Fortune and Fate (Twelve Houses) (66 page)
Read Fortune and Fate (Twelve Houses) Online
Authors: Sharon Shinn
Perhaps if she slipped inside the barracks first, before anyone noticed her. Perhaps if she had a moment to gentle her wild pulse, a chance to explain to her own soldiers exactly what was about to transpire. Yes, that would be best—she would take control of the situation, she would drop her bags on her bunk and stride confidently toward the training yard, smiling at her old friends—
She would do no such thing. Cammon awaited her just inside the hedge, ringed by Riders, his arms outstretched and his eyes alight. “Wen!” he exclaimed, grabbing her in a most satisfactory, thoroughly
un
regal hug. She could feel the others jostling closer, heard every timbre of voice calling out her name. “I told everybody you were on your way!”
un
regal hug. She could feel the others jostling closer, heard every timbre of voice calling out her name. “I told everybody you were on your way!”
TWO
hours of laughing and weeping and talking. Of warm affection and mock recriminations.
Don’t you ever run off from us again! Promise me!
Two hours of trying to cram years’ worth of history into a few short sentences.
And then Kelti joined—you’ll like Kelti, he never gives up.
Wen felt as if she had sat at the most sumptuous feast, gorging herself without restraint. She came to her feet, finding herself dizzy and overfull, satiated down to the last hungry corner of her soul.
“When are you going to come visit Ghosenhall?” Larson asked.
Not, she noticed,
When are you coming back to us?
She had made it clear, during these two hours, that she was not rejoining the Riders anytime soon. She was pretty sure some of them did not believe her—and, after tonight, she could almost persuade herself that a return to the Riders was something she might someday contemplate—but for now they were willing to accept that she was not yet ready to take up her old life.
When are you coming back to us?
She had made it clear, during these two hours, that she was not rejoining the Riders anytime soon. She was pretty sure some of them did not believe her—and, after tonight, she could almost persuade herself that a return to the Riders was something she might someday contemplate—but for now they were willing to accept that she was not yet ready to take up her old life.
“I don’t know,” she said. “There’s still a lot to do here.”
“If you don’t come back, we’ll start coming here,” Janni said. “ ‘Look, Wen, we’ve come to visit!’ Serra Karryn will start charging us room and board.”
“She’ll make you earn your keep by working out with her guards,” Wen replied. “She’ll even have you teaching
her
some Rider tricks. She’ll be glad to see you.”
her
some Rider tricks. She’ll be glad to see you.”
Tayse bestowed upon her his rare warm smile. “As long as you are glad to see us, Wen,” he said. “We will be here.”
He wasn’t the sort of man you gave a casual hug to, so she merely rested her hand on his arm as she headed out the door. This had been the most joyful of glad reunions, but now that she was back at Fortune, she had responsibilities to assume. Her own soldiers to reassure.
Another man to face.
THE
Fortunalt guard was loitering outside the barracks, which had simply been taken over by the Riders for this clamorous interlude. Not all of the guards, she was glad to see; by her quick count, six were missing. She assumed four were patrolling the grounds, as they should be just after dusk, and two were in the house, where a few nobles had gathered for an intimate dinner. But Orson and Eggles were there, and Moss and Davey—the ones she thought of as her closest friends among this group—and many of the others. All of them were waiting to hear her explanation. All of them wanted to know what she planned to do next.
They clustered around her, silent and a little stunned. She scanned the circle of their faces, made eye contact with each one. She was surprised to find that the emotions stirred up by the reunion with the Riders were still dangerously close to the surface. Or maybe this particular group of people had carved their own places in her heart, and what she was feeling was the strength of her affection for them.
“I guess some of you aren’t too surprised,” she said. “And maybe a few of you figured it out before Riders rode through the gate. Most of us have a secret or two, and that was mine.”
“Now I don’t feel so bad about never being able to beat you,” Davey said, and a light laugh ran around the group.
“If it makes you feel better, I don’t think I’ve ever beaten Tayse,” she responded with a smile.
“What do we call you now?” Moss said. “They said your name is Wen.”
“You can still call me Willa, if you like. Or Wen. I’m used to both names.”
Eggles was the one who asked the question she could tell they were all thinking. “When are you going back to Ghosenhall?”
“I’m not,” she said. “I’ll never be a Rider again.”
Davey began, “But Justin said—”
Wen interrupted him. “I guess they’ve left a place for me. But I don’t feel like that’s the place I belong anymore. Maybe I’ll change my mind. But it’s been two years, and I haven’t changed it yet.”
“So you’re staying?” Orson asked.
She met his eyes. He could have a number of reasons for posing that question, one of them being that he wanted the position she would vacate when she rode out. But ambition wasn’t what she read in his face or heard in his voice. He looked at her now the way Justin had looked at her in the tavern—like a friend who was worried about the reasons she might make a bad choice.
“Staying for a while,” she said softly. “I don’t know how long.”
