Sharon Shinn - Reader And Raelynx

She lifted her head, and so, of course, he kissed her. She had started crying, but the kiss made her smile. “And I have been afraid that once you left the palace, you would forget all about me.”

He gave a little snort. “That doesn’t seem to be how it works for me. When they’re gone-Senneth and the others-I can still feel them. I know if they’re safe, if they’re afraid, if they’re hurt. It doesn’t matter how far away they are. As long as they’re in Gillengaria, I can hear them.” He kissed her again. “I was thinking I would have to sail to Arberharst if I wanted to get you out of my heart. Or, well, not Arberharst anymore, I suppose. Karyndein or Sovenfeld. Somewhere so distant that even your memories couldn’t follow me.”

“I don’t want you to go that far,” she said. “I don’t want you to go at all.”

He hugged her closer, feeling both elated and hopeless. She loves me warred with I still can’t have her. “There are no answers, not now,” he said quietly. “Maybe when the war ends, the world will have changed. Or maybe we will both just be so glad to be alive that we will be able to stand it better, whatever happens next. But, Amalie, as long as you want me with you, I will stay. And if ever you want me to go, I will go. I love you. For now, at least, maybe that’s enough.”

For her it was. She lifted her mouth and kissed him again, straining against him as if trying to meld her body to his. Death and destruction loomed immediately ahead; separation and heartbreak lay inevitably beyond. But, for tonight, there was no course open to them but to prove their fealty by making love. They feverishly pulled off their own clothes and each other’s-laughed to see Amalie’s dagger still tightly buckled to her leg-and sprawled on the floor, tangled together, swearing vows and whispering each other’s names. The moon watched through the window; the raelynx, asleep at the hearth, did not seem to notice at all. But Cammon wondered, just before he fell asleep, how many other gods had tiptoed through the room, offering or withholding their blessings. Surely whichever goddess watched over him must be celebrating tonight; surely she was moved by honest emotion and unguarded passion. Surely she would want to grant her most dutiful acolyte his heart’s desire.

INthe morning, the troops moved out, ranks of royal soldiers marching beside borrowed fighters from Merrenstow, Kianlever, and Helven. Amalie rode at the head of the army, Cammon and Valri on either side of her, Riders in a ring around them. Romar Brendyn, acting as commander, followed shortly behind her. The raelynx traveled near Amalie, sometimes roaming far ahead, always returning when she called it to her side. Sometimes Cammon saw three raelynxes bounding along beside them-sometimes a raelynx, a wolf, and a lion. Donnal and Kirra, choosing to accompany the army in animal form.

The lead Rider carried a two-tiered standard: the royal flag, a gold lion splashed on a black field; and a new device that Amalie had adopted as her own, a red raelynx rampant on a gold background. The Queen’s Riders wore new sashes that alternated lions and raelynxes. Even some of the common soldiers had tied scarlet scarves around their arms or braided crimson ribbons into the manes of their horses. They were the princess’s army; they were riding to protect her.

A small regiment had stayed behind under the command of Tayse, to engage and distract the enemy troops as they advanced on Ghosenhall. Justin and two other Riders had also joined this perilous venture.

Senneth and Ellynor waited with them.

SENNETHknew it was risky, of course. They might all die. But Justin and Tayse had spent hours planning an ambush, an escape route, and an alternate plan. They seemed to think they could inflict some damage on the oncoming army, then whisk their troops away with a minimum of loss.

Tayse had been less than thrilled with Senneth’s plan to confront Halchon Gisseltess.

“I won’t let him near enough to touch me,” she said. Something about his skin, his body, was anathema to her. She could not call fire, she almost could not summon rational thought, if he had any physical contact with her. She wondered sometimes if he possessed a peculiar magic, a kind that rendered other kinds of magic inoperable, and if so, what kind of strange god might watch over such a man. “But I think we need to take one last chance to try to bargain with him.”

Predictably, Justin’s comment had been, “The only bargain he understands is a blade through the heart.”

“It will come to that, no doubt,” she said. “But I feel compelled to try.”

They had learned quite by accident that the Arberharst men were not immune to Lirren magic. Only a handful of attackers had survived the assault on the palace, and a few had been so wounded that they could not be expected to live through the night. Kirra had been unable to heal them, but Ellynor had brought two of them back from the brink of death. She had then made herself invisible in order to eavesdrop on the manner in which Romar Brendyn questioned the enemy soldiers. “Because if he tortured them, I wasn’t going to help him again, and I’d let him know that,” she confessed to Senneth. Romar hadn’t seen her there-but neither had the soldiers from Arberharst.

And that had gotten Senneth to thinking.

They laid their trap a few miles outside the city limits, on a low stretch of road that Justin called a natural ambush, since it passed between high ridges on either side. They had barely a day to wait before their scout came racing back to pant out that the armies were only a few hours behind him.

Senneth didn’t think she had quite prepared herself for the sight of ten thousand men advancing to war.

They made one undulating, multicolored river of motion, ten men across and a thousand men deep. The three armies had blended into one, but she could still discern pockets of soldiers who rode with hundreds of their fellows-Lumanen guards dressed in black and silver, for instance, or Gisseltess men in black and red. It was no surprise, she thought, to find among the enemy troops rows of men wearing the topaz sash of Storian. The blue uniforms of the Arberharst soldiers, several thousand all told, were scattered throughout the Gillengaria masses. A deliberate move on Halchon’s part, Senneth thought with grudging admiration; he knew the foreign recruits were much less likely to be affected by homegrown magic.

But today that decision would work against them.

Senneth, Tayse, and their small force hid on top of the northernmost hill, watching the army march closer. An advance guard of perhaps twenty men led the way, carrying the flags of all three armies. Behind them rode the heads of this villainous alliance: Rayson Fortunalt, a florid, heavyset man with small eyes and a perpetually sneering expression; Halchon Gisseltess, square-faced, dark-haired, powerfully built, and purposeful; and Coralinda Gisseltess, whose black-and-silver hair mirrored her flag, her cloak, the colors of her goddess. She looked like an older, smaller version of her brother-no less purposeful, no less powerful. Senneth could not remember the last time she had seen them together, though she vividly recalled her last few meetings with each of them, and none of those memories gave her pleasure.

Senneth could pick out the small red flowers on Halchon’s vest before Tayse turned to her and gave a small nod. Now .

She balled her hands into fists, then spread her fingers wide. A wall of flame leapt up in the middle of the road.

Horses screamed; men shouted. There was a terrific clamor of confusion. Above it all she could hear Halchon’s voice calling out, “Stay calm! It is sorcery! Halt your horses! Stay calm!”