Reader and Raelynx (22 page)

“What’s wrong?” Tayse said. “What did you learn?”

“That old man who just left. A mystic who apparently communicates with the ocean. I never heard of such a thing, but I believed him,” Senneth said.

“I believed him, too,” Kirra added.

“He says there’s a fleet of ships right outside of Forten City, just sitting in the water, waiting. Big ships. Sounded like they were crammed with men. He couldn’t say how many, but more are coming every day.”

Tayse instantly analyzed the information. “Soldiers from outside Gillengaria being imported to fight this war?” he said.

Darryn looked stricken. “Has to be.”

“Makes sense,” Tayse said. “Explains the gold.”

“What gold?” Darryn demanded.

“We heard rumors last year,” Tayse replied. “That Coralinda Gisseltess had a fortune in gold piled up in the convent. Probably gathering it to help her brother and Rayson Fortunalt pay for an army of foreign mercenaries.”

“I feel sick,” Kirra said.

“Also explains why they’ve waited so long to launch their attack,” Tayse continued. “It takes a while to recruit soldiers from overseas.”

“I thought they were just waiting for spring,” Senneth said.

“Now they are. But we’ve heard rumors of war for a year. Why didn’t they attack
last
spring? It didn’t make sense—until you realize they were raising foreign troops.”

Senneth appealed to Darryn. “Why didn’t your mother alert us? Surely she’s got trade ships sailing out toward Arberharst and Sovenfeld. Surely one of her merchant captains would have seen something?”

He shook his head. “Maybe not. My mother’s been so worried about war these past few months that she’s practically closed the borders. All the sea captains that normally engage in trade have been pressed into service to guard the coasts. Rappengrass has always had good land soldiers, but we’ve never had much of a military force on the water. She’s doing what she can to make us less vulnerable there.”

“Then you need to get to Rappen Manor right away,” Kirra said. “And tell her there’s a navy piling up not too far from her ports.”

He nodded. “I was planning on leaving tomorrow.”

“This is horrifying,” Senneth said. “We were already worried that we wouldn’t have the numbers—that more Houses would rise up in rebellion than would stay loyal to the crown. But if they’ve hired outsiders as well—”

Tayse nodded. “It tilts the odds against us significantly.”

“Senneth,”
Kirra said. “It’s worse than that! If Rayson and Halchon bring in foreign troops, we’ll be helpless! You and I and
all
the mystics—our magic won’t work against anyone not born in Gillengaria!”

“Bright Mother burn me in ashes to the ground,” Senneth swore. But Tayse offered her a small, calm smile.

“You can still battle the native-born traitors,” he said softly. “But Riders don’t need magic to defend the king. We will fight as we have always fought, with sword and spear and bow and bare hands. This changes nothing for us.”

“Except that you will face more enemies!” Senneth exclaimed. “Except that you are more likely to be defeated!”

Now he laughed outright. “We might face more foes,” he said, “but we will not be overcome.”

T
HERE
was no need to stay longer in Carrebos, and the next day, anxious and unsettled, Senneth packed for home. A group of twenty mystics from Carrebos had agreed to come with her to the royal city, a selection of shape-shifters, healers, readers, fire-callers, and a few with powers she couldn’t quite name but nonetheless respected.

“What in the world are you going to do with them when you get back?” Kirra asked. She wasn’t bothering to pack. She was going to change herself to a hawk and fly for Danan Hall alongside Donnal, and she planned to leave behind all the clothes she had manufactured for herself during their brief stay.

“I’m going to find a makeshift barracks for them somewhere in the city and make Jerril responsible for training them all,” she said. “Except for the shape-shifters, whom I plan to bring to the palace grounds so they can roam around sniffing for trouble. It will be very strange. I have no idea how we’ll control them all. I just know that I want them nearby and feeling friendly toward me.”

“Well, don’t forget that you have to be at Danan Hall in something under three weeks,” Kirra said. “Make your trip to Ghosenhall quickly, then head out as soon as you can. If you’re not there for Casserah’s wedding to Will—”

“Kiernan will be there, surely, and Nate and Harris,” Senneth said. “If Will has all his brothers there, he won’t mind if I miss the event.”

“But I’ll mind,” Kirra said. “How will I endure if I am there by myself?”

“Don’t go,” Senneth advised. “Then there will be nothing to endure.”

But that was not an option for Kirra—not an option for Senneth, either, if she wanted to maintain the fragile good relations she had established with her brothers this past year.

