Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) (31 page)

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Authors: Sharon Shinn

BOOK: Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses)
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Justin remembered riding through Neft many months ago, when the way was blocked by Daughters who wanted to lay their hands on every passerby. Donnal and Kirra and Cammon couldn’t endure the touch of those hands, covered with moonstones; there had been a short, ugly scene when the Lestra’s men came asking questions. “Do the convent guards come with you and watch to see who shies away from the Pale Mother’s benediction?” he asked, a bitter edge to his voice.
 
 
“Yes,” she said. “I hate it. I don’t mind sharing the blessing of the Silver Lady—in fact, I rather like it, and so many people are quite grateful! But when people turn away, or hurry past, or look over at us, so afraid, and I see the guards watching them—I get anxious. I’m afraid of what might happen next.”
 
 
“And have you seen it?”
 
 
“Seen what?”
 
 
He made a motion, as if he had suddenly pulled a hilt into his hand. “Seen what happens when the guards track down a nonbeliever.”
 
 
“I’m not sure they do,” she said, troubled now. “They’re with us all day—most of the day, anyway—and surely they don’t—I mean, there must be plenty of people here in Neft who—not everyone loves the goddess.”
 
 
“I think your guards are looking for mystics,” he said in a hard voice. “And they think anyone who won’t take your benediction is suspect. And I think they follow some of those poor folks and question them in a pretty brutal way. I’m wondering if there aren’t a few dead bodies littering the alleys on days after the novices come to town.”
 
 
“Oh, no,” Ellynor said, seriously distressed. “That can’t be. The Lestra and her men abhor mystics, of course, but—I mean—they don’t
harm
them. They don’t—what are you saying? That the Lestra has them
killed
? Mystics? Justin, that can’t be true.”
 
 
“You’re living under her roof and you don’t know what she’s capable of?”
 
 
“But, Justin—! You’re talking about murder! Yes, she despises mystics—all the Daughters do—I listen to the rhetoric but I don’t know that it means anything. It’s like my brothers talking about the men they don’t like and how they want to hurt their enemies, but it’s mostly just muttering and posturing. The Lestra doesn’t—I mean—”
 
 
He spoke in a gentle voice, because she was really upset, but his tone was uncompromising. “Throughout Gillengaria, for the past few years, there has been a rising tide of distrust toward mystics. Your Lestra has been the source of much of that distrust. She has spread her doctrine of hate across the Twelve Houses and to every small town and backwater farm from here to Brassenthwaite. Mystics have been stoned to death in city streets by common men enflamed by the words of the Daughters. But the Lestra is more direct than that,” he said, raising his voice when she tried to speak. “As I rode into Neft five weeks ago, I came across a hut in the woods where a mystic woman was being tortured to death by five men. They all wore convent livery. They were there under the Lestra’s orders.”
 
 
Now Ellynor was staring at him as if he had told her the worst possible news. Her house had been burned down, all her family was dead. No one she loved was left alive. “What happened to her?” she whispered.
 
 
He did not particularly want to recount this tale, he suddenly realized—did not want to tell his part in it. “She escaped,” he said shortly.
 
 
“And the men? The convent guards?”
 
 
He watched her a good long moment before answering. Well, it had been inevitable. She was used to violent men, but she had made it clear she did not condone their ways, and if she knew him long enough, she would learn just how ruthless he could be. And then, even if she had liked him before, she would like him no longer, and he might as well tell her now and watch her walk away. If not tonight, some other time. Some other wretched day or night.
 
 
“Dead—four of them, at any rate,” he said.
 
 
She swallowed. “You killed them?”
 
 
He just nodded.
 
 
Then she surprised him. “Why not the fifth one?”
 
 
He looked away. “He was a boy. He looked—sick. Horrified at what was being done. I didn’t think he had a hand in her torture. I thought he wanted an excuse to run. I let him go.”
 
 
“Great blessed Mother,” she breathed, and fell forward into his arms.
 
 
His hands came up automatically to enfold her; she was weeping bitterly against his chest. He didn’t know what to say, how to console her, how to explain himself or apologize. He could not believe she had not picked up her skirts and raced back inside the house, away from him and his bloodstained hands. Instead she clung to him for comfort, and he cradled her against his body.
Bright Mother burn me
, he thought.
She is so tiny and frail. If I hold her too closely, she will break
. And yet he drew his arms around her even more tightly.
 
 
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her dark hair. “I thought you knew. I thought everyone knew. I’m sorry it was me who told you. I’m sorry I’m the one who—who stopped the guards. I’m sorry this is the truth of the world.”
 
 
It was a few moments before she was calm enough to speak, and by that time Justin had pulled them both to the ground and settled Ellynor across his lap. He had never done such a thing before, and yet it seemed entirely natural. He noticed that her feet were not bare tonight, though she wore only thin slippers. Still, better than nothing on a chilly night like this.
 
 
“I wish I didn’t believe you,” she said finally. She was sitting sideways across his legs, her head against his chest, and he had to lean down to hear her quiet voice. “But I do. I’ll ask Astira tomorrow, and maybe she’ll tell me that you’ve made it all up, it’s not true, but somehow I don’t think you’d lie to me. I mean, I know there are things you’re not telling me, and I don’t count that as lying. But about something like this—I don’t think you’d mislead me.”
 
