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Authors: Sharon Shinn

Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) (75 page)

BOOK: Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses)
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“And are you willing to give her up?” the Lestra demanded. “Give yourself over to the care of the Silver Lady?”
 
 
Ellynor bowed her head. “I love the Pale Mother,” she said in a quiet voice. “I love her in her laughing moods and her proud silences. She is girlish and sweet one day, harsh and unforgiving the next. She is changeable and beautiful and curious, and I hope she believes that I have served her well.” She lifted her head and met the Lestra’s eyes. “But I am bound to the Black Mother, who loves me as much as she loves her own daughter. It is she who has given me magic, and she I will worship till I die.”
 
 
“Which will be tonight,” the Lestra snapped.
 
 
Ellynor dropped her head again. She was so tired. She was so cold. She was completely without hope. “Yes,” she said very softly. “It will be tonight.”
 
 
 
 
TWO more groups of novices came through in the next hour. Ellynor was beginning to think that the Lestra intended every single soul who lived in the convent to parade by and view the condemned mystic. But the sun was sliding down toward late afternoon, she thought tiredly. Surely there would not be enough time for the more than five hundred novices to come by and stare and whisper. Perhaps this honor had been reserved for only the flightiest girls, the ones who could not absolutely be trusted, the ones who would most profit from such a stern lesson.
 
 
It would be dark in less than two hours, Ellynor judged. She came somewhat shakily to her feet, not sure if it was the hunger or the fear or the lingering effects of healing Justin that had left her so unsteady. She was still cold, but by now her bones had turned to ice; she was so numb she almost couldn’t tell how miserable she was. The sounds of chopping and construction no longer drifted up from the courtyard. The bonfire must be ready by now, she supposed. All that was left to wait for was sunset.
 
 
No need to wait for moonrise. This was the night without a moon.
 
 
Ellynor wanted to experience the daylight while she could. The window was too high to see out of, but it admitted a patch of sun that was moving slowly up the wall as the hours passed. Right now it was just about at face-height. She closed her eyes and stepped directly into it, absorbing its brightness on her cheekbones, her eyelids, tilting her chin so that the light ran down her neck. Senneth’s goddess was the sun, so Justin had told her. Maybe the Bright Mother had dropped in to offer Ellynor what comfort she could.
 
 
A chittering, clicking sound, closer to hand than the distant courtyard, caused Ellynor to reluctantly open her eyes. Two birds were perched right outside the window, pecking at the glass as if trying to break through it. The sight was so unexpected that Ellynor actually smiled. They looked to be spring hawks, lighter and smaller than the common variety, built for speed and agility. They were normally northern creatures; she wondered what they were doing so far south.
 
 
One, the smaller of the two, ruffled with impatience and pecked at the window again. Or—no—how odd. The hawk rested its sharp beak against the clear pane the way Ellynor might press her nose against a window if there was something inside that she wanted.
 
 
With a faint sizzle of mist, the glass simply vanished.
 
 
Ellynor stared, dumbstruck, and watched the birds fly inside. The smaller one landed right at her feet; the larger one circled her head as if inspecting her for flaws or damage. Or perhaps it was looking for a place to land. Marveling—but unable, on this day, to summon any more disbelief—she held her bound hands out, and it promptly settled in her cupped palms. It regarded her from its bright yellow eyes and loosed a cackling stream of chatter that sounded so earnest and determined it might have been trying to communicate with her in human patterns of speech.
 
 
Bemused, Ellynor glanced down at the hawk on the floor. Which was no longer a hawk—which was a growing, stretching, blurred, and fantastical creature of skin and feathers and golden hair. Now she gasped; now her heart really did squeeze in wonder.
 
 
It was only a moment before her gaping turned to galloping, painful hope, because it was only a moment before the transformation was complete. Kirra Danalustrous stood before her.
 
 
CHAPTER 38
 
 
“I SEE by your expression you’re not used to watching a shiftling change shapes,” Kirra said, throwing her arms around Ellynor and causing the other bird to squawk with indignation. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you still alive, though by the stake and the pile of wood they’ve got laid out in the courtyard, I would say the time of your execution is imminent.”
 
 
It was this long before Ellynor could find her voice. “Kirra! What are you doing here? How did you know what happened to me? Oh, is there anything you can do to get me out of this place?”
 
 
“Yes, but we don’t have much time,” Kirra replied. “We’ve been here almost two hours, but every time we thought it was safe to come in, someone else came bursting through the door to point fingers and call you dreadful names. I’m guessing that pattern will continue for the rest of the day, wouldn’t you think?”
 
 
“It seems likely. They seem very eager to have all the novices look on the face of evil.”
 
 
Kirra nodded. “Then we can’t risk just taking you out of the room. Before we crossed the courtyard, someone would be sure to come in looking for you, and if you were missing, the alarm would be raised before we could get out the gate.”
 
 
The hawk in Ellynor’s hands danced on its spindly feet and loosed an urgent stream of incomprehensible sounds in Kirra’s direction.
 
 
“Oh, hush,” the mystic responded.
 
 
Ellynor glanced down at the restless body nestled in her hands. “What did he say?”
 
 
“I have no idea.”
 
 
“Is it Donnal?”
 
 
“No. Justin.”
 
 
Ellynor almost dropped him to the floor. “
Justin?
But he— he’s not a mystic! Is he?”
 
