Reader and Raelynx (Twelve Houses)

by Sharon Shinn

  Amalie smiled. “I like that. But what about you? Who gives you your power?”

  “I have no idea. I can sense things that have intensity and motion. Does that ability come from a god of air or water? I see people’s true souls and hear their true thoughts. Perhaps there is a god of mirrors, and whatever glass he holds up only reflects the truth. I don’t know.”

  She put her head to one side, and even without benefit of bright sun, her strawberry hair shone with a captive gold. “I wonder where you might find legends about the ancient gods. Perhaps in the palace library there are old theology books.”

  Cammon wrinkled his nose. “I don’t bother much with reading,” he said. “I’d much rather hear someone tell a story.”

  “I used to read a great deal,” she said. “There was nothing else to do.”

  He found that impossible to understand. “I suppose a princess doesn’t really have work to do, but—shopping? riding? entertaining visitors? Anything except reading!”

  Amalie glanced at Valri, but the queen appeared deeply engrossed in her letter. “My father was always afraid for my safety,” she said. “For years, he didn’t want me to leave the palace at all. And even when visitors were here—oh, I almost never got a chance to meet them. Kirra has spent half her life at the palace, you know, and I never spent more than a few hours with her until she joined us at Rappengrass last summer.”

  “But then—who did you talk to?” Cammon asked. His parents had left him pretty much to his own devices, but it wasn’t like they had locked him in a room. He had always struck up acquaintances with the kitchen maids or the carters’ sons. He had hated to be alone—still did. He didn’t think he would have been able to bear the sort of solitude Amalie described.

  “My mother and I were very close, while she was alive,” Amalie said. She had dropped her gaze. He had the sudden swift impression that this was something she found difficult to talk about, yet yearned to confide. “And I had nurses and tutors who were kind to me. My old nurse only died a year ago, and I would spend the day with her sometimes. She could hardly see at all by the end, so I would read to her for hours.”

  He was staring at her, but she had not lifted her eyes. What a terrible existence! Bleak beyond description! “And you never left the palace?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  “Not to go shopping in the market. Not to visit friends.” She glanced up now, and there was a faint smile on her face, but it was wistful. “My mother and I would go to Merrenstow for weeks at a time, and I always liked that. Uncle Romar was her brother, you know, and he has a wonderful house. Of course, none of my cousins were allowed to visit while I was there, but my grandmother always insisted on coming, and she was my favorite person in the world when I was little. She taught me how to bake bread and pluck a chicken. She was Twelfth House, you know, very noble, but she said even a marlady should be able to cook a meal if she had to, and she thought a princess should as well.”

  So many things to answer in that particular anecdote, but Cammon stupidly found himself asking the most ridiculous question. “You know how to pluck a chicken?”

  She dissolved into laughter, and Valri looked over with a frown on her face. Their merriment didn’t cause her too much alarm, though, for she instantly went back to her task.

  “Not anymore,” Amalie said. “I haven’t done it in years. But if I was stranded on a deserted farm and there was nothing to eat but a few old hens, I think I could still remember how to do it. If someone wrung its neck for me first.”

  “I can’t imagine you ever being stranded in such a way.”

  “I could make a loaf of bread, too, if the ingredients were there. After my grandmother died, I was afraid I would forget. So at night I would lie awake and repeat the recipe and the steps out loud. I’m pretty sure it would be lumpy and lopsided, but I bet we could eat it.”

  He grinned. “We should go down to the kitchens someday. See if the cooks will let you bake. How can they refuse you? You’re the princess.”

  She laughed. “What a good idea. Maybe we should.”

  He glanced at Valri again, but the queen had pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and was staring down at it as if waiting for it to dictate the proper words. “What happened,” he asked, his voice very low, “when your mother died? How did she die?”

