Nine Kingdoms: Dreamer's Daughter Part 14

"Would Soilleir approve of that?"

"He's not here to give us that look he has that says volumes whilst he remains perfectly silent." He found it in him to smile a bit. "I can't imagine he would expect us to do anything but what we must to see our present business accomplished. And I don't know about you, but I feel as if he not only applied a bit of patina to my magic, he applied mold to me. Do I look older?"

She pursed her lips. "You look no more than a score and ten, and I imagine you'll look that way for the rest of your life. How I'll look in fifty years, we can only imagine."

"Ethereal," he said with a smile. "Like something from a dream, as always." He nodded. "Let's go make a spectacle of ourselves in the town square, then ride off in the direction of Beul. When we're a mile or two out, we'll let our ponies do what they do and flap off into the distance. Perhaps we'll even manage supper."

She nodded and walked on with him. He spared a glance over his shoulder, ostensibly to see if the horses were following them, when in reality he simply wanted to see what sort of chaos he'd left behind.

The entire family was standing in the front yard, looking up at the rune that was almost visible, sparkling there in the sunlight. The door was, unsurprisingly enough, open. Cir would have been proud.

He looked at Aisling, winked, and continued on with her. He was tempted to ask her what Dallag had said to her, but he supposed that was something he could safely put off for a bit. There would be time enough later to discuss that as well as runes, anger, and the fact that her cousin had been dreaming as well.

He couldn't begin to imagine how they were all connected.

Nine.

Aisling sat in front of the fire on a stool, Rnach's sword propped up against the chair facing her, and tried to take her mind off her current straits by looking at the runes engraved upon not only the blade itself, but also the hilt and the crossbars.

It was a lovely sword, to be sure. She studied the runes there and wished she had the skill to decipher them all. She supposed most of them were runes of the house of Trr Drainn, though she only recognized a pair of them because she'd seen the same on the backs of Rnach's hands. They were beautiful and sharp, as if the magic of Sle's kingdom had been taken and translated into something fit for battle. Beautiful and deadly, indeed.

She frowned thoughtfully as she leaned forward to study things there that didn't seem as familiar. She reached out to touch the blade and a different set of runes flashed. Not a lovely intertwining of gold and silver but rather a more sparkling sort of business, as if they'd been diamonds crushed beyond recognition, then mixed in a medium that allowed that glittering to be formed into lines and shapes that spoke of power and majesty. She considered, then smiled. Runes of the house of Ainneamh, apparently. She might have suspected that King Uachdaran had ordered those engraven there to irritate some elven king or other, but perhaps the truth was no more complicated than the fact that Rnach had claim to both thrones in one way or another.

That was something she tended not to think about very often.

She leaned forward to study the hilt and crossbar. There were other things inscribed there, but she had never seen anything like them before. She reached out and pulled the sword over into her hands. It was long, much longer than she supposed she ever would have been comfortable using, but she managed to get the hilt propped up against her knees. She leaned over it and traced the markings there. They glowed briefly as she touched them, then faded after a moment or two. They weren't like anything she had seen before, either on Rnach's hands or in the dwarf king's palace. They were . . . different. Harder, yet somehow not giving the impression they were carved of stone, while at the same time soft, as if it had been an echo of a dream. The runes whispered to her, but she couldn't quite hear what they were saying.

She wondered if they were Bruadairian runes.

A knock at the door startled her so badly that she leaped up and almost sent Rnach's sword into the fire. She would have reached for it, but it was quite suddenly in Rnach's hands and he was between her and the door. She put her hand on his back to steady herself, though he was the one who had not a heartbeat before been sound asleep.

He glanced over his shoulder, but she shrugged. She hadn't asked for anyone to come bring them anything and she suspected neither had he. They'd checked in the night before, truly in the middle of the night, but they'd asked for nothing but a room. Rnach had locked the door, then insisted that she sleep first while he kept watch. She had tried to argue, but she suspected she would never outlast him in a contest of stubbornness. She'd woken at dawn only because her dreams had been troubled, full of things following her that she couldn't see, full of things lying in wait for her that she couldn't find.

She'd woken to find Rnach simply sitting in front of the fire, staring into the flames. She'd almost sent him tumbling into it by touching his shoulder. He'd risen, embraced her briefly, handed her his sword, then cast himself on the bed. She'd half suspected he'd been asleep before his head had touched the pillow.