 
“No. I changed him. He insisted on coming.” Kirra was watching her with those divine blue eyes. “To save you.”
 
 
Now Ellynor cradled the hawk in her hands and brought him up to her face, almost crooning to him. “Justin. I can’t believe you came for me—well, of course, I can believe it, it’s just like you, but you’re not strong enough! How could you try something like this when you’re so weak yourself—”
 
 
“We don’t have time to work through the argument again,” Kirra said, cutting her off. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to use a little magic to make you look different. Look like any other novice. I’m going to shift shapes and change my clothes, and I’m going to look like a novice, too. Then we will stroll out the room, down the steps, and out the front gates. You will use whatever dark sorcery you have to hide us from the guards and anyone who happens to be watching. Or will such magic not work in the daylight?”
 
 
“It will,” Ellynor said, hoping that was still true.“But what about Justin?”
 
 
“We will leave Justin behind, shaped like you.”
 
 
“No,” Ellynor said.
 
 
“The next ten groups of novices who come in to chastise mystics will be making their case against Justin instead,” Kirra continued as if Ellynor had not spoken. “When I have gotten you to safety, I will return for him. I will change him into a hawk again, and we will fly from here as swiftly as we can.”
 
 
“No,” Ellynor said. “Let him come with us now. The three of us can leave together. Surely my magic is strong enough to conceal us all.”
 
 
“Ellynor, if someone enters and finds this room empty, the alarm will be raised so fast we will not be able to make it to the gates. Someone knows you’re a mystic—they must also know that one of your powers is concealment. They will have ten guards strung across the gate, hands outstretched, waiting to catch you.”
 
 
“Then change me into a bird, too—we’ll all fly out the window together,” Ellynor begged. “Don’t make Justin stay here.”
 
 
Kirra shook her head. “Trust me, you wouldn’t make it out of the room. It takes time and patience to learn to fly—Justin has had some practice, and even so he was almost dashed out of the sky three times on our way here.”
 
 
“Please,” Ellynor whispered. “Don’t leave Justin behind.”
 
 
Justin was hopping in her palm now, chattering at a furious rate, trying to convey—something. Ellynor thought she could guess what it was.
I love you. I will risk my life for you. You cannot do anything to keep me safe when you are in danger
.
 
 
But she could not bear to know that she might escape at the cost of his life.
 
 
“He insisted on coming,” Kirra said softly. “He defied Tayse—for what was surely the first time in his life—because he wanted to save you. The plan will work no other way. We must stop talking about it and put the plan in motion, or it will be too late for either of you.”
 
 
Before Ellynor could answer, Justin erupted into a furious tirade and launched himself from Ellynor’s hands toward the window. Kirra hastily stepped back toward the wall and shrank into proportions so small Ellynor could not see her. Only then did Ellynor hear the rattle at the door and realize another set of novices was being brought in to view her.
 
 
She stayed standing near the window, sunlight on her face, no brighter than the defiance that must now be blazing from her eyes. Shavell led the small group inside, repeated the recitation of evil and death, and shot Ellynor one spiteful look before herding the women out of the room again.
 
 
Kirra was right. If someone came into this room and it was empty . . .
 
 
“We have to work very fast,” Kirra said, materializing again from some shape that seemed to possess hairy black arms, which visibly reformed themselves into Kirra’s more elegant limbs. A spider, possibly. Justin darted back into the room, landed on Ellynor’s shoulder, and proceeded to nibble at her hair. “I can’t change as quickly as Donnal can, and I certainly can’t change myself
and
Justin rapidly enough to fool someone who bursts in through the door. Are you done arguing?”
 
 
“Yes,” Ellynor whispered. “But please, please, please make sure you’re back for Justin in time.”
 
 
“I will be.” Kirra studied Ellynor a moment, her eyes sweeping down the length of the chain, pausing on the rope encrusted with moonstones. “I can’t touch your shackles. We need Justin, after all.”
 
 
Imperiously, she snapped her fingers and pointed to the floor, and Justin hopped down from Ellynor’s shoulder. Kirra knelt before him and put her fingers against his tiny head. Ellynor watched in a fearful fascination as Justin took shape beneath her delicate hands. As soon as he was himself again, he whirled around and snatched Ellynor into a hard embrace.
 
 
“Bright Mother, I have been so worried about you,” he whispered into her ear. “I was sure you were already dead.”
 
 
“Oh, Justin, you shouldn’t have come here! I won’t be able to bear it if something happens to you—in my place—”
 
 
“I’m sorry, we don’t have time for sweet reunions,” Kirra said, actually sounding sorry. “Justin. Can you cut her bonds? And then hide them somewhere? I will manufacture a piece of rope that
looks
like it’s covered with moonstones, and we’ll tie you up with that. Otherwise, I won’t be able to change you when I come back.”
 
 
Even before she had finished speaking, Justin had pulled a dagger from a side sheath and sliced through the ropes. Then he lifted first one chafed wrist and then the other to his mouth, as if his kiss held a healing magic. Perhaps it did, or perhaps the moonstones had been burning her flesh even more hotly than she realized. In any case, she felt those kisses like a balm; her hands felt light enough to float.
 
 
Kirra was yanking a belt from around her own waist, refashioning it into a length of hemp even as Ellynor watched. Quickly enough it was dotted with small, glowing gems that looked enough like moonstones to fool anyone who hadn’t been present in the room. She motioned to Justin.
BOOK: Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses)
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