by Sharon Shinn
“Have you been cooking for all of these people ever since I brought them down on your house?” she asked. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t think of the extra work I would be making for you.”
Marney laughed. “We normally have a maid, a cook, and a couple of footmen, but I thought all of them should have a holiday while our unconventional houseguests were in residence,” she said. “It seemed the fewer witnesses, the better.”
“Donnal and I have been helping in the kitchen,” Cammon said. “I used to work in a tavern, so I know all about cooking and cleaning.”
“And Donnal’s just naturally good at any chore that needs to be done,” Kirra said.
“Well, I’ll help clean up tonight,” Ellynor said.
“Certainly not!” Marney exclaimed. “You’ve been doing the hardest jobs of all—saving a life, and mending your own.”
Ellynor smiled. “I’m tired of lying around doing nothing,” she said.
Justin had finished his pie in about three bites. “I’ll stay with you, if you want,” he offered. “I can scrub pans, too.”
She gave him a sideways look. “Something tells me you have other plans.”
He grinned. “Need to start working out again. Thought Tayse and I might practice a little swordplay.”
One of Faeber’s sons sat forward. “That I’d like to see,” he said. “Two Riders in training.”
“Well, this Rider won’t be much to look at for a few weeks,” Justin said ruefully. “But you’re welcome to watch.” He glanced down at Ellynor. “Unless—”
She was laughing. “No, no. Go fighting. You won’t be happy again until you’ve got a blade in your hand.”
“Until I’ve got a blade in my hand and I can use it,” Justin added.
Accordingly, once the meal was over, most of the men retired to Faeber’s barn. Senneth and Kirra disappeared upstairs, deep in consultation. Marney, Ellynor, Cammon, and Donnal carried dishes to the kitchen and began to clean.
“What do you want to do with this leftover meat?” Cammon asked as he organized the dishes on a sideboard by the sink.
“Save it. I want to make soup tomorrow and take some to serra Paulina.”
Ellynor looked up from scraping a plate into the garbage pail. “Serra Paulina? At the Gisseltess house? What’s wrong with her?”
Marney looked surprised. “You know her?”
Ellynor nodded. “I visited her a few times when she was sick. They thought she was going to die but I—but she didn’t.”
There was a shrewd expression on Marney’s face. “Oh, that’s what happened, is it? I had talked to Jenetta every day for a week, and every morning I expected to hear that her mother had passed on. Then one day, her mother was well, and no one could understand it.” She sighed. “Though I’m not sure such a miracle is possible this time. Jenetta’s at Nocklyn Towers for some event, and the housekeeper came by this morning to tell me the old woman has taken a turn for the worse. I’m going over tomorrow to see if there’s anything I can do, but—well. She’s old and sick and frail. It might be her time.”
Ellynor was quiet for a moment, remembering serra Paulina’s gruff kindness. The old woman had aided Ellynor in her clandestine romance and seemed to exult in every last minute of life she could wring from her final days. Ellynor clenched her hands a moment, feeling the weakness in her fists. Was she strong enough to heal the old noblewoman a second time? She wasn’t sure she was strong enough to make it up the stairs on her own.
Marney was surveying the welter of plates and pans. “Eleven healthy people can certainly go through quite a number of dishes, can’t they?” she said.
“Yes, but you don’t have to be the one to clean them,” Cammon said. He took her arm and urged her toward the door. “You go rest. We know where everything belongs by now. You’re exhausted.”
“I’m not,” Marney claimed.
Donnal looked over at her with a gentle smile. “You are,” he said. “Cammon always knows. Leave us to the kitchen. We won’t break anything.”
Still protesting, Marney finally left Ellynor and the other mystics alone in the kitchen. Cammon made Ellynor sit at a stool before the big center table while she dried stacks of plates and rows of glasses.
“You’re tired, too,” he said. “But you’re happier being up.”
She accepted a wet plate from Donnal and slowly wiped it dry. “I don’t know very much about mystics,” she confessed. “Justin says I am one—”
“Oh, you are,” Cammon replied.
“But I don’t know what kind of power other mystics have.”
“Cammon reads souls,” Donnal said in his quiet voice. “He can feel emotions—sometimes from very far away. He usually can tell if someone is lying, and he can always see someone’s true form.”
That was confusing. “Why would someone have a—an untrue form?” she asked.
