“That’s a little chilling,” Kirra said.
“Yes—everything he says and does leaves me trembling with cold. So I knew that, once my baby was born, I would have to leave my father’s house. I thought to go seek shelter with some of my grandmother’s family in Kianlever. She and I had talked about it, because she hated Halchon as much as I did. I would have the baby, I would leave my father’s care, and I would lead the quiet, confined life a woman leads among the Thirteen Houses. Or so I planned . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Kirra knew the rest of that story; no need to go into it now. “What I don’t understand,” Kirra said, “was what happened yesterday. When Halchon grabbed you. Why didn’t you turn him into a pillar of fire?”
Senneth drew her blanket closer to her chin. She, who was never cold, shivered even at the thought of Halchon’s touch. “I can’t. There is something about him—that smothers my magic. Do you know how there are some rooms you can walk into—or caves—or cathedrals—where the sound seems deadened? There are no echoes, and your voice scarcely seems to carry three inches from your lips? Halchon is like that, for me, at least. A dead place. A place where my magic won’t light. I could tell that, even when I was sixteen.”
“You can’t marry him,” Kirra said. “Even to avert war.”
“I think war would come anyway,” Senneth said soberly. “Or how could I forgive myself for telling him no?”
THE rest of the week on board ship passed in a similar fashion, though Justin and Tayse were up and walking around—somewhat unsteadily—the third day they were at sea. For Senneth and her party, as soon as health was restored, tedium quickly set in. They were used to hard riding and constant vigilance, and they chafed a bit at the enforced inaction. Tayse encouraged them all to take the rare chance to catch up on missed sleep, but the bunks were so uncomfortable that it was difficult to follow that excellent advice. Mostly the six of them gathered in one room or another, crowding together on the narrow bunks and the cramped floor, and played cards or talked idly or complained about the boredom.
If Senneth and her friends climbed up to the top deck for a little change of scenery, Captain Abernot and his sailors were polite but not enthusiastic. Senneth knew how unwelcome an unexpected guest could be when there was work to be done, so she made sure to keep out of the way when she encountered any of the crew. Cammon, though, volunteered early on to help out, and, after watching him tie a knot and hoist a sail, Captain Abernot allowed him to work with the other sailors when he wished. Justin followed Cammon’s lead and offered his services when the wind was strong or it looked like other hands might be needed. Senneth wasn’t sure if the captain appreciated or tolerated these volunteers, but as far as she could tell, they did no harm, and so she allowed them to continue on in their efforts.
Kirra and Donnal were as often gone from the ship as present, having one way to entertain themselves that none of the rest of them possessed. Senneth saw them take dozens of shapes before the journey was done, from gull to hawk to fish to eel. “Better be careful some hungry sailor doesn’t snare you on a line and fry you up for dinner,” she admonished Kirra one night after that young lady had come back to their cabin sleek and wet from a swim in the ocean.
Kirra grinned and ran her fingers through her matted hair. “Oh, I’d turn human as soon as the hook went through my lip and he started hauling me back toward the rail,” she said. “He’d think he caught a mermaid or some other creature of the sea and be so startled he’d drop his line in the ocean.”
“If he didn’t shoot you with a crossbow instead and let you bleed to death in the salt water,” Senneth said.
Kirra laughed. “I think Captain Abernot has put a moratorium on shooting gulls and catching fish, during this stage of his journey, anyway,” she said. “He worries just as much as you do.”
Of Tayse, during this long, dreary week, Senneth saw almost nothing. Unless the six of them were together, eating or gaming or talking. He kept to his cabin most of the time, clearly a man who was not happy to be water bound. It was obvious he considered them all safe for the first time since they’d set out on this journey, so his own ferocious vigilance was eased. He did not feel the need to set a guard on Senneth’s door, or watch her every movement, or be aware of, night and day, exactly where she was.
Senneth missed the unfailing attention, bitter as it had sometimes been. She knew she would miss it even more once they arrived at Ghosenhall and Tayse left her life entirely.
The few times she saw him outside of his cabin and strolling the deck alone, he mostly kept to the stern of the ship, watching the water unroll behind them. She knew without asking that he was guarding their back trail, making sure no fast-moving Gisseltess ships raced out of the southern waters to menace them on their journey. He could not entirely ignore his own protective instincts.
They had been on board ship six days before Senneth took the chance to speak to Tayse alone. It was early evening, and her traveling companions would soon gather in the galley to eat their meal half an hour before the sailors began arriving in their own dinner shifts. The sun was very low over the western horizon, about to disappear into the farthest edge of the wrinkled sea. The breeze was fitful, but cold as always. Tayse stood braced against the back railing, his coat gathered around him, his gloved hands loose on the top bar.
Senneth came to stand beside him, taking a casual stance, pretending that it didn’t matter to her if he greeted her with a smile or a scowl. He did neither; he glanced down at her with little expression on his face at all, and then moved over somewhat to make room for her.
They stood there a moment in what Senneth hoped was companionable silence before she spoke. “Any ships in pursuit?” she asked lightly.
He shook his head. “Not that I’ve seen, or Donnal or Kirra. I’ve asked them to look when they go out on their adventures.”
“Ah. Then they aren’t just playing like children when they turn themselves into sea creatures and water birds.”
His face relaxed in a faint smile. “Well, I imagine it’s more playing than reconnaissance, but I trust them to at least patrol the seas for enemy ships.”
“Captain Abernot says we should make land tomorrow. I have to say, I’m looking forward to it.”
“Yes,” he said, the word so heartfelt that she laughed.
“And are you looking forward to returning to Ghosenhall as well?” she asked. “This has been a long journey for you, I know.”