  Immediately, Amalie’s face was very grave, but she did not look angry the subject had been broached. “Fever,” she said sadly. “One day she was fine. We had spent the day in the gardens. I remember that we laughed and laughed, but I can’t remember what was so funny. I was thirteen. She had been telling me for weeks that she would have the dressmakers in to fit me for a new wardrobe, that soon I would need to attend some small dinners and meet some of the prominent families. I was very excited about the idea. And then the next day she had a fever, and two days later she was dead.” Amalie shook her head. “It was so fast—I didn’t have time to think about it. I didn’t have time to prepare.” She lifted her dark eyes to his face; she looked as if she was exercising extreme willpower to keep from crying.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. He couldn’t think of another thing to say.

  She shook her head again. “The thing is, I knew she was sick,” she said. “Two summers before, she had begun to have these pains. And she had lost weight. We didn’t go to Merrenstow that year, and we always went to Merrenstow. I knew she was sick, but I didn’t realize how sick. I didn’t realize she could die.”

  “No,” he said. “It never occurred to me, either. That my parents could die. Why would they? It never crossed my mind.”

  She gave him a swift, tiny smile. “Whereas I’ve always known my father could die. Since I was quite young, everyone has made it clear that I will take the throne upon his death. But when I was young, I didn’t think about it as being an occasion for grief. I imagined how solemn I would be when they put the crown on my head, and I imagined what color dress I would wear to my coronation.” Cammon laughed out loud, and her smile grew a little wider. “I imagined what it would be like to be queen, I just didn’t imagine what it would be like to lose my father. Once my mother died, I suddenly understood.”

  “Are you close to your father?” he asked curiously. “It does not seem as if you spend much time with him.”

  She nodded. “I love him dearly,” she said. “He’s so busy that I don’t see him much, but he usually comes by every morning or every night and spends half an hour just with me. We talk about everything. My mother’s death was such a blow to him. I think it was years before he recovered.”

  Cammon couldn’t help himself; he sent one more glance in the queen’s direction. “It must have been very strange,” he said cautiously, “when he remarried. And someone so young. How soon did Valri come to the palace after your mother died?”

  “Oh, she was already here,” Amalie said.

  He knew that his expression was dumbfounded. “She what?”

  “She had been living here about a year already. She followed them back from the Lirrens shortly after they visited there—oh, a year or so before my mother died. Valri and my mother had become close friends and my mother invited her to visit.”

  Cammon’s head swiveled between Valri and Amalie. Valri was from the Lirrens? Maybe—maybe—Senneth had actually suspected such a thing once or twice, and of course the queen’s affection for the raelynx should have been an unmistakable clue. Then there was the fact that Cammon could not read her, as he could not read Ellynor; there was something impenetrable about Lirrenfolk, or perhaps that was merely the manifestation of their magic. And yet—

  “Valri is from the Lirrenlands?” he repeated in a slow voice. “I don’t believe that is generally known.”

  A flash of guilt crossed Amalie’s face. “I probably shouldn’t have told you, then,” she said. “Please don’t mention it to Senneth or anyone else. I don’t know that it is exactly a secret, and yet my father goes to some pains not to raise any questions about her. People already think Valri is strange, and s
ome of them even think she’s a mystic. If they knew she was from the Lirrens as well—”

  That was when it fell in place. “Of course. She said she was protecting you. She is a mystic, and she has the same kind of magic Ellynor has—the power of concealment. It is a gift of the night goddess, and she is using that power on you.”

  Amalie stared at him with wide brown eyes and did not answer.

  “So your mother knew she was sick,” he said slowly, piecing it together as he went. “Did she go to the Lirrenlands hoping to get well? Because there are exceptionally gifted healers across the Lireth Mountains.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “But instead of a healer, she found Valri. And the only thing your mother was more afraid of than dying was what would happen to you once she was dead. And she realized that Valri could protect you—is that it? Keep you hidden away from the king’s enemies.”

  “Something like that.”

