by Sharon Shinn
Bella looked terrified, but she nodded. “All right,” she whispered. “Then let’s get started.”
It went just as it had with Justin. Lyrie sat in the bed, trustfully looking up at Kirra; Cammon stood behind her, waves of magic rolling off his body. Kirra put her hands on Lyrie’s face and pictured a beloved, shaggy spaniel—small, dark-haired, sunny-tempered. This time, she felt the flat skin turn to curly fur beneath her fingers. She saw the skull melt down, the body reshape. She saw Lyrie transformed before her eyes.
Bella took a short, sharp breath and pressed her hand against her mouth. Marco did not waste time with astonishment. The instant the alteration was complete, he was kneeling on the bed beside his daughter, a bowl of shredded meat in his hand. Kirra could see how the ground green leaves of the herbs were mixed in with the main dish.
“Here,” he said, holding it to his daughter’s short, pointed nose. “Eat this. We want you to start getting well.”
CHAPTER 35
AFTER that, Kirra knew, it was going to be hard to consider any other event of the Rappengrass stopover to be anything but anticlimactic. She danced back down to her room, Cammon at her heels, evanescent with magic and success.
“You’re going to need to sleep for a while,” he warned her, and she didn’t believe him.
“I feel wonderful. I feel—really, I feel like I’m flying, and I know what it feels like to fly.”
He pushed her toward her own room. “Trust me. Lie down for a little bit.”
“Am I going to get a headache like one of Senneth’s?”
“I don’t know. But I think once the euphoria’s gone, you’re going to feel like red hell.”
He held his hand out and she took the lion charm. The instant it left his palm, she felt her own body sag; hundredweights lined every bone. She staggered back, fetching up hard against her own door. “Oh,” she said. “It was you.”
“Well, some of it was me. Some of it was your own magic. But you’d better sleep now.”
“I think you’re right,” she said. She fumbled with the door latch and he had to help her inside. Melly was there to lead her to the bed, asking questions, exhibiting real concern. Kirra let Cammon offer explanations or reassurance, she didn’t care. She tumbled to bed and was almost instantly asleep.
Twilight had fallen by the time she awoke—at least two hours later, she judged. She was famished. She sat up in bed, wondering if there was anything in her room that would pass for food. She couldn’t wait till dinner. Perhaps she had already missed dinner. She’d have to take hawk shape, she’d have to hunt, she had to eat now, she was so hungry—
“Are you awake? Cammon said you’d be starving,” came Melly’s voice and, bless that girl, she approached the bed with a tray of fruits and pastries. “This was all I could get from the kitchen, but dinner’s in an hour. You’ve got time to dress and go down.”
Kirra was cramming food in her mouth in a most unladylike fashion. “Yes. Yes, I certainly do want dinner. Let me wear—I don’t care—anything that fits.”
“Did you change your wardrobe when you changed yourself ?” Melly asked, sounding curious rather than accusatory. “Because if you didn’t—”
Kirra laughed. “Oh, a dress is a simple thing to convert,” she said merrily. “Just pull something out and throw it on my back. I’ll make it fit.”
Fifty minutes later, her hunger only partly appeased, she headed downstairs, dressed in angelic blue and feeling a resurgence of well-being. Ariane had mentioned that tonight’s dinner would be an informal buffet. Guests would mingle and talk and pause to eat and mingle some more. It sounded most charming. Especially the eating part.
Kirra had forgotten, while she was practicing miracles, that she had changed into a shape that most people here were not expecting. So when she stepped into the dining room, set up with buffet counters and a random arrangement of tables, she was almost instantly taken by surprise.
“Kirra! What are you doing here?” someone squealed, and she found herself enduring Mayva Nocklyn’s breathless embrace. “You look wonderful! Casserah didn’t say you were coming.”
Oh—yes—Casserah. Time to make explanations. Edging over to the food trays, Kirra lightly tossed off her version of the truth. Casserah got homesick and said she wanted to return to Danan Hall. My father sent me to take her place. Oh, yes, Casserah’s already gone. We passed each other on the road. . . . Mayva, it turned out, was not the only one who wanted to hear the story. Darryn and Seth Stowfer and Eloise Kianlever and all the nobles she’d had a single conversation with over the past few weeks each approached her with the same astonishment and set of questions. Everyone seemed happy to see her, though, and that was gratifying.
“A very elegant girl, Casserah, but not really warm,” Eloise pronounced. “She frightens me a little, to tell you the truth. No one that young should be so self-possessed.”
And the real Casserah would intimidate you even more than I did, Kirra thought. “She was born that way,” Kirra said. “But tell me, how are you doing? It’s been ages since we’ve talked.”
Romar was not in the room when she first walked in—she had searched for him as soon as she had filled her plate—but after the guests had been gathered for an hour or so, she saw him stride through the doorway. He scanned the crowd, seeming to look for someone he didn’t see, then made his way to Amalie’s side. Kirra watched for a moment, trying to curb her smile, then ambled over, a plate of cake in her hand.
