less.”
She looked up at him seriously. “Do you think I want it to hurt less, Ruith?”
He suppressed a grimace. Nay, he imagined she didn’t. He’d known at various points along their journey from Doìre that he would regret not having told her who he was, he just hadn’t known how much. He pulled her borrowed hood up over her hair, did the same for himself, then nodded toward the castle.
“I’ll invent a tale as we walk. We’ll go quickly.”
She didn’t look happy about it, but she nodded. He walked up the way as if he’d been nothing more than a traveler seeking shelter. He felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck, but again, that was likely from imaginings brought on by weariness. All he had to do was put his head down, blend in, and walk past anyone whose notice he might not have wished to garner. He took Sarah’s hand and drew it under his arm. Perhaps she felt uneasy as well, for she didn’t fight him.
He hazarded a glance at the keep, then wished he hadn’t. The walls were still sheer, rising a hundred feet into the air with a ruthless exuberance that defied anyone to scale them. The front gates were a forbidding barbican with two towers and a portcullis that was made of more than just steel. Ruith half wondered why the masters bothered with guards there. Surely the magic even he could sense was enough to keep any but the most foolhardy at bay.
Wizards. What an unruly, arrogant lot. Ruith remembered as he walked with Sarah up to those gates why he’d never wanted to waste time earning any rings of mastery. The thought of having to sit under the supposed tutelage and substantial scrutiny of most of the masters within would have been absolutely insupportable. And dangerous—for them. He hadn’t had the patience for it at ten summers; he certainly didn’t have the patience for it now.
But within those hallowed, if not stuffy, walls lay absolute safety, and he was willing to endure a bit of genuflecting to have it.
“Your plan?” Sarah asked.
He wasn’t unaccustomed to inventing identities for himself on the spur of the moment, so he set about it as they walked slowly toward the barbican gate. “We’re parents of some talented lad who was recommended by our local mage. The guards will have memorized all the wizards of note in the Nine Kingdoms, so we’ll claim an acquaintance with Oban.”
She nodded, then looked up at him reluctantly. “You didn’t see Master Oban on your way south, did you?”
“I didn’t,” he said quietly, “nor any of the others, but I didn’t look for them either.” He was quite eager to discuss the apparently undisclosed identity of their local alemaker-turned-mage, but now wasn’t the time. Perhaps he would use it as an excuse to keep her nearby for another day when the time came that she wanted to leave.
He nodded toward the keep. “Just so you know,” he said slowly, “there are spells of ward set inside the gates, wards which alert the headmaster should anyone with magic enter and not announce his power beforehand. We’ll present ourselves at the gates and look innocent. If our luck holds, we’ll request a tour, then whilst on it run like the wind for a certain chamber.”
“Why don’t we just ask for directions to this certain chamber right from the start?” she asked, frowning.
“Because the man we’re here to see doesn’t have anything to do with novices and the headmaster won’t believe he’s asked to see us. He is, though, the only one with the power to fight what hunts us.”
“And you can’t?” she asked tartly.
“I can’t,” he admitted, though he found the admission a little less palatable than it should perhaps have been. “And here we are. I’ll tell you the rest later.”
“If we survive this descent into madness.”
Now that he was at the gate, he found himself agreeing with her, though he supposed it was unwise to say as much. He stopped well in front of the foremost guardsman’s outstretched sword.
“Oy, stay where you are,” the man said firmly. “State your business, my good man, else you’ll wish you had.”
“I have business with the masters here,” Ruith said, with as much deference as he could muster. “I would prefer to discuss it inside your gates, if you don’t mind. The streets of Beinn òrain are a dodgy place, aren’t they, and one must keep one’s lady safe from harm.”
The man