by Sharon Shinn
“Two soldiers, three desperate aristocrats, and two loyal servants,” Donnal reminded her. “Seven might be a lot, even for you.”
She laughed. “Well, Cammon will know if I’m in trouble, and then you can all race to my rescue. But I don’t think it will come to that.”
“You’d better eat something before you go off exploring,” Cammon said. Apparently he had been putting together a meal while he sat before the fire. “We’ve got some time to kill before the household settles down for the night.”
There weren’t enough chairs for all of them, so they made themselves comfortable on the floor, facing each other in a small circle. They talked idly and easily while eating Cammon’s simple dinner. Despite the fact that Donnal looked so unfamiliar and she couldn’t stand Justin, Kirra thought the whole mood was very companionable. Almost as companionable as the journey that had ended three months ago after these four and two others had crossed the country of Gillengaria on a mission for the king. When Baryn had asked her if she would go after Romar Brendyn, scandalously kidnapped in broad daylight on the king’s road, she had immediately told him yes. She had immediately told him who she wanted as her confederates, too. It would have been good to have Tayse and Senneth beside them as well—but perhaps not; perhaps it was better this way. A larger party would definitely have aroused suspicions—and Tayse was too big and too intimidating to willingly entertain if you were bent on any malicious activity. No one plotting treason would have permitted him into the house.
It was as if Cammon had read her mind—which, in fact, he probably had. “Any word from Senneth?” he asked her. “When’s she getting back from Brassenthwaite?”
“Soon, I think, but I haven’t heard from her in weeks,” Kirra said. “She did send me a note that said the reunion with her brothers had gone more smoothly than she’d expected, though neither had improved as much as everyone kept assuring her.” She glanced at Justin. “Have you heard from Tayse?”
Justin’s eyes glittered in the firelight, so she knew he was about to make some boastful statement about the pride and brotherhood of the King’s Riders. “Riders don’t send notes to each other,” he said. “They send dispatches to their king—or their bodies come back strapped to their horses.”
“Yes, well, fine. Sorry I asked,” she said. Cammon muffled a laugh and even Donnal’s girlish face looked amused. “Wouldn’t want Tayse to do anything unbecoming to a Rider.”
“He would not,” Justin said in a lofty voice.
She rolled her eyes and turned away from him. “Anyone bring a pack of cards? We’re going to be sitting here awhile.”
Donnal pulled out a deck and shuffled, then let Justin deal. Much as it went against his grain, Justin trusted the other three—all mystics, all possessed of some form of magic—but not when it came to playing a fair card game. Then he suspected them all of using sorcery to cheat him out of a few pennies and often wouldn’t play unless he was the one who handled the cards.
“Fours and sevens wild,” he said, skimming the cards neatly to each of them. Kirra had to repress a smile. The four of them; their seven adversaries on the property. You never knew when Justin was going to make a poetic gesture.
They had been playing for about twenty minutes when Cammon tilted his head and frowned at the door. Justin’s hand automatically went to the knife on his belt; his eyes checked the placement of the sword he had laid aside during dinner. “Someone in the hall?” the Rider asked softly.
Cammon shook his head and appeared to be listening. “One of the men from the stables just came into the house,” he answered. “And is moving—upstairs. Toward the prisoner.”
Kirra felt alarm flash through her. “Is he going to kill him? Do we need to move now?”
Cammon shook his head again. “No, I don’t think—I don’t sense violence on him. I think he’s just—he’s stopped moving. I think he’s just there to guard the stairwell. To keep any of us from wandering through the hall and coming upon Lord Romar by accident.”
Kirra smiled, that wide, mischievous smile that could dazzle most men, though usually not these three. “Oh, I don’t think it’ll be an accident if we find Romar Brendyn,” she said. “I think we’ll find him because we know exactly where to look.”
IT was another three hours before Kirra went looking. She napped for a while, half from boredom and half because she didn’t know when she’d next get a chance to sleep, and she’d rolled out of bed when the hour seemed advanced enough. Donnal lay beside her and woke as soon as she stirred. Justin and Cammon, sitting before the fire, apparently hadn’t bothered to try to sleep at all.
“Anyone else awake?” she asked Cammon.
He shook his head. “Only the guard on the stairwell.”
“Then it’s time.”
She curled her fingers into claws and thought through her transformation. She would be a cat, a blotched calico, something likely to blend with the moon-spattered walls of the hallways. She felt her bones shrink and her muscles tighten; the contours of her face shifted as her whole body compacted. She had watched other shiftlings—Donnal, for one—transmogrify so swiftly, so fluidly, that she was a little jealous of their ease and fleetness. For her, it had never been an unthinking act.
But it had always been successful. “Mraurer,” she greeted Donnal, coming close enough to rub her head against his plain gown. For a moment, he seemed so big, and Justin terrifyingly huge, but then she adjusted; she was used to her body and her perspective. “Mrau.”
