by Sharon Shinn
She could drain that poison away. She could leave him healed of Kirra.
He kissed her again, harder, more desperately. “I wish I could come to you—tonight,” he muttered between kisses. “Do you sleep alone? I could—come to you. I could tell her—the king sent for me. I cannot—see you ride away tomorrow—and know I did not have—another chance to be with you.”
“Not tonight,” she gasped back, her fingers tightening in his hair, because she did not want to do this; she did not want to work the magic. Just one more night with him. Was that too much to ask? Wild Mother, watch over me, she thought. “There is no time.”
“Then when? When?” He kissed her again. “I must see you—”
“Send word to Danalustrous,” she whispered, and flattened her palms against his head. She held her mouth to his in an intemperate kiss while magic streamed from her body into his.
It would not take effect immediately, she knew. He would recover over a period of time, as a man might recover from a fever, weak at first, stronger as the days unfolded. There would be moments when he was dizzy, not sure why, catching at a bedpost or doorframe to keep his balance. But he would grow stronger. He would forget he had ever been unwell. His life would resume its former rhythms, untroubled by memories of an old fever.
“I cannot live without you,” he murmured against her mouth.
“I know,” she said. “I know I will die without you.”
THEY left the garden hand in hand till they got close enough to the palace to be seen. Fresh rain was just beginning to fall.
“Your skirts,” Romar said. “They’re all wet. And a little muddy.”
Kirra laughed. “I can dry them with one pass of my hand. You go in first. You are more likely to have been missed.”
He paused, one hand on the door, and looked back at her. “I will see you again soon,” he promised, and disappeared inside.
Disappeared from her life.
She stood there as long as she dared, letting the rain patter on her head, make tear-sized stains on the red of her gown. She was close enough to the salon to hear the low rumble of conversation, and she wondered if anyone was looking for her. Senneth, no doubt, who would immediately realize that Romar was missing as well. Who else would notice? Who else would wonder and worry?
She stepped inside, brushed all traces of rain from her clothing, paused at a small mirror in the hallway to check any damage to her hair. Not as badly mussed as Romar’s, though he had remembered to retie his ribbon before returning to the palace. She patted a few curls in place, pressed her fingers to her lips, which looked puffy and much-kissed. A little magic, so. A very demure and composed serramarra stared back at her.
She could do this.
She slipped back inside the salon and accepted a glass of water from a passing footman. Within minutes she had eased herself into a small group of laughing young women, all of whom were speculating about what it might be like to be married off to a Karyndein ambassador.
“That dark-haired one, he was very short, but—did you notice his hands? I thought I would faint when he touched me.”
“I hear the women in Karyndein are treated like goddesses. The wealthy class is very wealthy.”
“I wouldn’t like to be so far from home, though.”
She spotted Senneth across the room, talking to Seth Stowfer but watching Kirra. Kirra summoned a small smile and a little shrug. She glanced at the large, ornate clock hanging on the wall and surreptitiously held up a single finger. One hour to go. Senneth smiled and returned her attention to her own conversation.
So that final hour went, Kirra slipping from group to group, speaking to everyone she thought Baryn would want her to acknowledge. She was never unaware of Romar, standing near the center of the room beside Baryn and Valri, holding his own series of earnest conversations. Every time she glanced at him, he was watching her, even while he appeared to be discussing some complicated commercial agreement with the foreign ambassadors. Every time she moved to another part of the room she would find he had repositioned himself so that she was still within his line of sight.
I cannot stand this anymore, she thought suddenly, as the hour ticked past two and still few of the guests had left the room. She could hear the ominous clash and roll of thunder outside and knew that the promised storm had stampeded in. The air wafting in from the half-open windows was cool and inviting; the scent of rain was very strong.
She had to get outside. She had to go somewhere she could breathe.
Senneth wasn’t looking at her, so Kirra could drift across the room, aimless and unnoticed, smiling insincerely at anyone who caught her eye. At the doorway she paused, and took one last look at the handsome crowd, all bright dresses and sober jackets, excited laughter and soft, scheming whispers. Hard to guess when she would be back at Ghosenhall again.
Romar was watching her, of course, his body shifted slightly from his last stance so he could track her progress. She put a hand to her cheek as if to feel for heat, then pressed her palm to her heart as if to check that it was still beating.
I love you, I will love you always.
He nodded, and she slipped out the door.
Down the hallway, down another hallway, out the great front entrance watched by a host of guards.
“Raining out there, serra,” one of them cautioned her, and she nodded.
“I know. I like the rain.”
