Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) (19 page)

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Authors: Sharon Shinn

BOOK: Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses)
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But the woman in the carriage was smarter than her companion. She thrust her head out the window beside him, pale and pretty by torchlight. “Soldiers—from the convent?” she asked in a breathless voice.
 
 
Justin nodded. “Yes. Looking for mystics, I’m guessing— or those who sympathize with them.”
 
 
“Mystics!” the man exclaimed, rearing back as if slapped. The woman stilled him with a touch on the arm.
 
 
“And they’ve—they’ve burned the place down? Everyone in it—dead? Are you sure? Everyone?”
 
 
Justin kicked his horse a few paces closer. “Except this one. I saw him running and I snatched him up—”
 
 
But he didn’t have to explain the rest. With a muffled shriek, the woman flung herself out of the carriage and stumbled the few paces to Justin’s side. The boy stirred in his arms and cried, “Jassie! Jassie! Jassie!” Clearly Justin had found the one safe haven the boy might have in this world—assuming Jassie and her escort had the sense to get away fast. He lowered the boy into Jassie’s arms, and they collapsed into a small heap on the ground.
 
 
Jassie’s companion had climbed more slowly out of the carriage, and now he stood staring down at the two on the ground. In a moment, he looked back up at Justin, his face grim. “Hunting mystics, are they?” he said in a quiet voice. “Coralinda Gisseltess is going to have to spread a wider net than that if she wants to catch them all.”
 
 
“And I think she is prepared to do so,” Justin said. “You must leave. Now. There is nothing you can do for the folks below. Save yourselves—take this child. Keep going.”
 
 
The man nodded and put his hands on Jassie’s shoulders, pulling her and the boy up and bundling them, still embraced, into the carriage. One foot on the step to climb back in, the man turned around to give Justin a final somber inspection.
 
 
“Who are
you
?” he asked. “You didn’t come here by chance.”
 
 
Justin shook his head. “I saw the soldiers going by with such stealth, and I was curious. I followed. I never thought to see—to stand by and do nothing—” He shook his head. “It has been a terrible night,” he ended quietly.
 
 
“More terrible than you know,” the man said. “But your part in it at least has brought some brightness. His life saved—and certainly ours.”
 
 
“Not if you linger any longer,” Justin said. “Go.”
 
 
“Tell me your name, at least?”
 
 
“I am in service to the king,” he said, and the man gave a jerky nod and ducked inside the carriage. The coachman and the guards, who all this time had hovered uneasily, resumed their places. In moments the carriage was turned around and back on the road. Justin stood guard at the intersectionuntil the coach was well and truly out of sight—far enough away that the Lestra’s men would not even realize it had come this way.
 
 
He took one last look over his shoulder, where indeed the sky was a hazy yellow from the fire, and then he nudged his horse forward. One turn and he was back on the main road, heading south toward Neft.
 
 
More tired and more wretched than he had ever been in his life.
 
 
He had thought he had a fair grasp on cruelty, understood the passions that could drive a man to violence. There had been times in his life he had been none too picky about the methods he employed to get what he wanted, and he was capable of extreme action if he was fighting to stay alive. But he had never engaged in cold-blooded murder. Could not understand what drove a man to try it—especially when there was no immediate gain. No riches to be had, no feud to settle, no insult to avenge. Just—a desire to eradicate an enemy.
 
 
An enemy who possessed magic. Or tolerated magic. Or loved someone who did.
 
 
Someone who was different. Not a threat, except to a way of life. Offering no harm except a point of view.
 
 
Those people were dangerous in the Lestra’s eyes.
 
 
Justin rode slowly home, wearier by the mile.
 
 
The only solution was to grow even more dangerous to the Lestra than she thought the mystics were. To draw her attention.
 
 
To fight back.
 
 
CHAPTER 9
 
 
SENNETH was sweating and out of breath when Coeval called a halt to their workout. The Rider—a tall, lean man whose black hair had given way only partly to silver— sheathed his sword and gave her an approving nod.
 
 
“Better,” he said. “You’ve been practicing.”
 
 
“Lifting weights,” she said, wiping a sleeve across her face. It was early autumn and cool enough outside that most people were shivering, not sweating. But most people hadn’t just spent an hour in the training yard of the palace trying to prevent Coeval from killing them. “I’m getting stronger, but I’m still not as fast as you are.”
 
 
He gave her a spare smile. “You’ll never be as fast as I am.”
 
 
She laughed. He wasn’t bragging, he was merely telling the truth. She would never be as fast as any of the Riders, although she had nearly defeated one of the younger men a couple of days ago. Her finest moment in the weeks since she had begun regular workouts with the king’s elite. “My goal is to defeat Tayse someday,” she said, a challenge in her voice. “Will I ever achieve it?”
 
 
“No,” he said simply. “There are days that I can, or Hammond, or even Tir, but not two days in succession. You’ll never be that strong.”
 
 
They began walking slowly toward the big building where all their practice gear was housed and where they trained in truly inclement weather. Though Senneth had found herself training outdoors in rain, in sleet, and in biting wind, and the Riders hadn’t seemed to find any of
those
conditions inclement. “What about Justin?” she asked.
 
 
Coeval nodded. “Justin’s not as good as Tayse, but he will be. When he’s Tayse’s age, no one will be able to touch him.”
 
