Mystic and Rider (Twelve Houses)

by Sharon Shinn

  “Much has changed since then,” he said.

  She found a little strength and infused it into her voice. “And, if you recall, I was not eager to marry you the last time the alliance was proposed.”

  “It’s different this time,” he said.

  “How so? I am even more independent now than I was at seventeen.”

  “It’s different now because if you don’t marry me, the whole country will be plunged into war,” he said. “I think you have a soft enough heart to want to see such a tragedy averted. Put aside your personal feelings about me, and make a marriage that will save the kingdom.”

  “I would rather see you dead,” she said calmly.

  For a brief, shocked moment, everyone in the room absorbed her words. Halchon was the first to react—with a short, dry laugh. “I wonder what it is about me,” he said, “that you find so unpalatable. You can’t be afraid of me, because Senneth Brassenthwaite fears nothing on this earth.”

  “You terrify me,” she said. “You always have. It is a struggle for me to stand even this close to you.”

  He seemed more amused than offended by this reply. “And perhaps that is what draws me to you so irresistibly,” he said softly. “Your so very obvious desire to escape. I find myself wondering—I have always found myself wondering—what it would be like to hold you so tightly that you could not break away. Would you scream? Would you shatter? Would you succumb? If you were my bride, you know, I would be able to discover the answer. I might be able to discover it anyway.”

  And he took three quick steps closer and placed his hands around her throat.

  For Senneth, the world became a place of stark shadows streaked with patches of light. The pressure on her throat was so great that she could scarcely breathe, but she could not even gather the strength to wrench away from him; she could not clench her hands and summon fire. It was as if his very touch was anathema—as if he was made of moonstone—as if he possessed a magic that was of a composition completely antithetical to her own. She could not struggle, and she could not strike. She could only stare at him, wreathed in night and errant brilliance, and listen to the roaring darkness.

  A flash of silver cut across her vision, and a bulky shape loomed suddenly behind Halchon’s body. “Release her,” said a low, taut voice, “or you die.”

  A second longer the stranglehold lasted, then the fingers relaxed from around her throat. Senneth stumbled aside, coughing, shaking her head to clear her vision. Soft fingers were laid across her arm, and she felt Kirra’s healing strength pour through her muscles. She stood a moment, bent half over, collecting her thoughts and her energy.

  When she straightened, she saw a grim tableau: Tayse with his bared knife against Halchon’s throat, the Gisseltess soldiers arrayed around Tayse, their own weapons drawn. The minute Tayse released Halchon, the four of them would cut him down. No alarm had been raised, so she did not think the two soldiers outside the parlor had run inside the room. At any rate, she knew without turning around that Justin had his sword out and was guarding the door.

  “Back away from him,” she said in a hard voice.

  The Gisseltess soldiers looked at her as if she was mad.

  “Drop your swords and back away from him,” she repeated, raising her hands as if in invocation. When they did not respond, she splayed her fingers, feeling the fire running down her wrists and palms. One of the soldiers yelped; the other three loosed curses and exclamations. All four of them let their swords clatter to the floor.

  “Against the walls,” she said, and the soldiers tripped over themselves to do as she commanded. “Don’t move,” she said, and sent her hand in a small wave through the air. The temperature in the room flashed upward by ten degrees. It would take very little to set the furnishings on fire.

  “Kirra. Get Cammon. Collect our things. Justin. Bring in the two soldiers from outside—and keep them here. Tayse—you’ll have to watch him until we’re ready to go.”

  “We can take him with us,” Tayse said.

  At that, unexpectedly, she smiled. “Oh no. I think he’d be much more trouble than he’s worth.”

  “We could kill him now,” Kirra said. Those were the first words she had spoken since they walked into the room. “Save ourselves a war.”

  Senneth allowed herself a quick look at Halchon. He stood unmoving within Tayse’s close hold, his face unreadable, watching her. He appeared neither angry nor afraid, but his black eyes snapped with calculation.