“I just had a thought!” Kirra exclaimed. “Will Nate bring Sabina Gisseltess along? How odd that will be! And yet you know my father would not turn her away.”

Sabina Gisseltess had run away from her husband, Halchon, last year and had been offered sanctuary at Brassen Court. It had quickly become clear to Senneth that Sabina and the insufferable Nate had been in love with each other all this time—Imagine! Someone pining for Nate for fifteen years!—which made her wish even more passionately that something would happen to strike Halchon Gisseltess dead. Not that Senneth could blame Sabina for wanting to escape her husband, for Halchon had made it very clear his frail wife had become an encumbrance he was prepared to shed. He wanted to be free to make an alliance with a powerful serramarra who might join him in Ghosenhall to rule Gillengaria, once he had wrested the throne from Baryn.

He wanted to marry Senneth. And Senneth would rather die herself than come close enough to touch the fingers of his hand.

“That’s certainly a reason for me to be there,” Senneth agreed. “To watch Sabina explain her presence in Kiernan’s household. I will try to come.”

Kirra and Donnal were gone within the hour. It took rather more time for Senneth to round up her recruits, make sure they all had horses and provisions, and urge them to keep in a close formation on the road once they set out. They didn’t get as far as she would have liked before nightfall, and the second day was just about as disorganized as the first.

“It looks like our return trip will be far less efficient than our outbound journey,” she said to Tayse as they made camp that second night.

“At least we’re well guarded at night,” he said. “Hard to surprise a party of readers and shape-shifters.”

“I feel the need to hurry, though,” she said. “I have the feeling that Cammon is distressed about something.”

Tayse instantly looked solemn. “How distressed? Does he want us back immediately? We could force the pace harder tomorrow.”

She shook her head. “No—I don’t get the sense that there’s terrible trouble. Just that he’s out of his depth.”

Tayse relaxed a little. “Guarding a princess and arguing with a queen,” he said. “Yes, I imagine he is.”

The third day was a little smoother, as they got into the rhythm of the trip. All the mystics continued to be somewhat in fear of Tayse; their primary interaction with soldiers in the past had usually been violent as civil guards and Coralinda Gisseltess’s men had hunted them down. So they gave him a wide berth and scrambled to do his bidding whenever he made the mildest suggestion. Senneth sighed to watch them. She hadn’t gathered much of an army if her recruits were afraid of one lone Rider.

They were a little afraid of her as well, though that didn’t bother her as much; she was used to others eyeing her askance. It wasn’t her magic that impressed this group, she thought, but her self-confidence, her refusal to offer any kind of apology for her ability. They had spent so long hiding their skills and suffering because of their magic. They couldn’t understand Senneth’s calm acceptance of her gift.

The thought made her want to offer a bitter smile. The Bright Mother alone knew how much magic had cost her. She was damned if she would repudiate it now.

Of course, there was another reason this motley troop of mystics looked at her with wide and uncertain eyes. She wore a moonstone bracelet on her wrist and seemed not to feel it burn her—or care if it did. More than once as she was talking with some of her new companions, she saw their eyes drift down toward her left hand. Their attention would fasten on the softly glowing stones that encircled her wrist and they would completely lose the thread of the conversation. None of them could touch a moonstone, of course. Even Kirra would yelp in pain if one of those gems came in contact with her skin. A mystic bound with moonstones was helpless, stripped of power.

Coralinda Gisseltess and her followers all draped themselves in moonstones. The Pale Mother had taken the jewel as her own—and the Pale Mother hated mystics.

Long ago Senneth had determined that nothing,
nothing
, would be denied to her simply because of the magic in her veins. She was stronger than hatred, than intolerance, than fear; she could survive punishment, banishment, despair. She would not be afraid of a few pretty rocks, malicious though they might be. She would wear moonstones, and the slight, constant tingle of fire at her wrist would simply remind her that the outside world was as full of heat and turmoil as her soul.

“You’re not afraid of anything, are you?” one of the recruits asked her that night after they had made an untidy camp. The speaker was a young man, maybe Cammon’s age, a fluid shape-shifter with a sad, hunted face. He had asked the question because she had showed no alarm at a quick scuffle between two of the other mystics, though the threat of conflict had sent this young man cowering to the other side of the fire.

Senneth glanced at him. “I’m afraid of more things than I could name in an hour just sitting here counting them off,” she said.

“You don’t act like it,” he said, half admiring and half resentful.

