He held her hand, pulling her toward the sleeping pallet. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, but hungry and thirsty,” she answered. They spoke hushed and moved quietly to hide her presence even from Sky just outside. The warrior would likely alert the entire camp if he thought someone was in here with the prince.
Kirin pushed her down onto the pallet, then went to a low table to collect a flagon and a half-eaten loaf of bread. Bringing them, he knelt beside her. “Water and bread, but I have some oat balls and dried cherries.”
Shine simply nodded, took the flagon, uncorked it, and poured water directly into her mouth. Her eyes closed of their own accord as she drank her fill. When she handed it back to Kirin, he gave her the bread and a sardonic smile.
Her answering smile was a little sharp, a little bright. “I was kidnapped by the sorcerers of the Living Mountains,” she said, then put bread in her mouth so she couldn’t keep talking.
It gave Kirin a chance to react: his jaw muscles bunched, and he frowned. Then he got up and picked through the remaining bottles on the table, bringing back wine. He drank some and shared. Shine cradled it in her lap while she picked at the bread, which was delicious and thick with wheat berries.
“I thought you could be dead,” he said. “I knew it was a sorcerer. We were—we were going to come after you. The Selegan River returned to the Fifth Mountain to tell your sorceress, but I haven’t heard anything from them. The army awaited us at Silverbank, because Esrithalan told my mother where we would make landfall, and she sent a witch-message to Commander Sharp Star at the Silver Rain Fort to escort us home. I wouldn’t go home without you, though.”
Though he said it with perfect calm, Shine heard the edge, like it was a threat, and she touched his hand, giving him the wine back. “A Dance of Stars and Still Wind hurt me, Kirin. They pulled me into pieces and tore through me, looking for how I was made, for what I am. Because nobody has ever figured out before how to give a demon life again.”
Kirin closed his eyes in pain. “I will have their mountains leveled, Shine. Absolutely destroyed.”
“No. I will eventually take care of it myself.”
“They took you from me—from the Heir to the Moon!” Kirin glared at her. “It cannot stand.”
“Then—then when you are invested, discuss it with the great demon of the palace, Kirin. Promise me.”
His eyes narrowed, but she saw the glint of them in the creepy red glow. Then he actually bared his teeth at her in a frustrated sneer. “I promise not to take action against the Living Mountains without discussing it with the great demon.”
“Good. And… The Scale is not my enemy, nor yours. They helped me get back to you. They were… They said they knew me when I was a great demon.” She winkled her nose. “They said my name was Patience then.”
Kirin’s expression relaxed. He studied her for a moment, then skimmed his fingers along her jawline. “I can see how you have a core of patience—how else have you slowly, quietly built your miniature empire in the smoke ways?”
“How else have I put up with you so many years?” she teased in a whisper.
“Queens of Heaven,” he said, his voice ripening with emotion. “Shine. I…” Kirin leaned in and kissed her. It was hard and flat and over quickly, and he put their foreheads together. “I need you.”
The words rippled through her, feeding her the way aether did, when she had drained the mountain. And Shine liked it. Oh, she liked it.
“I need you to go back home with me,” Kirin continued. “At my side, holding me firm so that I can walk like a man and ignore Sky and play this role I have to play until the investiture ritual. Please. I almost gave myself away while you were gone.”
She didn’t say, I know. She didn’t push that in his face. Shine drew a stuttering breath and said, “I am here. I’m going to see you invested, Kirin.” She put her hands on his cheeks.
“Good.”
Shine opened her eyes. His were closed and too near to focus on. His face was a blur of moon-white skin and black lashes. “What can I do?”
Kirin leaned back, settling his hands on his thighs. “We need a story.”
“The Scale brought me back to you because they’re allied to the Moon.”
“No,” he said excitedly. “You escaped on your own, because you’re a sorceress too. You’re powerful. That’s how you recognized the imposter prince and knew I was still imprisoned, and it was how you freed me from the sorceress. You bargained with her and began to learn power. You returned to me because you’re loyal to the Moon. That is why you will remain at my side now: a sorceress to guard me against the rest of the world. It will explain so much.”
