Mystic and Rider (Twelve Houses)

by Sharon Shinn

  Senneth thought about it. “I do believe I was able to imbue those rocks with—something. Strength, courage, a little of my own power. I do think if those girls need help and they clutch those stones, they’ll connect with an energy that will help them. But maybe just having something that they believe will protect them will give them courage enough to go on. I don’t know. I had to do something.”

  Kirra lifted her eyebrows. “I mean it. I’d like a stone like that, too.”

  “You have enough of your own power. You don’t need mine.”

  Kirra turned her head sideways to examine Senneth out of her blue eyes. “I don’t have anything like the power that runs through you. I think you’ve gotten even stronger since the days you were in Danalustrous, teaching Donnal and me how to focus our minds and hone our talents.”

  Senneth was silent for a few paces. Finally, she said, “I think I have, too.”

  BY the time they broke for lunch, it seemed clear they weren’t being followed from behind or hunted from ahead, so Tayse permitted Senneth to send Donnal and the raelynx on an expedition. She did so with some trepidation.

  “If there’s trouble, don’t try to control him yourself,” she instructed Donnal. “Come back and get me.”

  “There won’t be trouble,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

  She followed them with her mind as Donnal flowed from man to raelynx and the two of them took off running. She could not read thoughts—certainly not a wild creature’s—but she could feel their emotions, distinguish the patterns of their moods. Donnal’s were orderly and observant, a man’s impressions taken through a beast’s eyes.

  From the raelynx she drew only the most primitive images of speed, power, rage, and hunger. She could sense his desire to outrun her, to flee this strange, troubling influence that had shackled his motions and curbed his appetite for so many days. She could feel how he reveled in the very act of racing through the scrubby brush of the countryside. For a moment she almost wished she was a shiftling like Kirra so she could run beside him, feel the earth and the stones and the fallen leaves in an elemental mosaic beneath her feet—sort through the feast of scents laden on the table of the heavy air—and hear sounds so distant and so distinct they seemed like ancient music. For a moment she felt heavy and earthbound and dull, and she wanted to release him from her own hold because she was unworthy of his beauty.

  But she could set the whole countryside on fire and feel less guilty about the resulting catastrophe.

  She was concentrating so closely on Donnal and the raelynx that she was not paying much attention to the road before her. She trusted that the Riders would keep her safe and that her horse would bunch with the others; thus, she left her hands loose on the reins and let her eyes lose focus. She was conscious only slightly of motion, of voices around her, the soft fall of shod hooves on a dirt road, the touch of weak sunlight on her cheek.

  A shadow beside her. A voice so soft it might come from her memory. “Senneth. I don’t want to disturb you.”

  Cammon. “Hmm?” she answered, not much interested.

  “I can follow Donnal for you. You don’t have to concentrate on anything but the raelynx. I can let you know if Donnal senses trouble.”

  Why hadn’t she thought of that? “Yes—good,” she said dreamily, and let Donnal’s consciousness slip away from her.

  Cammon might have ridden beside her for another few paces, but she had stopped noticing. All her attention now was swallowed by the raelynx. He had dropped to an absolutely motionless crouch, his belly so low to the ground the pine needles tickled his fur. Before him was a deer, thin and shaggy in the dead of winter, her sloe eyes watchful, her footsteps hesitant. But he was silent, he was still, he did not even shiver as he waited for her to come a step closer, and then another. All the world held its breath; even the wind stopped teasing.

  Then a blur of motion—a burst of energy so strong that it shocked even Senneth—the pounce, the bite, the gush of blood pouring into her mouth. The sense of victory so intense, the rush of hunger so strong, the taste on her tongue so real. She jerked back, suddenly wanting to be a woman on a horse again and not a feral cat devouring a freshly killed meal. But she kept her mind hovering over the rae-lynx’s, not letting him get too far from her, not letting him revel too fiercely in his freedom.

