Reader and Raelynx (Twelve Houses)

by Sharon Shinn

  It seemed Senneth had slept for almost three days.

  It had not exactly been sleeping. It had not been a peaceful, restorative sort of slumber. She had been lost in chaotic darkness, falling through tunnels of emptiness, buffeted by exotic and sourceless winds. And she had been so cold. Shivering and frightened and falling and lost.

  But not alone. Always, throughout that whole strange, terrifying journey, she had been conscious of a shadow at her back, a protector at her side. When she cried out, he comforted her. When she shivered, he warmed her body with his own. When her lungs seized up, he put his mouth against hers and breathed.

  When she clawed her way back to sentience, he was there. Lying beside her on some bed she did not remember, gazing at her, guarding her sleep.

  “Tayse,” she whispered.

  The expression on his face—hope, relief, joy, and love—was so raw it was almost painful to see. “Senneth,” he answered. “Are you with me again?”

  Strangely, a smile came to her face. She wouldn’t have said she remembered how to smile, hadn’t remembered what a smile was. She lifted a shaky hand and touched his stubbled cheek. “My love, I am always with you,” she said.

  He leaned in and kissed her gently on the mouth. “And now I am returned to the world,” he said.

  They lay there a moment in silence, his arms around her, her head against his chest, content for the moment just to exist. But she couldn’t escape the consciousness of time passed and important events going forward without her.

  And she felt like red and silver and black and opal hell.

  After a moment, she stirred in his arms. “Feed me something,” she said. “Bring me water. Tell me what’s happened.”

  Carefully he helped her sit up, though the movement made her dizzy. She seemed to be in a sizable tent, maybe Amalie’s; she couldn’t bring herself to care enough to try to identify the furnishings. Tayse held water to her mouth and, sweet gods, nothing had ever tasted so good. After that, he offered her juice, and then broth, but only a little. She was ravenous and hollow with the certainty that no amount of food would fill her up.

  “How long have I been lying here?” she demanded when he finally let her eat a piece of bread. “What happened to me? What happened to everyone?”

  He didn’t get a chance to answer. The canvas door flapped back and Kirra pushed inside.

  “You are awake!” she squealed. “Cammon said you were! And lucid? Sane? Oh, but you look absolutely dreadful.”

  Automatically, Senneth’s hand went to her hair, and found it filthy, matted, and crisp with soot. Oh, yes, the last thing she remembered, she had been standing in a circle of her own flame, intent on setting the entire world on fire. She must look even worse than she felt, though it was hard to imagine.

  “I think I’m lucid, but I couldn’t swear to sane,” she replied cautiously. “So what happened? Is Coralinda dead?”

  “Dead and her army dispersed,” Kirra said. She emptied half a pitcher of water into a small towel, perched on the side of the bed, and began to wipe Senneth’s face. Tayse grinned and moved over to allow her room. “You’ve been out for three days. Romar and your brother left for Ghosenhall yesterday to prepare the palace for Amalie’s return, and the rest of us are hoping to leave soon—whenever you are able to move. Everything is in utter turmoil, but nobody seems to mind. We are victorious, Amalie is secure on the throne, and you are not actually dead.”

  Senneth tried a smile again. “Did you think I was?”

  Kirra scrubbed a little harder at what must have been a particularly stubborn streak of ash. “Let’s just say it was the thing everyone was most afraid of. I couldn’t do anything for you. Ellynor couldn’t. That strange woman—Lara—she came by but said you had to heal yourself. She did do something to take away your pain, though.”

  Senneth remembered pain, but only dimly. “I had one of my headaches?”

  “Well, your hands were clutched around your head and you kept moaning, so that’s what I assumed. But once Lara left, you seemed to relax a little, although you still didn’t wake up.” She glanced at Tayse. “Your husband never left your side.”

  “I know he didn’t,” Senneth said quietly. “I felt him here the whole time.”

  “I wanted to be here,” he said, “in case you needed me.”

  She reached for his hand, and his fingers instantly closed over hers. She felt her throat closing up, but it was stupid to cry now. “What of everyone else? Amalie—she’s safe? All our friends?”

