léir nodded, watching them both thoughtfully for a moment. Then he reached out suddenly and pushed their sleeves up over their wrists. He looked at the runes of gold and silver that sparkled there in the light from the fire, then met Miach’s eyes.
“Runes of betrothal and ascension to the throne of Tòrr Dòrainn,” he said. “Unprecedented. How in the world did you convince Sìle to give them to you?”
“He’s resigned to the fact that I love his granddaughter,” Miach said with a small smile. “The bit about the crown is, I suspect, simply to annoy my eldest brother.”
“No doubt,” Léir agreed with a brief laugh. “Does Làidir know? Or Sosar?”
Miach shook his head. “Làidir doesn’t know about the runes yet, but I imagine he’ll have quite a bit to say when he finds out.”
“What did Sosar say about finding himself yet another step away from his father’s throne?”
“He said, and I quote, ‘Good, now I can wed some ill-mannered tavern wench and live out my life with my feet up.’ ”
“I daresay,” Léir said with a smile. “It is Sìle’s choice, of course, until he dies. Then I suppose you’ll be fighting Làidir’s heirs for the crown, despite what else you might want for yourselves.”
“Thank you just the same, but nay,” Morgan said with a shiver. “We’ll quite happily keep ourselves far from it, if possible. But if I might ask, how did you know about the runes?”
“Well, I wasn’t sure about you at first, Princess,” Léir said, “but there was something different about your betrothed lord there. Another layer of power added to his, a vast stretching of what lengthy life he had already, a shimmer of glamour that he didn’t have the last time he was here.”
Miach watched Morgan look at Léir in surprise.
“You can see all that?” she asked.
“I can,” he said. “That makes it challenging to wade through the layers of useless and unwise things mortals and mages heap upon themselves by their choices. It was particularly difficult to watch your father, who could have done much good, choose to do evil with the gifts he’d been given.” He sighed, then looked back at Miach. “I understand why you came to search here, but I can tell you that I would be very surprised to find that Gair had limited himself to either Olc or Camanaë—or to a combination of the two—unless he was using them in a way I cannot see. It would have laid his trail open and easily imitated. If you’ve learned anything about him, either of you, you’ve surely seen that he was not one to make the trail plain. He guarded his spells jealously, never writing them down in their entirety, never using a single source of magic in their fashioning. Add that to his habit of twisting magic to his own ends and I daresay determining what he intended to use as a spell of closing will be extremely difficult, if not impossible—never mind what Sarait supposed.”
“In truth?” Morgan asked faintly.
“Her guesses would be close,” Léir conceded, “for she was a canny weaver of spells herself, but nay, Princess, I don’t think even she knew what was in Gair’s mind.” He paused, looked off into the distance blindly for a moment, then turned back to Miach. “I saw your game with Droch this afternoon, though I didn’t pay heed to the particular spells being bandied about. Sosar was making far too much noise for me to be able to concentrate. I’m curious, though, as to what spell you used to break out of Droch’s trap.”
“ ’Twas a simple spell of binding,” Miach said. “I reversed it.”
Léir looked at him for so long, Miach began to grow uncomfortable under the scrutiny. His former mentor seemed not to notice, for he didn’t look away.
“I wonder,” he said thoughtfully, “if Gair might have considered the same thing at the well when he realized he couldn’t control what he’d unleashed.”
“A simple spell of binding?” Miach asked in surprise.
“Nay,” Léir said, “reversing his spell of opening.”
Miach felt his mouth fall open, then he shut it and shook his head. “Too easy.”
“Is it?” Léir asked. “What if in that precise moment when he knew he would die if he didn’t close that well, Gair reached for the simplest thing to hand, as you did today?”
“But where in the world would I find his spell of opening?” Miach asked crossly. “It isn’t as if . . .”
He felt time grind to an unsteady and ungainly halt. He’d intended to say
it isn’t as if I know anyone who was there
, but that wasn’t exactly true.
He was quite certain he would remember that moment for years to come. The precise way the shadows had lengthened on Léir’s floor. The way the fire crackled and popped in the hearth, as if it would rather have been celebrating a merry gathering of friends. The look on Léir’s face, as if he knew he wanted knowledge that was beyond dreadful, but knew he had no choice but to seek it.