  He feasted, eating very fast, and only bothering with his favorite parts of the carcass. Suddenly he looked up, alert, and licked his tongue across his face. Noises a short distance away. He dropped low again, almost to his stomach, and began crawling toward the sound of potential prey.

  He was deeper into undergrowth now, almost into woods; the light came through in intermittent slants. Senneth had pulled back far enough from his mind that she could not smell what he smelled or hear what he heard; she could only catch his own narrow excitement. Some of what he saw filtered back to her in snatches—a stand of naked trees conferring in the cold, a skate of ice in a shallow ditch, a flash of red bird wing so high overhead it scarcely merited a single glance.

  He crept up over a low ridge, pressed his belly to the ground, and peered down. Every muscle was strung taut, every sense strained to its fullest. Below him, half covered with leaves, lay a brown trail, winding its way around deadfalls and ruts. Deer path, Senneth assumed; there must be water somewhere nearby. By the raelynx’s absolute dedication to silence, she also assumed a deer or some small animal was making its meandering way down the route toward water.

  She was too disengaged from him to hear the sounds of the approaching victims or pick up from his mind the images he expected. Not until his quarry rounded the bend, stepping into view and into range, did she realize they were humans.

  A boy, a girl.

  The raelynx leapt.

  Senneth screamed, tightening her hand so violently on the reins that her horse reared back. She was conscious of chaotic motion all around her, but her mind was nowhere near her own physical setting. She was back in the raelynx’s head, directing his motions, forcing him to overleap his target and go tumbling through the underbrush along the path. The children yelled in terror and whirled around, pelting back in the direction from which they’d come. The raelynx twisted to his feet and scrambled after them, howling with rage and frustration when his feet would not obey him, when his body jerked backward against the goad of his own desires.

  A moment or two he paced and screeched along the woodland path, his tail whipping back and forth, every tuft on his head and backbone stiff and straight with thwarted rage. Suddenly Donnal materialized beside him, a russet cat with black tips along his ears and paws, and began to make a sinuous circle around the younger animal. The raelynx protested, shrieking again in fury, and Donnal replied in that same strange, wailing language. Again, Donnal circled the cat, herding him back toward the main road, nudging him with his big head, batting him with one big paw. The younger raelynx hissed and lashed out, striking with teeth and claw, but he didn’t connect with Donnal’s body. Donnal nudged him again, then made the smooth leap from the trail to the ridge. He looked back, as if to make sure the other cat would follow. Another angry swipe of the tail, another snarling protest, and the raelynx gathered its muscles and sprang effortlessly up to the overhang beside Donnal.

  The two began an indirect journey back toward the riders on the road.

  Senneth drew a deep, shuddering breath and was suddenly aware of hands on her body, shaking her shoulder, patting her face. Someone was calling her name over and over. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head to clear it. When she looked again, she was in a circle of people, all on horseback, on a road in the middle of a desolate countryside.

  “Senneth!” Kirra said sharply, her fingers slapping lightly against Senneth’s face. “What are you—Senneth!”

  Senneth jerked her head back before Kirra’s hand could land again. “I’m all right,” she said. “Sorry. I guess I screamed.”

  “What happened?” Kirra demanded. “I’ve never seen you—”

 
; “The raelynx. I was letting it hunt. I let it slip my control a little more than I should have.”

  “And it killed something,” Justin guessed.

  She gave him a quick look. “A deer. That wasn’t so bad. It was when he moved on to the next quarry and I didn’t see them in time—”

  “Men,” Tayse guessed.

  “Children,” Senneth replied.

  Kirra’s eyes were huge. “And did you—what—”

  “I stopped him,” Senneth said. “But it was close. He’s pretty angry right now.”

  “Excellent,” Justin said. “I hope you’re bringing him back to join us. Maybe he can sleep beside us at the fire tonight.”

  “He’s calmer now,” Cammon said. “He’s with Donnal.”

  “This creature is becoming too much of a burden,” Tayse said in a hard voice. “We can’t drag it with us the length and breadth of Gillengaria.”