  “The only ways to avoid this war are so distasteful that I cannot bring myself to do them,” Senneth said softly. “But I will not be the one to shed blood without provocation. I am not Halchon Gisseltess. I will not kill willfully just to get what I want.” She glanced at Kirra. “Now, fetch Cammon. We have to leave.”

  Kirra’s light footsteps pattered out the door, and then came the heavy tramp of soldiers’ feet as the two outside guards came in. More commotion, more exclamations of outrage—it was almost with impatience that Senneth washed them with heat and demanded that they stand by their fellows.

  “You could just ask my assurance that I will keep them from harming you, and end this ridiculous situation now,” Halchon suggested.

  Senneth didn’t even look at him. “Tayse. Can you disable him without truly hurting him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then that’s what you’ll want to do if he gives you any trouble. Justin—can you get all their swords? We’ll take them with us, at least part of the way.”

  “They’ll have more than swords on them,” Justin said.

  “Then take whatever you can find.”

  A few of the Gisseltess guards muttered at this robbery until the metal hidden in their boots and up their sleeves began to heat like branding irons. Then there were oaths and the clink of daggers being tossed to the floor. Senneth listened to the sounds of Justin scooping up blades of all descriptions. He had ripped a curtain from one of the windows and began to wrap all the weapons into one rather untidy bundle. But mostly she kept her attention on Halchon.

  Who watched her with an unwavering concentration. “Truly,” he said. “I give you run of the city. Walk out of here now and expect no retribution from me.”

  “Your sister made me the same promise,” Senneth said, “then sent riders after us within the day. Somehow the word of Gisseltess fails to carry much weight with me.”

  Halchon smiled, and Senneth felt the chill all the way across the room. “My sister lacks subtlety,” he said. “But I have no reason to wish you dead. You are my chosen bride, after all. I can see beyond petty differences of personality to the greater good of the kingdom—and the succession.”

  Senneth couldn’t keep her eyes from lifting to Tayse’s face. His expression was so cold and so furious that she was surprised he could keep himself from slicing his knife across Halchon’s throat. Almost, almost, she wished he would do it. “Lay aside that dream, if you abandon no other,” she said, keeping her voice very soft. “You will never marry me, Halchon. You will never take me at all.”

  “We shall see,” he said.

  There was a knock at the door and then quick footsteps entering. “Ready to go,” Kirra said crisply. “I’ve sent Donnal ahead to tell Captain Abernot we want to pull out now.”

  Senneth nodded. She was still watching Halchon, who was still watching her. “I’m going to put a spell across this door,” she said. “You won’t be able to leave, and no one else will be able to enter, for six hours. You’ll be unharmed as long as you don’t touch the windows or the door. I’ll carry your offer to the king.”

  He laughed. “Most generous of you, Senneth. But then, you were always warmhearted.”

  “It was what you wanted from me,” she said. “Fire to melt your ice.”

  She lifted her hands, clenched and flexed her fingers, and warded the window frames with fire. The Gisseltess soldiers moved uneasily away, muttering and rubbing their exposed hands. Then she nodded to Tayse, who released Halchon—roughly enough
to fling him against the line of his own soldiers. The five of them hurried through the door, pulling it shut behind them, and Senneth again called up phantom flames to make the aperture impassable.

  “Will it really hold six hours?” Kirra asked.

  “I don’t know,” Senneth said. “My magic is not so strong around Halchon, it seems. But I think it will hold long enough for us to get free of Lochau.”

  “Horses are saddled outside,” Cammon said. “Let’s go.”

  CAPTAIN Abernot was not delighted with the news that he had to cast off immediately, against a not entirely propitious wind, with the possibility that Gisseltess warships might be launched against him before the fall of night. But he made sure the horses were quickly stowed below and that all of his passengers had been assigned quarters.

  “The first few hours may be choppy,” he warned. “If you find yourselves inclined to be sick, please avail yourselves of your chamber pots.”

  He was a short, stocky, heavily whiskered man with bright blue eyes and skin worn red with wind, and his mix of deference and authority instantly appealed to Senneth. “Thank you for taking us on board,” she said gravely. “We will try not to be any trouble.”

