Sharon Shinn - Reader And Raelynx

His smile was faint. “Ah, perhaps that is the magic inherent in the crown. In all the history of Gillengaria, there is no story about a king or a queen who has chosen Riders unwisely. Is it that only honorable men and women seek the office of Rider? Is the monarch blessed by the gods with some supernatural powers of perception?”

“Are the stories truly complete?” she asked with some acerbity.

His smile widened. “I like to believe they are.” His gaze went to the princess and her small entourage. “In Amalie’s case, she will have Cammon to guide her. I cannot imagine she will chose ill.”

Senneth shook her head. “One more hard task that falls to her all at once. I hope she is not crushed under her responsibilities.”

“We are here to support her,” he said softly. “But I think she is strong enough to survive it.”

ONCEthey had toured the sickroom, Senneth insisted Amalie come to the smaller dining hall for a rather slapdash meal. Some of the servants had died in the day’s assault, and the rest were understandably traumatized, and Senneth was grateful that the cooks managed to assemble a meal at all. It was a simple buffet, and there were signs that Valri, Romar, and a few others had been at the table before them.

Riders continued to seek them out for the next half hour, presenting themselves, being released from service, and then either offering their fealty or calmly stating that they planned to leave once the princess had found their replacements.

“That’s everyone,” Tayse said when Coeval exited after swearing his loyalty. Apparently Tayse had had better luck keeping track of the numbers than Senneth had. “Except the three who were too injured to speak. Majesty, ask them again tomorrow.”

Amalie nodded. She looked so tired Senneth thought she might tip over and bury her face in her platter of food. “And then? Tomorrow? What else must I do?”

“We will know when tomorrow arrives,” Senneth said gently. She tugged on Amalie’s shoulder. “Come. To bed with you. If you don’t think you will be able to sleep, Kirra can make up a potion.”

“She’ll sleep,” Cammon said.

Senneth glanced at him. He had not been more than a step away from the princess since they came running back from the garden with the raelynx in tow. Clearly the connection between them had intensified during the days Senneth had been gone, but she found herself deeply reluctant to discover how far their relationship had progressed. She kept remembering Tayse’s comment: Amalie would be safe if Cammon were sleeping by her side. After today, Amalie’s safety mattered much more than Amalie’s virginity.

“I will be grateful if you, indeed, will use your magic to help her relax,” Senneth said. “But what of the raelynx? Are we to attempt to cage him again for the night?”

“No,” Amalie said. “He will stay with me.”

Of course she should protest, Senneth thought, but the raelynx had certainly earned its right to freedom today. And if danger did manage to force its way through Amalie’s door, the raelynx would almost certainly pounce on it and kill it. And eat it.

“Then, Majesty, I will see you in the morning.”

True to his word, Tayse accompanied Senneth back to the cottage to sleep at least some portion of the night. She had overheard him making murmured plans with his fellow Riders, dividing up the shifts. There had never been a hope he would be comfortable allowing ordinary soldiers the solemn responsibility of guarding the palace.

At the cottage, they had water enough to bathe, and Senneth heated it to the point where it almost blistered the skin. In silence, they took turns discarding their ruined clothing, washing themselves thoroughly, and climbing into bed. Not until Tayse put his arms around her did Senneth feel she could find even the most fleeting moment of real peace.

“In the morning, you will have to tell your mother that Tir is dead,” she said. “And tell your sisters.”

“And let them know the city is not safe. They can take refuge with my aunt.”

“Your mother will be heartbroken, I think. I am convinced she still loved him, despite the fact that she left him so long ago.”

She felt him shrug slightly. He was a dutiful son, but his mother exerted no pull on him, as she had exerted no pull on Tir after the first few years of their doomed marriage. Tayse changed the subject. “How’s your head?”

“Hurts,” she said. “How’s your heart?”

“Hurts.”

“If I’m not better in the morning, I’ll ask you to scare away my headache,” she said. “But Tayse, my love, my dearest one, I do not know how to scare away your pain.”

“These are losses too great for magic to heal,” he said. “I know my father’s only regret about his death would be that it did not save the king. If it had, he would have gladly given his life.”

“And that is how you want to die someday, is it not?” she murmured into his chest. “Defending Amalie? Or her son or daughter?”

He was silent a moment. “Once that would have been true,” he said. “Now I want to live as long as you are alive, and die when you are not. And if I do not fall in battle, but instead die when I am an old man, bent and crippled and useless, except that you still love me, then I will consider that a better death than my father’s.”

She was so stunned she almost could not answer. Tayse was so much a soldier that she had always accepted she had been grafted onto his life. Important to him, essential even-transcendent-but only a part of his life, not the center, not the whole. “Oh, then I have to hope that is what happens,” she whispered. “That you are ancient and demented and blind , and everyone despises you, and laughs at you behind your back, and cannot believe you have lived so long. But I will still love you. I will be glad to see you, every time your scowling face comes into view.”

That made him smile, as she hoped it would. “And you will be a doddering old woman yourself, mumbling around the house, constantly setting small unintentional fires and causing the curtains to go up in flames. We will have to live in a house of stone, so it doesn’t burn down around our heads. We will be buying new furnishings every week and my eyebrows will be singed off my face. But I will still love you.”

Now she was giggling, and laughter felt so good, so hopeful, when weighed against all the misery of the day. She tightened her arms around him, felt the strength of his body even through his exhaustion and sadness. “War will come, and heartache and betrayal, and friends will die and all of Gillengaria may be lost, and I will still love you,” she said against his mouth. “And if I accidentally set your hair on fire in a few years’ time, well, let me just say now that I didn’t mean to do it. Unless you made me angry, of course, but even then I will only make a little fire. Hardly enough to hurt you.”

“And who could mind that?” he said. “I look forward to a happy old age.”

She snuggled against him even more closely. “I hope we live to see it.”

CAMMONhad lived through some wretched days, but none as bad as the ones that followed the king’s death.

There was just so much grief. So much anxiety. Fear and tension and anticipation of violence. It lashed against him from all directions, impossible to block out. He tried to close his mind, concentrate only on the people who desperately mattered to him-but those were some of the people who were suffering most.

In public, Amalie maintained a steely calm that had everyone marveling. She listened closely to advice, made sometimes surprising decisions, exhibited only a decorous grief, and seemed ready to assume the heaviest burdens of government.