She fled down the massive steps, straight into a downpour, soaked to the skin within a few paces. She could not see for the raindrops, for the tears, so she moved blindly over the slick grass, into the sheets of falling water. Her first thought was to make for the gate, to flee the palace drenched and on foot, but the rain was falling so hard she could not even be sure she was headed in the right direction. Uncertain, despairing, she made a quarter turn, took a few steps—turned again and started off on another route. The palace was somewhere behind her, but now she was so disoriented she did not know which direction she was facing, if she was headed for the barracks or the stables or the back lawns.
It didn’t matter. She didn’t care. She stumbled forward as far as her feet could take her, but it wasn’t far. Something tripped her and she fell to the muddy ground, collapsing in a red puff of soggy skirts. She was sobbing. She could not push herself back to her feet. Her body shook with the force of her weeping; her ribs had tightened so brutally over her heart that she could not draw breath. On her knees already, she bent double so her head was almost to the ground, and let the rain batter her with unrelenting misery.
She wanted to change herself to some small armored creature that would not feel the rain and would not hate the mud and would not remember what it meant to love or cry. She wanted to change herself to stone, or to dirt, or to rain itself. She wanted to obliterate herself, disintegrate here, leave behind nothing, not even pain.
She did not have the strength. She could not move, she could not alter. She merely lay in the remorseless storm and wept.
CHAPTER 41
AS soon as Kirra realized she was awake, she squeezed her eyes shut tight. She felt rested and serene, but a small anxious part of her knew she should be in the silver pit of hell. If she didn’t open her eyes, if she didn’t even think, she might not remember why.
It was daylight, that she could tell by the quality of light playing across her closed lids. Daylight, and she had slept for some hours, because her body felt restored and relaxed. Soft bed under her, Donnal’s warm body beside her—what could be so terrible that she had to work to try to forget it?
She moved, and the shape next to her adjusted. Heat streamed in steady waves from Donnal’s side of the bed. He must have taken the form of a bear or something equally large and full of energy. What Melly would think when she saw a bear in Kirra’s bed—
But if Melly were likely to see them, Donnal would never be so careless as to—
But Donnal—
But Donnal was gone because Kirra had fallen in love with Romar Brendyn. And las
t night Kirra had disenchanted Romar, laying her own hands on his head to—
Her whole body spasmed with pain and she sat up, gulping for air, her hands at her throat as if to pry off someone’s choking fingers. The shape next to her stirred and sat up. Not Donnal, of course. Senneth, her pale hair in disarray, her kind face creased with worry, her whole body radiating that generous and comforting heat.
How had either of them gotten to this room? All Kirra remembered was rain and mud and darkness. And tears so bitter they had probably permanently salted the ground where they had fallen.
“What happened?” Kirra said faintly. She moved her hands to investigate her face, her hair. Her eyes were sticky from last night’s weeping. There were twigs in her matted curls.
Senneth watched her closely, gray eyes giving nothing away. “What part don’t you remember?” she asked cautiously.
“I remember leaving the ballroom and wandering out in the storm,” Kirra said. “But I don’t know how I got from outside into this room. With you.”
“Cammon knew something was wrong. He took Tayse out in the storm to find you. Tayse carried you inside and Cammon came to get me. You were crying.”
Kirra made a small, helpless gesture at that. Of course I was crying. “I feel—I don’t feel as terrible as I think I should. How could I even fall asleep after that? Senneth, I—oh, I can’t even talk about it—”
“You broke it off with Romar.”
“Worse than that. I—I made him forget me.”
Senneth looked at her, eyebrows raised. “Forget you? Serramarra Kirra Danalustrous?”
“Forget his love for me,” Kirra said, her voice very subdued. “Forget the emotions I inspired. He’ll recognize my face, maybe even remember a conversation or two, but not how he felt about me. Not—some of the things we shared. I went into his head. I found his love for me and cured it like a disease.”
Now Senneth’s face showed deep compassion, but all she said was, “That would explain the despair.”
Kirra shook her head. “So how could I—I can’t believe I could even stop crying.”
“Well,” Senneth said. “You’re not the only one who’s a mystic.”
She watched, waiting for Kirra to figure it out. Kirra stared back at her, trying to reconstruct the rest of the night. Vaguely she remembered hands and voices in the dark. Vaguely she recalled the ease with which Tayse had lifted her off the ground, remembered sobbing into his wet shirt. She had been so cold, so wet, so miserable, so certain that no comfort could exist in the entire world.
And then Senneth’s hand on her arm, the heat from Senneth’s body chasing away the chill and some of the sense of loneliness. But Senneth did not have the power to soothe the frantic mind, discipline uncontrollable emotions. There had been another hand clasping hers, another voice whispering hope and reassurance.
“Cammon,” Kirra said flatly.
Senneth nodded.
Kirra felt a prickle of unease or wonder dance down her spine. “What did he do?”
“He said he—made it bearable. He said he gave you peace.”
Kirra stared at Senneth a little fearfully. “He can do that?”
