vile spells. An-uallach didn’t have that same reek of evil, though the spell it was covered with was unpleasant enough to give her pause.
Ruith reached for her hand and pulled it into the crook of his elbow. “We’ll hurry.”
“I don’t like it here,” she murmured.
“Neither do I, but we’ve no choice. See anything interesting yet?”
She could only nod, partly because she couldn’t quite put into words what she was seeing and partly because she thought if she spoke any more, she would shout that they should turn around and bolt whilst they had the chance—which they couldn’t do. There were spells in the keep that she had to help Ruith find. She’d known it wouldn’t be easy.
She just hadn’t expected the task to be so distasteful in a magical sense.
The guard led them up the stairs to the door of a keep that boasted the same lack of care shown the outer walls. They were shown into an antechamber full of formal guards, then through another set of rather weathered doors that opened onto a great hall. Massive hearths were set into the walls and a pathway was set into the stone of the floor, a pathway that led to a raised dais in the distance. Sarah wondered how she was going to walk that entire distance without her knees betraying her unease, but found that wasn’t going to be a worry. A gaggle of maidens startled from their chairs on that dais much like a small flock of birds, squawking and flapping about before they seemingly regained their composure and formed a sedate little line that marched down the path toward where she and Ruith had been stopped in the midst of the chamber.
She supposed, judging by the guardsmen who accompanied them, that the lassies coming their way were Morag’s daughters. They were certainly dressed the part, as if no expense had been spared in fashioning their garb. Sarah would have wondered what sort of lad might have been interested in any of them if he’d judged them by the condition of their hall, but she made the mistake of looking at the first gel who stopped some ten paces away from them. She caught her breath.
Ruith did too, but he was a man so she supposed he couldn’t help himself.
The truth was, the foremost princess was absolutely stunning. Sarah could hardly take her eyes off her. She was tall, slender, with a waterfall of dark hair that fell artistically over one shoulder and down to her waist. It was her face, however, that was almost too beautiful to admire. She wasn’t elvish, that much was clear, but she was something else equally as splendid. The girls fanned out behind her, giving Sarah a perfect look at the six of them, each more beautiful than the last, which left the youngest very lovely indeed.
Sarah realized, with a start, that there was nothing to the gels. They weren’t wraiths, for there was form enough to them, but they were shadows of what they could have been, as if they had grown up under a mighty evergreen that had stolen all their sunlight.
The eldest princess folded her arms over her chest and lifted her chin.
“Announce yourselves before I have you thrown out.”
Ruith pulled his hood back from his face. The five other sisters made appreciative noises, which Sarah understood, but the first did not, which Sarah couldn’t fathom. Either her vision was so poor she couldn’t see what was in front of her, or she was attempting to increase Ruith’s admiration of her by perpetrating a strategy of disinterest.
Sarah decided abruptly that she had been fortunate not to have grown up in a palace.
“We are as we said we were,” Ruith said in a soothing voice Sarah was certain he’d learned at some noble house or another in his youth. “We gave our names to your gate guards, Your Highness, but I will happily give them again to you, if it pleases you.”
The dark-haired princess’s chin went up a notch, allowing her perhaps a better view down the length of her perfect nose. “They mentioned Ceangail, but that is full of naught but bastards, and we’ll have none of them here.”
“I am no bastard,” Ruith said with absolutely no change in his tone that might have reflected the taking of offense. “I’m sure your genealogist could delve further into it, should you care to ask him.” He made the princess a very slight bow, which was perhaps all that a prince