Sharon Shinn - Reader And Raelynx

Much the way Senneth herself had gotten married.

Though it actually had been the most romantic evening of her life.

She found herself given the chair next to Malcolm Danalustrous, a high honor. Customarily, a husband and wife were not seated together, so she looked around to see where poor Tayse had landed. Ah-he had been well-placed between Kiernan’s wife, Chelley, who was quite kind and who liked Tayse, and Malcolm’s vassal Erin Sohta. Erin was a silly and fawning sort of woman, but she fancied herself an intimate of the marlord’s and always loved to be granted special privileges. She was just the sort of woman who would be delighted at a chance to be seated next to a King’s Rider at a dinner party and then gossip about it for the next two years.

Heartlessly, Senneth ignored both Tayse and the Brassenthwaite lord sitting on her other side, and talked to her host the entire night. Malcolm was the man she respected most, after the king; his House was the one she would have taken sanctuary in, if she had ever needed it. He was stern, stubborn, willful, fair-minded, and absolutely devoted to the land he owned. Kirra said his veins ran with Danalustrous river water and his heart was made from a curiously animate lump of Danalustrous clay. He had bequeathed his blue eyes, his black hair, his iron will, and his fierce commitment to the land to his daughter Casserah. Neither of them was comfortable to talk to. Both of them were easy to understand. Respect Danalustrous, or be gone.

“Tell me the news,” he said. “Kirra says war is on the doorstep.”

So she repeated everything she had told Kirra-except the parts about Amalie and Cammon, which were more interesting in their way but less important from Malcolm’s point of view. He listened intently, asked sharp questions, and shook his head when she asked if he planned to raise an army for the king.

“I want to close the borders,” he said. “And once my esteemed guests are gone, that is exactly what I plan to do.”

She toyed with her wineglass. “I don’t know how you think you can do that. You have miles of coastline, and you cannot possibly defend every inch. Your soldiers line every road that leads into Danalustrous, I’m assuming, but there are so many places a small troop could creep across the border in stealth! Your boundaries are porous, Malcolm.”

He gave her a faint smile. “And you don’t think I would know if hostile forces came stepping across those boundaries, no matter how secret their approach? You underestimate me, Senneth. I feel every footstep as it falls on Danalustrous soil. I will not be surprised by strangers.”

She sat back in her chair and regarded him with her head tilted to one side. “And do you still believe,” she said in a soft voice, “that Kirra inherited her magic from her mother ? I have always thought you had some kind of mystical connection to your land. Maybe you’re the one with sorcery. If what you say is true.”

His smiled widened. “If so, then every marlord in Gillengaria, including your brother, has been touched by magic,” he said. “For they all have that same sense of kinship with their property. Talk to Heffel Coravann sometime if you don’t believe me. Talk to Ariane.”

She laughed back at him. “And if that is true, then how ironic it is that so many marlords have joined the campaign to eradicate mystics! My father, for instance. Banished me from Brassen Court when he could have been accused of the very same crime!”

Malcolm nodded. “And did you never wonder why Kiernan wished to reconcile with you after your father died? He had come to understand that he was attuned to Brassenthwaite in a way that could not be explained away by anything other than magic. That he was no different than you were-no, and your father had not been, either.”

“Bright Mother burn me in ashes to the ground,” she swore.

“I don’t expect he’d ever admit it, though,” Malcolm added.

She laughed again. “And I don’t expect I’ll ever ask.”

She did make her way to Kiernan’s side after the meal, though, and found him with her brother Harris. They all exchanged cool but civil greetings. Kiernan had the same sort of stubbornness she had always seen in Malcolm, but less charm and less humor. Still, in the past year she had been forced to admit that his virtues-loyalty, intelligence, and a passion for justice-outweighed most of his flaws, and they had cautiously rebuilt a relationship of sorts. She still had no patience for her brother Nate, and Harris was practically a stranger. But Kiernan she respected, if grudgingly so. He was a powerfully built man with heavy features partially obscured by a neat beard; his eyes betrayed nothing but a watchful shrewdness.

“What’s the news from Ghosenhall?” Kiernan asked.

She gave him the same recital she had given Malcolm, edited a little. He seemed equally unsurprised, though his response was different. “I’ll send troops from Brassenthwaite as soon as I’m back at the Court,” he said. “We’ve been training them against the day they would be needed.”

“Malcolm won’t send his men to battle,” she said.

Kiernan glanced over to where the marlord was making conversation with a Brassenthwaite vassal and her daughter. “Malcolm may change his mind,” he said. “He may decide that he does not like to see his nearest neighbors fighting over scraps of land that lie awfully close to his borders. He may decide Danalustrous’s best hope of remaining strong is making sure Gillengaria itself survives.”

She didn’t need to reply to that, for they were joined just then by the bridal couple. “Casserah,” Senneth said, embracing Kirra’s sister. The presumed excitement of the event didn’t seem to weigh much with Casserah. Her wide-set blue eyes still showed their habitual abstracted expression. Will stood beside her, lanky and smiling, his face familiar to Senneth because it looked so much like her own. “And, Will! I was so afraid I would not be able to make it for the wedding.”

“I was surprised to hear you’d arrived,” Will said, giving her a smile and a hard hug. “I was sure you’d find some excuse for staying away.”

She laughed. “The welfare of the kingdom? Would that have been a good enough reason?”

“Of course it would,” Casserah said, her voice as composed as always. “You didn’t need to come. I would not have been at all offended.”

Senneth couldn’t help grinning. Never anything less than the absolute truth from Casserah. “Then you won’t be offended to learn I do not plan to stay long after the ceremony concludes. I am uneasy being away from Ghosenhall. I think my place is there.”

“Perhaps the bride does not wish to talk of war on the eve of her wedding,” Harris said.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Casserah said. “Talk of whatever you like.”

The group broke up relatively soon after dinner; everyone wanted plenty of time to rest and refresh themselves before the morrow. When Senneth and Tayse returned to their room, they found Donnal there, shaped like a black hound, sleeping in front of the fire.

“Change to human form, and I’ll deal the cards,” Tayse invited him, and so the three of them were deep in a game when Kirra arrived half an hour later.

“Everyone off to bed and the bride settled in for the night,” she said with a sigh, pulling up a chair and motioning Senneth to include her in the next round. “I’m exhausted but I can’t sleep yet.”

Senneth felt her laughter bubble up. “Your sister does not seem to be a nervous bride.”

“No! Cold-blooded as ever. But she and Will deal together extraordinarily well. I think he finds her entertaining, and she considers him useful. I suppose there are worse ways to make a match.”