“So would the truth,” she grumbled.
“The truth would ruin my purity in the eyes of the world.”
Shine scowled because he was right.
Kirin tilted his head so his smile looked like it was spilling off his face. “Let’s do this now, surprise everyone. It will work in our favor to have it happen in the dead of night. Make a commotion.”
“Kirin? Are you well?”
Sky’s muffled question from outside turned both their heads.
“See?” Kirin whispered. He called, “Sky, I am very well! Wake Sharp Star!”
The prince dragged Shine to her feet and grabbed a shirt from the folding stool beside the table. “This was his command tent,” he said as he pulled the shirt on. “And I’ve borrowed more than his bed these three days. I’m sure it’s his honor.”
That last was said without any bitterness at all, but Shine knew the tension in Kirin’s shoulders. “Shall I tie up your hair?”
“No, not for this performance.” He grinned at her and flicked all that dark hair over one shoulder. Then he picked up a sword. “Ready?”
“Um,” Shine said.
Kirin took her hand again and burst out of the tent with her, shouting elatedly.
THIRTY-EIGHT
SHINE SPENT THE HOURS until dawn standing at Kirin’s side with her chin tilted up, eyes wide, speaking as little as possible, and generally trying to look scary.
Kirin told her, later, that she’d managed strange well enough, and it served his purposes.
The prince had dragged her from the tent and excitedly declared to the gathering warriors that his friend the sorceress Night Shine—someday, perhaps, to be the sorceress of the Moon itself!—had escaped the clutches of the sorcerers of the Living Mountains with her cleverness and newborn power.
Commander Sharp Star had been a glowering figure, with gray in his topknot and silver charms of rank circling his wrists, but he nodded with relief when Kirin said he would leave in the morning with a slice of the crescent company to hurry south and home before any more trouble overtook him. Sharp Star had met Shine’s gaze and clearly been startled by what he found, but he nodded to her and said, “We are all glad to have you safe, sorceress.”
It fluttered her stomach to be called such a thing, but she remained silent.
When the army witches tried to touch her, Kirin ordered them away. Shine smiled at their familiars—one had a tiny mouse demon perched on his shoulder, the other a snake spirit wrapping her throat like a necklace. The snake flicked its sparking blue tongue, and the mouse demon shivered so hard it shed flecks of aether.
That made Shine’s smile bigger. She wanted to steal them both, talk to them, offer her own patronage.
The only bad moment came when the prince was finished with the crowd and most scattered to obey their new orders for readying a party to depart at dawn with Kirin. Sharp Star had bowed as sharply as his name suggested.
Then Kirin and Shine were left with Sky.
He stared from across the fire, arms folded over his broad chest. His blue-black hair spilled around his shoulders, and his eyes still flickered with bluish flames, though the fire before the royal tent had faded to embers.
“Sky,” Shine said, stepping toward him.
Sky flicked his glance to Kirin, and suddenly Shine
realized the demon-kissed warrior was furious.
Kirin leaned on one hip, head tilted. “Yes, Sky?” he drawled softly.
Sky uncurled his arms, letting them hang loose at his sides, but his hands remained in fists. He said, very quietly, very pointedly, “Nothing, my prince.”
Then he turned and left.
Shine snapped her head around to Kirin. “What did you do?”
The prince shrugged and shoved open the tent flap. He ducked inside, and Shine followed.
“It’s how things must be,” Kirin said simply. He poured a cup of wine, though dawn approached, and refused to speak more of it.
They departed two hours later, Kirin, Sky, Shine, and twenty-one Warriors of the Last Means, including the witch with the mouse demon.
It was five days to the capital from this far south on the Selegan, less than the sorceress had claimed what felt like ages ago but had been only two weeks. But the horses would eat up distance they couldn’t have on foot, and because they rode under the auspices of the army, the roads would be clear for them and inns or crossroads shelters emptied in their favor. Shine had no experience with horses and rode behind Kirin on a tall cream-colored mare with black mane and tail.