A small smile from Senneth. “Apparently so. I’m beginning to think there’s not a lot our Cammon can’t do.”
Kirra passed a hand over her eyes. The longer she sat here in bed, the more she became aware of aches and stresses on her body. Not good for anyone to lie in the rain weeping, even if the period of duress was short. She must look as bad as she felt, hair wild and skin wan and bruised. “I have to leave,” she said.
“Leave the room? I can go if you want to be alone.”
“Leave Ghosenhall. I have to go home. I have to go now.”
Senneth was silent for a moment. “I wish I knew what to say to make everything better. I can’t come up with any words. I’m so sorry. I will do whatever you want. I’ll come with you to Danalustrous if you like.”
Kirra dropped her hand, moved to a tiny smile. “No. You should stay in Ghosenhall and spend time with your much more accessible lover, whom you scarcely got a chance to see the whole time we were on the road.”
Senneth smiled back. “Tayse would come with us, of course. He does not permit us to be separated.”
“Ah, now that is the sort of thing I need to hear to heal my heart,” Kirra said. “That makes me believe love is possible. For some people. Some of the time.”
“I think we should come with you.”
Kirra shook her head. “No. I want—I can’t tell you how much I need to be by myself. I’ll take hawk shape and fly home. I won’t even bring Melly with me. It will make her angry to be left behind, but I cannot deal with her concern. I need to be—I need to remember the secrets and magics that make me familiar to myself.”
“And what will you do in Danalustrous?”
Kirra rearranged a pillow behind her back and leaned against the headboard. “There’s a place. A small island off the coast,” she said slowly. “It’s become a sort of isolated colony for people with red-horse fever. They go there to die and to make sure they infect no one else. My aunt and my—my uncle told me about it a couple of months ago. I think I’ll go there. I think I’ll take what I learned from Lyrie Rappengrass and heal as many of those people as I can.”
“You realize that word will spread quickly that you have mastered the art of changing someone other than yourself.”
“You think I shouldn’t go?”
“No, I think you should. How can you not bestow the gift of life when you hold it in your hands? And maybe you will heal yourself as you heal those others.”
“Maybe. It seems too much to hope for.”
“We’ll come with you, if you like,” Senneth said again.
Kirra actually laughed. “No! This is a shiftling’s journey. But I thank you for the offer.”
“Will you at least stay another day so I can be sure you’re all right?”
Kirra shook her head. “No. I’ll eat something, and then I’ll go.” She gave Senneth a direct look. “So let me say good-bye now.”
“You can’t go without seeing the others.”
Kirra sighed. “I know. I promised Cammon I’d find him before I left.”
“And Justin.”
Kirra sighed with more theatricality. “And Justin. But you can take my farewell to Tayse, can’t you?”
“I can.” Senneth leaned over and gave her a warm hug. “Good-bye. May the Bright Lady light your journey. May the Wild Mother guard your back. And may whatever god watches over Cammon heal your spirit.”
Kirra laughed and held on tightly, just for a moment, just to soak up some of Senneth’s incredible heat. It seemed to suffuse her whole body with light and gladness, snuggling with a little sigh around her battered heart. “You know I’ll be back in Ghosenhall before the year is over,” Kirra whispered.
Senneth pulled away. She was smiling. “Then I shall not be so sad to see you leave, for I will see you again very soon.”
WITHIN an hour, Kirra was ready to go. She’d taken a quick bath, devoured a hasty meal, and explained to Melly that she was going on to Danalustrous alone.
“I’ll have my father send guards to Ghosenhall to escort you home,” Kirra said. “I would not make you travel by yourself.”
Melly was concerned, but not for herself. “There are two Danalustrous men in Ghosenhall right now. Came in last night bringing a message for the king,” Melly said. “I thought you and I might travel back with them. I think that’s the better plan, serra. I don’t think you should leave like this—no one knowing where you are or if something is wrong—”
“Melly.” Kirra laughed. “That is how I always travel. I am always alone, and no one worries.”
“Everyone worries,” Melly shot back. “You just don’t care.”
Kirra laughed again and gave the maid a quick hug. “I’ll tell my sister to double your salary and to make sure you never leave her service,” Kirra said. “You’re a treasure.”
<
br /> The last thing to do was keep her final promise and make her good-byes to Justin and Cammon. Neither of them were in the barracks, or the training yard, or anywhere she might reasonably expect to find them. She found herself scowling, wondering if Senneth had told them to hide in the city so that Kirra could not find them and, thus, could not depart. But then she had the inspired thought of looking for Cammon in the gated garden where the queen kept her raelynx. It took her another thirty minutes to quarter the back half of the king’s property—which boasted any number of gardens and private woods—but she finally found the walled, overgrown acres that had become home to the red cat.