“Maybe you should ask Senneth,” Amalie was saying. “I don’t like to think that you—oh, there’s Kirra. I haven’t seen you all evening.”
Romar turned so fast that he actually spilled a little of his wine. The expression on his face was comical—surprise, delight, worry, and just a hint of desire—but he wiped it off before Amalie could glance back over at him.
“You know Kirra Danalustrous, don’t you? Her sister was called home, and Kirra has come to take her place.”
“Yes, indeed, Kirra and I shared a very adventurous journey back from Tilt this spring,” Romar said, putting his glass down. He dried his fingers on a tablecloth, laughed, and held out his hand. “Good to see you again, serra. I hope you’ve been well.”
“I am doing splendidly,” she replied, giving him a deep curtsey. “I am delighted to be at Rappen Manor! I felt very glum to be left behind while Casserah was having all the fun. I’m glad she went home.”
“Oh, but I’ll miss her,” Amalie said.
“Nonsense,” Kirra said. “I’m sure you’ll like me much better.”
Her high spirits amused Romar, she could tell, particularly after her edginess the night before. “I assume you’ll be staying for the ball tomorrow night?” he asked.
“Absolutely! I’ve missed all the other balls. I’ll certainly be here for this one.”
“Come back with us to Ghosenhall afterward,” Amalie invited. “My father is holding a dinner party for some foreign ambassadors. I know he’d like to have you there.”
Kirra hadn’t given much thought to where she would go after Rappengrass, unofficially the last stop on the summer circuit. “Perhaps I will,” she said. “It sounds most intriguing. Ambassadors from where?”
“Arberharst and Karyndein, which is even farther west than Sovenfeld. I think the people will be quite exotic.”
“I’ll be there,” Romar said. “If that’s any inducement.”
Kirra laughed. She had to put some effort into it not to sound giddy. “It most certainly is.”
“Good,” Amalie said. “I’ll write my father to expect you.”
Eloise Kianlever claimed Amalie’s attention then. Kirra and Romar allowed themselves to step a few paces away to have what passed for a private conversation under such circumstances.
“Why are you really here?” Romar asked in a low voice. “I’m elated to see you, of course, but I can’t think of a reason for the change.”
“Ariane’s granddaughter is very sick and she was hoping I could heal her. It
seemed best to attempt such a maneuver when I could appear as myself. Anyone who knows Casserah would believe she is entirely capable of leaving someone’s house simply because she’s bored with the whole social round. Time for Kirra to make an appearance.”
“And could you? Heal the little girl?”
She laughed again. By the Wild Mother’s woolly head, she felt so good. “Yes. I believe I did. We won’t know for a few days.”
“And will you really come to Ghosenhall for the dinner?”
“Of course. Any reason I shouldn’t?”
He shook his head. “I was afraid to hope you would come. Another few days to spend with you—what a gift from the gods that would be.”
“Well, of course, I would be coming to see the ambassadors , not you, precisely.”
He shook his head again, smiling now. “Then we shall have to make do with what time we have left while we are together here. My room is on the second floor, overlooking the front drive. Will you come to me tonight?”
“Any reason I shouldn’t?” she repeated, whispering now.
“No,” he replied, his voice very low. “And every reason you should.”
BUT it was strange that night, different. She was happy when she first arrived, wandering in through his open window like a painted moth, all dusty colors and love of light. As soon as she was shaped like a woman again, he kissed her hungrily, embracing her so tightly that her ribs protested. She had a sudden, sharp memory of Donnal’s gentle kiss good-bye, and it made her turn vague and heavy in Romar’s arms, despite his passion.
He did not seem to notice. “It has been so long since I have held you,” he said with a groan when she pulled free and took a deep breath.
“Only one night.”
He kissed her again, even harder. “One night, and I could hardly bear that. How will I stand all the nights in between? When you’re gone and I’m back in Merrenstow?”
Back in Merrenstow with your wife. She didn’t say it, but the thought cast another cloud over her joy. The world seemed suddenly full of inconstant people. “You must find other women to love instead,” she said, her voice light, making a joke of it.
He wasn’t amused. “That’s not funny.”
She pulled back even farther, though his arms remained loosely linked around her waist. She feigned a smile. “You could lie with a redhead one night,” she said, casting her hair back, curly and flame-colored. “Bed a blonde the next.” Now her hair was a silken river of yellow, running down her back and spilling across his arms. “Then a dark-haired girl—”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Stop it. Stop that. I don’t want other women. I want Kirra.”
She twisted free and moved away. “Kirra will do for now,” she said. “But when you can’t have Kirra—”
He followed, caught her arm. “I will wait till I can have Kirra again.”
“I won’t hold it against you,” she said. “If you take another lover while I am away. Just tell me what she looks like, so I will know what shape to assume when I creep to your bed one night in her place—”
Now he jerked her into his arms again, covering her face with kisses. His own face was riven with remorse; she thought she caught a glitter of tears in his eyes. “No one will take your place, no one,” he whispered in her ear. “Why would you talk that way? Why would you say such things?”
