to find and use the spell of Diminishing, anyone but Gair of Ceangail might not have managed such a thorough result—especially on Gair himself.
Which would have left Gair with perhaps enough power to save himself with a spell of Anti-Diminishing.
Ruith rolled his eyes at the thought. His sire was dead and gone. Whatever fools might have been left in the world were not his equal and would never harness the full power of the original spell.
Still, they might manage a good bit of damage, which left him with his original task, which was preventing the meeting of those two halves before someone with a decent bit of power put them together.
And in the meantime, he supposed he might be wise to actually do the unthinkable and create something of his own to fight whoever might be canny enough to have the entire spell at his disposal, though the thought of that was a bit like walking over his father’s grave.
He shivered, and not from the chill. That wasn’t a path he wanted to put even a single foot to.
Though he supposed he might not have a choice.
Sixteen
Sarah walked down the muddy street with Ruith, grateful she had him to duck behind if things became too dodgy. She’d never been in a place that was so overtly unpleasant, not even when compared to a few of the seedier villages in Shettlestoune she’d traveled to with her mother to hunt for new customers. The buildings had quite obviously taken their fair share of abuse from the weather, which was particularly nasty and had consisted of, over the past half hour, a driving rain that had turned to a painful sort of hail that had abated into a sleet that stung her face and gathered on her eyelashes until she could hardly see where she was going. If she hadn’t known better, she might have suspected it all to be the work of some vile mage.
“Why does anyone live here?” she muttered, not entirely under her breath.
“Last bit of civilization for leagues,” Ruith said with a shrug, “such as it is. There isn’t anywhere of note between Slighe and Ceangail or, for that matter, between Slighe and Léige. You’ve seen for yourself what lies on the plains of Ailean—or perhaps you weren’t watching whilst we were flying.”
“I kept my eyes closed,” she said, mustering up a glare.
“I imagined you had,” he said wryly. “As to what lies to the south, there is nothing of any decent size for a few days’ travel at least. If you want supplies for even a modest journey, this is your last chance to purchase them.”
“I’m not sure I would stop here for supplies,” she said, wishing she had a sword and the skill to use it. “And that because I would most likely be robbed of them on my way out of town.”
He smiled. “I would disagree, but I think you have it aright.” He studied her briefly. “Are you concerned?”
She pursed her lips. “I think if your sword didn’t frighten any and all ruffians off, your knives would, so nay, I’m not overly concerned. I won’t say that I won’t be happy to leave the place behind, though, no matter how intimidating you are.”
Though why putting Slighe behind her would be an improvement, she couldn’t say. At least in Slighe it seemed fairly obvious where trouble might be coming from—any doorway that opened onto the street, actually—but out in the wilderness? Enemies lurking there would be more difficult to see, especially given the possibility that the mountains and forests were full of Ruith’s bastard brothers. It was difficult to accept that she felt more comfortable in Buidseachd, but there was no denying it. At least there, she knew to distrust most everyone she met.
She let her mind wander as she walked and it wandered right to the first unpleasant thing she’d seen on her current journey, which was her brother flinging a sword into his messenger’s chest. Obviously the double cross the messenger had attempted had gone horribly awry. She didn’t want to content herself with knowing the man would have suffered a much worse fate at Droch’s hands, but the truth of it was also difficult to deny.
At least she’d had the time to gather up the pieces of spell, and she and Ruith had escaped without harm. She supposed Daniel would free himself eventually, and whilst he might consider Ruith’s parting words to him, he wasn’t one to learn lessons easily. If he thought