“This is horrifying,” Senneth said. “We were already worried that we wouldn’t have the numbers-that more Houses would rise up in rebellion than would stay loyal to the crown. But if they’ve hired outsiders as well-”
Tayse nodded. “It tilts the odds against us significantly.”
“Senneth,” Kirra said. “It’s worse than that! If Rayson and Halchon bring in foreign troops, we’ll be helpless! You and I and all the mystics-our magic won’t work against anyone not born in Gillengaria!”
“Bright Mother burn me in ashes to the ground,” Senneth swore. But Tayse offered her a small, calm smile.
“You can still battle the native-born traitors,” he said softly. “But Riders don’t need magic to defend the king. We will fight as we have always fought, with sword and spear and bow and bare hands. This changes nothing for us.”
“Except that you will face more enemies!” Senneth exclaimed. “Except that you are more likely to be defeated!”
Now he laughed outright. “We might face more foes,” he said, “but we will not be overcome.”
THERE was no need to stay longer in Carrebos, and the next day, anxious and unsettled, Senneth packed for home. A group of twenty mystics from Carrebos had agreed to come with her to the royal city, a selection of shape-shifters, healers, readers, fire-callers, and a few with powers she couldn’t quite name but nonetheless respected.
“What in the world are you going to do with them when you get back?” Kirra asked. She wasn’t bothering to pack. She was going to change herself to a hawk and fly for Danan Hall alongside Donnal, and she planned to leave behind all the clothes she had manufactured for herself during their brief stay.
“I’m going to find a makeshift barracks for them somewhere in the city and make Jerril responsible for training them all,” she said. “Except for the shape-shifters, whom I plan to bring to the palace grounds so they can roam around sniffing for trouble. It will be very strange. I have no idea how we’ll control them all. I just know that I want them nearby and feeling friendly toward me.”
“Well, don’t forget that you have to be at Danan Hall in something under three weeks,” Kirra said. “Make your trip to Ghosenhall quickly, then head out as soon as you can. If you’re not there for Casserah’s wedding to Will-”
“Kiernan will be there, surely, and Nate and Harris,” Senneth said. “If Will has all his brothers there, he won’t mind if I miss the event.”
“But I’ll mind,” Kirra said. “How will I endure if I am there by myself?”
“Don’t go,” Senneth advised. “Then there will be nothing to endure.”
But that was not an option for Kirra-not an option for Senneth, either, if she wanted to maintain the fragile good relations she had established with her brothers this past year.
“I just had a thought!” Kirra exclaimed. “Will Nate bring Sabina Gisseltess along? How odd that will be! And yet you know my father would not turn her away.”
Sabina Gisseltess had run away from her husband, Halchon, last year and had been offered sanctuary at Brassen Court. It had quickly become clear to Senneth that Sabina and the insufferable Nate had been in love with each other all this time-Imagine! Someone pining for Nate for fifteen years!-which made her wish even more passionately that something would happen to strike Halchon Gisseltess dead. Not that Senneth could blame Sabina for wanting to escape her husband, for Halchon had made it very clear his frail wife had become an encumbrance he was prepared to shed. He wanted to be free to make an alliance with a powerful serramarra who might join him in Ghosenhall to rule Gillengaria, once he had wrested the throne from Baryn.
He wanted to marry Senneth. And Senneth would rather die herself than come close enough to touch the fingers of his hand.
“That’s certainly a reason for me to be there,” Senneth agreed. “To watch Sabina explain her presence in Kiernan’s household. I will try to come.”
Kirra and Donnal were gone within the hour. It took rather more time for Senneth to round up her recruits, make sure they all had horses and provisions, and urge them to keep in a close formation on the road once they set out. They didn’t get as far as she would have liked before nightfall, and the second day was just about as disorganized as the first.
“It looks like our return trip will be far less efficient than our outbound journey,” she said to Tayse as they made camp that second night.
“At least we’re well guarded at night,” he said. “Hard to surprise a party of readers and shape-shifters.”
“I feel the need to hurry, though,” she said. “I have the feeling that Cammon is distressed about something.”
Tayse instantly looked solemn. “How distressed? Does he want us back immediately? We could force the pace harder tomorrow.”
She shook her head. “No-I don’t get the sense that there’s terrible trouble. Just that he’s out of his depth.”
Tayse relaxed a little. “Guarding a princess and arguing with a queen,” he said. “Yes, I imagine he is.”
The third day was a little smoother, as they got into the rhythm of the trip. All the mystics continued to be somewhat in fear of Tayse; their primary interaction with soldiers in the past had usually been violent as civil guards and Coralinda Gisseltess’s men had hunted them down. So they gave him a wide berth and scrambled to do his bidding whenever he made the mildest suggestion. Senneth sighed to watch them. She hadn’t gathered much of an army if her recruits were afraid of one lone Rider.
They were a little afraid of her as well, though that didn’t bother her as much; she was used to others eyeing her askance. It wasn’t her magic that impressed this group, she thought, but her self-confidence, her refusal to offer any kind of apology for her ability. They had spent so long hiding their skills and suffering because of their magic. They couldn’t understand Senneth’s calm acceptance of her gift.
The thought made her want to offer a bitter smile. The Bright Mother alone knew how much magic had cost her. She was damned if she would repudiate it now.
Of course, there was another reason this motley troop of mystics looked at her with wide and uncertain eyes. She wore a moonstone bracelet on her wrist and seemed not to feel it burn her-or care if it did. More than once as she was talking with some of her new companions, she saw their eyes drift down toward her left hand. Their attention would fasten on the softly glowing stones that encircled her wrist and they would completely lose the thread of the conversation. None of them could touch a moonstone, of course. Even Kirra would yelp in pain if one of those gems came in contact with her skin. A mystic bound with moonstones was helpless, stripped of power.
Coralinda Gisseltess and her followers all draped themselves in moonstones. The Pale Mother had taken the jewel as her own-and the Pale Mother hated mystics.
Long ago Senneth had determined that nothing, nothing, would be denied to her simply because of the magic in her veins. She was stronger than hatred, than intolerance, than fear; she could survive punishment, banishment, despair. She would not be afraid of a few pretty rocks, malicious though they might be. She would wear moonstones, and the slight, constant tingle of fire at her wrist would simply remind her that the outside world was as full of heat and turmoil as her soul.
“You’re not afraid of anything, are you?” one of the recruits asked her that night after they had made an untidy camp. The speaker was a young man, maybe Cammon’s age, a fluid shape-shifter with a sad, hunted face. He had asked the question because she had showed no alarm at a quick scuffle between two of the other mystics, though the threat of conflict had sent this young man cowering to the other side of the fire.
Senneth glanced at him. “I’m afraid of more things than I could name in an hour just sitting here counting them off,” she said.