The prince wore an army uniform, as he had in the vision The Scale had shown her, and before they mounted, he’d asked Shine to powder his face, line his eyes, and shade in his lips with black. Perfect contrast, a binary lie.
“I can put pearls in your hair,” she’d offered, thinking of how pretty it would look around his severe topknot.
“Not too beautiful,” he murmured.
She’d knelt and taken the brush from Kirin. He opened the paint pots he’d obtained from who knew where. The powder was easy to smear on, very fine and pearly. She drew black along his lashes, pulling the corners out prettily.
“Are you a boy today?” she’d asked absently, focused on making her lines smooth. His harsh uniform was very masculine.
Kirin had stopped breathing. Her eyes flashed to his. He blinked a few times, swallowed, and Shine waited while he calmed whatever had overtaken him. He said, “No, not really. But I will be the prince anyway.”
Sadness pulled her lips into a frown, though Kirin had not let any such emotion bleed into his words. Those he kept cool. Shine suddenly realized how very controlled Kirin always had kept himself. He was cool not by instinct, but necessity.
“Don’t look like that,” the prince said. As she’d painted only one eye, he was lopsided and silly. But his smile, when he forced it, stretched truthfully. “It surprised me to be asked. But it was good. Thank—thank you.”
“I’ll ask every day,” Shine said ferociously.
“Thank you,” he said again. He put his hand on hers, flat on her knee, and pressed.
She nodded and touched his chin to turn his face for easier access to his other eye.
When she was finished, when the red scale armor bulked up his shoulders and chest, he looked strong, bold, and regal.
They left quietly, after Kirin had a word with Commander Sharp Star. As they departed, Kirin lifted his hand in a wave to the whole of the remaining army.
Sunlight pressed hot through the spreading foliage in a final gasp of late summer. The bright-green forest was alive with birdsong and hissing insects. Shine scooted close to Kirin, arms loose around his waist, and pressed her cheek to his back. The rocking of the horse soothed her, though it was so broad she was sure her thighs and bottom would be sore in no time. Kirin sat straight, guiding the horse along behind Sky’s with ease. He murmured to the horse sometimes, but otherwise their only lullaby was the wind and birds, the ringing of tack and the clomp of hooves on the dirt road.
As they traveled, Shine looked for spirits and demons, trying to will her eyes to reshape themselves to see aether. She saw spirits often, inhabiting various trees or humming in dens and floating above their animal counterparts as they hid from the noisy passing group.
Seven warriors led their party, then Sky, then Kirin and Shine, with the witch whose name was Immli beside or directly behind them, and the rest of the Warriors of the Last Means arrayed behind or scouting ahead.
The witch attempted to engage Shine twice that first day, but Kirin put him off by answering until the witch’s glower grew rebellious. He was ten or fifteen years older than Shine, hardened by the army life instead of soft from living in the palace like the witches she’d known, and she wanted to discuss why he had a mouse demon instead of a more intimidating familiar. But for now Kirin clearly wished her to ignore the witch’s entreaties, so she pushed her nose against his spine and obeyed.
Sky rode rigidly and kept his distance. Sometimes Shine peered around Kirin’s arm to watch the bodyguard, wishing she’d had a chance to speak with him. When they stopped for a break at midday, Sky moved away, heading into the trees, perfectly avoiding her. Kirin saw her look after him and said, “I’m sure he’s walking the perimeter. Doing his job.”
“This is almost as obvious as being too close,” she whispered.
They ate together, with the captain of the crescent and the witch, and Shine kept her eyes on the mouse demon. It was gray furred, musty looking, with little crystals dried around its milky demon-blue eyes and tiny black claws. Shine entered into a staring contest with it, so intense she lost track of the conversation.
