by Sharon Shinn
She couldn’t think. She couldn’t tell him to stop. She felt her body turn liquid and her blood rejoice. It was as if she was changing into someone new, a wholly unfamiliar shape, a woman who had never existed until he kissed her. It was a transformation more complete than any she had ever wrought on herself, and she was not sure she would ever know how to turn back into the person she had been.
When he finally let her go, she gulped and fought for air. She turned away from him, not wanting him to see her face. She staggered and he caught her arm again, but she jerked her hand away and he allowed her to go free.
“You can’t blame me for falling in love with you,” he said. “If not for you, I wouldn’t even be alive.”
“I think maybe I’ll let you go next time,” she said, still turned away, still trying to recover her breathing.
He laughed softly. “There will be no more next time,” he said. “Nothing will make me risk myself again. I could not bear the thought of dying and thereby losing you.”
Now she did look at him, making herself stand straight, acting like a reasonable woman. She tried, she tried to remember his wife, the kind and devoted paragon. She could not bring the image into focus. She said, “You don’t have me. So you can’t lose me.”
“I want to have you,” he said.
“We are nothing but trouble for each other.”
“I don’t care,” he said. “I look at you and I see heartache, and I don’t care. I think of you, and I know loving you will hurt everyone else I love, and I don’t care. You may end up hating me, and I may end up mourning you the rest of my life, and I don’t care. I want you too much. I want this moment, this night, anything you can give me. I love you. And all your shifting and all your laughing and all your protesting will not change that.”
She shook her head, not to contradict him, but to signify that she did not understand. “I am so restless,” she said. “I cannot stay in any one place for more than a few weeks, a few days. My friends are people like Senneth, who is as fidgety as I am, and Cammon, who is as strange. You have asked me why I have not married and that is one reason—there is no one I can bear to be with, settled cozily in one house, for all my days. So I have been used to thinking of myself as an inconstant and uncommitted woman.” She straightened a little, turned herself to face him full on. “But I know that I would only be able to have you in bits and pieces, during snatched moments in dark corners, a day here, a day there. And it is not enough for me. I would want to be with you during all those other days, too, for months at a time, for years. Don’t you think that’s ironic? That I would finally fall in love with a man I would always have to be leaving, and he is the one who makes me want to stay?”
“I will settle for the stolen hours, if they are all I can have,” he said. “I will settle for your smile across the room, your hand on my shoulder when I ask you to dance. I will take whatever you are able to spare me. There is nothing I can promise you, I know that—nothing I can give you, no offer I can make—except my love. Whenever you want it, for as long as you will have it. Even if I never see you again, I will love you the rest of my life.”
“I cannot bear that thought,” she said. “Not ever seeing you again. But there is so much about this I cannot endure.”
He had released her earlier, but now he lifted his hands again, rested them on her shoulders. “Can you bear for me to kiss you again?” he asked. “For I feel I must.”
She lifted her face. “I could not bear it if you did not.”
More gently this time, he took her in his arms, more gently laid his mouth against hers. She was aware of every inch of her skin, alive with sensation, aware of every place that his body met hers. I have to have him, she thought, but it was not so clear as that; there were no words in her head. Merely, she pressed against him more closely, lifted her arms to wrap them around his shoulders. Something bubbled through her, and she thought it might be happiness. Or recklessness or mischief or desire. Or all of them, wrapped in a swirl of magic.
For she was a shiftling, and she could make any ordinary object of the world change shape. Her dress she turned into a scrap of cotton and lace, letting it fall to the ground. Romar actually gasped as he felt her turn nude in his arms. His hands roved down her back, came up to cup the curve of her shoulders, but he still held her against him, more tightly now, as if to shield her from view.
“Can you do that for me?” he whispered in her ear.
She was laughing now. So it had been happiness after all. And a little mischief. And certainly desire. “I can,” she said. And then his clothes were gone, even his boots, just a few ribbons of silk and leather lost in the tall grass.
They were both naked, clinging together, kissing each other with a mad fervor under the thin, chilly moon and the startled constellations. They were close enough to the great house to hear occasional bursts of music, too far—or so Kirra hoped—for anyone out for an evening stroll to see them. Not that she cared. She cared about nothing but the feel of this man’s hands on her body, his skin against her skin. She kissed him with a sort of desperation, trying to get closer.
“Can you conjure up a blanket?” Romar whispered against her mouth, and again she laughed. She pulled him down with her to the grass, where her spread fingers manufactured a soft quilt from so many leaves of clover, and they lay together, body to body, heart against heart. The music from the house swelled and receded; the summer night lay against them like an exhalation of breath. They made love by starlight and swore promises by moonlight. Kirra thought she might never be so happy again.
THE soiree was long over by the time they returned to the house, moving separately and in stealth. In fact, most of the lower story of the mansion was in darkness, light trickling out only from the kitchen windows and the servants’ quarters.
