Guardian of Honor (14 page)

Yes.

"Is that the feycoocu?" asked Partis.

Say yes,
Sinafin said.

"Yes. She is translating for me. Listen up, guys."

A couple of the Marshalls winced. Probably not enough noble-speak
for them. Tough.

"You brought me here without my express consent—"

"Wrong. You came through—" Thealia said.

Alexa waved her hand. "Very well, I agree on that point, but
I didn't know what was happening or where I was coming. You didn't have the
courtesy to ask me to help you. No, you all initiated a preemptive strike,
forcing me to respond to Tests that could have killed me." She strode
around the room, and several Marshalls craned to keep track of her. She
remembered the baby, the man who'd been so repulsed by her that he tried to
stab her, and whom she had killed with her mind. She fought new tears.
"You could have killed a baby—"

"She's a black-and-white, flawed—" Reynardus said.

"Everyone's flawed in some way!" Alexa was old enough to
have learned that lesson. "You set me up to be attacked and I took a life
in self-defense. That's the worst of it. But that wasn't the last of your
manipulations, was it? You wanted to
keep me here
by force, make me stay by somehow binding me to another—"

"Pairing—"

"Stop interrupting! Only
now
you try to explain. Only
now,
when your plans have failed."

Partis stood. "We need you."

"You didn't ask, and you didn't explain. You haven't been
honest in any of your dealings with me. I've had nothing but manipulation and
lies from you all. I'm leaving."

"You can't leave!" Thealia said.

Alexa glared at her. "Of course I can, unless you give me
some good reasons to stay."

Reynardus leaned negligently back in his chair. "Let her go."
He waved an elegant hand. "She won't get far. She can't live on her own.
She'll come back."

Fury suffused Alexa. She'd heard comments like that before.

You won't make it through law school.

You won't pass the bar.

You won't make a living
in
a small partnership.

But she had.

"I'm sure I can find work in the Town."

Another Marshall stood and inclined her head to Alexa. "I am
the Loremarshall, Faith. When an Exotique such as yourself is Summoned, you are
given gold and the choice of an estate to support you. We will compensate you
well."

A home,
Sinafin said, just to her.
A home of your own. Your land. Your
home.

The offer made her hesitate, until she saw Reynardus's smirk.
She'd have to work for these people. People she couldn't trust.

"I can't trust you," she said.

Partis dropped his eyes. Faith looked ashamed.

"You Summoned me, but you didn't trust that magic, and you
didn't trust me."

"It's gone wrong before," Reynardus said coolly.

Alexa inadvertently squeezed Sinafin 'til she yipped. She loosened
her hold. "I didn't know that, which only emphasizes my point. I know
nothing of you, and none of you has been willing to explain or to trust me.
I've heard no reason to make me stay—only a bribe. I'm leaving. I'll wait in
town for the Snap."

Thealia gasped. "How do you know of the Snap?"

Lifting the miniature greyhound, Alexa said, "Sin—"

Don't give them my name!

"Since I came, this, um, feycoocu has helped me. She told
me."

"It's a she?" asked Partis.

Alexa ignored him. "Anything else?"

The Marshalls glanced at each other, then at Reynardus.

Reynardus studied his clean fingernails. "She will be
back."

Alexa's mouth turned down. She'd hoped for explanations,
something
that would tell her they respected her, accepted her. But there was nothing
here for her. She turned and walked to the door.

"We can teach you to use your great Powers! Please, take up
the baton again!" someone urged.

Another bribe. Like being a great magician was something Alexa
should want. Power to kill with her mind. She didn't think so.

Alexa placed Sinafin on her feet and stepped away to open the
door. Babble assaulted her ears. Since she couldn't understand any of it, it
was easy to ignore. She looked down at the shapeshifter and said, "Are you
coming with me?"

Her untranslated words silenced a few, as if they tried to
decipher how her language was different from theirs. Sinafin sat and used a
hind leg to scratch behind her ear, then yawned.
It might be fun.

"You sound pretty cheerful all of a sudden."

The dog wiggled her nose.
You will change your mind. I tell you
now and I will tell you again and again that you have a home here.

Ah, there was a being who knew what buttons to push! Alexa
shrugged. At least Sinafin had been honest.

Alexa opened the door and let Sinafin out first. "Lead the
way." The dog trotted ahead and Alexa followed. Loud voices carried after
her.

Sinafin turned left and zoomed down the hallway, sending a gleeful
bark back to Alexa.
This strange dog-body likes to run. Very nice.

"Yes," Alexa said softly, wondering if Sinafin could
hear her—at what distance the mind-to-mind speaking worked.

She found herself smiling and blew out a big breath. Whew! Her
steps picked up and became jaunty. Releasing all that anger had been cathartic.
She refused to worry about what might await her ahead. She'd been uprooted and
thrown into strange situations enough as a kid to believe she'd somehow manage.
And she had a feycoocu. Things weren't all bad.

A distant
yip
had her stretching her stride. She came to
the end of the hallway, where there was a door to the staircase to the front
tower of the Castle Keep. This tower was on the opposite end of the corridor to
the back tower that Alexa had been given. She turned right into the corridor
that led to her tower staircase. She wasn't going back. Sinafin must have taken
one of the other little passages, branching left off the Keep's hallway. The
Castle was built for the Lladranans—slightly too large a scale for Alexa.

She paused, irritated.
Sinafin!
It was the first time she
had tried calling with her mind. Nothing happened. Alexa frowned. Maybe words
weren't the best way to communicate. What about pictures? She fashioned the
best image she could of Sinafin—as the pink fairy—and tried again.
Sinafin!