He looked down at her, his dark eyes hard to read. The smile was gone. “I will be happy to be back in a place I know with people that I understand,” he said at last, the words very slow. “But this has been a journey it will be hard to walk away from. I think the roads and stops along the way will stay with me longer than they usually do.”
“You have not traveled enough,” she said. “Or you’d know that every journey makes its own map across your heart.”
“You have traveled too much,” he said. “Or you wouldn’t think that life holds only such journeys.”
“It is true,” she said, “that I have chosen to make the road my home. But no other home seemed feasible.”
“You could join the Riders, as Justin has suggested,” he said. “It wouldn’t take much training to make you good enough. And the king would welcome you into their ranks.”
“But would the Riders?” she asked, amused. “I am an element that does not mix so well with certain others.”
“It might take some time,” he admitted. “But you would win them over. Most of them.”
“Oh, Tayse,” she said, leaning against the railing and watching the sea ruffle and calm behind them. “You don’t want me as a Rider, troubling you with my presence. You’re worried about my safety. You think that once you’re not beside me, I’ll tumble into danger as I round every curve in the road. I’ll promise you to be careful, and then you can watch me go with a light heart.”
“Hardly that,” he said, his own face turned toward the south.
“I have to confess,” she said in a low voice, “that I was glad you were in the room with me when I confronted Halchon Gisseltess.”
He was silent a moment. “I would have killed him.”
“I know.” She, too, held the silence briefly, and then she sighed. “But it’s better that you did not.”
“You’re afraid of him.”
“Yes.”
“What can he do to you? He doesn’t have the power to compel you to marry him, does he?”
She laughed. “I don’t think so, but if I hear that his wife has mysteriously disappeared, I think it will be time for me to go to ground.”
He looked down at her again, his eyes very dark and serious. “It is time for you to talk to your brothers, I think,” he said.
She had not expected such a comment from him, and she felt a strong wave of indignation. “And I think you don’t know anything about it.”
“When you and Kirra were dividing Houses for the war, all your calculations centered on Brassenthwaite’s fealty to the throne. If your brothers think
you
will be on the throne, it might change their sense of loyalty.”
“My brothers have no interest in me anymore.”
“I doubt that,” he said dryly. “Certainly once they find Halchon Gisseltess still wants the alliance, they will find you very interesting indeed.”
“I have renounced my Brassenthwaite heritage and my Brassenthwaite relations.”
“But they have not renounced you,” he said. “If Senneth Brassenthwaite is going to be at the heart of this war, she had better know who her allies and enemies are.”
She stared up at him, for that was putting it more plainly than she had ever managed to phrase it to herself. She
was
at the heart of this war, one way or another—because she was a mystic, because she was powerful, because she would fight for her king with a wholehearted passion. But Halchon’s proposal had put her at the center of conflict in the political arena as well. If she could thwart him, if she could sway Kiernan, she had obligations she had not foreseen—or had chosen to ignore.
“I hate my brother,” she said.
“You’ve changed since you were seventeen,” Tayse said. “Perhaps he has, too.”
“He will not take my side.”
“You don’t know whose side he is already on.”
She leaned forward, scrunching down over the railing, resting her chin on her hands as they clasped the bar. “And my grandmother’s dead,” she said. “And my mother betrayed me. There is nothing for me in Brassenthwaite anymore.”
“There is a kingdom at stake,” he said. “You have to go.”
Senneth did not reply. She kept her eyes before her on the curling lines of the wake, watching the water fold over on itself and then smooth into an eternal blue. He was right, of course. She had to go to Brassenthwaite. Though it was the very last journey she wanted to make.
THEY arrived at Dormas in the middle of the following afternoon. It took nearly two hours to get their belongings packed, the horses off-loaded, and the raelynx set in a rented gig—just till they got out of the city, Senneth promised Cammon. The rest of them all stood on the wharf for a few minutes while Kirra finished giving Captain Abernot messages for her father.
Cammon seemed uncharacteristically nervous. “What if we see Kardon?” he asked, pushing his shaggy hair from his eyes. “He’ll recognize me. What if he wants me back?”
Tayse looked down at him with a lurking smile. “What makes you think we would give you back?”
“I wouldn’t want you to have to fight for me,” Cammon said shyly.
Justin laughed. “We fight for everybody, in this group,” he said. “Haven’t you noticed that by now?”
“Anyway, you’re safe enough. We won’t be in Dormas long enough for anyone to recognize us,” Senneth said.
But of course her words were to be disproved less than a minute later. While she and her friends waited patiently on the pier, a knot of horsemen clattered by—then came to a sudden, tangled halt as voices cried out a surprised welcome.
“Tayse! Justin! Is that really you?”
“Hey, it’s Justin! And Tayse! Why are you in Dormas?”
Seconds later, they were surrounded by a small group of men and women jumping from their saddles and greeting the soldiers with strong handshakes or playful punches on the shoulder. Senneth thought she counted eight of them, but they moved so quickly and talked so rapidly that it was hard to sort them out. Not hard to know instantly who they were, though: King’s Riders, dressed in black and gold, and sporting the arrogant rampant lion on sashes across their chests.
And not hard to see that these were the people that Justin and Tayse were most completely comfortable with. Justin was wrestling with some attractive young man about his age, clubbing him about the head and ducking the good-natured blows aimed at him in return. Tayse was standing between two older men, talking with great animation—actually smiling. Actually laughing.
Cammon glanced over at Senneth. “True friends,” he said with a smile. Senneth nodded and dropped her gaze to the planks below her feet. She was wondering what it would be like to have Tayse’s affection so casually and willingly given.