  “And she persuaded Valri to come back to Ghosenhall. But that doesn’t work,” he broke off. “Ellynor told us how protective her own family is. How they would never let the women of their clans go off and marry outsiders. The Lirrenfolk don’t actually consider Baryn their king, as far as I can tell. Sow how did Valri get free of them?”

  “She declared herself bahta-lo. Like your friend Ellynor,” Amalie said. “Above the clan. She said it wasn’t easy, and some of her family members have not accepted her choice, but she did it anyway.”

  Cammon narrowed his eyes. “So, your mother is the one who brought her back here. Specifically to marry your father. I hear all this speculation about why your father married so soon after your mother’s death, but it was your mother’s idea all along.”

  Amalie nodded. “They don’t even share quarters, my father and Valri. They are very good friends, but all they really have in common is me.”

  “And Valri has been practically your only friend since your mother died,” Cammon said. “I can see why you are so close, but I think it’s been hard on both of you.”

  “Valri worries about me. All the time. She never gets a rest from worrying,” Amalie said. “And there are days—oh, I just want to break free!

  Run through the palace gates and race through the streets of Ghosenhall, stopping to shake hands with strangers and dance with young men and pick up little girls and twirl them around. I want to—I want to see places and try exotic food and meet someone who does not bow to me because he does not know who I am. I was so happy last summer! All those balls! All those wonderful strangers! And yet, for Valri, those were the most terrifying months of her life. Because she was so afraid something would happen to me.”

  “Well, something almost did happen to you, and more than once,” Cammon pointed out. “I don’t know that you’ll ever be able to go wandering through the city wholly unattended for the rest of your life.”

  “No,” she said dolefully. “I must be proper, and hide behind the palace walls, and sit on the throne, and be very dull.”

  He could not help but laugh at that. “No, now you are being courted by a couple dozen men, and you will get married, and eventually you will be queen. I would hardly think that will be a dull life,” he said.

  She smiled. “And even Valri seems more relaxed since you have joined us,” she said. “She trusts you to be able to sense danger before it gets too close. Valri doesn’t trust many people, you know, so that is quite a compliment. Perhaps she will trust you enough to let me go shopping in the market someday. Wouldn’t that be fun!”

  Cammon spared a moment to imagine the cavalcade that would accompany the princess on any expedition into the heart of the city. Riders—ordinary soldiers—himself—and no doubt Valri. He could hardly think any shop was big enough to accommodate them all. But the real challenge would fall to him, trying to open his mind enough to catch any intimation of danger from so many possible sources. It would be like being battered from a thousand directions. How would he be able to deflect all the happy, harmless arrows of attention while identifying the sharp spears of ill intent? “It might be simpler to have merchants bring their merchandise here,” he suggested.

  “You just don’t like to shop,” she said.

  “I think it might be difficult to keep you entirely safe.”

  She leaned forward; her eyes suddenly seemed very dark. “Cammon,” she said in a soft voice, “who is ever entirely safe?”

  CHAPTER

  9

  SENNETH found herself enjoying Kirra’s visit as she had not enjoyed anything in weeks. It was just so frivolous and girlish and—and—unimportant to spend the days combing through all the fine merchandise in the Ghosenhall shops, debating over the merits of blond lace or white, picking out rugs and curtains and goblets.

  “Ellynor will want to choose some of her household furnishings herself, I’m sure,” Senneth said as she held up a beautifully embroidered quilt. “We should hold back a little, perhaps.”

  “You didn’t spend this much time shopping for your own house,” Kirra retorted. “I’ve never seen you look at so much frilly stuff in my life.”

  Senneth smiled. “I don’t like bows and ribbons and clutter. But it’s making me happy to pick things out for someone else.”

  Kirra held up a pair of pillowcases, even more elaborately embroidered than the quilt. “Can you picture Justin laying his head on this?” she said, choking back a giggle. “Do you think he’s ever used a pillow in his life?”

  That made Senneth laugh again, abandoning any notions of restraint.