Faint, running claw-clicks came from a hall up a bit and to her
left.

Sinafin shot from it, turned away from Alexa and ran down the
corridor and back, panting and grinning.
Run, run, run!
Sinafin said.

"You run," Alexa grumbled. Her body still ached from the
two dips in the jerir. At least now she knew what it was called, and that it
was supposed to heal her and then be protective. She shook her head. Magic.
Something to be as cautious about as a loaded gun.

Her thoughts went to the guy she had saved, and she winced. If she
thought
she
hurt today, he'd be even worse off. His wounds had been
awesome, but since he'd lived through the ordeal, he'd be one tough cookie, she
guessed. And the baby—if she was flawed, would the jerir have cured her?
Probably what everyone had hoped for. Alexa would miss the little girl, and
Marwey.

Sinafin bounded up to her, lolling a tongue, then turned around
and jogged left back down the passage she'd appeared from.
The closest way
out is through the Assayer's Office, just beyond the Keep walls.

Down a short passage the feycoocu waited before a big square
wooden door. It was more roughly finished than most of the Castle doors. Alexa
set her hand on the iron handle and an overwhelming dread flooded from her
fingers up her arm to her mind, making her heart pound hard. She pulled back.
Death.
She could smell it now. The tang of blood and fleshy refuse. She swallowed
hard.

Sinafin cocked her ears, looking too innocent. Alexa hesitated.
She didn't want to go into that room.

Shuffling steps behind her made her whirl. A bowed woman in
serving costume came slowly to them, her gaze fixed on Sinafin. Even hunched,
she was taller than Alexa. The woman stopped, ducked her head a little and
glanced at Alexa with shy eyes.

"I am Umilla. Is that the feycoocu?"

I am Sinafin.
The words echoed twice, and Alexa
realized the greyhound spoke to them both.

"Why did you tell Umilla your name and not the
Marshalls?" Alexa asked.

A name is powerful magic. You can Summon me by my name,
Sinafin
said.
The Marshalls might use me if they could.

Umilla snorted.

Alexa reckoned since the Marshalls couldn't pronounce her name,
she was safe.

"I'm Alexa." She put out her hand.

The woman just stared at it. Her mouth fell open.

Sinafin trotted to Alexa.
Alexa.
Then danced to the serving
woman.
Umilla.

Alexa tried a reassuring smile and nodded. "Umilla."

"A-lex-a." The woman bobbed her head.

Alexa's eyes widened. Finally someone who pronounced her name
correctly! She grinned.

Umilla ducked and leaned down to pet the dog. Her long hair swung
to hide her face, and Alexa realized it was streaked black-and-white. Like the
baby's. Like the guy's last night.

Reynardus had called them black-and-whites—and flawed.

Flawed? As she studied the woman, Alexa sensed wild fluctuations
of energy—magic?—inside Umilla. Something the woman had never been able to
control.

Umilla straightened, holding Sinafin.

Alexa watched the serving woman and Sinafin for a moment, then
turned her attention back to the door and frowned. An itching at the back of
her brain told her the Marshalls' meeting had ended and they were breaking up.
Soon they'd disperse, and she didn't want to meet any of them. She didn't know
of any door out except this one.

Finally a sigh escaped Umilla and she closed the short distance
between them, holding Sinafin out to Alexa. Alexa took the
feycoocu.

"Merci." Umilla bobbed a curtsy. With vague eyes but a
dignified bearing, she shuffled back the way she had come.

You should put me down now,
Sinafin said, a note
in her voice that made apprehension ripple through Alexa.

She set the dog on its feet. Facing the door again, Alexa clicked
open the latch, pushed and entered in one motion. The smell was a mixture of
antiseptic and dead things. The room was a nightmarish vision. Something that
would haunt her dreams for years to come.

"What is this place?" Her voice rose.

The Assayer's Office,
Sinafin replied calmly.

It was nothing like an assayer's office in Colorado. Not for
minerals—silver or gold. It was for monsters.

Alexa's stomach gave a sickening roll. Heads were mounted on the
walls. Grotesque heads of creatures she'd never imagined in her most dreadful
dreams. Above the heads the ceiling disappeared into dimness around the rafters.
One of the heads was like the thing that had attacked her when she'd come from
Colorado to Lladrana. Its fangs glistened in such a realistic snarl that she
shuddered.

Render,
Sinafin informed her.

It was as huge as she remembered, the eyes small and red, the
black bristly fur looking as rough as a steel brush. The muzzle was short, but
open, showing black tongue, sharp teeth and the fangs. Beneath the head, a
paw-hand was mounted, the foot-long curved claws extended.

Alexa put her hand to her mouth to stifle an involuntary scream.

Next to the render was a torso consisting of a bald, gray head
with holes for eyes and lizardlike skin. It had two arms with suckers all the
way down to its three-digited hands. Two tentacles draped before and behind
each arm. The horror loomed directly above Alexa. All the hair on her body
rose.

Soul-sucker,
Sinafin said.

"Get me
out
of here!"

The room was taller than it was wide or long, with a wooden
counter running the full length on her left, A heap on the counter caught her
eye and she couldn't help staring. Yellow fur, as bristly as the render's,
showed against glistening red muscles. The head and the back of the monster
sported curved, wicked spines. The fur was nearly flayed from the thing.

Alexa bolted across the room, praying to find a door.

Slayer,
Sinafin said.

A man with a neat gray goatee and thick black hair on his head
skipped around the counter, blocking her way. Eyebrows raised, he stared at her
with fascination. "The Exotique," he breathed.