Sharon Shinn - Reader And Raelynx

“Well-”

The door opened again, and Amalie came bouncing through the concealed opening into their secret corridor. “Cammon!” she exclaimed. “That was so much fun! I could hear you!”

Valri’s face grew even more set. “Hear him? How, exactly?”

“It was as if he was standing right beside me, talking in a normal tone of voice,” Amalie said blithely, while Valri’s expression grew blacker. “But I knew he was speaking just to me.”

Just then, the two Riders came around the corner of the narrow corridor. There were too many of them bunched inside this tiny space; it was beginning to feel ridiculous. “Majesty, do you have further need of us?” one of them asked.

Valri waved a dismissive hand. “No, thank you, you may go.” They bowed, retraced their steps, and disappeared. Valri said, “We need to discuss this. Come back to the parlor with us.”

Amalie led the way out, but spoke over her shoulder. “Discuss it? Why? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t like the notion that people can just-just-put thoughts in your head! Convince you to say any kind of crazy thing!”

Amalie laughed. “Valri, it’s Cammon ,” she said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

And as they paraded down the gilt hallways to Amalie’s favorite room, Cammon had time to reflect on that. Was that a compliment of the highest order, or the worst possible insult?

Inside the rose-and-cream parlor, Valri turned to face the other two as if they were erring children and she a wrathful parent. But Cammon thought her expression owed more to fear than fury, and he lost the irritation that had built up along the way.

“Amalie, it disturbs me that you are open to magic-anyone’s magic-even someone as benign as Cammon,” she said. “It is what I have given so much of my life to protect you from.”

“I can’t hear her thoughts, if that’s what concerns you,” Cammon said. “She’s still cloaked in whatever spell you’ve put on her.”

“That’s a relief, but only a small one,” Valri retorted. “I want her immune from magic. I don’t want it to touch her at all.”

“Is that what you’ve been protecting her from all this time?” he asked curiously. “Why did you allow Senneth to accompany her last summer, then? Senneth used fire more than once to keep Amalie safe, and you didn’t seem worried then.”

“ Princess Amalie,” Valri said sharply.

Cammon felt like he had been slapped. “Princess Amalie,” he corrected himself after a moment. “She has been touched by magic more than once already.”

Amalie cast him a sympathetic glance but came close enough to put an arm around Valri’s shoulders. Amalie was not particularly tall, but she still was bigger than the queen, and she bent her bright head over Valri’s dark one as if to offer desperately needed solace. “Valri-don’t worry-I just heard a few words he spoke,” Amalie said. “Cammon’s voice. As if we were talking. Nothing more frightening than that.”

Valri was shaking her head, quick little hopeless motions. “It’s all frightening,” she said. “And it’s only going to get worse.”

Amalie glanced at Cammon again over the top of Valri’s head. “Maybe I should take myself off for the rest of the day,” he said.

“That might be best,” Amalie said gravely, but her eyes asked for another favor.

Carefully, in case he had misunderstood, he sent a tentative question her way. Are you angry with me ? A small smile crossed her face. She hugged Valri more tightly to her and shook her head in the negative. Can we talk about this more later ? Her smile broadened and she nodded.

So it was with a relatively light heart that he left the room, though it had been such a strange afternoon.

HErepeated the entire story that night to the others as they gathered in Senneth and Tayse’s cottage after the evening meal.

“I don’t know what she’s so upset about,” Kirra said, unimpressed. “Cammon can make anyone hear him. Over great distances. Why is that so terrible? I would think it would be useful, actually, to have a way to communicate with the princess without anyone being able to overhear.”

“Valri’s afraid of magic,” Senneth said.

“No, she isn’t,” Cammon objected. “Last summer, she was happy enough to have all of us guarding the princess on the road! Donnal took owl form and sat outside Amalie’s window almost every night. Valri wasn’t afraid then!”

“Maybe she’s just afraid of you ,” Justin said with his usual sarcasm. “You’re the one I’d pick if I had to be afraid of a mystic.”

“People don’t like the idea that someone else can be inside their minds,” Donnal said. “I’m not sure I’d like it, either, if it wasn’t Cammon. Someone I trusted.”

“Yes, but she does trust me.”

“I’m not sure a princess can ever trust anyone that much,” Donnal said.

“Donnal’s right,” Senneth said. “All the rules are different with Amalie.”

Princess Amalie , Cammon thought with some bitterness.

“I have an idea,” Kirra said, eyes sparkling. “You say you can’t pick up anything from Valri-can you send her thoughts? Maybe if she hears your voice inside her own head she’ll realize how unalarming you are, and she’ll relax.”

This was clearly designed to be nothing more than mischief. Tayse gave her a reproving look and said, “I think Cammon has other kinds of magic to spend his energy on. Have you and Donnal had time to work with Ellynor to try and penetrate her shadows?”

“Not yet. Amalie has needed me every day. But Jerril comes tomorrow and we’ll practice then.”

Kirra said, “I want to watch this.”

Tayse looked amused. “Good. All of you. Work out with your magical weapons the way the Riders work out with their blades.”

Senneth sighed elaborately. “If only it were that easy.”

THEfollowing day was sunny and extremely cold-except where all the mystics had gathered, in a neglected garden overgrown with rustling brown winter vegetation. Kirra, who had been complaining loudly about the chill during the whole walk from the cottage, now pulled off her cloak and threw it dramatically to the ground.

“I love being in Senneth’s entourage!” she exclaimed, for of course it was Senneth’s magic that had warmed the air around them. “I’m like a cat that always wants to sprawl in the sun. I’m not happy in the cold.”

Ellynor laughed softly. “I thought maybe we were just sheltered from the wind, and I was grateful. I didn’t realize.”

“Best winters of my life were the ones Senneth lived with us,” Jerril said, smiling in his dreamy way at the memory. “Never had to chop a cord of wood, and the house was warm no matter what the temperature was outside.”

Senneth had dropped to the ground and used her own cloak to make a cushion against the stone wall. “I’m just here as a spectator,” she said with a grin. “I may as well pay for my entertainment somehow.”

“Well, let’s get started,” Jerril said, nodding his bald head. “Who is participating today?”

Donnal, who had padded to the garden in the guise of a black hound, wagged his tail and offered a short bark. “Donnal. Ellynor. Me,” Cammon said. “Kirra?”

She shook her head and settled on the ground next to Senneth, her back to the wall. “Maybe later. First I want to watch.”

“We should have brought snacks,” Senneth said. “It’s like watching a troupe of actors.”

“Even more fun, I hope,” Kirra said.

Jerril didn’t even throw them a look of annoyance, as Cammon did. “Ellynor, forgive me, I don’t yet know what you’re capable of,” the older mystic said. “Why don’t you go out the gate, wait a few minutes, and then enter at your leisure-circle the garden once-and see how quickly we’re able to spot your presence?”