“Do you think anyone missed us?” Romar asked.
“My friends might have noticed my absence, but they wouldn’t have been alarmed,” Kirra said.
“Why? Do you often slip away?”
She grinned. “It’s hard to keep track of any mystic,” she admitted. “All of us like to be alone from time to time. But they wouldn’t be alarmed because they know I can take care of myself.” And because Cammon would know if I was in trouble, she thought, but she didn’t add that. Best not to really dwell on what other emotions Cammon was able to pick up on when he tried. “What if someone was looking for you? Amalie, for instance? Or anyone else?”
“They will have to wait till morning to be reassured, I suppose. But Amalie would check with Colton before she became truly worried, and he could let her know I was safe.”
“Still, I think it is best that no one sees us returning together at this hour after a long unexplained absence,” she said. “You go in by the way we left. I’ll find another route.”
“No,” he said at once. “You go in the back door. I don’t want you circling the house at night, trying for other entrances. I’ll do that.”
She laughed and kissed him quickly on the mouth. She wondered how long such unnecessary protectiveness would seem charming. Not long, she thought. “I’ll use the same door,” she said, “but I’ll take a different shape. No one will notice me.”
He took a breath and she thought he was going to say something like I hate to think we must spend our lives lying and pretending. He might have thought it, but he didn’t say it aloud. “Then I will see you in the morning?”
“Perhaps not till the evening. Perhaps not until the ball.”
“You will dance with me, I hope.”
She couldn’t help laughing. Dancing would seem very tame after tonight. “My lord, I will be happy to.”
“Serra, I shall live for the moment.”
She kissed him again, then allowed herself to melt into a small familiar shape. Kitchen cat, calico-colored. Without a glance back at him, she trotted across the last margin of the lawn, wound her way through the garden, and nudged open the back door. She could hear voices down the hall as women wor
ked in the kitchen, scrubbing the last pans and complaining about someone who hadn’t done her fair share of chores. Kirra was quickly through the ballroom and down the corridors leading to the main stair. Bounding up the steps, she listened for sounds of activity down the halls. Not many people seemed to be astir; it must be later than she had thought.
On the landing between the second and third stories, she paused and listened again. No footfalls; no voices; no one nearby. Smoothly and soundlessly she made her transformation back into Casserah, having to think about it a moment before she remembered exactly what she’d been wearing and how her hair had been styled. Great gods, but she was tired. She leaned against the cool stone wall for a moment, thinking about all the events this day had held, from the meeting with Halchon Gisseltess to the abandoned lovemaking on the back lawns. In between, more transformations than she could immediately remember. No wonder she was tired. No wonder she suddenly felt lost and exhausted and utterly alone.
She climbed the last flight of steps and turned into her own hallway. The Rider named Coeval was stationed outside Amalie’s door and gave her a curt nod when she put her hand on the doorknob. Her room was partially lit by a branch of candles near the bed. The alcove where Melly lay was entirely in shadow, but Kirra heard the maid stir as she shut the door.
“Don’t get up,” Kirra called in a low voice. “I’ll put myself to bed.”
Melly must have been even more tired than Kirra, for she muttered something indistinguishable and subsided onto her pillow. Kirra quickly undressed, cleaned herself thoroughly with water from the pitcher and basin, and donned one of the prim cotton nightdresses that Casserah favored.
Now the exhaustion was compounded by a sense of loneliness and unutterable loss. Wild Mother watch me, will I always feel this sad every time I love him and have to walk away? she wondered. I will not be able to withstand this many times.
She stood by the bed and stared down at the cool white sheets, thinking that if she lay down, she would not be able to close her eyes. Her mind would give her back all the pictures of the day, her body would curl up with desolation and want. She considered crossing to the alcove and shaking Melly awake, forcing the maid to talk to her till she herself was too tired to summon another syllable.
Instead, she put on a robe, took a single taper from the candelabra, and headed for the door. “If you’re awake, go back to sleep. I don’t know when I’ll return.”
She stepped into the hallway, nodded at Coeval again, and walked the ten paces to the next door down. Not even bothering to knock, she pushed the door open and went in.
Cammon, Hammond and two soldiers wearing the black and gold of Ghosenhall were sitting around a table, playing a card game. Like her own room, this one was half in shadow. She could see that someone was sleeping in the big canopy bed, but she couldn’t tell who. All the men had looked up when she entered, then returned their attention to the game. All except Cammon, who laid his cards aside and came over to her.
“Are you all right?” he asked in a low voice. His speckled hazel eyes were fixed on her face, but she noticed that he did not look unduly worried.
“I’m not sure,” she answered just as quietly. “I wanted to talk to Tayse or Senneth, but I guess neither one is here.”
“Senneth’s with Amalie. If it’s urgent—”
“No. Where’s Tayse?”
Cammon’s sweet smile appeared. “Out walking around. Checking to make sure everything is secure. He’ll be back in an hour or so.”