She smiled and fed another branch into the flames. “Because what I’m most afraid of is having fear control me,” she said. “And so I will not give in to it, no matter what that costs me.”

He was still mulling her words over that night when they all took to their bedrolls and slept.

Senneth’s magic made the warmth of the fire extend all around the camp, but as they set out in the morning, they instantly encountered deep chill and ground frozen so hard that the horses’ hooves rang against it. Tayse picked up the pace just to keep them all warm. Even so, they were barely halfway through the return journey when they made camp that night. Senneth wished, not for the first time, she had a shape-shifter’s skills and could fly the remaining distance to Ghosenhall in a day.

It was still cold the following day, and they continued their faster rate of travel. They were an hour or two past their noontime break when a sudden, sharp cry had Senneth reining back hard. She looked around swiftly, but no one in her party seemed disturbed—seemed even to have heard anything. Tayse, riding some distance in the lead, hadn’t even turned around, and there was no chance Tayse would have failed to react to such a call of distress.

Heart pounding, she slowed her horse still more, then closed her eyes and opened her mind. There it was again, just as urgent, but a little more clear. Cammon’s voice, Cammon’s words.

Senneth! I need you!

A
FTER
what Justin liked to call “the raelynx incident,” they had two days of relative calm at the palace. Cammon found himself in Amalie’s presence most of that time, though they were never for a minute unchaperoned, and he was fairly careful not to communicate with her silently, either by accident or by design.

But there had been a subtle shift of power, and he and Valri, at least, were aware of it. Amalie was more sure of herself, a little less willing to be guided by the queen. It was hard to pinpoint the change, exactly, because in those two days Amalie did not engage in any overt act of mutiny and never showed Valri the slightest impoliteness. But there was a certain set to her jaw, a speculative expression in her eyes. She looked like a cat that was considering a jump to a high wall, not sure if she could make the leap but almost determined to try.

Valri watched her both days with a close and silent attention, and her mood seemed to grow darker by the hour.

Cammon found himself worrying about both of them.

He tried to articulate his thoughts to Justin, who merely shrugged. “Not your business,” Justin said. “Your role is easy. You’re there to make sure no one dies. It doesn’t matter what else breaks around you.”

“What if Valri tries to murder Amalie?” Cammon said glumly, but Justin only grinned.

“You protect the princess from the queen,” the Rider said. “See? It’s still easy. You have one task. Focus on that task.”

Ellynor was more sympathetic. “Valri has done hard things before,” she said. She was lightly kneading the back of Cammon’s neck, since the tension of the past two days had given him a rare headache. The pain had dissolved with her first touch, but her hands were so soothing he didn’t want her to stop. “You don’t need to be concerned about her. And Amalie is only doing what every young girl must do—figuring out what she is capable of and throwing off the restraints her parents have put around her.” She stopped rubbing his neck, tousled his hair, and sat next to him at the table.

“It’s probably even harder for Amalie than it is for a Lirren girl to break free of her protectors,” Ellynor added. “From what you’ve said, Amalie has been so carefully guarded her whole life that she might have been smothered in care. I think it’s a good sign that she is starting to test her power.”

Justin laughed. “You say that because you’re a rebel yourself.”

She smiled at him but said, “She is to be
queen.
Surely she needs to start developing her own instincts before she is suddenly sitting on the throne.”

“Well, but her instincts made her want to set the raelynx free!” Cammon said.

Justin shook his head. “Damn. Never saw anything like that.”

“And what did you learn then? Two things,” Ellynor reminded Cammon. “She
can
control it. And she heeded the words of an advisor she trusted. Both of those things ought to reassure you at least a little.”

“You mark my words,” Justin said. “One day that raelynx
is
going to be out. And nothing I say, or Valri says, or Cammon says, or Senneth says, will make her put it back in its pen.”

“Maybe,” Ellynor said. “But wait until that day comes before you decide whether or not she’s done a foolish thing.”

I
N
the morning, despite Valri’s protests, Amalie had another weapons session with Wen and Janni—in the Riders’ training yard.

“I’m perfectly happy to have her learn how to wield a knife, but let her learn inside! Where it’s safe and it’s
warm
!” Valri exclaimed as she and Cammon hung on the fence rails, watching.

The day was bitterly cold, though at least there was neither wind nor snow. Cammon imagined that the combatants on the field were plenty warm, though he and Valri were freezing.