  “The princess suffered surprisingly few ill effects from her mortal combat with the personification of evil,” Kirra said. She had laid aside the towel and now she was pulling a comb very gently through Senneth’s tangled hair. “She was tired, of course, but eerily serene. Which was good, since around her there was complete and utter mayhem. On top of everything else, she had just made it indisputably clear that she is a mystic of no uncommon power, and anyone who hadn’t figured that out already was left stunned and nervous. So far there has been no fresh mutiny, but I feel certain there will be a reckoning of sorts when the news is carried to the four corners of the kingdom.”

  “And everyone else?”

  “The Riders bore some losses, but all of our friends survived,” Kirra said.

  Senneth cut her eyes Tayse’s way. The death of any Rider would strike him hard. “Who?” she asked.

  “Coeval. Brindle. Moxer,” he replied. “Janni was severely injured, but she’s been healed. Justin was badly hurt in the fight against Coralinda Gisseltess, but Ellynor was instantly beside him, and he is mending quickly.”

  “Cammon was deaf for a full day,” Kirra continued. “It was strange, because he found it hard to talk while he couldn’t hear, and so he didn’t say anything, and you know Cammon never shuts up. But just as I was beginning to think I could get used to a Cammon who never says a word, his ears started working again, and now he’s our same happy street urchin again.”

  That made Senneth smile. “So what’s the plan? Return to Ghosenhall as soon as we’re all well enough to travel?”

  Kirra nodded. “Tomorrow, I would think. Everyone is eager to get back and assess the damage there.”

  The tent door fluttered and Amalie’s voice sifted through. “Is she awake? Can I come in?”

  “And me?” Cammon asked right after her.

  Senneth gaped in horror. “Not while I look like this,” she said to Kirra. “Will they let me bathe first?”

  Kirra and Tayse were laughing. “I’ll hold them off,” Tayse said, rising and crossing to the door.

  “I’ll fetch bathwater,” Kirra said. “But you won’t be able to keep them out for long, you know. Everyone has been worried about you.”

  Senneth smiled faintly. “The way I feel, everyone was right to be worried.”

  “Back in a few minutes,” Kirra said, and disappeared behind Tayse.

  Alone for the moment, Senneth tested her strength. Her hands were too weak to clench. Her legs moved when she kicked them against the bed, but even that small effort was exhausting. Her back was sore and her vision did not feel particularly reliable. She’d only been awake fifteen minutes and she was ready to sleep again.

  She held her right hand out before her, palm-up, and studied its lines and calluses. The other hand she placed over her heart, seeking out the eternal heat at the core of her body. But her fingers were chilled and there was no great combustion rumbling inside her chest.

  She balled up her fingers, and splayed them wide, but no fire danced from the tips of her hand.

  She remembered those last desperate moments of the battle against Coralinda Gisseltess. As if the Bright Mother had been watching, as if the goddess would take such a sacrifice, Senneth had offered herself. Burn me. Burn my body. Turn me into your elemental fuel. She had not, actually, expected to survive the encounter.

  And it seemed she had not survived it whole.

  Kirra returned quickly, lugging a small metal washtub, and then made a hal
f dozen trips between the tub and the tent door to fetch buckets of water. Steam rose from the surface of the tub; the water must have been close to boiling.

  So Kirra knew.

  “Come on, come on,” Kirra said, motioning Senneth over. “I have a nice big towel, almost clean, and a sliver of soap. This water won’t stay hot forever.”

  Senneth sat on the bed unmoving. “I’ve lost my magic,” she said.

  Kirra nodded. “I know. Come on. Wash up.”

  Senneth stood, a little shakily, and discarded items of clothing as she crossed the small space. “How did you know?”

  “Your skin was so cold. You were so cold. In you go.”

  The tub was so small Senneth practically had to crouch inside it, but the hot water felt unspeakably good against her skin. “Will I ever get it back?”

  “I can’t even begin to guess,” Kirra said. “Here, bend your head down and I’ll pour some water over your hair.”