  It had been so long since she had been able to focus on anything that was inconsequential and fun. That had no chance of resulting in someone’s death, or the overthrow of the king, or the complete reshaping of the world.

  If you were going to spend a day immersing yourself in frivolity, Kirra was the ideal companion.

  They shopped and bought, pausing for meals, and then shopped and bought some more. Kirra seemed to have wholly recovered from her distress at seeing Romar Brendyn, though she had made a point of avoiding the formal dinner the previous night.

  “While we’re buying things for Justin, we might be considering what to give our siblings for their wedding,” Kirra said as they sat at a bakery and ate sweets to recover their strength.

  “You have given Danalustrous to Casserah. Surely that’s enough of a gift?” Senneth said. Kirra was the eldest daughter and by rights should inherit the House, but her father had determined that Casserah would make the better landholder. So he had bestowed the property on his youngest child instead.

  “Oh, and I have given her my loyalty. Another expensive present,” Kirra said. “You’re right. She can’t possibly expect anything more.”

  “And my gift will be my attendance at the event, since I hate affairs like this,” Senneth said. “Everyone will be so impressed by that they won’t look for a wrapped box with my name on it.”

  “Did your family present you with any gifts upon the occasion of your own wedding?” Kirra asked. “I’m sure your brothers were disappointed that you chose to elope.”

  “I’m sure they were relieved,” Senneth retorted. “How to explain to the Brassenthwaite vassals that the serramarra is taking a King’s Rider for her husband? You know that Nate was mortified just at the thought of such a disastrous alliance. I did them a favor by marrying where no one could witness the humiliation.”

  Kirra waved this away. “So? Presents?”

  Senneth grinned and nodded. “Trinkets and some cash. Not that we needed either, but I suppose the gesture was kind.”

  “And you like being married?”

  “I like it very much indeed.”

  She could not have such conversations with anyone else—not Tayse, not Cammon, none of the Riders, certainly not the king. Her adventurous life had not left Senneth with an overabundance of close friends, and she had been estranged from her family too long to ever want to confide in her four brothers. But restless, irrepressible, unpredictable Kirra was the one woman in
Gillengaria that Senneth absolutely trusted, and that meant she could count on Kirra to fight at her back or give her advice on love.

  Strange.

  They returned to the palace grounds tired and happy, but once they arrived at the cottage, Senneth learned her day wasn’t over. A note from Milo had been slipped under the door. The king requests your presence at dinner this evening.

  “You’ve probably got one just like it in your room,” Senneth said, showing the invitation to Kirra.

  “Well, I’m not going,” Kirra said. “I just won’t return to the palace. I’ll stay here and add our new purchases to Justin’s cottage. Oh, sorry, Majesty, I didn’t receive the note until too late.”

  Senneth shook her head. “I don’t know why you’re one of Baryn’s favorites.”

  Kirra smiled and tossed her gold curls. “I’m so charming that he has to forgive my poor manners.”

  “But is charm ever really enough?” Senneth asked, with mock solemnity.

  “It better be. Because that and hair are all I’ve got.”

  Though not interested in attending the meal herself, Kirra supervised Senneth’s toilette and even modified the bronze-colored gown Senneth had chosen to wear. Kirra was a shape-shifter, but she could also change anything she put a hand to if she felt like it, and now she traced a finger over the décolletage of Senneth’s dress.

  “You simply cannot go up to the palace with a dress so high-necked it’s practically strangling you,” Kirra insisted. “There. That’s more attractive. Now everyone can see this lovely necklace Tayse gave you and they’ll realize you’ve got a housemark under the pendant. Make them remember you’re a serramarra! Make them treat you like one, too.”

  The gold sphere did indeed fall perfectly over the Brassenthwaite housemark burned into Senneth’s skin just above her breasts. She’d spent a good seventeen years of her life wishing she could erase that symbol of her family heritage, and now here she was, living a life where she was forced to flaunt it again.