He grinned. “Can’t imagine she could be safer anywhere than in a field surrounded by Riders,” he said. “Even if Halchon Gisseltess came bursting through the gates this very minute with an army at his back.”

Valri shivered. “Don’t say that.”

Cammon watched as Amalie dodged a blow from Janni and went tumbling to the ground. The princess’s cheeks were streaked with mud, and her borrowed clothes—a close-fitting vest and leather pants tucked into sturdy boots—were already filthy. Yet she had a very businesslike air about her. She had braided back her red-gold hair, pulled on the proffered gloves, and listened to the day’s instructions with calm intentness. She hadn’t done a half-bad job, either, he thought. She would have been dead only four out of the five times Janni had attacked her this morning. Pretty good record for the rawest of recruits.

“Maybe you could stand a little training, too,” he said. “Learn how to use a knife.”

Valri gave him a scornful look. “You think I don’t know how to cut a man’s throat?”

He was so surprised that he stared back at her a moment and then he burst out laughing. “I suppose you do. You’re fierce enough. And you come from fierce enough people. Do you have brothers like Ellynor’s? Do they constantly make war with other clans? All I know is that you were born in the Lirrens and you left. I don’t know what your life was like before.”

She had turned her moody gaze back to the field, where Amalie was circling Janni, her own blade upraised. “If Ellynor has told you much about her life, she has essentially described my own. Except I was wilder than Ellynor, more dissatisfied. I schemed and schemed about getting free. Running away. While I was still a child, I dreamed about declaring myself
bahta-lo
and walking away from the clans. It was no surprise to anyone that I did it.”

“But it seems to me,” he said softly, “that you are even more confined now than you were in the Lirrens. Tied to the king, tied to his daughter. You named yourself
bahta-lo
and you crossed the Lireth Mountains, but you are hardly free.”

Her smile was a little grim. “You’re right. And I knew it before I agreed to follow Pella back here. I was trading one kind of prison for another. But at least it was a prison I chose.”

He shook his head. “It still doesn’t really make sense to me. That you would choose this life. The Lirrenfolk barely even acknowledge Baryn as king. Why would you care if his daughter lived or died? Then, I mean,” he added hastily. “Now I’m sure that you love Amalie and are willing to do anything you can to protect her.”

Still watching the field, Valri nodded slowly. “Yes. I will do everything in my power to guard her. But I crossed the mountains for Pella’s sake—I had not even met Amalie at that point. I don’t know if I can explain it to you. Pella was almost a stranger to me. She looked nothing like me or anyone I knew, for she had bright gold hair and that open smile, just like Amalie’s. And yet I recognized her. She was in some way a sister.

I felt that she had come to the Lirrens specifically to find me.” Valri glanced at Cammon and glanced away. “I thought the Great Mother—who counts every soul, who knows where every one of her sons and daughters lies sleeping at night—I thought
she
had directed Pella to me. I thought the goddess had given me this task. And so I accepted it.”

Ellynor, too, seemed to have a direct and personal relationship with that night goddess who watched over Lirrenfolk. It did not surprise Cammon nearly as much as Valri might think to hear that she followed the will of the deity. He asked, “And have you been sorry that you gave up so much to come here? Or glad?”

Valri made a sound that might almost have been a laugh, except it wasn’t. “Sorry every day. I miss them more than I thought I possibly could—my sisters, my brothers, my cousins, my—everyone. And glad every day. Convinced that my presence has saved Amalie from both grief and danger. And sorry again, as I find grief and danger creeping closer anyway, and I think I have no way of keeping them away from her.” She turned her head to survey him. “And glad again, when I think she has other friends besides me to stand at her side.”

Her words gave him a little glow, especially since the last time Valri had talked to him about Amalie she had been warning him to keep his distance. She must have recovered some of her faith in him. “What will you do, once Amalie is named queen?” he asked curiously. “We hope that will be years from now, of course! But you will be widowed then, I suppose. Will you go back to the Lirrens? Will you stay in Ghosenhall?”

“I will stay as long as she needs me. But after that—I’m not sure. I may go back. I may travel. I may leave Gillengaria altogether, who knows? But I would like to see the Lirrens again someday. I miss them, I miss—” She shrugged and closed her mouth.

He didn’t know what made him say it. Maybe there was an image in her mind, and her emotion was sharp enough that he could sense it, though normally she was so adept at cloaking her thoughts. “You could marry again.”

She gave him a swift look in which he read a sudden surge of pain. “If anyone I cared for would have me.”

