Sharon Shinn - Reader And Raelynx

Valri took a quick breath and then folded her lips together as if to keep from speaking. Cammon saw Justin’s eyes narrow and thought, He knows something . Baryn and Amalie did not seem to notice. The king said, “So you arrived a week or so ago, I believe. Did the Riders welcome you and treat you kindly?”

Justin laughed at that. “Most kindly,” he said with a grin. “Quite a welcome.”

Baryn smiled. “I suspect a story there,” he said.

“None worth telling,” Justin replied, still grinning.

The king asked Ellynor, “And what do you make of Ghosenhall?”

“I haven’t seen much of the city yet, but I think it’s beautiful.”

There was a knock on the door and Milo entered, bowed, and gave the king a significant glance. Baryn nodded and rose to his feet. “I have another appointment and I must go. Ellynor, my dear, I am so glad you have joined our family. Justin, of course you realize that officially I am devastated that you have chosen to take a wife, but in private may I say you seem to have made a magnificent choice. Stop by and see Milo before you leave. He will have something to give you-a small gift from me to start you in your wedded life.” He kissed Amalie on top of her head, Valri on the cheek. “My dears. I will see you later.” And he left the room behind Milo.

Justin was instantly on his feet. “And I must get back to the training yard. I’m still recovering some of the skills I lost on the road. Ellynor-”

“Perhaps she will stay and visit with me awhile,” Valri said.

“Gladly.”

Even Amalie could tell that the two countrywomen wanted to speak in private. “Cammon,” said the princess, “I have something to show you in my study. Why don’t you come with me for a moment?”

He did.

And so, for the first time since he had known Amalie, Cammon was alone with the princess.

“WHAT’Sin your study?” Cammon asked as they stepped into the room.

“My cloak,” Amalie said. “It’s cold out and I want to take a walk.”

“Without Valri? She won’t like that.”

Amalie gave him a look that was pure mischief. One of the rare occasions when she looked as young as she really was.

“She will be too delighted to talk to Ellynor to even notice that I’m not in the room. By the time she remembers, I’ll be back here, sitting demurely before the fire and confessing to a day of boredom.”

Cammon was hardly one to urge anyone to more proper behavior. “Well, let me grab my own coat and we can sneak out the kitchen.”

“Meet me back here as quickly as you can.”

He did, and found Amalie transformed. She had covered her bright hair with a dull woolen scarf, and her cloak was so plain it could have been borrowed from a maid who possessed neither money nor fashion sense. She had also donned what looked like a pair of her father’s spectacles, but she allowed them to perch on the end of her nose so she could peer over the tops of the lenses.

“What do you think?” she asked. “A good disguise?”

He felt his first twinge of unease. “Are you planning to go onto the streets of Ghosenhall? Because I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“I wish I could! But, no, I’ll stay safe within the palace walls. I just want to-walk around the grounds a bit without anyone knowing who I am.”

“Then let’s go.”

It was relatively easy for Cammon to get them out of the building unseen. He didn’t have Ellynor’s trick of concealment, of course, but he had no trouble sensing when the rooms and hallways ahead of them were clear of people and safe to traverse. More than once he had to whisk them into an unoccupied room to avoid a contingent of servants, and on these occasions he and Amalie plastered themselves against the wall and tried to keep from laughing.

Finally they had ducked through a side door to avoid all the cooks in the kitchen and found themselves outside in the cold afternoon sun. “Where to?” Cammon asked.

“The training yard,” she answered without hesitation. “I want to watch the Riders working out.”

She wasn’t the only one. A dozen or so spectators gathered around the fence rails surrounding the yard, watching in fascination as the Riders practiced their swings and blows. The rest of them looked like tourists in the royal city for a special visit-wealthy merchants and their well-dressed wives, their envious sons, their teenage daughters who sighed and giggled over the Riders’ splendid physiques. None of them paid any attention to Amalie.

She climbed up the bottom rung of the fence and hung over the top, absorbed in the mock combat. “Tell me who is who,” she commanded, so Cammon stepped up beside her and gave a running commentary.

“That’s Tir, the oldest of the Riders. Tayse’s father. See how he wields the sword? He’s not as powerful as he used to be, but he’s tricky. Almost no one can beat him. Over there is Wen. She’s small and she’s not as strong as some of the men, but she’s fast. And she can outshoot any of them with a bow. She’s fighting with Justin, so she’s going to go down in about a minute.”

“Does Justin always win?”

“Just about.”

“Who’s the best? Of all the Riders?”

“Tayse,” he answered without hesitation.

“And nobody can beat him?”

“Oh, sure. Now and then someone brings him down-usually Tir or Coeval, and sometimes Justin. But not very often. And never twice in a row.”

For a moment she stood in silence, watching over the rims of her spectacles. “I’m supposed to know them all,” she said. “My father does. He knows their names and their stories and whether they’re married and whether they’ve been injured and-and-what they’re like. Who they are. I only know a few of them, especially those who were with us last summer-Tayse and Justin and Coeval and Hammond. And Senneth.”

“Well,” Cammon said, “Senneth isn’t exactly a Rider.”

Amalie pointed to where Senneth was trading blows with Hammond. “She’s training with them.”

“I’ve trained with the Riders, too, and that doesn’t make me one of them.”

She gave him a quick appraising glance out of those lively brown eyes. “Are you any good?”

He laughed. “Not really. But Tayse says I’m getting better.”

She returned her attention to the field. “I should get to know them all.”

“I’m sure they’d welcome that. I’ll ask Tayse to arrange it.”

She nodded and then lapsed into silence again. Cammon could feel her intense interest in the activities on the field. Her mind swooped with the swing of a sword blade, dove to the wrestlers in the mud, lifted with the arrows being shot at targets on the other edge of the yard. She was pleased and excited and absorbed and impressed; she saw the activity before her as a combination of poetry and practicality. She missed neither the sheer beauty of the physical motion nor the deadly necessity behind the exercise.

For a moment Cammon’s hands tightened on the top rail of the fence. He could sense Amalie. He could read her. Valri’s cloaking magic had been lifted and Amalie was like a sunlit golden room he could simply stroll inside. He stood at the open doorway, dazzled by what he could glimpse from the threshold. Bright intelligence, swift comprehension, limitless fascination with the world around her. Her mind was like a darting bird too delighted with the bounty before it to want to settle. He could see it, flashing from window to window inside the illuminated chamber of her skull.

He closed his eyes and willed himself to walk away.

This was what Valri was protecting Amalie from, nasty intrusive strangers who would stomp all over those unmarred golden vistas, who would peer inside her and try to read her or try to rearrange her. Valri was protecting Amalie from him , from people like him, anyway, readers or, no-people who wanted to invade or dismantle that alluring, untouched space. Amalie was too open, too impressionable, and Valri knew it, and that was why Valri had been so afraid when Amalie could hear the words that Cammon sent her way. What other influences would Amalie succumb to, how could she ever be safe?