The Thirteenth House (Twelve Houses)

by Shinn, Sharon

  JUST as Romar passed a stand of ornamental trees, two shadows detached themselves from the thin trunks and came creeping down the path behind him. Kirra could make out the glint of silver in their hands—knives or swords. They deployed, one to the right of Romar, the other to the left and a little behind his companion. Positioning themselves for the first blow and then the second.

  Kirra didn’t have time to scream, to think of screaming, even to gauge whether they were close enough to the house for Riders to hear her call. The first man charged forward in a silent run and collided with Romar in a blow that sent both men tumbling to the ground.

  A scramble, a grunt, a choked cry, and the second man was running forward in a low crouch, weapon out, seeking a place to land a blow. Kirra could see the deadly struggle between the two on the ground—Romar not dead, then—but could not tell who was winning the contest.

  She put a hand to her chest, felt the hard knot of the carved lion under her bodice. Wild Mother watch me, she prayed, the words coming to her without conscious thought, and eased her body into another shape.

  The second attacker had struck twice, hard, and now raised his arm for a third time. His hand never fell. The lion made a perfect spring from the pathway to his shoulders, bringing him down in a thrashing bundle. He screamed once and fought madly to free himself. She raked her claws straight down his face and chest, slicing through cotton and leather and skin. He howled and coiled from side to side in terror or agony, beating at her with his hands. The lion batted him across the face so hard his head slammed into the stones of the pathway. He lay still. She lost interest, turned her head to seek more lively prey.

  Three feet away, the two other men were locked in a grim struggle, though the attacker with his hands around his victim’s throat had been distracted by the sight of the great cat. Kirra slashed at his exposed rib cage, drawing blood, then darted in and closed her wide jaws over his head. He screamed and fell backward, releasing Romar, who choked and rolled to a seated position. Kirra shook her head with the man’s skull still in her mouth, and his body dragged from side to side on the pathway. He was still shrieking. His hands flailed at her as his feet tried to find a purchase on the ground. She could taste blood in her mouth, smell fear in the air.

  Romar heaved himself to his feet and staggered, his hands checking his body for wounds. Behind her, Kirra heard halting footsteps weaving away as the other attacker regained consciousness and made a battered run for freedom. She relaxed her jaws and allowed the second man to pull free. Sobbing like a child, he first scrabbled away on all fours, then pitched himself to his feet and ran.

  Kirra dropped to her haunches and let him go. Her concern now was the man before her, who looked to be a little steadier on his feet and not suffering from any kind of life-threatening wound. His clothes were ripped and there was a trail of blood down one cheek, black in the moonlight, but he looked neither too dizzy nor too weak to stand. Indeed, he took a few hasty steps after his departing assailants before he realized that they were too fast and too far ahead of him. Then he slowed, and stopped, and spun around to stare at the creature sitting in the garden path, licking her mouth once with her broad tongue to clean away the traces of blood.

  He watched her a long time and she held his gaze, her whole body unmoving. He seemed neither afraid nor confused, though his breathing was still hard and he gave every appearance of a man who had been in a desperate fight. But that didn’t seem to be what concerned him right now. He came one step closer to the lion and continued to stare.

  “I know you, I think,” he said at last in a low voice. “Show me your true shape.”

  She had always been a little vain of her ability to change forms with a sinuous grace. She considered the transformation to be like a flower unfurling or a fist unfolding, something elemental and inevitable and marked with its own ritual. Still, it was a curiously intimate thing, to move from one state to another, essentially recast a life, while under someone else’s intense scrutiny. She tilted her head and shrugged her shoulders and felt her bones and muscles realign while all the textures of her body regrouped. She kept Casserah’s red gown and ruby necklace and the lion’s golden hair and stood there in the garden facing Romar Brendyn as Kirra Danalustrous.

  “How many times will I be called upon to rescue the king’s regent?” she greeted him, keeping her voice light. “I would have thought you would have grown more careful by now.”

  He glanced over his shoulder as if to see whether more enemies were arrayed against him. “Who were they? Could you tell?”

  She shook her head. “Someone who knew that you walk in the gardens every night at about this time. That could be any of Eloise’s houseguests—or anyone who has been spying on the house, watching your habits.”

  “As you have been?” he asked pointedly. “How did you know where to find me? Why were you looking?”

  For this at least she had an easy answer. “Darryn Rappengrass had a question for you. Senneth Brassenthwaite had seen you leave. I volunteered to fetch you.” She looked around. “Not knowing I would also be saving your life.”

  He nodded and then he bowed, very deeply, as if being introduced to Valri or Amalie for the first time. “As you seem to be destined to do, over and over. I am so much at a loss for how to thank you that I do not even know how to act. My mind is reeling. I was not prepared for an assault by enemies, and I was not prepared to see you again.”

  He straightened and looked at her, coming a few steps closer without even seeming to be aware that he moved. His hands were outstretched; his expression was both wondering and joyful. “Kirra,” he said, and without thinking she put her hands in his. “How good it is to see your face.”

