And then he pulled his hood back from his face.
Twelve
M
iach gasped, but his was covered quite handily by Morgan’s. He wasn’t unaccustomed to finding things where he hadn’t been looking for them, but this was something else entirely. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought he was looking at a ghost. But the man standing in front of them with hands that trembled slightly wasn’t a ghost.
He was Keir.
Keir was watching Morgan with the same expression of dreadful hope that Sìle had worn when he’d first seen her. Miach would have offered Sarait’s eldest son a shoulder to lean on, but Morgan needed it more. She was leaning against him so hard, he had to brace himself to keep from being pushed over. He put his arm around her shoulders and felt her hand come up to hold his, almost painfully.
And all the while Keir looked at her, as if he simply couldn’t believe what was before his eyes.
“Mhorghain?” Keir said hesitantly.
Morgan cleared her throat, then nodded very slightly.
Keir of Ceangail threw his cloak onto one of the chairs, then strode across the distance that separated them. He hesitated a pace or two away, then reached out and pulled his sister into his arms. He bowed his head and made several rough noises, as if he sought not to weep.
Miach stepped away and let them have a bit of room. Actually, releasing Morgan’s hand let him drag his sleeve across his eyes, but he supposed that might escape anyone’s notice but his, which was as it should have been.
Morgan stood in her brother’s embrace, then turned her head and looked back at him. Her eyes were dry, but they were full of absolute anguish. Miach smiled, pained, knowing what she was thinking. All the years she’d thought she was alone in the world and now to find out she needn’t have been. Miach imagined Keir was thinking something akin to that. He watched Morgan’s brother hold her as if he simply couldn’t bring himself to let her go. Miach understood that as well.
Keir finally pulled back and looked down at his sister.
“You look so much like Mother,” he said faintly. “In truth, I thought for a moment that you
were
Mother. But that isn’t possible.” He shook his head. “Little Mhorghain. But you’re no longer a child.” He let out a shuddering breath. “I thought you were dead.”
“I thought you were too,” she managed.
Actually, Miach knew it was worse than that. She hadn’t even remembered that she’d had brothers until the fall.
Keir continued to stare at his sister in silence, as if he feared his eyes were deceiving him, then he looked up and frowned.
“Prince Mochriadhemiach—or am I mistaken?”
“Nay, Your Highness,” Miach said gravely, “you aren’t mistaken.”
“You look like Gilraehen the Fey.”
“So I’m told,” Miach agreed. “Often.”
Keir didn’t smile. “You also look a great deal like yourself, though you too have grown since last we met. Why are you following my sister?” He looked at Morgan. “Why are you here? Where did you learn to fight as you do? Where have you been?” He frowned at Miach again. “Why are you with her? Does my grandfather know she’s alive? If he does, he certainly wouldn’t approve of a wee mage prince keeping company with her.”
Miach opened his mouth, but found there wasn’t a good answer to any of Keir’s questions. Damnation. Yet more relatives to appease.
“Don’t you know?” Morgan asked. “Don’t you know anything about Miach?”
Keir’s expression darkened considerably and he pulled Morgan to stand under the protection of his wing, as it were. “The tidings that reach my ears are few and far between indeed, but one thing I can tell you, sister, is that we don’t associate with mages. They aren’t our sort of people.”
Miach would have laughed, but he didn’t dare. Keir couldn’t have sounded any more like Sìle if he’d been reading from a script Sìle had prepared for him. Miach also refrained from pointing out to Keir that he was something of a mage himself and had no room to criticize. Then again, perhaps Keir chose to ignore parts of his heritage in favor of the more savory ones.
Miach understood that very well.
He dragged his hand through his hair, searching for a decent way to begin to answer Keir’s questions. The next thing he knew, Keir had hold of his right hand in a grip of iron. He shoved Miach’s sleeve up his forearm and looked down at the runes surrounding his wrist in astonishment.
“What,” he began in a garbled tone, “are these?”
“Ah—”
“Did you steal them?” Keir demanded.
Miach shot him a look. “That’d be a bit difficult, wouldn’t it?”
“You insolent boy, how dare you speak to me that way,” Keir said haughtily. “I am a prince of the house of Tòrr Dòrainn. You, however, are—”
“A prince of the house of Neroche,” Miach said wearily. “And the youngest of that house, aye, I know. I also happen to be one who loves your sister.”
“Love?” Keir echoed incredulously. “Who in the
hell
do you think you are presuming—”
“I—”
Miach found himself suddenly with Morgan standing in front of him, as if she were protecting him, which he wasn’t altogether certain he didn’t need at the moment. Keir’s expression was thunderous.
“Mhorghain, come away from him.”
“I will not.” She held up her left hand. “Here are my runes, runes which are echoes of Miach’s. Grandfather gave them to us freely when he gave me the gift I wanted most, which is the man standing behind me. If you intend to do damage to him, you’ll go through me first. Otherwise, cease. I’m tired, hungry, and I would very much like to simply sit down.”
Keir opened his mouth, apparently to protest a bit more, then he scowled. “I’ll give this more thought later.” He turned a much lighter expression on his sister. “I’ll have food brought. It won’t be particularly edible, but it might be hot if I’m very cross with my servant. Perhaps if we feed the mage there, he’ll release you.”
“I’m the one holding on to him,” Morgan pointed out, pulling Miach’s arms around her.
Keir grunted, then turned a glare on Miach. “You would be better served to keep your hands to yourself, little lad.”
Miach only nodded to Gair’s eldest with what he hoped was the appropriate amount of gravity as Keir walked away. Then he took a deep breath and turned Morgan around.
“Well?”
She looked almost as devastated as she had when she’d first realized who she was. “This was not what I expected to find here,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Do you think Rùnach knows?”