Of course. How perfect. Kirra had thought she’d had a secret tryst with her forbidden lover, and Tayse had probably spotted them the moment they first shed their clothes. She wouldn’t think about that. “There was an incident,” she said. “The regent met with some of the lesser lords, and a couple of them wanted to harm him. But Colton was there, and everything ended well, but it was—unsettling. I just wanted Tayse to know.”
“Do you think it had anything to do with Halchon Gisseltess being here?”
She shrugged and laughed. “I don’t know anything anymore!” she replied. “It’s all so crazy! Every time we turn around someone else is trying to kill somebody. It’s worse than the trip we took a few months ago.”
Cammon grinned. “Halchon Gisseltess didn’t try to kill anyone tonight,” he said. “Unless I missed something.”
“And how did Tayse know to come running into the ballroom this evening?” she demanded. “Did you tell him something was wrong?” Cammon nodded. “But how did you know? Could you hear us in your head—shouting or something? Me or Senneth?”
“Both of you,” Cammon replied. “From Senneth all I got was one quick shriek. Then nothing. That would have been enough—I was already running for Tayse. But from you I got this continual sort of low growl. Like Donnal when he’s a dog and he’s mad about something. I knew you were afraid, but I knew you weren’t in any immediate danger.”
“Tayse told Halchon Gisseltess he would kill him if Halchon ever touched Senneth again.”
“I think he will.” Kirra just looked at him, and Cammon continued, “Don’t you think so? Eventually? Tayse will kill him.”
Kirra felt a little shiver go down her back. “No one, not even a King’s Rider, can just murder a man because he wants to. And he certainly can’t murder a marlord.”
Cammon shrugged. “Well, I can’t see the future. But that’s what I think.”
Kirra leaned against the door and closed her eyes. For a moment, talking to Cammon, she had forgotten her weariness, but now it all came rushing back. “I wish this was all over already,” she whispered. “This war, this rebellion, whatever it’s going to be. It’s so tense. I’m so tired. And there’s no end to it.”
“You need to go to sleep,” Cammon said, pulling her to him in a brotherly hug. “Go back to your room and lie down.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to. I’m—Donnal’s guarding the princess and I’m not used to—I just didn’t feel like being alone. I’d rather stay here awhile and talk to you. Maybe I’ll play cards. Are you gambling for money?”
Now his grip changed and he was urging her forward, toward the shadowed bed and its unidentified occupant. “Then lie down in here for a while. I bet you’ll fall asleep.”
She resisted a little, but eventually allowed him to push her across the room. “Who’s already sleeping—oh, no, that’s Justin. He won’t want me in the bed with him. Maybe I can just curl up on the floor.”
“He won’t mind. He’s already asleep. He won’t even notice.”
“Of course he will.”
“No, really, he’s a dullard. Come on, lie down.”
She was too tired to turn around and walk out the door. Carefully, she settled onto the bed, hoping to disturb Justin as little as possible, and smiled up at Cammon as he arranged the covers over her. “Goodnight then. Thank you.”
“Go to sleep,” he said, and put his hand over her eyes.
When she opened her eyes again, it was morning.
CHAPTER 28
IT was a moment before Kirra realized where she was, even who she was, and she drowsed on the bed a few minutes, lazily assessing her situation. Sunlight coming in through an unfamiliar window, so it was daylight at some house she was visiting. Her pillow spread with dark hair, so she was not here as herself. That’s right, she was Casserah. A warm body curled against her back, so Donnal must be—
No, Donnal was guarding the princess and she was in love with Romar Brendyn and last night she had sought refuge with the Riders and Cammon had urged her to lie down and share a bed with—
She jerked awake so violently that the body behind her startled instantly upright, and she knew before she even turned over that Justin’s first action would be to grab a dagger. She was close enough to feel his muscles relax from their corded readiness as soon as he realized there was no danger. She shifted a little so her back was still to him but she could see him over her shoulder.
He was sitting up, he was shirtless, and
he indeed had a knife in one hand. The expression on his face was quizzical as he gazed down at her. “Good morning,” she said, her voice a touch malicious. “I hope this isn’t an unpleasant surprise.”
He laughed. “I knew you were here.”
“You did not. You were asleep when I lay down beside you.”
He gave her a look that said she was unutterably stupid if she thought he would ever sleep through an event like that. “So what happened?” he asked. “Last night?”
So many ways to answer that question! “Another incident involving some lords of the Thirteenth House. I came to tell Tayse, but he wasn’t here.”
She thought he would say, “So why did you stay?” but he didn’t. She realized he really wasn’t surprised to find her beside him in the bed. Not just because he probably had woken up when she joined him, but because it didn’t seem strange to him that Kirra would have sought out the other Rider in the middle of the night. Whether her news was great or small. Justin himself turned to Tayse at every juncture; he expected everyone else to do the same.
