by Sharon Shinn
She was waiting for Justin.
She had plenty to occupy her while she waited, since she was still absorbing everything she had learned in her conversation with Cammon and Donnal. It almost seemed as if she had been fated to meet this particular band of sorcerers and soldiers—as if she had been put in their way repeatedly, until the moment they suddenly realized she belonged with them. Ellynor was very certain the Black Mother was capable of plotting such a strategy, and from what Donnal had told her tonight about the Bright Mother and the Wild Mother, she thought it possible all of the goddesses had put their heads together to come up with this particular scheme. Even the Pale Mother, that fickle and wanton girl, might have had a hand in setting this plan in motion. If Ellynor had needed reassurance that she was right to leave her family, to become bahta-lo, to follow Justin back to Ghosenhall, the meddling of the goddesses would have been enough to convince her.
But she had not. Justin himself was all the reason she needed.
Finally, she heard the sounds she had been listening for. Men’s voices, the heavy tread of men’s boots on the stairs. Then a woman’s voice—Senneth’s, she thought—and a smothered laugh. “Even better tomorrow,” said someone. One of Faeber’s sons, perhaps. More voices, more footsteps. Then silence.
A few moments later, a quiet knock on her door. She wanted to call out a welcome, but her breath wouldn’t come; she could not speak. Noiselessly, the handle turned, the door was pushed open, and Justin peered in. She saw his eyes go first to the empty bed, then he looked around with quick alarm. Relief shaped his face when he saw her standing by the window.
“Are you all right?” he asked in concern.
She could only nod.
“May I come in?”
She nodded again.
He came inside, closing the door firmly behind him. She couldn’t speak, but she could move, and she came across the room to greet him, meeting him in the middle. It was clear he was going to ask again after her health, but she didn’t want to talk. She put her hands behind his head and pulled it down, kissing him on the mouth. His arms closed around her hard enough to lift her from the floor as he returned the kiss with enthusiasm. Against his strength, she felt curiously dainty, fragile, cherished. She remembered what it was like to be kissed by Justin when he wasn’t slowed by week-old wounds.
He lifted his head and gazed down at her, his face a mixed study of worry and desire. “You need to rest,” he said, but he did not sound certain.
She found her voice, or at least a whisper. “Stay with me.”
He carried her to the bed and laid her upon it as tenderly as if she were a sleeping child. When he would have backed away, she caught his arm and pulled him down alongside her. She could tell he thought he should resist, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to leave her. He lowered himself carefully on the bed, arranged his long legs beside her and draped an arm over her waist before resting his head beside her on the pillow.
“You must be feeling better,” he said in a low voice.
It made her giggle. Laughter glanced through her, knocking through her bones and leaving a trail of warm light behind. She felt as if her skin must be glowing. She placed one hand on Justin’s exposed cheek and with the other started to unbutton her borrowed clothes.
“What about you?” she whispered back. “How did the swordplay go?”
“Better than I expected. I could probably defend myself if I had to—and there was only one opponent—and he wasn’t very good. What are you doing?”
“Taking off my gown.”
He said nothing. She sat up and shrugged out of the top of the dress so that she was left only in a sheer chemise. Justin’s breath caught; his eyes roamed the contours of her body.
“You should get undressed, too,” she suggested.
He sat up more slowly. “You’re not well enough,” was all he said, but longing colored his face and turned the words into a question.
She laughed again. “I am if you are. Unless—your wounds are so fresh—are you afraid that—?”
She left the question hanging delicately in the air. For an answer, Justin yanked his shirt over his head with one quick motion. That exposed the half-healed crisscross of sword marks on his chest, not at all disguised by the light covering of curly brown hair. Ellynor paused in her own act of undressing to place her fingertips gently on the ugliest wound.
“This should have killed you,” she whispered. “You should be dead.”
“I’m not, though,” he said.
Just the thought of losing him made her wild. She flung her arms around him, kissed him with a desperate frenzy, drew him back down beside her on the bed. Whatever doubts Justin had had were gone. She felt his body twist as he kicked his trousers free, felt his hands searching around her waist for the rest of the closures on her gown. All the while, she was still kissing him, not helping at all with the last of the undressing chores. He was efficient, though; in a matter of minutes, they were both naked. Ellynor ran her hands over his battered body, feeling the smooth ridges of old scars cutting across the raised welts of the new ones. Thinking that, for the rest of her life, every time she loved this man, he would be bruised and nicked and slightly beaten. Thinking that she would use all the magic in her power to keep him whole.