SHE
waited until dinner was over, waited until Demaray Coverroe’s carriage followed Edwin Seiles’s coach out past the hedge, until Jasper had had time to discuss anything important with Cammon or Serephette or Karryn. Waited until lights had appeared in the bedroom windows of the upper stories and a few had been extinguished. Waited until at least some of the inhabitants of the house were asleep.
Then she approached the front door on silent feet, nodded at Malton, who stood guard there, and glided soundlessly through the shadowed hallways and stairwells. To find herself just outside Jasper Paladar’s door, with her heart pounding and her cheeks hot. A faint light seeped out across the threshold—he was probably reading by candlelight, unless he had fallen asleep with a book open in his hands—
She knocked softly, heard an immediate stirring inside, and the door was quickly opened. Not asleep then. Still wearing the formal clothes he must have donned for dinner. He looked severe and handsome, aristocratic and scholarly. He was so far outside of her own world that at times she was amazed they spoke a common language.
Before he spoke, she almost turned to go.
Then his face lit with a smile of such welcome that she felt treacherous tears rising again. He pulled her inside quickly and shut the door, but he did not instantly take her in his arms. He merely stood there, his hands upon her shoulders, his gaze intent upon her face, studying her as if her skin was printed with a rare and beloved text.
He was not surprised to see her, she realized. So perhaps Cammon had told him of her return—or more likely Karryn, who would have heard it from one of the guards.
“So did you learn what you wanted to learn?” he asked.
“They would take me back,” she said.
He placed one of his hands, just so, between her breasts. “And is the stone that has lodged here for two years finally melted away?”
Not
And will you go back to them?
Not
And are you planning to leave me?
He asked first after her own heart. Later, perhaps, he might get around to looking out for his own. “It is smaller,” she acknowledged. “I don’t know that it will ever go away.”
And will you go back to them?
Not
And are you planning to leave me?
He asked first after her own heart. Later, perhaps, he might get around to looking out for his own. “It is smaller,” she acknowledged. “I don’t know that it will ever go away.”
“That’s the way of regret,” he said. “It tends to be permanent, even when it is manageable.”
“I’m so shaky,” she said. “I’m trying to think what this emotion is. Maybe it’s happiness—I’m not sure I remember what that feels like.”
Now he did draw her toward him, very gently, and when she was cradled in his arms, he kissed her sweetly on the mouth. “Strange,” he said. “I am trembling as well. I suppose I must have caught this dread disease called happiness. Is it contagious? Could it be you brought it with you when you stepped into my room?”
Which made her laugh, and kiss him back much harder. “Perhaps I did,” she said. “Quick, do you know a cure for it?”
Smiling, he began to tug her toward the bed. “One or two, but they’re quite radical. Are you brave enough to take drastic measures?”
She tumbled onto the coverlet and he stretched himself beside her. “I am,” she said, “but only if you try the antidote, too.”
“Well, then,” he said, his fingers in the lacing on her vest. “Let us look for remedies.”
Chapter 34
SENNETH WAS SURE SHE WAS AS GLAD AS THE NEXT
person that the Rider Wen had been discovered, but that didn’t mean she wanted to spend the rest of her life lingering at Fortune, listening to the Riders tell Wen yet another story that she might have missed during her sojourn away.
person that the Rider Wen had been discovered, but that didn’t mean she wanted to spend the rest of her life lingering at Fortune, listening to the Riders tell Wen yet another story that she might have missed during her sojourn away.
“Isn’t it time to go home?” she asked Tayse plaintively after they had been in Fortunalt nearly a week.
Tayse grinned. “I believe there is some event tomorrow at the house of that woman who has been here so much—small and elegant, rather exhaustingly vivacious—”
“Demaray Coverroe,” Senneth said instantly. “I don’t like her, either.”
“Cammon is considering whether he ought to attend.”
“He most certainly should not,” Senneth said. “Because then Coren Bauler and every other Thirteenth House pretender will vie for Cammon’s presence at
his
house, and we will be put to incredible shifts to keep him safe in all those venues, and we won’t be out of here for a decade at least.”
his
house, and we will be put to incredible shifts to keep him safe in all those venues, and we won’t be out of here for a decade at least.”
“Have Cammon and Jasper Paladar settled all the issues they had to discuss?”
“On the first or second day we were here, I would imagine,” Senneth said. “Cammon mentioned his idea about assembling a force of guards from all the southern Houses, augmented with royal soldiers, and Jasper seemed agreeable to it. Of course, it probably helped that he knew Nate and Ariane had already approved such a plan,” she added cynically. “He might have resisted a little otherwise, not wanting Fortunalt to appear weak.”
“Did he consult the serramarra’s opinion?”
“Cammon or Jasper?” Senneth said. “Because she and Cammon have been practically inseparable since he arrived, and Cammon’s wanted her at every conference.”
“And Jasper didn’t mind?”
“It pleased him, I think,” Senneth said reflectively. “He doesn’t strike me as an ambitious man. Competent, yes, and unflinchingly honest. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he is counting the days until he can turn the House over to Karryn. So every time she makes a decision on her own, he feels he is closer to his goal.”
“Has Cammon achieved
his
goal, do you think?” Tayse asked.
his
goal, do you think?” Tayse asked.
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