Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) (79 page)
Read Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) Online
Authors: Sharon Shinn
“So tell us what happened,” Tayse said. “Kirra hasn’t been coherent enough to recite the tale.”
Justin glanced around the room first, feeling a tightness in his chest. There it was again, that lancing light, that strange cord of power that bound the six of them. He always felt stronger when they were all together, his mind clearer, his senses sharper, as if what one of them saw or felt registered in his own sight, his own body. Ellynor sat somewhat apart, disconnected, not bound by the same mystical chain, yet exerting an equal and irresistible pull on his senses. He reached out and took her hand and felt the live spark that seemed to cross from his fingers to hers. She flung her head up and shivered a little, then squeezed his hand between hers. Justin didn’t know what that flare of power signified, if it was only a manifestation of his own connection to her or if it represented her binding into the group, but he did not care. Either way, she was linked somehow to him. He tightened his grip.
“I suppose Ellynor told you that they had confined her to a small room,” he said. “Bringing in groups of novices all day to look on the face of a mystic and grow faint with fear. Kirra thought it unlikely that she could get Ellynor out the gates before some new group came in, and she didn’t want the room to be empty. So she left me behind, shaped like Ellynor.”
“I really meant to get back sooner than I did,” Kirra said, speaking through another yawn. “I didn’t realize how close it was to nightfall.”
“A little while after she left Ellynor with us and went back to get you, Cammon just sort of froze in place,” Senneth said. “We knew something was wrong.”
“Guards came right at sunset to take me down to the bonfire,” Justin said, glancing at Ellynor to see how she was taking this. Not very well. Her dark blue eyes were huge and luminous with fear. “I tried to make a break for freedom, figuring I’d rather die in a fight, but there were too many of them and I had no weapons.” He shrugged. “So they tied me to the stake and lit the fire.”
Ellynor made a strangled noise and buried her face against his bare shoulder. He patted her hair with his free hand.
“Strange thing was, once I was tied up, one of the guards slipped me a knife,” he continued. “Whispered that I should stab myself before I burned to death. I was ready to do just that when Kirra arrived. Turned me into a bird, and we flew away.”
Ellynor lifted her head, astonishment replacing horror. “One of the guards gave you a knife?” she repeated. “Why?”
He shook his head. “No idea. He was young, a little shorter than me, dark-haired. Looked like he might be noble, or bastard nobility. I think he might have been the same fellow I saw the last time I was at the convent. Late that night, after I said good-bye to you.”
Her face showed even more surprise. “Daken,” she said. “But—how strange. I thought—that night, when he came down the path, I was afraid he would see you. I was afraid he reported you to the guards. I thought—Justin, I’m fairly sure he’s the one who betrayed you, who sent the soldiers after you the next day. Why would he then decide to save you?”
“Well, he didn’t know it was Justin,” Cammon pointed out. “He thought it was you.”
“Was he in love with you?” Justin asked outright, because he wanted to know. “He looked pretty upset at the thought that you were going to die.”
She shook her head. “He was in love with Astira.” She paused, thinking that over. “And Astira was grateful that I didn’t tell the Lestra she had been meeting Daken in secret. Maybe she’s the one who told him to give you the knife, thinking you were me. Maybe that was her way of thanking me.”
Justin grunted. “Better way to thank you would have been to try to help you escape.”
“I’m sure she thought that would be impossible,” Ellynor said quietly.
Tayse spoke up. “So. How visible do you think your transformation was? Did Coralinda Gisseltess and all her novices watch you change into a hawk, or were you obscured by flame? Do they know you didn’t die?”
“Don’t know what they saw, but I’d bet they realized there was no body,” Justin said with a grin. “So unless they think mystics burn to ash and leave nothing behind, they’ve probably guessed that Ellynor didn’t die in the fire.”
“Which means they might come looking for her.”
Kirra stirred and sat up. “Or it means they’re even more afraid of magic than they were before,” she said wearily. “Everything we do just makes them decide we’re more dangerous than they thought.”
Tayse gave her a faint smile. “Well, you are.”
“But they might not be in close pursuit,” Senneth said. “Still, I don’t know that we should be lingering here much longer than we have to. This country is mostly given over to followers of the Pale Mother, and mystics are far from welcome. And we’re an odd group by any measure. We arrive last night as a party of four, and this morning there are seven of us, though no friends have joined us in the night. I can see where such inexplicable multiplication might make an innkeeper and his friends uneasy.”
“This is how it always happens with us when we travel,” Justin murmured to Ellynor. “We ride peacefully into town, looking for a place to spend the night, and by the time we leave, everyone wants to kill us.”
“Kirra and I can slip out the door in some other forms,” Donnal offered. “And join you later, looking like ourselves.”
“I can’t,” Kirra said through another yawn. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shift shapes again.”
Donnal was grinning. “All right. I’ll leave three times as a bird, and come back three times as a human. You, myself, and Justin.”
Kirra looked interested. “Now, that might work.”
“Or we all pack up and exit this morning, not worrying too much about what our hosts think,” Tayse said. “Are you two strong enough to travel?”
“I’m well enough to sit a horse,” Justin said. “Still not up to full strength, though. Wouldn’t want to encounter more than a couple enemies at a time.”
“I’m tired, but I can ride,” Kirra said.
Tayse looked at Cammon with his eyebrows lifted. Cammon shrugged. “They’re both lying,” he said.