Donnal bent and scratched her under the chin, a gentle and incredibly gratifying sensation. “I can still come with you if you want,” he said. But she turned daintily on her soundless paws and took three bounds toward the door.
Justin opened it and she slipped out into the hall. It was most pleasant to be able to see so well in darkness, to glance into shadows and instantly classify them. There were other advantages: the sure sense of balance, the keen sense of smell, the heightened hearing. Kirra trotted through the halls, at first just enjoying the mechanics of a body built for running. She heard a mouse whimper against the baseboard and all her instincts urged her to lunge for it, chase it down the corridor for the sheer delight of motion. It took an effort of will to force herself to continue on her course.
This was an accusation often leveled at serramarra Kirra Danalustrous: She never knew when she should be deadly serious and when it was permitted to play.
The truth was, she knew the difference, but it was hard for her not to take every opportunity for spontaneous joy.
She had resigned herself to the notion that this would get her into real trouble some day.
It was ridiculously easy to navigate the halls of this darkened mansion on the rocky edge of Tilt territory. The rain had finally stopped, and a distempered moon made fitful appearances from behind bunched and massive clouds. Kirra could catch glimpses of the sky from the narrow, arched windows that lined the outer corridors she was following, hoping to come across a main stairwell. Pray to the Silver Lady that the weather held and that they could ride out of here tomorrow in something more charitable than a relentless rainstorm.
No, she would not pray to the Silver Lady, the Pale Mother. It was a comfortable habit born from years of casual swearing, but during the past six months, Kirra had come to greatly mistrust the moon goddess and her fanatical followers. She would pray to Senneth’s sun goddess instead, the Bright Mother, the Red Lady. She seemed more likely to chase away the thunder-storms, anyway.
Kirra had gone up two levels and turned into an interior corridor before she found the stairwell blocked by the guard. She kept to the shadows as she surveyed him, trying to assess his level of skill. He was seated halfway up the crooked stairway that led to what had to be the top story of the house. He had rested his head on one fist and looked quite bored, though he was wide-awake. It would be hard to slip by him completely unnoticed, at least in this present form. She could change into a spider or a butterfly and cross him at a higher altitude, b
ut that would take time and energy, and she was already impatient. What were the chances this soldier knew the identities of the visitors to the house? What were the chances he knew that a shiftling was among them?
Low, Kirra decided. Though not completely nonexistent. She would have to be prepared for the possibility that he would suspect her identity and sound the alarm. Or try to. She would have to be prepared for the possibility that she would have to stop him.
So she stepped with a queen’s haughtiness out of the shadows, making a choked meowing sound in her throat. The guard’s head instantly swung her way, and his hand went to his weapons, but then he relaxed. Kirra paused in a convenient patch of moonlight so he could get a good look at her, then minced closer as he laughed.
“Up chasing mice, are you?” he asked in a friendly voice, holding his hand out to be sniffed. Her lucky night; he was an animal lover. She could smell horse and dog and even cow on his clothes. “Now’s the time to find them. They’re all awake down in the stables from sunset to sunrise, rustling through the hay. I don’t mind them walking up to pat my face so much as I mind the fact that they’re so noisy they keep me from sleeping.”
She came close enough to scent his fingers, cleaner than one might expect from a man bedded down with horses, then butted her head against his palm. He laughed again and stroked her head. “You’re a pretty one,” he said. “Indoor cat. Not all scarred up like the toms down in the stables. The cook must feed you all her scraps. Maybe you’re not a mouser after all.”
She was in a hurry to be through this checkpoint and on to her main destination, but she didn’t want to make him suspicious. She settled onto her haunches and let him continue to pet her, to talk nonsense to her, while she offered up a satisfied purr. Something else she loved about taking feline shape—that ability to express happiness in such a distinct and pleasurable fashion. She loved the way the vibrations ran across her ribs, the way her throat carried the muted music. She loved her own sense of simple well-being.
“Well, I’ve got a few scraps you might like,” the guard said, lifting his hand so he could go digging in his pockets. “Meant to eat this later if I got hungry, but—”
This was a fine chance for her to make her exit. Kirra allowed her whole body to grow tense while she lost all interest in the man. Her eyes focused on something invisible down the hall. She was on her feet, but low to the ground in a feral crouch, inching away from the soldier’s side.
He caught the significance of her pose and glanced over his shoulder. “See something? Smell something? I bet there’s all sorts of creepies and crawlies slithering through this place. You aren’t going to want my jerky after all, are you?”
She ignored him, moving forward at an extremely slow pace, almost on her belly, attention never wavering from that spot just ahead of her. Suddenly, she flung herself forward in a pounce, then bounded into the shadows after an imagined prey. Behind her, she heard the guard laugh again.
Well, that had been simple.
She hoped they were able to spirit Romar out of here without resorting to violence. She hoped she was not going to have to watch Justin cut this man down. How could you help but like a man who talked to stray cats in the dark? But Justin would not be moved by any such considerations. Indeed, Donnal wouldn’t be either if the skirmish went that way, if Donnal was the one taking on this particular soldier. He’d be in some savagely threatening shape: a wolf, a lion, a creature that men instinctively feared and usually fell to. He would show no quarter, if it was a choice between this man’s life or his own. Or Kirra’s.