  She looked at him. He was angry, but she was not entirely sure why. He must have been able to see that she was about to argue, so he continued, his voice a little rough. “You can’t keep trying to tame and conceal him. Your attention is split in five directions anyway. You’ll have a headache every night for the rest of our journey, and how long can you continue to function with this constant drain on your strength?”

  Hard as it was to believe, it seemed Tayse was angry on her behalf, anxious about her overall well-being. “You know I can’t just let him go,” she said, her eyes on his. “Find me a safe place to release him, and I will.”

  “You could cut his throat,” Justin said.

  “No,” Senneth, Kirra, and Cammon all said in unison. “No,” Senneth repeated. “I won’t kill him unless I have to. He’s done nothing except live according to his own instincts.”

  “Maybe we make a trip to the Lirrenlands after we’ve stopped in Gisseltess,” Kirra said lightly. “At least there he’ll be around people who know how to deal with him.”

  “Nocklyn Towers—Gisseltess—you really think you can stroll into those manors and trail a raelynx behind you?” Tayse asked. “Or do you have convenient mystical friends in every major city of Gillengaria where you can leave him behind while you pursue your mission?”

  “I can handle him,” came an unexpected voice. They all turned to look at Cammon. He blushed a little under his ragged hair but showed no sudden self-doubt. “I can, I think. I’ll have to practice, of course, but you can work with me while we travel.”

  Senneth’s gaze lifted briefly to Kirra’s, then she looked back at Cammon. “We’ll get right to work on that, starting tonight,” she said. “That might be the most elegant solution yet.”

  Tayse still looked to be in a temper. With less than his usual poise, he tugged on the reins and set his horse in motion again. “Very well,” he said. “Practice your magic on the road. We can’t waste more time standing here arguing.”

  Justin cantered after him, and in a few moments the two of them were almost out of sight down the road. The other three fell in step behind them, moving a little less energetically.

  “Well!” Kirra said in a conspiratorial tone. “He was certainly all in a snit over something. What could it be? Hmmm—he’s a tough, cool, heartless soldier who doesn’t seem to care about anyone or anything except his position as a Rider and his loyalty to his king. But—is it possible?—he’s joined on the road by an exotic and powerful woman who wakes in him feelings he never knew he possessed—”

  “Kirra,” Senneth said in a sharp voice.

  Kirra gave that golden laugh. “I don’t know, my friend, I think you have an admirer.”

  “I don’t think Tayse could bring himself to admire a mystic if she was the most beautiful and accomplished woman in the Twelve Houses.”

  Kirra laughed again. “Oh, it’s against his will, of course, so he’ll fight the attraction with every muscle of his admittedly quite muscled body. But he has a fondness for you, Senneth—against his training and against his history—and I don’t think he knows quite what to do with it.”

  Senneth couldn’t keep herself from looking at Cammon, the one person who would probably be able to tell her if Kirra was right. He could read souls, that boy; he could decipher hearts. He merely smiled at her, shaking back his shaggy hair, and said nothing.

  If Cammon would not tell her and she had to wait for Tayse to volunteer the information, she would never know if the Rider cared for her or not. He was not the sort of man who would say so. Or at least, he would never say so to her.

  She sighed and rode on.

  CHAPTER 20

  THEY camped that night for the first time in days, all of them just a little sulky about the lack of comfort. Even Tayse, who did not care about comfort—even Justin, who made it a point to never show or ask for softness. They hesitated a few moments before taking up their accustomed tasks, as if they’d forgotten who should fetch water and who should start the fire, but gradually a camp formed around them in the gathering twilight.

  Senneth, naturally, built the fire. Tayse watched her lay the kindling and add the logs, as if any of these accessories were really necessary, as if she really expected them to believe any longer that she needed fuel to sustain a flame. But something about the chore seemed to please her—the feel of the wood in her hands, maybe, the rough texture of the bark, the cheerful snapping of the kindling. Maybe she just liked any object that could feed a fire the way she could, that might understand what it felt like to have a flame burning at its very core.

