So, after all, he and Amalie had a moment alone, but it wasn’t likely to do them any good. Cammon couldn’t draw his attention away from his distant friends, couldn’t relax or focus on anything else while they were in danger. He could feel Kirra and Donnal taking the shapes of great winged predators and diving into the fray from above, gouging out eyes, slashing open faces. His arm was heavy with Tayse’s sword, relentless and unfaltering. His hands burned with the heat of Senneth’s fire.
“Cammon.” That was Amalie’s voice, curiously disembodied, strangely distant. “Cammon, I’m worried about you. You seem to have disappeared. Should I send for Justin? Or Jerril?”
He managed to shake his head. “No, I’ll be all right. When Justin was hurt, I felt like a knife had gone through my heart, and it took me a couple of hours to recover. But this is-there are four of them, all at once-there’s so much emotion I can’t push it back. But I think it’ll be all right. I think it’ll fade. I’ll be fine.”
In truth, he wasn’t so certain he would be fine. He had never been buffeted by so many intense emotions simultaneously. Jerril would certainly tell him he needed to pull back, to throw his mental shields up, to conserve his own strength. But he couldn’t. Not while they were so passionately engaged, not while they were in such danger. They were all, in their ways, splendid fighters, but any man could be felled on a battlefield. Any mystic could be cut down by a sword.
Amalie stood up, drawing her hand away. He felt an instant sense of loss that momentarily jerked his attention back to this room, and he saw her hurrying over to her bookcase of treasures. But then Senneth called forth an incredible burst of power and he was right back in Danalustrous, behind a roaring, impregnable wall of flame. Gods, he could feel the backlash of her power; she could set the entire country on fire.
Amalie circled his wrist with her hand, and for a moment the world went black.
No fire. No battlefield. No parlor. Just a blank and empty spasm of existence.
He gasped for air and reality shifted back into place. He was in the pretty rose-and-cream parlor, sitting in an upholstered chair, facing a window that looked out over the sunny lawns of the palace. Amalie was beside him, her earnest face creased with worry. Danalustrous and his four friends who were defending it were still there at the edge of his mind, but in a muted and shadowy fashion. He could monitor the fight while still existing in his true environment.
Her hand was still closed over his wrist, and he could feel the sharp prickle of magic in her touch. “What did you do?” he whispered.
She opened her other hand to show him the moonstone pendant she had been given by the Coravann lord. “I wanted to see if I could steal some of your visions away,” she said. She looked a little nervous, as if she thought he might wrench out of her hold or yell in fury. She also looked stubborn and determined, as if she would yell right back.
He swallowed. “You succeeded.”
Now she looked anxious. “And is it all right? Should I let you go? It’s just that-you seemed so far away-and it seemed dangerous. I was afraid you would slip away completely, and I didn’t know how you would get back.”
“I don’t know. That’s never happened before, but it’s never been so intense before,” he said, his voice a shade closer to normal. “Now-I can still feel them, but it’s a little more bearable.” He attempted a smile. “That’s a trick I would use on somebody. How did you learn it?”
Her smile was timid. “I don’t know. I just thought I’d try.”
With his free hand, he gestured at the moonstone. “And how did you keep it from burning me this time?”
She shook her head. “I just tried to. I didn’t know if that would work, either.”
Despite his pressing worry, despite his continued abstraction, he felt a tremendous excitement begin to build up in his chest. “Amalie,” he said. “Do you realize what you’re doing? You’re teaching yourself to use your magic. And you’re using it to help and to heal. You’ve been afraid of it, but Ellynor was right. You can make it benevolent. And you can figure it out completely on your own.”
Now her smile widened. She was pleased that he was pleased with her. “And I helped you come back? I made you feel better?”
He put his free hand on the back of her neck and drew her forward so that their foreheads were touching. She released his wrist, but only so she could lace her fingers with his. The conflict at Danan Hall was still playing out on the edge of his vision, but Tayse was convinced of victory, and even Kirra had grown calmer. “You made me feel wonderful,” he said.
That was how they were sitting when Valri came back in the room and found them.
CHAPTER 27
THE afternoon passed in a tangled blur. Baryn wanted whatever details Cammon could supply, and Cammon had to repeat them all to Tir when the older Rider came in for a briefing. They were already armed for war. There was little else they could do to prepare for an assault on the palace, should one be coming, but everyone was shocked at the news from Danalustrous.
More bad news was to follow. As the day wore on, Cammon became oppressed by other intimations of hostility, and he spread his attention outward toward all the borders of Gillengaria. Violence had always been what registered most sharply in his consciousness, and violence was unfolding throughout the Houses. He had never been good at geography, never been able to tell exactly where something was occurring, but he could tell that blood was being shed in multiple locations throughout the realm.
After all, Amalie brought Justin into her study. The Rider unrolled a huge map on the floor and weighted its four corners. Then he made Cammon stand on the spot marked as Ghosenhall and face the northern border. “Give me directions,” he demanded.
Cammon waved to his right. “That way. Not very close to us.”
“Kianlever,” Justin guessed, placing a rock on Kianlever Court. “Where else?”
“That way. East. But farther up. North, I guess.”
Justin’s voice was grim. He placed another stone. “Brassenthwaite.”
“Although it’s not as intense there,” Cammon added. “I think the battle is already over. Maybe it was just a skirmish.”
“Where else?”
Cammon pointed behind him. “Pretty far. Almost at the edge of what I can sense, so maybe at the coastline.”
“Rappengrass.”
“And that way. Toward the Lireth Mountains.”
“Coravann.” Justin’s voice was cold with fury. “Uprisings at all the loyal Houses, timed to occur on the same day. To make the marlords think twice about sending any reinforcements to the palace once they learn that Ghosenhall is under attack.”
“Merrenstow’s a loyal House,” Amalie said. She and Valri had watched this whole exercise.
Justin laughed mirthlessly. “Royal forces have been bivouacked on Merrenstow land for the last six months. It would be difficult to plan an uprising there.”
Valri was on her feet and pacing. “So does this mean that the Houses where there have not been confrontations are Houses that are not loyal to the crown? So many of them! We always knew that Fortunalt and Gisseltess were against us, and Nocklyn and Tilt have been questionable for a long time, but Storian? Helven?”
Justin looked grave. “I don’t know. Perhaps those Houses have maintained better relations between the marlords and their vassals.”
Valri pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Baryn must know.”
Justin nodded. “I’m assuming the marlords will send word as soon as they can to confirm Cammon’s suspicions.”
“They’re not suspicions,” Cammon said.
Justin’s face almost relaxed into a smile. “I know. You’re always right.” He sighed. “I wish Senneth and Tayse were here.”