He was fully awake at the moment. He reached for her hand, pulled her forward to stand next to him, then pointed to a spot behind the door. She nodded and walked silently across the chamber, pausing only to draw her knife from her boot. It was something Soilleir had given her, no doubt for his own perversely secret reasons. She supposed in the end she would do nothing more with it than cut twine that kept batts of wool together, but what did she know? If she could be of any use to the man standing in front of the door, a man who looked as if he fully intended to do damage to anyone who walked inside their chamber, she would.

Rnach opened the door and there was a sudden crash.

"Oh," a girl squeaked. "I was just bringin' ye a meal, milord. No need to stab me!"

Rnach didn't put up his sword, but he did smile. "My apologies, la.s.s, of course. Old habits die hard."

Aisling heard the girl collecting bits of shattered crockery and listened to someone else come with a rag to wipe the floor.

"We didn't order a meal," Rnach said finally.

"Compliments of the master himself," the girl said. "I'll bring ye another straightway."

"That would be much appreciated," Rnach said politely. "And many thanks to the master." He shut the door, then put his hand on it and looked at Aisling. "That was interesting."

She slid her knife back into its sheath. "Do you think that was poisoned? Or are they saving that for the next round, do you think?"

He laughed a little. "Aisling, my love, we need to find a place in our lives where when we look at something, we don't suspect it of being something else entirely." He paused. "I'm not sure that makes any sense. Am I awake?"

"I think so, but perhaps you should sit."

"Perhaps I should."

She waited until he'd collapsed into the chair there in front of the fire and propped his sword up against its arm before she sat down on the stool in front of him. She started a little at the look on his face.

"What?"

He shook his head with a faint smile. "Just looking at you."

"You are still asleep."

His smile faded. "How are you, Aisling?"

"Fine."

He pursed his lips. "How are you, Aisling?"

How to answer that? She had gone back to the Guild, a place she had sworn she would never set foot in again, survived escaping Beul, then faced the people who had sold her into slavery only to discover that one of them was a relative. She had listened to her former foster mother spew horrible threats at her, then had the satisfaction of riding off on a shapechanging horse worth a king's ransom. It had been a very eventful pair of days, to be sure. She looked at Rnach and managed a smile.

"I'm still thinking about front doors that will never close."

"A stroke of genius," he said modestly, "if I do say so myself."

She rested her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fists. "It was."

"We can still try to find a mine for her to labor in, if you like. Your cousin as well."

"I'm not sure either of them is worth the trouble," she said with a sigh. "And I'm not sure I can hold Riochdair entirely responsible. Her, aye, I think I can, but not him."

"She'll be cleaning her entryway endlessly, if that's a comfort. I hate to think of what will crawl in her front door whilst she's asleep." He frowned thoughtfully. "Perhaps I should have seen to that as well. I did spend quite a bit of my youth in Ceangail, as you know. I have a great store of terrible memories to draw on if necessary."

She attempted a smile. "I'm sorry for it, but you already know that." She sighed. "As for Dallag, I suppose just never being able to shut her front door will be enough to drive her mad. I'm just happy I won't be there to hear about it." She considered her hands, then looked at him. "I'm not sure the visit was worth what we went through to have it."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," he said. "We now have several ideas about where to go look for your father and, again, thoughts of blisters on her hands from too much sweeping to keep us warm." He paused. "I will admit I am hesitant to set off searching in the dark, as it were, lest we disturb a hornet's nest, but I'm not sure what else we can do."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I'm thinking that if there were those interested enough in your whereabouts to look for you as far as Malcte, perhaps there might be those interested still."

"Leaving the Guild is very serious business," she said, because it was. "Surely it was nothing more than that."

He looked at her steadily. "I suppose that's possible, but your cousin seemed more unsettled than he should have for being someone who had merely been questioned about a simple runaway worker."

"Perhaps they mistook me for someone else."

"Aisling, they almost crippled him when he refused to divulge your whereabouts," Rnach said seriously. "I didn't question him about the colors the guards were wearing, because I imagine they weren't guards but private soldiers sent out to find information or else."

She looked at her hands that he had leaned forward and taken in his own, then met his eyes. "I didn't know."

"Perhaps there is some comfort in knowing he didn't betray you. Not this last time."

She ignored the shudder that went through her. "Then you think they were looking for me."