Donnal grinned. “Shiftling,” he said, and turned into a bear right as she was staring at him. She gave a little shriek and dropped the plate she was holding, though fortunately it was an inch from the table and didn’t break. Cammon handed him another dirty plate as if he didn’t notice. Just like that, Donnal was human again and dunking the dish in a tub of water. “Even when I turn myself into an animal, Cammon still sees me. It’s a handy skill much of the time—”
“But dangerous when I don’t realize that one of my friends is supposed to be in disguise,” Cammon said. “So everyone always has to remind me who they’re supposed to be if we’re on some masquerade.”
“How often does that happen?” she asked, bewildered.
They both laughed. “More often than you’d think,” Donnal replied.
Cammon glanced over his shoulder at Ellynor. “Some people are harder for me to read,” he said. “You, for instance. I can’t pick up much about you at all. I didn’t even know you were with Justin after he was hurt—I could tell he was still breathing, and that something was keeping him alive, but you were a surprise to me.”
“What does that mean?” she asked a little fearfully.
“That you have your own kind of magic,” Donnal answered. “Not just your healing ability. Some kind of power of concealment.”
“Oh. I do.” They both looked interested. She shrugged and tried to explain. “But I never thought of it as magic. It’s just— a lot of Lirren folks can do it. Can call on the goddess to keep them hidden if they don’t want to be seen. My brothers are especially good at it.”
“I think you’re better than you realize,” Cammon said.
She turned the conversation. “What about the others? What kind of magic do they have? Kirra’s a healer, obviously.”
Donnal nodded. “And a shiftling, like me. Senneth—”
Cammon laughed. “Senneth can do everything.”
“Fire is her greatest strength,” Donnal said. “But she’s also a healer. And she has been teaching herself other tricks. She can’t conceal herself from Cammon, the way you can, but she can make herself invisible to most people. And she can change her features a little—not as much as Kirra and I can—but enough to be unrecognizable.” He shook his head. “I’ve never met anyone as powerful as she is.”
“She seems like—I mean, someone who has that kind of power can be dangerous, but she seems—like a good person,” Ellynor ended lamely.
Cammon nodded. “She is. There’s no evil in her at all. And she can be trusted, always, to do what’s right, even if it’s the hardest thing you can think of. She’s amazing. Any one of us would lay down his life for her.” He glanced at Donnal, as if uncertain.
“I would,” Donnal said softly. “Though Kirra’s likely to be the death of me first.” The men both laughed.
“So how long have all of you been friends?” Ellynor wanted to know.
“Forever,” Donnal said.
“A year,” Cammon said, and they both laughed again. Cammon went on to give a longer explanation. “Kirra and Donnal have known each other, what, for thirteen years?”
“Yes. Almost fourteen.”
“And Senneth’s known them almost that long. Justin and Tayse have been friends—oh, twelve or thirteen years. A long time. But it wasn’t until just about a year ago that all six of us came together. The king had asked Senneth to go around Gillengaria, looking for signs of war. She brought Kirra and Donnal along, and then the king decided she needed to be protected—”
“Although Kirra and Senneth never really need anybody’s protection,” Donnal interpolated.
“So he sent Justin and Tayse to guard them. And they met me in Dormas.” He must have read her blank look, for he added, “It’s a little town on the western coast. And we’ve all been friends ever since.”
“Tayse is a little intimidating,” she said cautiously. “At least at first.”
Both men found this highly amusing. “And even after you’ve known him awhile,” Donnal assured her.
“Well, so’s Justin, to most people, and you don’t seem afraid of him,” Cammon said in an encouraging voice.
She couldn’t help but smile and duck her head at that. A little embarrassed, a little pleased. “I suppose people might find Justin intimidating to look at,” she admitted. “But once you start talking to him, he’s very kind.”
“That’s not everybody’s experience,” Donnal said dryly.
“He seems like a good man,” she said, a little anxiously. What did she know about him, after all? Except that he had risked his life to fall in love with her.
“He is,” Cammon assured her and gave her a wide smile.
“He’ll be an even better man now. Because of you.”
“I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what happens to Justin now that he’s in love,” Donnal said. “It didn’t do much to turn Tayse soft.”
“Tayse?” Ellynor repeated. In love with someone? His stern face seemed so unlikely to relax into affection.
But Cammon was nodding. “Engaged to be married to Senneth.”
“A scandal,” Donnal said.
“Because she’s a noblewoman and he’s just a soldier,” Cammon explained to Ellynor. Then he glanced at Donnal and retorted, “No more scandalous than you and Kirra.”