Kirra would show no mercy, either, if it came down to the lives of herself and her friends. But if it was possible to get through the mission without bloodshed, she would like that better.
She was on the top floor of the mansion now, proceeding down a low and not particularly clean corridor. It was easy to follow the tracks in the dust, made by the housekeeper or perhaps the guards as they brought food and water to the prisoner. It was easy to catch the human scent wafting toward her despite the stillness of the air. A few quick turns, a detour down a cramped hallway, and she was there.
Romar Brendyn had been locked behind a very efficient door, a grille of metal that completely filled the roughly made opening. Kirra approved its construction, which would allow guards to keep a close watch on some recalcitrant prisoner. A tricky thing to carry a tray of food into a room when you had to open an opaque wooden door. Hard to know if your captive had positioned himself there on the threshold and was ready to strike you down. A barred door was much safer—for the jailor, anyway. It left no room for surprises, for errors.
Kirra crept up to the grille and stuck her head through, looking around the room with interest.
It was even more bare than the one she was sharing with her companions. There was a mat on the floor, where a man lay sleeping. There was a fireplace grate, currently without a fire. There was a bucket that must be substituting for a chamber pot. A bowl and spoon placed near the door. A good-sized window cut into the wall, but set with thick rods in vertical stripes.
Not much else.
Kirra concentrated for a moment on the sleeper. In this shape, and under these conditions, she couldn’t tell much about coloring, but she remembered him as a man with shoulder-length hair just a few shades darker than her own gold. He was somewhere in his mid-thirties, she thought, and generously built—not as big as Tayse, but solid, a natural athlete who probably spent much of his time training with swords and horses. At the moment, he lay on his side, under a thin blanket. There was clearly no weapon he could lay his hand on anywhere in the room, but he faced the door, as if ready at any moment to respond to danger, and this was the direction from which he expected it to come. Even asleep, he did not look helpless, Kirra thought. She wondered suddenly if the guard had been posted more to keep Romar in than to keep Kirra and her friends out.
She pulled her head out from between the bars. Slowly, silently, still keeping her eyes on the prisoner, she shifted to her natural shape. Certain details fell away from her; others became clearer. Absurdly, it was the color of his hair that she noticed most right now. Dark blond, even by moonlight. She thought his face looked proud and passionate, sculpted into a frown by whatever he was dreaming. He looked very much like the sort of man a king would trust to be regent.
“Romar Brendyn,” she called in a low voice. “Romar Brendyn, wake up.”
CHAPTER 3
ROMAR Brendyn was awake and on his feet, the blanket bunched around his ankles, before Kirra had even finished speaking his name the second time. As far as she could tell, he felt not a moment’s disorientation; he seemed to know exactly where he was and where the voice was coming from. Still, it was clear he had no idea who was confronting him here in the middle of the night—his body was ready, but his face was puzzled.
They stared at each other for a moment. The moon gathered her strength enough to push the clouds aside, just for a few minutes, and came curiously peering through the square window to see if there was anything interesting inside. By its light, Kirra could see Romar Brendyn try to guess what fresh danger had presented itself and if there was any way to turn it to his advantage.
She knew she should speak up right away, identify herself, reassure him, but she allowed herself the luxury of admiring him just a moment longer. Despite being woken from sound sleep and confronted by a mystery, he did not look to be worried or at a loss. She thought he might be wondering if he could get close enough to the grille to reach through it and strangle her, and then steal any keys she might have hanging from her belt.
The thought made her laugh out loud.
His expression changed from one of calculation to one of complete bafflement. “Who are you?” he demanded.
She thrust her hand through the bars and hurried to introduce herself. “Kirra Danalustrous. I’ve come to rescue you.”
He had taken a step forward, but at that he came to a halt, astonished. “Kirra Danalustrous! What? Why woul
d—” He shook his head.
“The king got word of your abduction,” she said, trying to explain quickly because it really did seem improbable, a serramarra of Danalustrous riding about the countryside with the aim of delivering noblemen from danger. “He sent me after you with a team of friends. I think we’ll be able to free you tomorrow night.”
He came close enough to grip the bars. She had dropped her hand by this time, since he didn’t seem eager to take it. “Why not tonight?” he said. “Why not now?”
She felt a rush of admiration again. He probably didn’t remember he’d met her before and certainly couldn’t figure out why she’d been sent on this mission, but he didn’t feel like lingering here any longer than he had to. You’ve come for me? Good. Get me out.
She laughed. “We need to put a plan in place, and we don’t have time to do it tonight. You don’t seem to be in any immediate danger—and I certainly don’t think your captors will kill you while they’ve got guests in the house. But I think we can free you tomorrow and be halfway to Merrenstow by the following morning.”
