Sharon Shinn - Reader And Raelynx

He wanted to marry Senneth. And Senneth would rather die herself than come close enough to touch the fingers of his hand.

“That’s certainly a reason for me to be there,” Senneth agreed. “To watch Sabina explain her presence in Kiernan’s household. I will try to come.”

Kirra and Donnal were gone within the hour. It took rather more time for Senneth to round up her recruits, make sure they all had horses and provisions, and urge them to keep in a close formation on the road once they set out. They didn’t get as far as she would have liked before nightfall, and the second day was just about as disorganized as the first.

“It looks like our return trip will be far less efficient than our outbound journey,” she said to Tayse as they made camp that second night.

“At least we’re well guarded at night,” he said. “Hard to surprise a party of readers and shape-shifters.”

“I feel the need to hurry, though,” she said. “I have the feeling that Cammon is distressed about something.”

Tayse instantly looked solemn. “How distressed? Does he want us back immediately? We could force the pace harder tomorrow.”

She shook her head. “No-I don’t get the sense that there’s terrible trouble. Just that he’s out of his depth.”

Tayse relaxed a little. “Guarding a princess and arguing with a queen,” he said. “Yes, I imagine he is.”

The third day was a little smoother, as they got into the rhythm of the trip. All the mystics continued to be somewhat in fear of Tayse; their primary interaction with soldiers in the past had usually been violent as civil guards and Coralinda Gisseltess’s men had hunted them down. So they gave him a wide berth and scrambled to do his bidding whenever he made the mildest suggestion. Senneth sighed to watch them. She hadn’t gathered much of an army if her recruits were afraid of one lone Rider.

They were a little afraid of her as well, though that didn’t bother her as much; she was used to others eyeing her askance. It wasn’t her magic that impressed this group, she thought, but her self-confidence, her refusal to offer any kind of apology for her ability. They had spent so long hiding their skills and suffering because of their magic. They couldn’t understand Senneth’s calm acceptance of her gift.

The thought made her want to offer a bitter smile. The Bright Mother alone knew how much magic had cost her. She was damned if she would repudiate it now.

Of course, there was another reason this motley troop of mystics looked at her with wide and uncertain eyes. She wore a moonstone bracelet on her wrist and seemed not to feel it burn her-or care if it did. More than once as she was talking with some of her new companions, she saw their eyes drift down toward her left hand. Their attention would fasten on the softly glowing stones that encircled her wrist and they would completely lose the thread of the conversation. None of them could touch a moonstone, of course. Even Kirra would yelp in pain if one of those gems came in contact with her skin. A mystic bound with moonstones was helpless, stripped of power.

Coralinda Gisseltess and her followers all draped themselves in moonstones. The Pale Mother had taken the jewel as her own-and the Pale Mother hated mystics.

Long ago Senneth had determined that nothing, nothing , would be denied to her simply because of the magic in her veins. She was stronger than hatred, than intolerance, than fear; she could survive punishment, banishment, despair. She would not be afraid of a few pretty rocks, malicious though they might be. She would wear moonstones, and the slight, constant tingle of fire at her wrist would simply remind her that the outside world was as full of heat and turmoil as her soul.

“You’re not afraid of anything, are you?” one of the recruits asked her that night after they had made an untidy camp. The speaker was a young man, maybe Cammon’s age, a fluid shape-shifter with a sad, hunted face. He had asked the question because she had showed no alarm at a quick scuffle between two of the other mystics, though the threat of conflict had sent this young man cowering to the other side of the fire.

Senneth glanced at him. “I’m afraid of more things than I could name in an hour just sitting here counting them off,” she said.

“You don’t act like it,” he said, half admiring and half resentful.

She smiled and fed another branch into the flames. “Because what I’m most afraid of is having fear control me,” she said. “And so I will not give in to it, no matter what that costs me.”

He was still mulling her words over that night when they all took to their bedrolls and slept.

Senneth’s magic made the warmth of the fire extend all around the camp, but as they set out in the morning, they instantly encountered deep chill and ground frozen so hard that the horses’ hooves rang against it. Tayse picked up the pace just to keep them all warm. Even so, they were barely halfway through the return journey when they made camp that night. Senneth wished, not for the first time, she had a shape-shifter’s skills and could fly the remaining distance to Ghosenhall in a day.

It was still cold the following day, and they continued their faster rate of travel. They were an hour or two past their noontime break when a sudden, sharp cry had Senneth reining back hard. She looked around swiftly, but no one in her party seemed disturbed-seemed even to have heard anything. Tayse, riding some distance in the lead, hadn’t even turned around, and there was no chance Tayse would have failed to react to such a call of distress.

Heart pounding, she slowed her horse still more, then closed her eyes and opened her mind. There it was again, just as urgent, but a little more clear. Cammon’s voice, Cammon’s words.

Senneth! I need you!

AFTERwhat Justin liked to call “the raelynx incident,” they had two days of relative calm at the palace. Cammon found himself in Amalie’s presence most of that time, though they were never for a minute unchaperoned, and he was fairly careful not to communicate with her silently, either by accident or by design.

But there had been a subtle shift of power, and he and Valri, at least, were aware of it. Amalie was more sure of herself, a little less willing to be guided by the queen. It was hard to pinpoint the change, exactly, because in those two days Amalie did not engage in any overt act of mutiny and never showed Valri the slightest impoliteness. But there was a certain set to her jaw, a speculative expression in her eyes. She looked like a cat that was considering a jump to a high wall, not sure if she could make the leap but almost determined to try.

Valri watched her both days with a close and silent attention, and her mood seemed to grow darker by the hour.

Cammon found himself worrying about both of them.

He tried to articulate his thoughts to Justin, who merely shrugged. “Not your business,” Justin said. “Your role is easy. You’re there to make sure no one dies. It doesn’t matter what else breaks around you.”

“What if Valri tries to murder Amalie?” Cammon said glumly, but Justin only grinned.

“You protect the princess from the queen,” the Rider said. “See? It’s still easy. You have one task. Focus on that task.”

Ellynor was more sympathetic. “Valri has done hard things before,” she said. She was lightly kneading the back of Cammon’s neck, since the tension of the past two days had given him a rare headache. The pain had dissolved with her first touch, but her hands were so soothing he didn’t want her to stop. “You don’t need to be concerned about her. And Amalie is only doing what every young girl must do-figuring out what she is capable of and throwing off the restraints her parents have put around her.” She stopped rubbing his neck, tousled his hair, and sat next to him at the table.