The witch Immli hissed softly at his demon, and the little mouse whipped its tail as it looked at its master. Shine laughed, “Ha!” and slapped her knee, only to realize everyone around her was staring at her like she was insane. Most could not see the demon. Her cheeks warmed, but she glowered down at the muddy ground.
Kirin said, “Making friends?”
She said, “I would be a better friend than Immli,” lifting her gaze to the witch.
Immli rubbed his hand over his bald, sigil-marked head. “This is Omkin, and you’re welcome to try, but we have a strong bargain.”
Annoyed she couldn’t read any of the sigils, Shine held out her hand, and the mouse hopped onto her palm, its claws pricking her. She brought it near to her face and said, “Hello, Omkin. I’m Shine. Do you get enough to eat?”
“I am always hungry,” it said.
“Oh, well then.” Shine knelt, her knees sinking into the leaf litter and mud, and flattened her empty hand to the ground. She took a deep breath and pulled at the energy, drawing it through her bones though it burned her a little, and pushed it into the mouse demon.
The demon expanded in a flash, twice as big as before. It squeaked and then bit the meat of her thumb, hard.
Shine dropped it with a squeak of her own, and the demon raced to its witch, taking shelter behind his leather boot. But it peeked around at her, chittering angrily.
Immli reached down to stroke the demon with one finger. But he kept his brown eyes on Shine. “You didn’t even draw sigils to pull the aether.”
“Maybe that’s the difference between a witch and a sorcerer,” she said, with a touch of Kirin’s haughty tone.
The witch nodded thoughtfully. “Do you have a powerful familiar?”
“I am my own familiar,” she answered without thinking, and he narrowed his eyes.
Shine stood and marched away, back to Kirin’s horse, where she buried her face in its neck. The horse sidestepped and curved its powerful, elegant neck around, nosing at her belt.
At first Shine thought the horse liked her, but no—it was trying to eat her pear!
Scowling, Shine shoved the horse away with her bloody hand. She spun and leaned her back against it, wondering if she could take energy from the earth and feed it to a living creature like the horse to imbue it with more stamina. But she didn’t want to experiment and fail, and maybe hurt the horse. She refused to ask the witch.
She saw Sky return just in time to accept a folded hunk of bread and dry pork before they mounted back up.
Kirin, when he held his hand down for her to pull her up behind him, watched Shine with amusement. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and he
covered her hand with his.
That evening, the moment they stopped, Shine slipped down by herself, nearly twisting her ankle, and dashed to Sky.
She thrust her hand under his nose. “That demon bit me, and I need help cleaning it.”
Sky clenched his jaw, glanced behind her, and said in a low growl, “That was hours ago. You could already be infected.” But he jerked his chin for her to follow him and dug into one of the saddlebags for a scarf and a small glass vial. Then he led her away from the crossroads station, to the nearby creek.
They crouched beside the water, and Shine dipped her hand into the cold stream, murmuring a blessing to the spirit as the ripples stripped away flecks of dried blood. Sky remained silent, and she lifted her eyes to his face, to find him watching her with a soft frown.
She said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Kirin was inconsolable,” he said, as if to imply that he himself had been fine.
“I would have preferred to tell you myself last night, to have a chance to explain, and—and hug you.” Shine looked down, then pulled her hand from the water.
Sky reached for it, but she shook her head. “Watch,” she said mischievously. Then she tried the same trick she’d used to heal The Scale, pulling magic from the rocks scattered beside the creek. She imagined the aether threading through the tiny wounds on her hand, knitting them together.
Her skin chilled, except for pinpricks of heat where the injuries were, and she broke into a slight sheen of sweat. But it worked.
“Shine,” Sky murmured, clearly impressed. Then he sucked in a shocked breath. “You didn’t need my help cleaning it! You—”
Shine winced, then raised her eyebrows hopefully. “I wanted to talk to you.”
He huffed, pressing his mouth together to control the affection she could see fighting to get out.
Without waiting another second, Shine flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. Sky caught her with one strong arm, using the other to balance himself against her momentum.
Night Shine Page 24