  “It’s trouble marlord Malcolm would want me to be put to for his daughter,” the captain replied. “And he doesn’t mind befriending Brassenthwaite, either.”

  Senneth tried not to sigh. “Thank you again,” was all she could think to say, and she retired to the room she and Kirra had been given.

  Within minutes, they were under way, though the pace at first seemed agonizingly slow. From her porthole window, Senneth watched the wharf of Lochau fall away, and the limited view she had showed no Gisseltess ships in pursuit. The ride picked up speed as they moved into open water, but the captain had been right: The waves were rough, and the motion of the ship over the water left Senneth feeling violently unwell.

  Too much stress over too many days, she thought, and threw up in the chamber pot. More than once. She was never so glad to see night come and feel the water grow calm under the hull of the ship. She stretched herself out on the narrow bed, wondered briefly what had become of Kirra, and let herself be rocked to sleep.

  CHAPTER 33

  IT took a week to sail from Lochau to Dormas. The first day of that week was a great improvement over that first night. Senneth woke up in the morning feeling more or less normal, though she ate breakfast cautiously. Tayse and Justin made only brief appearances that day; they both looked pale and disdained all offers of food. Over a hearty lunch in the ship’s tiny galley, Cammon confided to Senneth that he’d never been seasick for one minute during his long voyages with his parents.

  “I’m usually sick the first day out of port,” Senneth admitted. “At least, I was when I sailed in the past. But I was hoping maybe I’d gotten over that unpleasantness.”

  “Is Kirra downstairs vomiting?” he asked.

  “No. I don’t know where she is. Donnal either.”

  Cammon grinned. “Well, you know they’re all right then, since they’re no doubt together.”

  Senneth nodded. “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  She made a slow circuit of the open deck, clinging to the rail and making sure she stayed out of the way of any sailors engaged in their own tasks. The ship moved north at a steady pace that was impossible for her to gauge, but the wind blowing incessantly against her face led her to believe that it was fairly brisk. She stood for a long time at the prow, watching the restless water split against the hull and foam up the sides of the wood. She could not tell if it was lingering winter or just the wind of passage that made the air so cold against her face. To her right, Gillengaria was a low, constant presence of shadowy blue and huddled brown. It comforted her that it was never completely out of sight, remaining always close enough for her to feel its magic tingle along her bones.

  Kirra and Donnal reappeared in early evening. Senneth, who had napped away the late afternoon, had returned to the top deck to breathe fresh air again. One moment, there were two gulls perched precariously on the upper rail; the next, Donnal and Kirra stood on the deck, clutching the railing and swaying rather unsteadily to the motion of the ship. Both of them looked drenched with spray and soaked with mischief.

  “Oh,” Senneth said. “That’s where you’ve been.”

  Kirra laughed and shook back her tangled hair. “Rough water always makes me ill,” she said. “In human form. We slept on land last night, and followed the ship all morning. But the sea seems calmer now.”

  “The King’s Riders have proved to be particularly vulnerable to seasickness,” Senneth said. “But Cammon is completely unaffected. Of course. Nothing seems to bother Cammon. I felt horrible yesterday, but I seem to be doing well enough today.”

  “We’re making good time,” Donnal said. “Another five or six days, and we’ll be in Dormas.”

  “Then on to Ghosenhall,” Senneth said. “And what a story we’ll have to tell there.”

  THAT night, Kirra slept on board, taking the narrow bunk across from Senneth’s. The cabin was so small that from their bunks they could have reached out and clasped hands had they wanted to. Starlight filtered in through the porthole window, making a round, watery shape on the floor.

  Kirra waited till they had both managed to get as comfortable as possible before speaking into the darkness of the room. “You never told me,” she said. “That it was Halchon who wanted to marry you—Halchon you ran away from.”

  “It’s an old story,” Senneth murmured. “From another life. He wanted to marry Senneth Brassenthwaite, and I have renounced her.” She thought a moment and sighed. “Or tried to renounce her. She seems to be manifesting herself again, like some kind of unwelcome and persistent ghost.”

