them. But you can be sure he is but the start of a very lengthy list of those who would want the same.”
Ruith leaned back against the opposite window casing. “We can be thankful then, that Droch has no idea what I’m looking for.”
“I doubt he’ll be in the dark about that for long,” Soilléir said dryly, “particularly if your half brothers exercise their notoriously loose tongues about it.”
Ruith sighed. “I wish he’d never written that book.”
“Could you write down what you remember of it?”
Ruith shot him a look. “I could, but I will not.”
Soilléir smiled. “Just testing.”
Ruith found himself being studied in a way he didn’t particularly care for, but it was Soilléir after all, and there was nothing he could do but endure it and swear a bit to make himself feel better.
“Were all his spells contained in that book, do you suppose?” Soilléir asked.
Ruith looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”
“I just wonder if he was working on other things that perhaps weren’t quite perfect enough to write down. It was your father, after all.”
Ruith looked over his shoulder to see if someone had opened a door or a window or if the fire had gone out. Surely that was the only reason for the sudden chill that brushed against his neck. “He was forever honing spells into something vile, which you well know. What sort of other things do you think he was contemplating?”
“I don’t know,” Soilléir said, looking at him with clear, innocent eyes. “What do you think?”
Ruith pushed away from the window and walked away, because he didn’t like what he’d heard and he liked even less the thought of having to contemplate what madness his sire had been considering during the last days of his life.
Other spells?
He shuddered to think.
He paced to the doorway and back before he stopped again in front of the window and looked at Soilléir.
“The list could be long.”
“Or very short.”
Ruith swore. “Why are you pursuing this?”
“Because I fear,” Soilléir said quietly, “that there are things out in the world that truly will undo it unless they’re found and destroyed. Things loosed that should be contained. Spells and thoughts and schemes that I cannot see and couldn’t—wouldn’t—stop even if I knew where to look.”
Ruith turned to stare out the window until the faint light of dawn stretched across the sky. “There are times,” he said finally, “when I profoundly regret walking out my front door and putting my foot to the path waiting for me.”
“I imagine you do. But then you wouldn’t have met Sarah.”
Sarah. Ruith blew out his breath. It was one thing to contemplate taking Sarah along with him when the journey was comfortably far away; it was another thing to be facing that moment and realize what it would mean. He looked at Soilléir. “I’m going to leave her here.”
“Nay, Your Highness, you are not.”
Ruith closed his eyes briefly, shot Soilléir a warning look, then turned to find Sarah awake and standing behind him, watching him with her arms folded over her chest.
“Sarah,” he began, dragging his hand through his hair.
“I’m almost finished with my cloth,” she said briskly. She looked at Soilléir. “I might need needle and thread, if I could trouble you for both.”
“I think I can do better than that and even dredge up a seamstress or two,” Soilléir said with a smile.
She glared at Ruith, then walked off to her loom. Ruith watched her go, then turned to Soilléir and lifted an eyebrow.
Soilléir shrugged. “She’s formidable. And you need her, for more things than just her sight. You’ll just have to keep her safe.”
“I don’t want her to come along,” Ruith said grimly.
“And what is your other choice?” Soilléir asked. “Leave her behind with me? You have the power to protect her. I daresay even your father would find you a difficult opponent now.”
“My mother was his equal,” Ruith said, “and yet she failed to stop him.”
“And she failed because his power had been augmented by your brothers’ magic, which you well know. If you could turn back the wheels of time and face him as a man, I think you might be slightly more cynical about what he might do than your mother was and act accordingly. Though, in her defense, she was balancing trying to stop him with trying to keep her children safe.”
“I regret that she had to face that,” Ruith said quietly.
“As do I.”
Ruith imagined Soilléir would have stopped the entire thing if he’d been able to—and