Sharon Shinn - Reader And Raelynx

“Please!” Valri exclaimed. “Amalie’s husband will not offer her harm! And if he does, he’ll be imprisoned for treason!”

Wen put her fingers around Amalie’s wrist and pulled the princess to her feet. She was completely ignoring Valri. “I’m going to show you a nice trick,” she said. “Pretend I’m your brutish husband. Now, when I grab your arm-”

Valri flung her hands in the air, watched a moment, and then returned her attention to her letters. Cammon spared her a glance, remembering what she’d said to him more than a week ago. You think I don’t know how to cut a man’s throat? He would put his money on Valri, despite her small size, if he had to wager on who would win a fight between an assailant and the queen.

He sighed. She had certainly won this particular contest between the two of them. He wanted to see Amalie, and Valri wanted him to keep his distance. So far, Valri had prevailed.

There had been no more midnight trysts in the kitchen, no more unchaperoned strolls down to the lair of the raelynx. Sometimes, late at night as he walked back up from Justin’s cottage, Cammon let himself hope that Amalie would sneak from her rooms and come meet him on the back lawn. But even though he allowed some of his longing to escape, to whisper in her ear, he never sensed her moving from the upper reaches of the palace down to the public rooms and gardens. He knew she wanted to see him as much as he wanted to see her. But Valri had developed a habit of coming to Amalie’s room at night to discuss the events of the day. On these nights the queen would fall asleep curled up in her chair-too close for Amalie to creep past her without waking her.

At first, Cammon was annoyed and resentful when he realized that Valri was deliberately staying in Amalie’s room to keep her from any secret assignations with him.

Then he was astonished when he realized that Valri had become one of the people whose presence always registered in his consciousness.

He knew when she was in the breakfast room with the king. He could tell when she had gone down to the kitchens to confer with the cooks. He knew when she was in the gardens with the princess, for he could sense them both, a bright shape of gold, a dense shape of shadow, side by side, slowly pacing.

When had that happened? He still could not break through the Lirren magic when she chose to conceal her thoughts, or Amalie’s. He suspected that, if she tried, she could render her body invisible to him while they were sitting in the same room. But he would still be able to close his eyes and know exactly where she was. She had become a part of him, important to him. Her existence had become ingrained into the daily routine of his own.

He didn’t know how to interpret that. Didn’t know why it had happened. But she was there now, along with the others, indispensable and integral. And so he knew where she spent her nights, and he knew he could expect no more stolen moments with Amalie.

They had, of course, other ways to communicate.

You’re getting very good at this, he told her when she wrestled with Wen and Janni. But use your magic. Steal their thoughts from them. If you can tell where they’re going to strike next, you can block them even more effectively.

Or: Have you convinced Valri that it’s safe to tell Ellynor your secret? I know she’d come talk to you about the Silver Lady.

And: I wish you could meet me tonight very late .

And: I hated that Kianlever lord who came calling .

And: I miss you .

She was right there in the room. But he missed her anyway.

She did not often try to reply in the same way, though now and then he would receive hesitant and incomplete messages in return. One day when Valri was deep in conversation with the regent’s wife, Amalie touched her fingers to her mouth, silently told him, Kitchen-kiss , and gave him a private smile. But she did not escape to meet him there that night. Miss you was something she could send him, though, and so she did, at least once a day. It was as if those two words were the abbreviation for everything else she wanted to tell him.

He wasn’t in the room when she persuaded Valri that it was safe to tell Ellynor her astonishing news, but he was there when the Lirren girl presented herself one morning. Her knock on the door caught him totally by surprise, and he scowled when she stepped in to join them.

“I hate it that you can do that,” he said. “After all the times I’ve practiced listening for your approach!”

She smiled. “Maybe you’ve stopped listening.”

“Maybe you know she’s not dangerous,” Amalie suggested.

“Everyone is dangerous,” Valri said in her dark way.

Cammon sighed.

But it was hard to imagine anyone less threatening than Ellynor that day as she curled up on the chair beside Amalie and began telling stories about the Pale Mother. She was not as small as Valri, but she was dainty and feminine, with a certain innate grace and warmth. The sort of person you might run to when you were hurt and crying.

“So I understand the Silver Lady has taken you under her protection,” Ellynor said in her gentle voice.

Amalie grimaced. “That’s what everybody thinks. And I don’t feel blessed at all. I feel cursed. I’m afraid she’s an evil goddess.”

“Oh, not at all,” Ellynor said, and she spoke with such certainty that Cammon saw Amalie instantly relax. “She’s a complex lady, easy to misunderstand, but she is beautiful and she offers unexpected gifts.”

Amalie looked hopeful. “But she steals magic. And she’s deceitful.”

Ellynor smiled. “It’s true that she’s curious about everything, and she looks in private windows and rummages through furtive souls, and it’s true she likes to keep what she finds. But it’s even more true that she reflects, rather than steals. What she loves most is to be bathed in praise and affection. She offers much to those who offer a great deal to her first. The more she is given, the more beautiful-and bountiful-she becomes.”

Now Amalie’s expression was thoughtful. “But Coralinda Gisseltess-”

“I believe that the Lestra has misinterpreted the will of the goddess,” Ellynor said sadly. Not until then did Cammon remember that Lestra was the title Coralinda Gisseltess had bestowed upon herself when she founded the Daughters of the Pale Mother. “She is so filled with hatred for mystics that she believes she sees that same hatred mirrored in the Pale Mother.”

Valri looked over. She and Cammon were sitting nearby, listening. “If she can’t control her followers any better than that, she’s a weak goddess,” the queen said contemptuously. “The Dark Watcher does not let any of us behave so badly in her name.”

“She’s not weak,” Ellynor answered. “But she is, to a large extent, at the mercy of those who worship her. She can only give back what they give to her. If Coralinda radiates hatred and greed, hatred and greed are all the Silver Lady has to offer.” She paused a moment to think something over, and then smiled. “When I was in the Lumanen Convent, I grew to truly love the Pale Mother. I saw that she could be changeable and moody, and yet at the same time I learned that she could always be relied on. The moon shifts through its phases, but you know what those phases will be. They do not alter. If the moon makes you a promise, she will keep it in her own time.”

“I am starting to like her a little,” Amalie said cautiously. “If what you say is true.”

“She helped me on the most terrifying night of my life,” Ellynor said.

“Tell me!”

“You remember that we told you about the night Justin was hurt, and I had to go to the nearest town to ask for help. I needed to find one man in that whole city, and all I knew was his name. And she guided me to the very building he was in, and made him cross the room to ask me if I needed aid.”