And the exact moment when Morgan realized just exactly what Léir was asking of her.
She caught her breath, but so softly, he would have thought he was imagining it if he hadn’t felt her hand tighten just the slightest bit against his at the same time.
Miach shook his head sharply. “There is absolutely no guarantee that reversing the spell will shut the well. Indeed, all signs point to that not being the case.”
“But,” Léir said slowly, meeting Miach’s eyes, “what if it were the case?”
Miach heard no change in Morgan’s breathing, felt no trembles in her hand. She was now so calm, it worried him, for he knew what her stillness was costing her.
He had seen what her nightmares had done to her in the fall. He’d watched her in waking dreams casting spells against her sire who had killed her family with his arrogance. He wasn’t going to ask her to revisit those memories. He might as well ask her to walk into hell.
He shot Léir a dark look. “You can rip my soul into shreds as fully as you like—”
“Which I’ve done,” Léir said mildly.
Miach swore at him. “In this case, my lord, you do not know what you’re asking. I do. And I will
not
ask this of her.”
“I’m merely suggesting—”
Miach heaved himself to his feet and pulled Morgan up with him. “My thanks for a lovely afternoon, my lord. We’ll be off now.”
“Miach,” Morgan began quietly.
He ignored her and pulled her away. She dug in her heels, but he merely took both her hands and continued on toward the door.
She was, he found, stronger than she looked.
He stopped halfway to the door in the end because she gave him no choice.
“Miach.”
He took a deep breath, then turned and drew her into his arms. He bent his head and buried his face against her neck, partly so he wouldn’t have to look at her expression and partly because he didn’t want her to see his. He had to admit, it had been a very long day so far and it was lengthening still. He wasn’t one to concede the battle prematurely, but he thought he just might be on the verge of it. Had it not been enough to spend an hour in Droch’s solar that afternoon and time before that in the midst of a whirlwind of Droch’s spells? If he had to watch Morgan delve into her memories to dredge up more of the same . . .
He took a deep breath, then lifted his head and looked across the chamber at Léir. “Why are you doing this?” he said harshly. It occurred to him that he’d said that more than once during his own month of hell in Léir’s solar, but that had been just his soul being shattered, not Morgan’s. “She should
not
be forced to think on that.”
“If she cannot face the memory of the spell,” Léir said, and there was pity in his eyes, “how will she face the glade again? And I understand very well what you haven’t told me: Mhorghain will have to close that well herself because only one with her father’s blood and power can do so.”
Miach felt Morgan’s hands on his cheek. He looked down at her.
“Morgan—”
She only shook her head, then pulled out of his arms. She led him back over to his chair, then put her hand in the middle of his chest and pushed him until he had no choice but to sit. She drew her chair up close to his, then sat and looked at Léir.
“If you’ll fetch me what I need, Master Soilléir, I’ll write down for you what I can remember.”
Léir smiled at her. Miach recognized that smile. It was one he’d had himself numerous times when Léir had asked him to go deep inside himself and look for things he hadn’t particularly wanted to see, and he’d been foolish enough to agree to do so. Miach closed his eyes briefly, then took Morgan’s hand in his left and put his right arm around her shoulders.
Morgan shot him a look. “I am not a weak-kneed maid,” she managed, though there was no venom behind her words. Miach squeezed her shoulders briefly.
“I’m holding on to you for my own sake, not yours,” he said quietly.
Léir clapped him on the shoulder as he passed, then went to rummage about in his desk. He drew up a small table in front of Morgan and laid out a sheaf of parchment, ink, and a quill. Then he pulled up the chair across from her and sat. He looked at Miach.
“Keep her grounded here.”
“I’ll repay you for this,” Miach growled.
Léir smiled gravely. “I don’t doubt it.”
“Could he?” Morgan asked quietly.
“Oh, aye,” Léir said with a rueful smile. “Miach is very powerful, though he is very self-deprecating about it all. I wouldn’t have taught him anything otherwise.”