  Her throat was so tight she was not sure she would be able to answer. “Lord Romar,” she managed. “Let me say the same.”

  He peered at her in the darkness, bending just a little to get a better look. His hair must have come loose in the scuffle, because now it fell alongside his cheek, softening its lines. Whatever scrape had been bleeding seemed to have stopped, but a line of blood still made an interesting stripe down one cheek.

  “How did you come to be here?” he asked. “When did you arrive? I have had a series of most intriguing conversations with—” He shut his mouth, obviously working it out that very moment. “With you, I suppose,” he continued. “Not Casserah at all.”

  “Don’t be offended,” she said. “It was a plan my father hatched. He thought she should be here but she wouldn’t come. My intent was not so much to deceive as to represent my House.”

  “I’m not offended. I am impressed by your ability to carry out such a charade. And I confess I am reviewing what I might have said and how foolish I might have sounded.”

  “Not at all foolish. You have been brave and thoughtful and most complimentary.” She could not help a smile for that.

  He was thinking back. “Ah. I admit to feeling a bit of anger at Casserah for not valuing you as she should. I see you were playing a deep game. I will strive to forgive Casserah.”

  Now she laughed. “I spoke much more harshly than my sister would have,” she said. “One can hardly sit there and heap praise upon oneself without feeling a bit ridiculous.”

  He regarded her closely for a moment. “I had the sense—almost—Casserah was warning me away from Kirra. But it was you. Telling me not to be too fond of you. Why would that be?”

  It was at that exact moment that Kirra realized he was still holding her hands. She tried to casually pull them away, but his grip tightened. She felt her breath come a little faster. “It was not a warning,” she said, trying to keep her voice normal. “I was just talking. Part of the game.”

  “I’ve thought about you,” he said. “Every day, since you left me at the borders of Merrenstow. Wished I could speak to you again. Wished I could tell you—tell you how much I appreciated—”

  Now she did yank her hands free. “Oh, please. No more thanks about the rescue from Tilt,” she said. “I
was doing a service for my king.”

  “I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated your conversation,” he continued steadily. “Your laughter. Appreciated you. Your voice and your smile have lingered with me all these weeks. It is a bit like being haunted by a very merry ghost.”

  She was silent a moment, torn between the happiness of hearing the words and the despair of knowing he shouldn’t speak them. “No one has ever called me a ghost before,” she said. “I will add it to my list of favorite compliments.”

  His expression shifted; he became even more intent. “I could call you other things,” he said. “Use other words.”

  “You’re married,” she said baldly.

  He nodded. “I am. As soon as I met you, I wished I wasn’t.”

  She took a quick breath. “Foolish talk. You’ve been overcome by moonlight and the romance of another wild adventure at my side.”

  “I have been planning to ride to Danalustrous to see you again,” he said. “I would have made up some reason to come meet with your father. I have been rehearsing sentences in my head for weeks.”

  Better and better—worse and worse. Kirra turned her shoulder to him and began pacing along the flagged walkway. Romar fell in step beside her. “Had you come to Danalustrous, you most likely would not have found me,” she said. She was determined to keep her manner airy no matter what he said. “I am rarely there. I am rarely anywhere for long.”

  “I know. But it seemed impossible to me that I would go the rest of my life without seeing you again. So I practiced for the day.”

  “Lord Romar—” He gave her a swift look of reproach for using his title, but she did not amend. “You scarcely know me. Be careful what you say and what you feel. You are crafting your emotions around the picture of a woman that you have built in your head. The chances are very slim that I am that picture come to life.”

  “I know that the longer I know you, the more you will astonish me,” he said, “but I do not think I have the basic outlines of that picture wrong.”

  She gave him a quick, sad smile. “It will do neither of us any good if you carry that picture with you in your heart.”

  “Very well,” he said. “I will try not to fall in love with you.”

  She could not help but laugh in astonishment at that.

  “But I would like the chance to become one of your friends—one of your intimates,” he said. “One of the people you turn to as you share the random thoughts in your head, one of the people to whom you show your true self—even when the outward form of that true self is in disguise. I would like to be able to know you as few people do. That much you can give me, don’t you think, without compromising my honor or your own?”

  She stopped abruptly to face him on the path. “I think pacts like that can be dangerous and easily overset,” she said.

  “Kirra,” he said—and then, again, as if the very sound of her name gave him pleasure. “Kirra. Let us just try the business of being friends.”

  She didn’t know how to answer. She had realized, as he probably had, that the structure of the social season was likely to throw them together over the next few weeks, for it was likely that he, too, would be traveling to the other great Houses for the summer balls. And for the past five years, she had spent as much of her time at Ghosenhall as she had spent at Danalustrous, for she was a favorite of the king’s. No doubt Romar’s responsibilities as regent would bring him to the royal city even more often. There was almost no way they could avoid each other without actually making that a priority.