“I love you,” she whispered, and pressed her body against the length of his. “I want to be with you forever.”
They made love carefully, mindful of hurts and a bottomless exhaustion. If the moon had still been up, it would have danced outside the window; as it was, the night sky threw veils over this wondrous house, which held such marvels inside. Ellynor heard the rustlings of all the gods, nodding at each other in approval, as she held her lover tightly in her arms before she finally allowed herself to sleep.
CHAPTER 35
JUSTIN woke, as always, completely and cleanly, orienting himself to his surroundings before opening his eyes or moving a muscle. Morning. Faeber’s house. In bed with Ellynor.
That caused his eyes to fly open, and he found himself staring at Ellynor across the pillow. She was wide awake and gazing at him with a little smile, as if she had been watching him for a long time. The expression on her face brought his own smile in response. Lying very still, he lifted a hand and ran a finger down her cheek.
“Good morning,” he said. “How long have you been awake?”
“About an hour.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I liked watching you sleep. It must be the only time you’re still.”
He laughed. “Probably.”
“You’re very quiet. I could hardly even hear you breathing.”
“Soldier’s trick. No snoring. It could draw the enemy.”
“Everything in your life is about war, isn’t it?”
He felt his body tense, but he lay there motionless, hoping she could not tell. “It always has been. Probably always will be. Except for the part with you in it.”
Her hand came up and closed over his, and she snuggled his palm against the column of her throat. “Then I’ll have to make that a big part,” she said, and he relaxed again. She went on, “What’s the plan for today? How much longer do you think Tayse will be willing to stay in Neft?”
“I think he wants to leave tomorrow. Kirra told him you and I both probably needed another day before we were really fit to travel.”
“He seems like the kind of man who hates to sit around waiting. He must be getting impatient.”
Justin laughed. “He’s more patient than Senneth. She’s been gone from Ghosenhall weeks longer than she planned, and she’s getting edgy. But she can wait a day.”
“Good,” she said. “Then I want to go to the Gisseltess house this morning.”
He stared at her and for a moment could not comprehend the words.
“Serra Paulina is sick again. You remember, the old lady I came here to nurse? Marney says she’s fallen ill. I want to—”
“You can’t go back in that house!” he
exclaimed, sitting up to make his words more forceful. “Everybody recognizes you! Jenetta Gisseltess is the Lestra’s cousin! If Coralinda Gisseltess is looking for you, and you know she is, surely someone at the house will contact the convent—”
“But Jenetta is gone, Marney said. She’ll be away for another week or two. I rarely spoke to any of the servants— and if I dress in ordinary clothes instead of my white robes, no one will know who I am. Well, of course, serra Paulina will, but she won’t tell anyone.”
Justin shook his head. “No. No. It’s a terrible idea. I want to get you to someplace safe, not parade you on the streets of Neft, where everybody is looking to murder mystics.”
Ellynor sat up, too, her naked body something of a distraction. She was starting to get angry, though, and that focused Justin’s attention. “Kirra and Senneth can walk the streets of Neft and survive just fine.”
“Kirra and Senneth can take care of themselves. So can Donnal and Cammon. You have a lot of power, but it’s not the kind of magic that helps you much when you need to fight.”
“Justin, I won’t be fighting anybody. I’ll dress like a servant and go with Marney. No one will be looking for me. Jenetta Gisseltess is gone. I’ll stay a few hours and then I’ll be back. Nothing will happen to me.”
Justin sat there, looking at her, shaking his head but unable to think of the words that would make her change her mind. He didn’t know what to do. Every instinct in his body shouted to keep her safe, hold her tight, lock her in this room so that she couldn’t go. He was powerful enough, he knew, to restrain her—now, and anytime in the future when she considered a course of action he did not like. She was not, like Senneth or Kirra, strong enough to resist him; she did not have the kind of magic that would enable her to get her way.
Which made it doubly important that he not impose his will on her. If he used his strength, it must be to defend her, not to coerce her. He was not used to making choices for other people—how could he be sure the choices he would make were the right ones? He had made many wrong ones on his own behalf.
“I don’t want you to go,” he said.
She was watching him closely, seeming to be aware of his inward struggle. “But you won’t stop me?”
Numbly, he shook his head. “I won’t. But you shouldn’t go. Ellynor, please think about this.”
