She looked up at him. “I’m not sure that’s the lad for me.”
“Well, if you want my opinion on the matter,” he said slowly, “the spell that gives you the most trouble is always a good place to start.”
“Or I could try to work up to it with other things,” she said. “Like a small pony before a feisty stallion.”
“True, but these aren’t horses.”
She reached for something else reasonable to say, then realized with a start that perhaps there was nothing simpler than the spell he’d given her.
She turned and walked away because she thought better when she was moving, not because she wanted to escape. It took her one entire turn about the bloody chamber before she could force herself to stop next to a man who had likely made fire before he’d been able to walk. She wanted to glare at him, but all she could do was look at him and hope her expression wasn’t as bleak as she felt.
“Thisisthe simplest thing, isn’t it?” she asked reluctantly.
He started to speak, then sighed. “It is the first thing I learned from my mother.”
“How old were you?”
“Old enough to have a pressing need to set my eldest brother’s trousers afire.”
She wasn’t accustomed to bursting into tears, but she was closer to it than she thought she might have been since that first night in her uncle’s barn when she’d realized at the tender age of eleven what the rest of her life would look like.
He closed his eyes briefly, then carefully reached out and gathered her to him.
“I’m not going to stab you,” she said, her words muffled against his shoulder.
“What I’m afraid of is that you’ll set me on fire, if you want the truth of it,” he said, sounding not in the slightest bit concerned. “Fiery hair, fiery temperis what I always say.”
“You say nothing of the sort.”
He hugged her tightly, then pulled back and took her face in his hands. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but having him kiss the end of her nose and walk away was not it.
He fetched a pair of stools from near the king’s gallery, then brought them over and set them down one behind the other. He sat, then patted the stool in front of him.
“I don’t feel weak,” she said crossly.
“I know. I thought that I would, lecher that I am, indulge in a fond embrace whilst you were distracted by other things.” He paused. “’Tis possible that you’ll also be less likely to bolt if I’m holding onto you.”
He had a point, though she wasn’t going to admit it. She sat down, cursing and feeling entirely out of sorts. Acair wrapped his arms around her and took her hands in his. She wasn’t entirely certain he hadn’t kissed her hair briefly, no doubt to inspire either courage or outrage.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” he said very quietly.
She dug her wrist into one of her eyes because she had an itch, not because she was trying to avoid any untoward displays of emotion. “That horse is already out of the barn, don’t you think?”
“I didn’t want to say as much,” he said quietly, “but aye, you’re right about that.” He took a deep breath. “Very well, let’s attempt this together and see what it gets us.”
There was something about a mage of terrible power and awful spells being willing to help her with things he had, regardless of what he’d said, likely been able to do the minute he could string words together that left her wanting to indulge in either weeping or howling. That he was being kind about it almost made it worse.
But she was no coward, so she took hold of her good sense and nodded. “What do I do?”
“The first thing to do is clear your mind.”
“It was empty before,” she said miserably.
“What a terrible falsehood,” he said, sounding as if he might be smiling. “’Tis impossible with yours truly right here, no doubt inspiring thoughts of lust and riotous living. Just do your best. As for your business here, we won’t be making any fire today, we’ll be calling it.”
She felt rather ill. “Is there a difference?”
“There is, but I guarantee you won’t care what it is. Just trust that there is fire out in the great, wide world that is chomping at the bit to come do your bidding. I’ll give it a little whistle first so you can see how ’tis properly done, then you try.”