Now Ellynor’s eyes widened. “Donnal and Kirra?” Sparkling Kirra and this quiet, self-effacing man? Although if Kirra was in love with Donnal, that was another reason she wouldn’t be interested in Justin. All to the good.
“Not engaged to be married,” Cammon said. “They’re just—well, nobody exactly knows what their relationship is. But they’re always together.”
Donnal grinned and did not amplify.
“I think it’s going to take me awhile to sort everybody out,” Ellynor confessed.
“And we’re not together all of the time, so it’s even harder,” Cammon said. “But we’re all going back to Ghosenhall, so if you come with us now—”
“I’m hoping I can go back to the Lirrens first,” Ellynor said wistfully. “I want Justin to meet my family. I want to tell them—oh, everything. I miss them all so much. But I will come to Ghosenhall. Soon. I promised Justin I would.”
“Well, if you come to the palace, you can visit the raelynx,” Cammon said. “Then you won’t feel so homesick.”
She thought she might drop another plate. “The king has a raelynx? They never cross the Lireth Mountains.” She remembered the one she had seen just a few days ago, far from the mountains indeed. “Well, almost never.”
“Senneth found it last year when we were traveling,” Donnal said. “Said she wouldn’t turn it loose till we could get it to safety. And then, of course, she used it to threaten Coralinda Gisseltess—”
Now she set the dish down, very carefully, on the table. “That was you,” she breathed. “All of you. Was it—I knew that the Lestra had captured a Rider last year—was it Justin who was locked in the convent for a day? And I didn’t know it?”
“Wouldn’t that have been interesting?” Cammon said, wholly intrigued. “No, it was Tayse, but—what if it had been Justin? And you had brought him food that morning? How strange would that have been? Almost as if you were destined to meet.”
“Tayse was the one the guards captured?”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Donnal agreed.
She was remembering now, and she looked from one face to the other with unfolding marvel. It had been such a terrifying morning, the phalanx of mystics at the convent gate, all the novices gathered in the courtyard, uncertain and afraid. They had been too far back to hear what was happening or see who exactly had come calling, but that the Lestra was furious had been obvious to them all. The Lestra had stood there, proud and scornful, laughing at the pale-haired woman who rode in the lead and demanded the return of her comrade. But the intruder had possessed a dire weapon—a raelynx, which she had loosed into the courtyard, and the Lestra had been forced to relinquish her prisoner. The mystics had retreated, but not before the white-haired woman had set the convent walls on fire —
“That was Senneth,” Ellynor just now realized. “Rescuing Tayse. And you were with her? All of you?”
Donnal was grinning. “Even Justin. So maybe you were destined to meet.”
But Cammon had a delighted expression on his face. “That was you!” he exclaimed. “I could tell someone in the convent was a mystic—but the impression was so faint I couldn’t tell who. Were you practicing magic right at that moment? Even though you didn’t know it was magic?”
“I was wondering if I should step forward and take control of the raelynx,” she said. “I’d never actually done it before, but I thought I could. My brothers both can.”
Donnal and Cammon looked at each other and burst out laughing. “The one thing Senneth never expected!” Cammon cried. “That there would be a Lirren girl inside the convent! The raelynx wouldn’t have done any damage after all!”
“But Coralinda Gisseltess didn’t know that,” Donnal said. “And she let Tayse go when she didn’t really have to.”
“Oh, Senneth will love this,” Cammon said. “Ellynor had enough magic to foil her magic, but Coralinda Gisseltess didn’t know enough about magic to harness the power of the people under her own roof.”
“There’s a lesson to be learned here, but it’s pretty obscure,” Donnal said.
Cammon was grinning. “Mystics always win. Even when they’re not fighting on the same side.”
Donnal handed Ellynor another plate, and she realized they’d gotten so involved in the conversation that they’d been neglecting their primary chores. Donnal said, “Well, we’re all on the same side now.”
“Yes,” said Cammon, “now that Ellynor belongs to us.”
AN hour later, Ellynor was back in her room, standing at the window and staring out at the dark but busy streets of Neft. It was cold out; she could feel winter pressing against the glass, eager to invade the warmth of the room. The sliver of moon had already set and the stars were invisible under a heavy covering of cloud. There might be snow on the ground by morning.
She was tired. She told herself she should change into the oversized nightshirt Marney had loaned her. She should immediately climb into bed and fall fast asleep.
But she was waiting for noises in the hall. The sound of the rest of the household turning in for the night. Justin’s voice as he came back from working out with Tayse.