She put her hands on his cheeks, leaned in to kiss him. “Serra Paulina sent me out some days just so I could be with you,” she whispered against his mouth. “She requested my attendance at her bedside, just so I could be with you. She’s the reason I have you at all. I owe her so much. Let me see if I can repay her just a little bit.”
How could he respond to that? He kissed her and took her in his arms. But he couldn’t help shivering a little. He would have been hard put to determine if the emotion that shook him was love or fear.
JUSTIN and Tayse worked out again in the morning, this time without an audience, since Faeber and his sons were out patrolling the streets. Every muscle in his body was sore, and his wounds ached with a deliberate fire, but Justin ignored the pain. He was getting his rhythm back. He could lift the sword and swing it in time to intercept one of Tayse’s lazier thrusts. He didn’t have much strength, though. Just an hour of hard exercise wore him out, and he had to sink to a hay bale, gently panting.
“Better,” Tayse said. “I think you’d be able to step it up a notch if someone truly attacked you.”
“Hope you’re there if someone does,” Justin retorted, and Tayse smiled.
When they went inside for lunch, Cammon and Donnal served the meal. Justin realized that Marney and Ellynor must have already left for the Gisseltess house; the thought made him glum enough to feel no interest in food.
“Where’s Ellynor?” Kirra asked, glancing around the table. “Is she sick again?”
“I didn’t check on her this morning,” Senneth said, sounding concerned. “She seemed so much better yesterday.”
“She’s fine,” Justin said shortly.
They all turned to look at him and he realized, with a jolt, that it was just the six of them. For the first time in months. Just the six of them sitting together in a room. Normally, that was the very thing that would put him entirely at peace, but not today. Today there was someone missing.
“Marney went to visit a sick woman, and Ellynor went with her,” he elaborated.
Kirra’s fine eyebrows rose. “Is she well enough to be healing other people?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Justin replied. “But this is a woman she knows. And likes.” He took a bite of meat. “Serra Paulina Nocklyn.”
“She went to the Gisseltess house?” Kirra demanded. “And you let her?”
He gave her a fierce look. “She wanted to go. And it’s not my place to stop her.”
“Well, no, but you could argue her out of it, couldn’t you?”
“Apparently not.”
Senneth put a hand on Kirra’s arm to silence her. “Ellynor has a right to make her own decisions, and Justin has to respect them,” she said gravely. “Marney told me this morning that Jenetta’s out of town. None of us have seen any convent guards in the streets. Everything should be fine.”
Tayse put down his fork, already finished eating. “Another reason to leave Neft as soon as possible,” the big man said. “Tomorrow morning? Will everyone be ready by then?”
“I’m ready as soon as Ellynor’s back,” Justin said.
Cammon gave him a questioning look. “But you’re not coming to Ghosenhall, are you?”
Now all eyes were on him again. Justin shot a look at Tayse and tried not to feel defensive. “I don’t know. We hadn’t decided.”
“You’d rather go straight to the Lirrens and join us later,” Tayse said.
Justin nodded. “I would. The longer she is away from her family, without their blessing, the harder it is for her to go back and say she wants to marry me. She has agreed to leave them, leave the life she knows, and come with me to the royal city to live. I want to do something to prove that I value the sacrifice.”
“Not the best time and place for a solitary man and a woman with no fighting abilities to be traveling,” Donnal observed.
“I know,” Justin acknowledged. “But Ellynor has some skill at concealment. I think if we’re very cautious, we won’t draw any attention.”
Tayse shared a look with Senneth, then gave a brief nod. “We’ll escort you to the mountains,” he said.
Justin felt a rush of profound relief. “You will? I think we’ll be safe once we cross the border.”
“And we’ll all feel less worry about you,” Senneth said. “When you come back, try to make the crossing up near Kianlever. Or even go through Brassenthwaite and come back down toward Ghosenhall. It’s a longer trek, obviously, but you’ll be in less danger.”
Justin laughed. “Maybe I’ll bring her brothers along to protect us. Sign them up for the king’s army.”
“I’d welcome that,” Tayse said.
Senneth sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Oh, but how many more days does that put us on the road before we get back to Ghosenhall? There’s so much to tell Baryn. I sent him a message from Brassenthwaite, but so much has happened since then! I’d write a letter but unless I have a courier I can absolutely trust—”
“I can carry a message to Ghosenhall,” Donnal offered. “I can take bird shape and fly it there in a day or two.”
“Then fly back and meet us at the mountains,” Kirra said instantly. Justin grinned; she never liked to be separated from Donnal for long.