  There was a rustle as Kirra turned impatiently in her bed. “But Senneth—Halchon Gisseltess! He seems obsessed by you—if he’s been pining after you all these years—”

  “Pining after the Brassenthwaite connection.”

  “That doesn’t seem to be all of it,” Kirra said. “He was—he seemed to be—it’s you he wants. It’s a very personal thing.”

  Senneth was silent a moment. “I couldn’t do it,” she said very softly. “I had met him maybe a dozen times before I was sixteen. Our fathers had decided when we were very young that Halchon and I should marry. It was something I had known almost as long as I had known my name. But I—he frightened me. And you didn’t know me when I was sixteen, but very little frightened me then.”

  A smile in Kirra’s voice. “Nothing frightens you now.”

  “Oh, now I am old enough to realize how many terrors there are in the world and how few of them I can really keep at bay. But when I was sixteen—I was afraid of no one, of nothing. Except Halchon Gisseltess. And I decided I would not marry him. And I decided I would take another lover as a way to repulse him. And I was glad when I was shamed with an illegitimate pregnancy—glad because surely no proud nobleman would consent to marry a woman who had been so obviously unchaste. But Halchon—Halchon came to my father’s House and reworked the dower settlements and made arrangements for the baby to be cared for by one of the lesser gentlewomen of Gisseltess. ‘This baby will not be mine, but I will not want to lose track of it,’ he told my father. ‘I will see it raised and determine whether or not it may be useful in the future.’ ”

  “That’s a little chilling,” Kirra said.

  “Yes—everything he says and does leaves me trembling with cold. So I knew that, once my baby was born, I would have to leave my father’s house. I thought to go seek shelter with some of my grandmother’s family in Kianlever. She and I had talked about it, because she hated Halchon as much as I did. I would have the baby, I would leave my father’s care, and I would lead the quiet, confined life a woman leads among the Thirteen Houses. Or so I planned . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Kirra knew the rest of that story; no need to go into it now. “What I don’t understand,” Kirra said, “was what happened yesterday. When
Halchon grabbed you. Why didn’t you turn him into a pillar of fire?”

  Senneth drew her blanket closer to her chin. She, who was never cold, shivered even at the thought of Halchon’s touch. “I can’t. There is something about him—that smothers my magic. Do you know how there are some rooms you can walk into—or caves—or cathedrals—where the sound seems deadened? There are no echoes, and your voice scarcely seems to carry three inches from your lips? Halchon is like that, for me, at least. A dead place. A place where my magic won’t light. I could tell that, even when I was sixteen.”

  “You can’t marry him,” Kirra said. “Even to avert war.”

  “I think war would come anyway,” Senneth said soberly. “Or how could I forgive myself for telling him no?”

  THE rest of the week on board ship passed in a similar fashion, though Justin and Tayse were up and walking around—somewhat unsteadily—the third day they were at sea. For Senneth and her party, as soon as health was restored, tedium quickly set in. They were used to hard riding and constant vigilance, and they chafed a bit at the enforced inaction. Tayse encouraged them all to take the rare chance to catch up on missed sleep, but the bunks were so uncomfortable that it was difficult to follow that excellent advice. Mostly the six of them gathered in one room or another, crowding together on the narrow bunks and the cramped floor, and played cards or talked idly or complained about the boredom.

  If Senneth and her friends climbed up to the top deck for a little change of scenery, Captain Abernot and his sailors were polite but not enthusiastic. Senneth knew how unwelcome an unexpected guest could be when there was work to be done, so she made sure to keep out of the way when she encountered any of the crew. Cammon, though, volunteered early on to help out, and, after watching him tie a knot and hoist a sail, Captain Abernot allowed him to work with the other sailors when he wished. Justin followed Cammon’s lead and offered his services when the wind was strong or it looked like other hands might be needed. Senneth wasn’t sure if the captain appreciated or tolerated these volunteers, but as far as she could tell, they did no harm, and so she allowed them to continue on in their efforts.