Miach brushed her hair back from her face. “If he did, he didn’t say aught to me. You know, I’ve heard various rumors over the years about how Keir met his end. I always thought it curious that no one seemed to know exactly what happened. I don’t think anyone believed anyone had survived the morning at the well, but the makers of tales are often wrong. We should ask him what happened—if you can bear it,” he added.
She shivered as she put her arms around his waist. “It can’t be any worse than my dreams. Aye, I’d like to know. I’m also curious why he remained here when he’s but a handful of days from Seanagarra.”
“He must have his reasons, just as Rùnach does.”
She nodded, then fell silent. Miach turned them both so he could watch the door. He couldn’t have said why, but he didn’t think Keir had all that much control over his servants. In time, the door opened and Keir came back inside the solar with a tray laden with food. He stopped halfway across the chamber and almost dropped their supper. He righted the tray and scowled.
“Sorry,” he said gruffly. “ ’Tis a bit startling to see my sister as a grown woman. ’Tis more startling still to see her touching the youngest prince of Neroche.” He continued on his way over to them, then deposited the tray on a small table. “I never would have considered such a match, though I’ll allow that your mother and mine did discuss such a calamity more than once. My father was not at all pleased with the idea.”
“I can’t imagine he would have been,” Miach said ruefully, “though I daresay I’m flattered to have been discussed.”
Keir threw him another glare, then dragged up a chair to the table. “Sit. I cannot guarantee the quality, but at least ’tis hot.”
Miach found chairs for himself and Morgan, then sat down next to her. Keir didn’t seem particularly pleased with that arrangement, but he didn’t draw any weapons or cast any spells, which was progress. Things could have been worse.
What was worse was the food. Miach ate it anyway, gratefully, and so did Morgan. He watched Keir watch his sister and couldn’t help but smile at the continued look of disbelief the man wore. Miach supposed the kindest thing he could do was leave them both a bit of privacy to digest the morning’s events. He finished a glass of terribly bitter ale, then turned to Morgan.
“I should see to my spells,” he said quietly. “If you wouldn’t mind?”
“I’m perfectly capable of seeing to my sister,” Keir put in pointedly.
Miach nodded deferentially. “I never doubted it. I was just trying to be polite.”
Morgan leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I’ll save you a spot for a nap.”
Miach rose and walked away before he had to listen to Keir’s response—which he was sure, based on the tone of his voice, had not been polite. He pulled up a chair in front of what small windows there were in the solar, then sat down and let out a long, slow breath. He was slightly ill from the Olc he’d covered himself with even briefly to follow Morgan, and the Lugham he’d used downstairs, and yet again by the Olc that drenched the castle they were in. Truly, Sarait had borne much to even set foot in it, though perhaps Gair hadn’t been so open about his preferences in the early years of their marriage. In this chamber, though, it was not so oppressive. He looked up at the ceiling and examined what else it was that he felt.
It was the slightest hint of Fadaire.
He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. For whatever reason, this had been Keir’s home for the past twenty years and he was, as he had said earlier, a prince of the house of Tòrr Dòrainn. He never would have subjected himself to the brunt of Olc, or Lugham, or whatever else the mages of Ceangail favored.
Miach looked over his shoulder at Morgan and Keir sitting in front of the fire. Keir was holding on to her hands and wearing again that expression of incredulity.
Miach understood. He smiled to himself, then turned back to his own business.
It was late afternoon before he came back to himself. The spells of defense he’d set along the borders of Neroche—and Wychweald too—were unsettlingly intact. Lothar was obviously concentrating his efforts elsewhere—no doubt trying to find someone to open Gair’s well for him.
Miach rubbed his hands over his face and grimaced. They had to find the proper spell and use it, sooner rather than later. And once the well was shut, Miach had a slew of things he was going to pile atop it, things that would take even Droch several months to undo.
There is a book in the library at Ceangail, hidden, a book containing all my father’s spells in their entirety.
Rùnach’s words came back to him as clearly as if he’d been standing there speaking them, and Miach felt the urgency of them. If the book was as difficult to find as Rùnach had suggested, the sooner he got to looking for it, the better.
He turned to find Morgan asleep on a hard, high-backed bench near the fire. Keir was simply sitting there, watching her. Miach looked at Gair’s eldest son and marveled that in all the years he himself had lived, he’d never considered that one of Gair’s children might have survived that horrible business at the well.
Keir didn’t look to have borne the ravages of time very well. Being heir to Sìle’s wellspring of youth, he should have looked no more than a score and a bit. Instead, his dark hair was heavily sprinkled with white, and his face was lined with care and sorrow. His had certainly not been an easy life and the past twenty years had obviously taken their toll.
Miach rose, stretched, then walked over to the hearth. He took a blanket from off the back of the bench and covered Morgan with it, then sat down opposite Keir. “Your Highness,” he said, inclining his head deferentially.
Keir studied him for quite a while in silence, then cleared his throat. “She says you’re the archmage now. And that Adhémar is king.”
Miach nodded.
“I’m surprised there’s anything left of Neroche with him looking after it,” Keir said with a snort. “Your brother is an ass.”
Miach suppressed a smile. He might have felt sorry for Adhémar and his reputation, but his brother had certainly gone out of his way to earn it. Miach suspected there wasn’t an elf living that Adhémar hadn’t insulted to some degree. He certainly never had an easy time of any of his blessedly infrequent visits to either Ainneamh or Tòrr Dòrainn.
“How did your parents die?” Kier asked.
Miach managed not to flinch, especially since he had equally prying questions to ask of Morgan’s brother. He took a deep breath. “My mother died rescuing me from the dungeons at Riamh, where I had been held captive for a year. My father died a fortnight later from wounds received in that battle.”