He caught his breath. “Did you leave someone behind in the Lirrens?”

She hesitated and then she nodded. “We were both young, of course. I was about the age Amalie is now. But I loved him. I thought it would kill me to leave him. Yet I survived, and he survived, and now I am married to the king.”

“You’re still young,” Cammon pointed out. “If something were to happen—well—of course I don’t want anything to happen, but if it did—”

“You think he will have waited for me?”

“
I
would have, if it were me,” he said.

The words hung between them for a moment, both of them surprised. He thought Valri softened toward him in that instant, lost just the tiniest edge of her diamond hardness. “Ellynor says he has not yet taken a bride,” Valri said in a low voice. “But that he does not speak of me.”

“Does
everyone
in the Lirrens know everyone else?” he demanded. “I know you’re all part of these complicated clans, but—”

“He is Ellynor’s cousin. I believe your friend Justin actually met him during his stay.” She gave him a smile, but he thought it was forced. “So, you see, I have fewer secrets every day.”

He didn’t know how to say how honored he was that she had trusted him with a few of those secrets, nonetheless. Instead he smiled and spoke lightly. “I’m guessing you still have a few left.”

Her own face was sad. “Unfortunately, you’re right.”

V
ALRI’S
last and worst secret was revealed that very afternoon.

Amalie had cleaned up and changed clothes and now sat in the rose parlor looking the very picture of demure royalty. The three of them had settled in their customary chairs before the window, hoping to absorb the sunlight, while Valri went through Amalie’s correspondence. None of the letters were calculated to please Cammon, since they were all from young lords or their fathers, all desirous of seeing Amalie make a connection with their Houses.

“Here’s a young man from Coravann who plans to be in the city next week,” Valri said, scanning a few pages that were accompanied by a long, slim box tied with gold ribbon. “He has sent you a small gift as his envoy—that’s a nice way to put it, don’t you think? Anyway, he hopes you will accept it and possibly wear it when he comes to call.”

“I thought the princess had already entertained a suitor from Coravann,” Cammon said.

“Yes, the marlord’s son,” Valri said. “But other high-ranking nobles will of course come to pay court. It is not always politic for a princess to marry the heir to a House. Sometimes a lesser lord is a better prospect, as he would know.” She glanced at Amalie. “I’m guessing he’s sent you jewelry, don’t you think?”

Amalie was untying the ribbon. “Probably. I hope it’s not hideous, or I won’t want to wear it.”

“Surely something made with lapis lazuli,” Valri said. “Isn’t that the gemstone of Coravann?”

“Or the royal lion,” Amalie guessed.

But they were both wrong. When Amalie opened the box, she revealed a creamy white moonstone nestled on a bed of black silk. A heavy silver chain coiled around it like a protective serpent.

“Oooh, very pretty,” Amalie said, lifting it from the box and holding it up by the clasp. The moonstone, swinging languidly at the end of the chain, held an internal phosphorescence that seemed unaffected by the sunlight—no brighter, no duller. Just the sight of it made Cammon’s skin prickle; he knew it would sear his hand if he touched it.

“Looks like the chain’s just the right length,” Valri observed. “The moonstone will cover your housemark if you put it on.”

If you are truly a mystic, I will discover it now,
Cammon thought.
For you will scream aloud as soon as it lies against your skin.

Amalie quickly took off the pendant she habitually wore, consisting of ribbons of gold woven together and studded with the gemstones of the Twelve Houses. When she fastened the gift necklace around her neck, the moonstone fell perfectly on the small red mark centered just above her breasts.

She did not cry out, but Cammon did.

He felt as if a giant hand had closed over his body and clawed hard, carelessly stripping away his flesh. He felt as if a malevolent spirit had put its mouth against his and sucked the air from his lungs with one disastrous kiss. He felt as if his mind had been darkened, his eyes had been blinded, all his senses shut down and replaced by pain. Choking and dazed, he toppled to the floor, where he crouched and coughed for breath. Through a roaring in his ears he heard Amalie call his name, heard Valri exclaim,
Take it off! Take it off!
Felt Amalie’s hand on his shoulder, Valri’s palm against his cheek.

Then, just as abruptly, the world righted itself again. Pain gone, sight clear, hearing perfect.

Cammon glanced around to find Amalie and Valri kneeling on the floor beside him, Amalie still with her hand on his shoulder. She had yanked off the necklace without even bothering to undo the clasp, so now it lay, twisted and broken, halfway across the room where she had thrown it.