 
If he lives that long,
Senneth wanted to say. A soldier’s life was chancy at best, and if they really did find themselves in a war, the Riders would all be in the heart of it, battling to defend their king. It was a gloomy thought. “Well, I hope he hasn’t realized that,” she said lightly instead. “He’s already too sure of himself.”
 
 
Coeval laughed. A Rider named Janni came jogging up, inviting Coeval to a match, and the older man turned away to spar with her. Senneth continued trudging toward the open door of the great shed.
 
 
Tir was leaning against the outside wall, one foot against the building, arms crossed on his chest. He resembled his son so much that Senneth always had to look again to make sure it wasn’t Tayse standing there, mysteriously aged by twenty years but still powerful, still watchful, still wrapped in an aura of brooding menace.
 
 
Tir had not been interested in the slightest when Tayse told him he had found the woman he loved. But he had paid Senneth some attention when she started working out with the Riders, and from time to time he had offered her a critique of her stance or her swing. His comments always proved to be both accurate and helpful. She knew he didn’t care if she broke his son’s heart. But if she was going to be in any way involved in protecting the king, he wanted her to be invincible.
 
 
“How’d I do?” she asked him now, slowing to a stop.
 
 
He gave his head a quick, negative shake. “You fight like someone with a knife up her sleeve,” he said.
 
 
That made no sense. Every soldier carried a variety of blades; who knew when one might be lost or batted away? “I don’t know what that means,” she said.
 
 
“You don’t care if you lose the first bout. You know you have another weapon. But that’s a dangerous way to fight. It almost always means you
will
forfeit the first round.”
 
 
He wasn’t talking about weaponry. He was talking about magic. Senneth knew that if her opponent outfenced her, she could drop her sword and call up fire. “You’re right,” she said slowly. “I’ll try to change my attitude.”
 
 
“But your swing is improving,” he said, almost grudgingly. “You’re gaining power.”
 
 
“More to work on.”
 
 
“There always is.”
 
 
She left him in the training yard, dropped her practice sword in its allotted slot, and walked slowly from the training yard to the palace. She had already requested the maids to bring a tub and a few buckets of water to her room, ready to be used whenever she returned from her workout. She didn’t care if the water was cold—she’d bathed in her share of freezing mountain streams during her travels, and, anyway, she could warm it with a touch—but she
had
to be clean. She had two appointments today, equally important in her eyes. One with the king. One with Tayse’s mother.
 
 
She bathed quickly and changed into more conventional clothes than she usually wore—a simple blue dress that accented her gray eyes and her short, pale, flyaway hair. Sturdy walking shoes, a cloak to ward off the chill, and she was ready to stroll the length of Ghosenhall.
 
 
There was a knock on the door, followed immediately by Tayse’s entrance. It amused her still that he never just walked in, though this suite of rooms could be as truly called his as hers since he slept here almost every night. They had not exactly gotten around to discussing what their long-term living arrangements should be. Senneth was perfectly willing to take up residence in one of the tiny cottages that dotted the grounds behind the Riders’ barracks, cottages set aside specifically for the few Riders who bothered to marry. But Tayse seemed to feel that a serramarra of the Twelve Houses should be living in a palace and was unwilling to install her in such humble quarters.
 
 
And, of course, they were not married.
 
 
“You look pretty,” he told her.
 
 
She laughed. “I’m trying to look demure.”
 
 
“My mother likes you. You don’t have to try to create an impression.”
 
 
Your mother has no idea what to think of me,
Senneth wanted to say. “I think it makes her more comfortable to see me in women’s clothing,” she said. “Instead of my boots and my trousers, with my sword on my hip.”
 
 
He shrugged. “You are what you are.”
 
 
And she is glad that someone loves you, because you never allowed
her
to love you,
Senneth thought. She was still amazed, most days, that he allowed Senneth to do so. “I need to be back within a couple of hours,” she said. “Baryn has asked for a meeting.”
 
 
Tayse opened the door and they stepped into the hall and headed in a leisurely fashion for the stairs. Senneth loved the sensation of walking beside him. She was a tall woman, but he was so big he made her feel almost dainty. Yet he moved with such grace that she always tried to match him, taking smooth, gliding paces and minimizing the noise of her passage.
 
 
“What was my father saying to you as you left the training yard?” he asked.
 
 
She laughed. “He said I fight like a mystic, not a soldier.”
 
 
Tayse thought that over for a minute, reconstructing the probable conversation. “If he’d ever seen how a mystic fights, that would be a compliment,” he said at last.
 
 
“Someday I’ll set him on fire,” she said. “That will make him respect me.”
 
 
He was grinning as they stepped onto the broad porch and down the marble stairs to the courtyard of the palace. “
Then
he’ll regret any unkind observations he’s made in the past.”
 
 
They talked idly as they crossed the courtyard, saluted the guards at the gate, and set out for Tayse’s mother’s house. Both of them were familiar with the districts of Ghosenhall that were edgy and dangerous, but their route didn’t take them there this day. Instead, they traveled wide avenues lined with pretty stone houses and crossed through small common squares decorated with trees and fountains. The day was cool but fine. Ghosenhall, always a charming city, seemed to preen and glitter in the light.

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