Tayse nodded. “All right. Then we stay a day.” He glanced at Senneth and Ellynor. “Those who have restorative powers might use them to hurry along the recovery of our friends.”
“Oh, yes. Of course,” Ellynor said so earnestly that Kirra laughed.
“What a ragtag group we are,” Kirra said. “The lot of us so bruised and broken that the healers have to cure the healers who were curing them a few days ago!”
“It’s strange, though, isn’t it?” Cammon said thoughtfully. “How many mystics
are
healers? You three all have such different powers, and yet all of you can lay your hands on someone and save him. And there was that woman Justin rescued on the way to Neft—Lara. She recovered so quickly I have to think she’s got that kind of power, too. So many kinds of mystics, so many of them healers. Why would that be?”
are
healers? You three all have such different powers, and yet all of you can lay your hands on someone and save him. And there was that woman Justin rescued on the way to Neft—Lara. She recovered so quickly I have to think she’s got that kind of power, too. So many kinds of mystics, so many of them healers. Why would that be?”
“Don’t forget that Senneth and I, at least, can kill someone as easily as we can succor him,” Kirra answered somewhat grimly.
Senneth was shaking her head. “The gods love life,” she said quietly. “That’s why they put the power in us to begin with. And that’s what we’re supposed to use the power for. Making people whole.”
“Coralinda Gisseltess doesn’t seem to see it that way,” Justin said.
Senneth gave him a level look. “Only one of the many things that Coralinda has gotten wrong.”
Tayse pushed himself away from the wall. “All right. So we stay a day and then reassess. Donnal, your idea was a good one. If you would reappear a few times styled as your friends, I think we might cause less of a stir. Cammon, you and I should go buy another horse. The rest of you—sleep and mend. We’ll convene again at dinnertime and see where we stand.”
Donnal and Cammon were the first ones out the door, Cammon chattering and Donnal listening. Kirra stayed where she was, lolling on the bed as if too exhausted to move, and Senneth crossed the room to kneel on the mattress beside her. Justin got up and followed Tayse out the door, shutting it behind them. Cammon and Donnal had already disappeared down a narrow stairway. The inn appeared to be relatively sizable. Justin hoped there were not a large number of other lodgers this particular week, since their party of seven must be taking up a good number of available rooms.
Tayse turned when he realized Justin wanted a private conversation, and waited in silence. Justin took a deep breath. “Are you angry with me?”
Tayse seemed to consider a moment, his face impassive, and then he shook his head. “I knew that day would come sometime.”
“The day I disobeyed a direct order?”
“The day something mattered to you more than my opinion.”
“No. I will always value what you say. I can’t imagine any other situation in which I wouldn’t listen to you. But, Tayse— Ellynor—”
Tayse’s smile was faintly sad and faintly proud. He clapped a hand on Justin’s shoulder. “Ellynor,” he repeated. “You had no choice. Although if you had died in that fire, I don’t think I would have ever stopped grieving.”
“I would have been happy to die,” Justin whispered, “to save her.”
Tayse nodded. “And that’s why you had no choice.” He dropped his hand. “But if you countermand me again, I’ll have you cut from the Riders.” But he was smiling when he said it.
Justin laughed. “Only the king can have a Rider dismissed.”
“And you think I have no pull with Baryn? I’ll tell him to offer your place to Senneth.”
“That would appeal to him,” Justin agreed. “I’d better behave.”
Tayse jerked his head toward the door. “You’d better get rested. I’d like to leave tomorrow if we can.”
Justin paused with his hand on the door. “It’s not entirely comfortable, being healed by magic,” he said. “As I’m sure you’ll learn someday.”
“There’s very little about magic that I find entirely comfortable,” Tayse retorted. “But it has too many uses for me to want to throw it aside. Go on in. Sleep. We’ll talk again over dinner.”
It was a strange scene to walk into, Justin thought a moment later as he stepped inside and rather doubtfully surveyed the room. The three women were all sitting on the bed, heads together, so that the white-blond hair contrasted vividly with the tangled golden curls and the painted black locks. They were whispering until he came in, and then they glanced over at him and began laughing. Even Senneth, who could generally be counted on not to mock, and Ellynor, who possessed not the slightest trace of malice.
“I think I’ll go look for Cammon and Donnal,” Justin said, and made as if to step back in the hall.
But Senneth waved him over. “No, no, no, come sit here for a while. We’re going to make you well. Don’t be afraid, poor frail human boy. The three of us are mystics, but we mean you no harm at all. . . .”
CHAPTER 41
ELLYNOR spent the rest of the day waiting for Justin to wake up. It seemed as if she couldn’t think, couldn’t act, couldn’t really exist unless he was beside her to share her thoughts and experiences.
When had
that
happened? When had she stopped being a complete and self-reliant person and instead become merely a fraction of one, dependent on someone else’s breath and heartbeat for her own survival? When she saved Justin’s life, she supposed. When she turned her body into the instrument that kept his functioning. But by rights, then,
he
should be the one who needed
her
to live, not the other way around.
that
happened? When had she stopped being a complete and self-reliant person and instead become merely a fraction of one, dependent on someone else’s breath and heartbeat for her own survival? When she saved Justin’s life, she supposed. When she turned her body into the instrument that kept his functioning. But by rights, then,
he
should be the one who needed
her
to live, not the other way around.
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