 
“I’m so sorry, Ellynor.”
 
 
“Anyway, I know it’s true. We heard that five guards were missing, and that some of the bodies had been found. Someone said something about mystics, but I thought—I thought it was mystics who killed them. I didn’t know the guards were trying to do the killing.”
 
 
“The Lestra wants to destroy them all. I’m sure there will be more murders.” He thought of the scene he had witnessed, the convent guards burning down a nobleman’s house, and decided Ellynor could not bear to hear that story tonight. “Coralinda Gisseltess says she is carrying out the divine will of the Pale Mother.”
 
 
Ellynor stirred in his arms but did not pull away. “That’s not true,” she said.
 
 
“What’s not true? It is what she says.”
 
 
“Maybe, but—I don’t think—it doesn’t seem to me—I don’t think the Pale Mother is so cruel. She’s a vain and fickle goddess, yes, but there’s a sort of—childlike quality to her. She wants to be loved and admired. She’ll do anything she can to draw attention. But demand that people be killed—any people? I don’t think so. I just don’t believe it.”
 
 
Justin found himself, unexpectedly, amused. “And what would you know about the Silver Lady?”
 
 
A sound from Ellynor, almost a laugh. “Well, they’re sisters, aren’t they? All the goddesses? Where I come from, people worship the Dark Watcher, the goddess of night. And she is complex and difficult, and she hides terrible secrets, and I have known her to be cruel a time or two. But she doesn’t call for anyone’s murder. I don’t believe the Pale Mother does, either. I think the Lestra must have misunderstood.”
 
 
Ellynor’s hair had come loose from its knot while she rested her head against Justin’s chest, and now he ran his hands through it, slowly, absently, straightening out the tangles. The sliver of the moon had already set; there was not enough light to see the variegated patterns dyed into her hair, but he remembered them clearly enough. “Most people talk only of the Pale Mother,” he said cautiously. “Only lately have I heard references to any of the other goddesses—the Bright Mother, the Wild Mother—I think there are others. But no one seems to know anything about them.”
 
 
She seemed to tense slightly, as if afraid she had given something away. “I only know anything about those two,” she said rather quickly. “The goddess of night and the goddess of the moon. I couldn’t answer any of your questions.”
 
 
He had plenty of questions, none of them about deities. He continued stroking her hair until she grew calm again, relaxing against him. “So you think the Pale Mother does not hate mystics as much as the Lestra does,” he said. “That’s interesting.”
 
 
“All the Daughters seem to hate mystics,” she said.
 
 
He kept his voice casual, his hand gentle, so she could not know how important this question was to him. “How do you feel about mystics, Ellynor? Have you been influenced even a little by the Lestra’s hate?”
 
 
But something in his tone gave him away, because she tilted her head back as if trying to see his face more clearly. “I don’t think I hate anybody just on principle,” she said. “But why do you want to know?”
 
 
He chose his words carefully. “I have friends who are mystics—good friends. They will be in my life always, I think. If you and I are to be friends, I can’t be afraid that you will denounce them. I can’t be worrying that I put people I care about at risk.”
 
 
She was quiet long enough for him to imagine various cold responses.
You don’t know me well enough to be worrying about how I fit into your life.
Or,
Are you telling me you would put other friendships above mine? Why would I want to continue this relationship then?
But she did not offer those observations. “So it’s true,” she said quietly. “You protect the people you love even when they’re not right in front of you.”
 
 
He wasn’t sure what that meant. “I just want to know how you feel about mystics,” he said earnestly. “It’s important to me.”
 
 
She gave a soft laugh. “I’m not even really sure what mystics
are
,” she confessed. “I don’t think I’ve ever come across one in my life.”
 
 
“They can do magic.”
 
 
“But what does that mean? Magic? What kind of magic?”
 
 
“It depends on the mystic. Some can call fire. Some can change shapes.”
 
 
“Change shapes—you mean, change from human form? To what?”
 
 
“They become animals, mostly. Birds, wolves, dogs. I think they can even turn themselves into insects if they want.”
 
 
She sounded intrigued. “How exciting and frightening that would be! Can they still think? Are they still themselves? I don’t think I’d like that.”
 
 
He splayed his hand and let rivulets of dark hair trickle between each finger. “They say they are still themselves even in their altered forms. And, after all, they’re able to change themselves back, so they must remember who they really are.”
 
 
“Are there more kinds of magic?”
 
 
He nodded. “There are readers—men and women who can sense what you’re thinking and what you’re feeling. There are healers who can make you well if you’re sick.”
 
 
Ellynor laughed. “Oh, that’s not magic. That’s just the grace of the goddess.”
 
 
“Well, some people think sorcery is a gift from the gods. That each goddess has a particular strength or skill, and she’s passed this on to a few special people.”
 
 
“If that’s really true, think how angry the gods would be at the Lestra! For trying to harm the people that the deities had singled out!”
 
 
“So maybe the gods will go to war right alongside the marlords,” he said, slightly amused. “Think what a battle we would have then.”
 
 
She pushed away from him, a hand against his chest. “What do you mean, a war? You mentioned rebellion once before— and serra Paulina talked about an uprising—what’s happening? What are you afraid of?”

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