“Nothing like that, I fear. Just a man with a love for a good story. As for your lady’s family, I believe my father told you as much as he knew about the particulars. I can give you the details he doesn’t know. Niall was slain by Sladaiche, though you may have guessed as much already.”
Acair looked at him and for the first time in decades of knowing him felt a small stirring of pity. “It must be difficult,” he said, finding the words sliding off his tongue whilst he could only stand there and watch them go. “To simply stand by and watch.”
Soilléir walked next to him for quite some time before he stopped. He took a deep breath and looked at him. “Not many say that.”
“They’re too busy plotting how to have your spells.”
“That might be true. But I appreciate the sentiment just the same.”
“I’ll deny it if you repeat it.”
“I would expect nothing less.” Soilléir walked on. “To continue, after a year or so, Saoradh met Muireall and proposed marriage. It was done out of love and the children were never told.”
“Did he have magic?” Acair asked, trying to digest what he was hearing without a proper libation or a decent chair. “Léirsinn’s true sire, I mean.”
Soilléir considered. “They do in their line,” he said slowly, “but their magic is a very capricious sort, far more unpredictable than what my family possesses. For the most part, the inhabitants of An Caol can trace their ancestors back to Ionad-teàrmainn. Léirsinn’s sire is a direct descendent of the stablemaster that had Sladaiche banished for abusing the horses.”
“I see.”
“I imagine you’re beginning to. Lord Tosdach had found great hospitality in An Caol. Being a lover of horses himself, making the journey back there often was, I’m given to understand, one of the pleasures of his life. When he felt he’d collected as many stories as he could, he bound them all into a trio of books.”
Acair closed his eyes briefly. “Including, no doubt, at least one from Léirsinn’s sire.”
“One passed down from Léirsinn’s paternal grandfather, actually, through her sire, but aye, you see where the tale leads.”
“He collected the stories without having any idea what he was actually collecting, then Sladaiche followed his nose there and slew Léirsinn’s father.”
“Aye,” Soilléir agreed, “only after having watched her father’s father and grandfather, for reasons I don’t need to give you. None of that line remains, as I said. I’m not sure their ends were quick and painless.”
Acair rubbed his fingers over his brow, but found that a rather inadequate means of stopping the pounding there. “I won’t tell her that bit, I don’t think.”
“Perhaps not now. She might want to know later, on the off chance Tosdach mentions it.”
Acair nodded. “I’ll remember that.” He walked for a bit, then shook his head. “Why didn’t Sladaiche just dig through their house and take the book when Léirsinn was a child?”
Soilléir looked at him steadily. “I don’t think he even considered the books until after he’d slain the parents. I will admit I sent him off hunting things that didn’t exist long enough to get the children out of the house. There was nothing left for him to find when he returned, not even the books.”
Acair shook his head in disbelief. “Do you have any idea what sort of harm’s way you put her in?”
“She wasn’t unprotected,” Soilléir said carefully, “and there were other distractions to draw Sladaiche’s attention elsewhere. Your father was one.”
“Myfather?” Acair echoed. “What in the hell does he have to do with any of this?”
“For that, we must go back many years. Sladaiche built a house next to your father’s because he wanted your father’s spell of Diminishing to use in completing what he’d taken from my grandfather’s library, which was thankfully unfinished—”
“Wait,” Acair said, stopping and looking at him. “We found the book, which I’m certain you already know, but the entire thing was gone, not just a single spell. Where are the innards?”
Soilléir shrugged. “No idea.”
“You realize when you say things like that, I have to clasp my hands behind my back to keep them from resting where they so desperately want to instead. That would bearound your throat, if you’re confused.”
“I wasn’t,” Soilléir said easily “As for the rest of the book, it likely rotted years ago in someone’s compost bin, not that your grandmother couldn’t rewrite every spell in there. I wouldn’t worry.”
Acair supposed he didn’t need to point out that when Soilléir wasn’t worried, the rest of the world needed to be terrified. He also wished with a desperation that left him a bit weak in the knees for a notebook and a pencil.
There was definitely no escaping it any longer. He had become his mother.
“When Sladaiche realized he would never have Diminishing from your sire,” Soilléir continued, “he turned to others who might know it. Why do you think he left that spell on his mantel for you to find? You do realize, don’t you, that none of your brothers who traipsed through his house could pull it down, much less unwrap it and cast it aside as dross.”
