that wasn’t overcast, it was full of dank, rotted spells of Olc. She could see them writhing and twisting in a wind of their own making, reaching out for her.
She looked at the master of Olc—and she now knew him for who he was—and didn’t manage to even open her mouth to cry out before his spell slammed into her, stealing her breath. The only reason it didn’t steal her life was because of what Soilléir had thrown over her the split second before Droch had cast his spell. As it was, Droch’s spell sent her sprawling back along the marble. She crawled to her feet, then looked down in horror at what she was standing on.
It was a chessboard.
She knew without being told that Droch had intended her to be one of the pieces.
Soilléir stepped in front of her suddenly and faced Droch. Sarah would have warned him to be careful, but she supposed he knew that already. That, and she feared that if she opened her mouth, sounds would come out that would terrify them all.
She was pulled backward. She knew it was Ruith even though she had closed her eyes to the terrible battle going on in front of her. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to help, as she could see it just the same.
Droch and Soilléir were fighting with spells. Droch’s were easily identified for what they were. Soilléir’s, though, were not. They sounded familiar—or at least the language did—but she couldn’t place it. Then again, her education was perhaps not what it should have been in order to find herself moving comfortably in such a high and lofty place as the schools of wizardry.
She realized she was babbling—in her own head, no less—but she found she couldn’t stop. To say she was terrified was to completely understate the chill that enveloped her. To think how close she had come to walking willingly into not death but something far worse ...
“Let’s go,” Ruith said hoarsely.
She couldn’t move. Ruith must have realized that as well when he almost wrenched her arm from her shoulder.
“I can’t get my feet free,” she said, feeling terribly alarmed. Actually, alarmed didn’t describe it. She was completely panicked. She looked at Ruith, who was now standing in front of her. “Help me—nay, you cannot. Soilléir must—”
He cursed, then looked about himself, presumably for something to use in getting her feet free of spells she could see had already wrapped themselves over her toes and were now beginning to crawl up to her ankles. She pulled one of her knives out of the back of the belt of her dress, bent, and slit the spells, leaving them waving frantically, just as the ones she’d cut in Ceangail had done.
The smell of them was so vile, she almost lost her breakfast right there in the midst of more spells that sprang up out of nothing and reached for her.
Ruith swung her up in his arms and carried her out of the garden.
“What of Soilléir?”
“He’ll manage.”
“Can’t you help—” she began, then she shut her mouth. Of course he couldn’t help. Well, he perhaps could have, but she knew he wouldn’t.
Though after what she’d seen, she could understand why he was so adverse to magic in general and Olc in particular. She felt a rush of sympathy for his poor mother, having had to endure all those years in Ceangail with its halls slathered in vile spells. She wondered how often Sarait had been there, if she’d managed to shield herself and her children from the brunt of that horrible magic, if Gair had ever been anything but darkness.
She wondered what horrors Ruith had been subjected to, having spent even a part of his youth in that terrible place.
All of which reminded her that since she didn’t want anything to do with magic and mages, she couldn’t have anything to do with Ruith.
“I can walk,” she said, trying to crawl out of his arms.
He let her down reluctantly, but put his arm around her shoulders. She would have told him she didn’t need any help, but she wasn’t entirely sure she could manage any sort of escape on her own. It was all she could do to resheath her knife.
She stumbled along a stone-floored corridor worn smooth by the passage of countless boots over the centuries, then finally had to close her eyes against the sight of the trails left behind by those feet, shadows she certainly hadn’t been able to see earlier but now could for