  Kirra’s matter-of-fact acceptance of this dreadful truth was making it easier for Senneth to keep talking about it; but it was such a huge thing, so impossible to assess, that she was sure she hadn’t absorbed it completely yet. “Does Tayse know?”

  “Maybe. He lay beside you for three days, keeping you warm with his own body. He doesn’t know much about mystics, but he knows a lot about you.”

  Senneth shook her head. It was hard to tell whether those were tears on her cheeks, or stray rivulets from the water Kirra was pouring over her. “There have been so many times I cursed my magic and what it had made me,” she said, trying not to sniffle. “But the thought—of having it leave me—of being completely ordinary, completely ignored by the gods—Kirra, it feels so strange. I don’t know that I will still be me.”

  Kirra was briskly rubbing soap in her hair, and Senneth could feel the silky lather bubbling up against her ears. “I hardly think the gods are done with you so soon,” she said. “You have proved too useful so far. If indeed your magic is gone, they will find some other way to employ you.” She paused long enough to pour another bucket of water over Senneth’s head. “Certainly Amalie will want your services, whether or not you can burn down Ghosenhall.”

  Senneth sniffled again. “Maybe I can become a Rider. I suppose now there are even more openings in their ranks.”

  “Maybe you can become a teacher. I bet Jerril could use you to train all those wild Carrebos mystics, even if you don’t have magic of your own.”

  “But I want magic of my own,” Senneth said softly, and started crying in earnest.

  Kirra instantly threw her arms around her, heedless of splashing water and Senneth’s wet skin. “I know you do, Sen. And maybe someday you’ll get it back. But for now I don’t care. Tayse doesn’t care. Nobody cares. We thought you might be dead, and you’re not dead, and all of us would have given up our magic if it meant you wouldn’t die. So we know the gods still care about you, or they would have let you go.”

  SENNETH was able to compose herself enough to face the others when, twenty minutes later, her hair was combed and she was dressed in clean clothes. They burst into the tent as quickly as the small flap would allow—Justin, Donnal, Cammon, Amalie, Ellynor, Valri, Tayse again—each of them hugging her with an unrestrained delight. They permitted her to eat more food and vied for her attention to tell, and retell, their own individual parts in that last spectacular battle. She listened, exclaimed, teased Cammon about his deafness, examined Justin’s latest wound, commended Ellynor on her healing skills, and generally warmed herself at the fire of their affection.

  But their presence was exhausting, and Tayse chased them out before an hour was up. “We want her to be well enough to travel in the morning,” he said. Not until he lifted the tent flap to encourage them to leave did Senneth realize that it was nighttime again. Excellent. Time to go back to sleep.

  But she was still sitting upright on the bed when Tayse sat beside her, taking both of her hands in his. It was so odd to feel his body warming hers, instead of the other way around.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “My magic is gone,” she said bluntly.

  “I don’t love you for your magic,” he replied.

  That made her smile, just a little. She moved over to lean against him, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Then why do you love me, Tayse, Queen’s Rider?” she asked. “If not because I have bespelled you?”

  “Because you own my soul.”

  She lifted one hand and laid it against his cheek. His skin was rough; he still had not bothered to shave. “Ah, that was magic,” she said. “I beguiled you and I stole your heart.”

  He turned his head to kiss her palm. “You didn’t steal it,” he said. “I had already tucked it inside your hand. Not my fault you didn’t realize it was already yours, so you had to waste your time with sorcery and theft.”

  That made her laugh. As always, his body against hers was feeding her power. She absorbed him, the way others might absorb sunlight, and she felt restless energy kick through her tired bones. She shifted in his arms, locked her hands around his neck, and kissed him on the mouth. “Whose tent is this anyway?” she whispered. “Amalie’s? Would it be an affront to the throne if two lesser mortals made love inside the queen’s private quarters?”

  “You are barely returned from death,” he said against her mouth. “You can’t possibly have the strength for such a thing.”

  “It would give me strength,” she said, kissing him more insistently, feeling her skin flush with a different kind of heat. “You would pour yours into me.”