"What I think is that we were fortunate to escape the Guildmistress's office with our lives," he said, rubbing her hands absently, "and aye, I think they were looking for you. For reasons I don't imagine we need to discuss."

She squeezed his hands briefly, then rose. She paced for a bit until even that became almost unbearable. She stopped in front of Rnach and looked at him.

He was leaning back in his chair, watching her with his clear green eyes. She wrapped her arms around herself.

"So, if you don't want to accidentally stumble into something we won't like, what do you suggest?" she asked.

"I suggest we take our magic out of mothb.a.l.l.s and see how it shakes out. At this point, knowing what will likely be following us sooner rather than later, I think we both need our magic readily available."

"Do you-"

The knock startled her so badly that time, she jumped. Rnach rose with a smile.

"Not to worry," he said easily, then walked toward the door. "I'll see to it."

Aisling didn't share his sense of ease, so she pulled the knife from her boot and walked over to stand behind the door again.

Thankfully it was nothing more nefarious than breakfast. Rnach thanked the maid, took the tray himself, then shut the door with his foot. Aisling bolted it and went to find a small table to put in front of the fire. Rnach fetched another chair for her, waited for her to sit, then joined her there. He smiled.

"Very domestic and normal," he noted.

She would have laughed, but she hadn't slept well and she wasn't quite sure she would ever get to the point where there wasn't a great knot in her belly. It was all she could do to grimace.

"Is it poisoned, do you think?" she asked uneasily.

"Can you tell?"

"The question is, do I want to look?" she said. "And the answer is, nay, I do not, but I suppose I would rather look than be dead."

Rnach leaned over and sniffed a fried egg. "It doesn't smell poisoned."

She looked at the feast spread out before her and wondered if he might be right. It was more than she would have seen in a week's time at the Guild. It was almost more than she could bring herself to believe someone would ruin on purpose. She looked at Rnach.

"This inn must be very expensive."

"It is," he agreed cheerfully. "Well-heeled clients have certain expectations of security. And food free of suspicious substances." He lifted one eyebrow. "You could have a peek with a magical eye to see what you can see, though, if you like."

She wiped her hands on her leggings. "The thought is appalling."

"I can't imagine," he said, his smile fading. "Frightening?"

"Terrifying."

He reached over and held out his hand, waiting until she put hers into it. "Terrifying, perhaps, but think on what awaits you past the terror."

"Death?"

He laughed a little, leaned over and kissed her hand, then released her and sat back. "I don't think that is your fate, love, but I'm a hopeful sort of lad. You could try a spell of revealing."

"Could I? Why don't you, instead?"

He started to speak-no doubt to protest-then shrugged. "Very well, why not? I suppose I'll have to attempt something eventually, so there's no point in putting it off." He considered the chamber, then shook his head. "We should likely draw some sort of spell over our spot here, though. To keep what we attempt private."

"That would be useful-"

She stopped speaking. Rnach did as well. She wasn't sure where to look first, but she chose the floor first only because she blamed it for forcing her to pull her feet up so quickly that she almost gave herself a fat lip by knocking her knees against her mouth. Apparently she wasn't as anonymous inside Bruadair as she'd dared hope she might be, but perhaps that wasn't as terrible a thing as they had feared.

Bruadair's magic had spread something beneath them, then over their heads. A thin, shimmering sort of curtain then dropped down around them. It was so faint, she wasn't entirely sure she wasn't dreaming the whole thing. She reached out and touched what she thought she saw.

She almost wept, though she couldn't have said exactly why.

She looked at Rnach to find him looking at her as if he'd never seen her before. There were tears standing in his eyes.

"I'm not sure I'm at all worthy of any part of you," he managed.

She pulled her hand back and tucked it under her other arm. "Don't be ridiculous."

He smiled, and the look of something-awe, perhaps-disappeared to be replaced by the utter charm of the dimple she had noticed more than once before. "If you insist."

"I didn't do this."

"I know, love," he said gently. "It's just Bruadair, recognizing a treasured daughter." He looked at the magic surrounding them, then back at her. "I suppose we're safe enough now. Shall I go first?"

"Considering you're the one with magic, I daresay you should," she said with a snort.

He looked at her, faintly amused. "You know, Aisling, you're going to have to come to terms with this at some point. Sooner rather than later, I'd say."

"Tomorrow."

He laughed a little. "Very well, if you like. Let's see what happens to me, then you can decide if you want a go."