  She knew it was not something she would have the strength to do.

  “We are friends,” she said.

  “Then that is enough for me.”

  Someone inside the ballroom screamed.

  Romar’s head whipped in that direction; Kirra felt her entire body tense. Another scream, and then a whole chorus of cries, accompanied by the sounds of shattering glass and falling objects.

  “Silver hell,” Romar grunted and took off at a dead run for the house. Kirra picked up her skirts and raced beside him, changing her face, changing her weight, resuming Casserah’s body as she ran.

  They burst into the ballroom a moment later to find it a scene of chaos. Kirra instantly spotted Senneth by the pool of fire in one corner of the room; that meant Amalie was inside the ring, and safe. Everywhere else was a tumble of bodies as hand-to-hand fights threw assailants across the smooth marble floor between overturned tables, smashed vases, and scattered purple flowers. The walls were rimmed with beautiful women in brightly colored dresses, clinging to each other and weeping. Beside them stood dozens of noble men, helplessly watching, not accustomed to battle. But a few lords were alongside the soldiers and guards furiously fighting on the floor. All four Riders were among the combatants, mowing down adversaries with their usual brutal efficiency. More Kianlever guards poured through interior doors even as Kirra watched.

  Romar leapt forward to join the fray, but even in the short time it had taken them to run in from the gardens, the battle had pretty much been decided. There couldn’t have been more than twenty attackers, and the Riders had accounted for almost half of those. The others were ruthlessly overcome until there were only loyalists left on the dance floor, milling about with swords upraised, bending down to check that each fallen man was truly dead or disabled.

  The instant that Tayse sheathed his sword, Senneth’s wall of fire came down. Kirra spared a moment to admire their symmetry, then ran across the floor toward Senneth, picking her way around the bodies. Tayse’s head turned toward the sound of her footfalls, then he quickly turned his attention to the guards still prowling the ballroom.

  “To me, all of you,” he called. “Who are these men? Are any left alive to be questioned? What do we know?”

  A loose knot of lords and soldiers gathered in the middle of the ballroom to confer. Kirra arrived at Senneth’s side. Amalie was seated on a divan, patiently repeating to Valri that she was fine, she was unhurt, she was not afraid. Three women were bending over Eloise, who appeared to have fainted into a plush chair. Kirra saw no one in this particular group who was actually hurt.

  “All safe?” she asked Senneth in a low voice.

  Senneth nodded. “And you?”

  “Yes, but there were two men outside who attacked Romar just as I arrived. Part of this contingent, I suspect.”

  Senneth raised her eyebrows. “Yes. He escaped?”

  “With my help.”

  A small smile for that. “You have your uses.”

  “What happened here?”

  Senneth nodded toward the dance floor. “As you see. I looked up to find Donnal flying in through the ballroom window, so I knew there was trouble. I pulled the princess off the dance floor just as Tayse and the other Riders came running in, warned by Cammon. The Kianlever guards arrived late.”

  “Though they should have been the first to fight,” Kirra murmured. “In Danalustrous, they’d have all been dead before Danan Hall was breached.”

  “In Brassenthwaite as well.”

  For a moment, blue eyes stared into gray as they tried to assimilate this knowledge. “Sabotage?” Kirra breathed.

  “Treason?” Senneth replied.

  “In Kianlever?”

  “Maybe we’ll learn something from the men left behind.”

  Indeed, Tayse, Romar, the man who looked to be captain of the guard, and one of Eloise’s vassal lords had all clustered in the middle of the room. Kirra saw the captain bending over a man who lay on the floor, bleeding but apparently alive. She considered drifting closer to hear what they might be saying, then thought of sending a spy instead. She looked around, but saw no sign of an owl or hawk.

  “Where’s Donnal?”

  “Back out patrolling. I wasn’t sure if there might be a second assault to follow the first.”

  Behind them, there was a moan and a stir, and Eloise pushed herself upright in her chair. Kirra murmured, “If I was Kirra, I would see if she needed the help of a heal
er.”

  “I’m guessing she’s not hurt, merely frightened. And horrified,” Senneth replied. “This will be hard to explain to Baryn.”

  Kirra gave Senneth another inquiring look, eyebrows raised, incredulity on her own face. Did she plan this? Senneth shook her head. “I just don’t know,” Senneth said.

  Justin was making his way through the bodies toward them. Kirra and Senneth moved forward to meet him so that none of the other ladies could hear their low-voiced conversation.

  “Any information?” Senneth asked.

  “Kell Sersees says two of the men were at his house three days ago for some ball he had.”

  Senneth looked at Kirra. “Who?”

  “Kell Sersees. The richest vassal in Kianlever,” Kirra explained. “He had what Eloise called a—a ‘Shadow Ball,’ a big event a few days before her own. Apparently, among the Thirteenth House, there’s a whole summer season that mimics our own.”