  He laughed softly. “Well, I’ve never heard it described quite that way—”

  She tugged him down onto the bed beside her, still covering his face with kisses. “Love me,” she whispered. “Or I think I truly will die.”

  And so he did.

  CHAPTER

  43

  DURING the journey back to Ghosenhall—which took four days and was exceedingly tedious—Senneth recovered rapidly, though not to what she considered her full strength. She was well enough to ride, hungry enough to eat, tired enough to sleep dreamlessly, and not required to do anything else. At odd moments during the day, surreptitiously, she would curl and uncurl her fingers and check the tips for flame. But there was no fire in her. Her body was healing, but her magic was still broken.

  She couldn’t bear to think about it. She would wait until the rest of the world was settled, and then she would grieve.

  Their march down the streets of Ghosenhall was hardly a triumphal victory parade. The town itself had been largely spared by the rebel army, but random buildings had been destroyed, particularly those nearest the palace, and many residents had flown the city, which was still half empty. A few ragged crowds gathered on the street corners to cheer Amalie’s appearance, but among the applauding merchants Senneth could spot a few glowering individuals with their hands clenched on their moonstone pendants. The princess was a mystic, that had been pretty well established. Clearly many people were unhappy about the idea of a sorceress taking the throne.

  Cammon rode close beside Amalie, turning his head this way and that, scanning the crowd for dangers. Six Riders ringed her to prevent any malcontents from drawing too close. But Amalie peered around these protectors, and smiled, and waved, and even the scowling men, the frowning women, smiled at her and waved back.

  Senneth thought, Amalie will have to address this concern about mystics, and soon. How will we respond if we have another rebellion on our hands?

  THEY had been back three days before it became apparent that there was another crisis brewing inside the palace, of a smaller and more intimate nature, to be sure, but one that could rock the kingdom just as surely as magic.

  During those three days, a great deal of effort had been spent trying to restore some normalcy to the city’s routines. Shop owners and residents were flooding back into Ghosenhall; every day, dozens of nobles and merchants requested an audience with the princess. A flurry of messages
arrived, from Danalustrous, from Helven, from Coravann. Couriers rode out with stern summonses for the heirs of Fortunalt and Gisseltess and Storian. Senneth didn’t have the knowledge to steer Amalie through these political tangles. She allowed Valri and Romar and Kiernan—even Ariane Rappengrass, who had stayed behind—to offer advice and hammer out strategies. She stayed mostly in her own cottage and mended.

  Until Kiernan came to her door one night, fuming. “You must talk some sense into that young woman,” he said. “I have come to admire her greatly through this ordeal, but she is behaving like a silly schoolgirl now, and we can’t have her jeopardizing the future of the whole kingdom.”

  Senneth opened her eyes wide. Kiernan was always an impressive figure, but when he was in a rage, he could be overpowering. It was hard to imagine that Amalie hadn’t instantly acceded to anything he had promoted while in such a mood. Casually Tayse came to sit beside Senneth on the sofa, but she wasn’t fooled. She knew he did it to protect her in case Kiernan became violent, and the thought made her grin. “What’s Amalie done now?” she asked. “Decided to show off her magic in some public venue?”

  “She’s already done that, I think, and rather spectacularly,” Kiernan replied. “No! She won’t listen to reason! Her uncle and I believe that the sooner she marries, the better, but she says—she says—” He was so furious he couldn’t get the words out.

  Senneth rather enjoyed the thought of Kiernan being balked by a nineteen-year-old girl, but she happened to agree with him on this particular issue. “Amalie met a number of young lords before the war interrupted everything,” she said. “I don’t believe any of them caught her eye—but there were a few I thought she would be willing to consider. Did she turn down your best candidate? Who did you have in mind?”

  “I had thought Ryne Coravann, though I mislike the fact that his father held back from the war,” Kiernan replied. “Alternatively, we could salve some wounds by marrying her to a Fortunalt man, or a Gisseltess man. Even Storian! Though not Rafe’s eldest son, he’s unreliable and stupid.”