She could have pulled herself free or changed into some smaller shape and melted out of his arms, but she didn’t want to. She wanted him to hold her, reassure her, pledge his love. She wanted him to love her so much he was worth giving up everyone else. “Because I am so afraid,” she whispered back. “Because I love you so much and I cannot have you. Because sometimes it is easier to believe I mean very little to you, so that I can pretend you mean very little to me.”
His hands were buried in her hair, his thumbs tangling in the thick curls. His own hair was unbound and she could see its darker gold mingling with hers, falling forward to form a sort of curtain over their faces. “Then I cannot make it easier for you,” he said. “For you mean everything in the world to me, and I cannot pretend otherwise.”
He kissed her then, not allowing her to respond. She had no reply to make, anyway, nothing that expressed her feelings any better than a kiss. They fell to the bed, still embraced, still desperate, and made love as if they might never see each other again.
THE day of the ball passed, as all such days did, with a coiled laziness that would unfold to a near frenzy as the hour of the event drew near. Kirra slept late, dressed casually, and made a quick trip up to the third story of the Manor. Lyrie was curled in a tight black ball in the middle of the bed, Bella sleeping beside her with one hand tucked into the fur on the back of the spaniel’s neck.
Marco greeted her with a smile. “The medicine seems to be working already,” he said. “She passed a very restful night, and this morning she—well, she was playing like a puppy. It’s very strange. She’s an animal, a dog, and yet I can tell it’s Lyrie. The way she watches me, the way she comes over to sit beside me—this whole experience should be so odd, and yet it doesn’t feel odd, because I can tell it’s her.”
“But she’s better, you said? I’m so pleased!”
“I can’t even put into words how I feel,” he replied. “Or even guess how to thank you.”
“Thank me later,” she said. “When she’s well.”
Leaving the sickroom, Kirra spent a good half hour tracking down her friends, who were nowhere inside the house. She eventually found most of them—Senneth, Amalie, Valri, and Cammon—down in the gardens. They were sitting on a blanket under a huge tree, sipping lemonade, and watching other guests stroll past. Justin stood, very straight and very fierce-looking, a few paces behind them.
Kirra plopped down and said, “Doesn’t anyone ever ask who this young man is who follows the princess around everywhere? He’s certainly not a noble, and he’s certainly not a guard. Don’t they wonder what his function is? Can I have some lemonade?”
Senneth passed her a glass. “He’s her gigolo,” she said.
Cammon scrambled to his knees, managed a shaky head-stand, and tumbled back onto the blanket. “I’m the royal fool,” he said.
“He’s my friend,” Amalie said.
Valri gave her a stern look. “Princesses don’t have chance friends drawn from the lower classes.”
Cammon looked hurt but resolute. “Should I go, then? I will.”
Now the young queen turned her impossible green eyes on him. “No. Of course not. We rely on you to help keep Amalie safe. We just must be prepared to answer questions about you. Though none have come up so far.”
Amalie looked mutinous. “He’s my friend,” she repeated. “Just as Senneth is. And Kirra. And Justin. What’s the point of being a princess if you can’t pick your friends?”
A shadow moved over them and resolved into a man as Romar dropped to the blanket beside his niece. “As far as I can tell, there are no other advantages to being royalty,” he agreed. “So don’t let them make you give up the ones you love. Hello, sweet.” And he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
“Well, I won’t,” Amalie said.
Kirra carefully rearranged her skirts and didn’t look at him. Romar wasn’t royalty, but perhaps the comment had been aimed at her as well. I won’t give up the ones I love, either. “So is everyone feeling rested and beautiful for the ball tonight?” she asked.
“Not rested, not beautiful, but relieved,” Valri answered in her dark voice. “Finally. The last event, and then we can go home.”
“My opinion exactly,” Senneth said. “I don’t care if I never attend another dinner or another dance as long as I live.”
“But you’re coming to the dinner party back in Ghosenhall, aren’t you?” Amalie asked a shade anxiously. “You said you would.”
Senneth smiled at her. “Yes, of course. But after that, I’m disappearing for a few weeks. No matter what favor your father asks of me. You won’t
need me once you’re safe at the palace.”
Kirra thought it was highly unlikely Baryn would allow Senneth to slip away like that now that she had proved so useful, but she didn’t say so. Her attention was caught by a dark figure pacing deliberately up the flagged walkway of the garden. Tayse, dressed all in black, looking even more dangerous than Justin. Must be time for the Riders to change shifts. “ ‘Disappearing for a few weeks,’ ” she repeated thoughtfully. “Where will you be going? Will you be traveling alone? Perhaps you should bring someone with you for company.”
Senneth smiled. “Perhaps I will.”
“So, when do we leave?” Valri asked. “Tomorrow morning? I can be packed tonight by midnight.”