  Still, he wondered if she had the strength to keep a fire going till dawn. She had been so exhausted the previous night that she hadn’t even been able to walk under her own power; he had expected her to rise this morning looking like a troubled ghost. She had pretended to be perfectly normal, but he had observed her most of the day, wondering how much of her strength she had truly recovered, how much of her nonchalance was an act. He had seen plenty of young soldiers who refused to admit that a battle had sapped them of all will and energy, who had blundered on for another day, another week, until their bodies gave out and they collapsed in utter fatigue and were useless to themselves and their companies for the next month or more.

  But the campfire lit and preened under her hands, and she seemed entirely capable of maintaining it.

  It was ridiculous, he knew, but he had woken this morning with an overwhelming sense of protectiveness toward this fair-haired, contradictory, and still mysterious woman. If she had demonstrated anything at all yesterday, it had been that she had enough power to take care of herself and anyone else who happened to catch her fancy; she did not need a Rider’s sword to keep her safe. Perhaps that was why he had been so moved by the vulnerability she had showed later—he would not have thought that a woman so powerful could be brought so low.

  And what had she bought with her display of ferocity? The life of an infant, a bastard child of a peasant girl and a wandering trickster. Nobody—nothing. But, to her, precious enough to make her risk herself, her friends, her royal mission.

  That had impressed Justin, Tayse thought, maybe more than anything Justin had ever seen. Justin had taken the first watch, while Tayse lay his hands against Senneth’s pulsing head and fought down the demons in her blood. When she had finally relaxed against him and fallen asleep almost in his arms, he had laid her down and taken over the watch from the younger Rider.

  Justin had still been awestruck. “I have never seen such a thing,” he said more than once. “Have you? Never seen such a thing.”

  “Fire and fury coming from one woman’s hands?” Tayse had responded in the coolest of voices. “No, never.”

  Justin had shaken his head. “It’s just that—how often have you seen someone strong fight for someone weak? Just because the weak one has no other defenders? The strong take care of the powerful so that the powerful can take care of them in turn. When I was fighting in the streets of Ghosenhall, I only made alliances with others who were strong. I never protected anyone just because he needed care. I’ve never se
en anyone do it.”

  Tayse had watched him meditatively in the glow of the still-smoldering fire. His whole life, his father’s life, his grandfather’s, had been dedicated to protecting the safety of the king. The most powerful man in Gillengaria. Now and then, Tayse had done a kind deed—interfered in a fight, pulled a child from the path of a rampaging horse, shielded a woman from an overeager suitor—but those had been chance events, easy choices to make, quickly done and quickly forgotten. His goal, his purpose, had been to guard the king.

  Senneth served the king, or claimed to, but that was clearly not her overriding purpose in life. As much as anything, that was what had made Tayse distrust her from the beginning—the certainty that there was more to her agenda than seeking information for her liege. He had thought her motives might be dire or traitorous—or, at the least, opaque to him—but the events of the night before made him wonder. Perhaps she had no secret plan. Perhaps all she cared about was that the world be as right as she could make it, in whatever small part she happened to occupy, no matter what the personal cost to her might be. Nothing, after all, so sinister about that.

  “No,” Tayse had said, finally answering, “I’ve never seen anyone do it, either.”

  He thought, however, if he spent much more time in Senneth’s company, he would see it again, and more than once.

  Like the others, he had slept lightly and risen unrefreshed, but he had been happy to get out of this settlement before another alarm was raised. And now he was leading his small party to what was bound to be some new unplanned adventure, because they couldn’t seem to remain inconspicuous, and he found himself unexpectedly ill tempered. That damned raelynx. Senneth’s inconvenient sense of responsibility. She would wear herself out worrying about all the helpless creatures of the world, and then her vitality would be sapped at the very moment she needed it most. Had she never learned to husband her strength, guard against the hazards of the day?