The Thirteenth House (Twelve Houses) (35 page)

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Authors: Sharon Shinn

BOOK: The Thirteenth House (Twelve Houses)
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Though she was wishing most passionately that the dance would never end.
 
It did, of course, with a minor crescendo of music and a last trill on a haunted flute. Romar immediately dropped his hands and bowed to her. Kirra swept him a regal curtsey.
 
“I enjoyed that,” Romar said. “You are a most graceful lady.”
 
“Thank you,” she said, unable to come up with anything more witty.
 
He had crooked his arm as if to lead her off the dance floor, but Darryn was beside them, making his own offer. “I did not realize you were dancing, serra,” said the Rappengrass lord. “Will you take a turn with me?”
 
Yes, with him, with Raegon Tilton, with Toland Storian, with anyone, just so she could end this long conference with Romar Brendyn. The regent bowed again and exited the floor. Kirra arranged herself in Darryn’s arms and they dipped into the dance.
 
That marked her as willing, and for the next hour she passed from hand to hand. Some of the younger lords had finally given up the pursuit of Amalie and were leading other ladies to the floor, but Casserah did not seem to appeal to this contingent. No, it was Seth Stowfer and the fathers of the bachelors and Eloise’s oldest vassals who wanted to squire the Danalustrous serramarra around. They were interested in alliances, not romance, and she had no quarrel with that. She let them rhapsodize about the beauties of Danalustrous and inquire after the health of her father and congratulate her on her new position in the household. She noted which ones wore moonstones—though Cammon’s magic held and she was not seared by them—and which ones sported only the gems and colors of their own Houses. But none of them asked her outright where Danalustrous might stand in a war. None of them mentioned either Halchon Gisseltess or the king. It was impossible to tell whose allegiances lay where.
 
Eventually she was able to free herself from Seth Stowfer. She made her way around the perimeter of the dance floor to where Senneth stood near a pair of tall windows.
 
“Where’s Valri?” Kirra asked. “She’s usually lurking right next to you, staring at Amalie.”
 
“She’s dancing with Heffel Coravann. For the third time this evening. He seems quite infatuated with her.”
 
Kirra scanned the dance floor till she located the unlikely couple, the tiny dark-haired queen and the rather lumbering marlord of Coravann. “Didn’t his wife die a couple of years ago? She was small and dark, too. Maybe Valri reminds him of her.”
 
“Maybe Valri ought to be careful of causing any gossip by seeming to favor any one marlord over another.”
 
Kirra raised her eyebrows. “Senneth Brassenthwaite lecturing on propriety,” she marveled. “I never thought to hear it.”
 
Senneth offered a reluctant smile. “Yes, but there are a few people who can’t afford to make mistakes. And Valri’s one.”
 
“The princess seems to be handling herself very well.”
 
Senneth nodded. “
She
doesn’t make mistakes. Even little ones. That’s something I’ve been noticing.”
 
“I think under the shiny hair and the cow eyes she’s a very smart girl,” Kirra said.
 
Senneth gave her an indignant look for the unflattering description but said, “There are days I almost feel hopeful.”
 
“Let’s see how well the trip progresses before we start becoming as rash as all that,” Kirra said.
 
Senneth laughed, and they talked idly for a few more moments. Kirra danced one or two more times, returning to Senneth’s side after each one to exchange observations. It was about an hour later and the ball was perhaps half over when Kirra saw Romar Brendyn slip out a back doorway of the ballroom. She smiled to herself; she didn’t think he’d made it through an entire evening yet without disappearing for a while. Three minutes later, Amalie twirled up beside them on Darryn Rappengrass’s arm, looking flushed and happy.
 
“Have you seen my uncle?” the princess asked. “Darryn wanted to ask him something.”
 
“He was supposed to give me the name of a swordsmith in Nocklyn,” Darryn said. “I’m leaving in the morning.”
 
“He went out the back way, toward the gardens,” Senneth said. Kirra was impressed. That was something she would have expected Tayse to notice because Tayse noticed everything, but she hadn’t thought Senneth was paying such close attention.
 
“Well, I’ll—” Darryn began, but Amalie clutched his arm.
 
“Oh, no, dance with me again,” she said in an undervoice. “I have been avoiding Toland Storian all night and he’s heading this way right now.”
 
Kirra grinned. “I’ll go find him,” she offered. “You two dance.”
 
It was a relief to step from the overheated, overfull, overlit ballroom into the cool empty darkness of the corridor, and even better to step outside. The air was rich with the scent of summer flowers and thick with the promise of rain. The moon was full and high, but what light drifted through the gardens fell mostly from the ballroom windows. The scene inside was all bright colors and yellow candle flame, a painting of gaiety and grace. Outside, the world seemed mysterious, hushed, alive with secret possibilities.
 
High hedges separated the gardens proper from the sweeping outer lawn surrounding Kianlever Court. Kirra moved slowly in the darkness, the green walls of shrubbery to her left, the stone walls of the house on her right. The gardens were a maze of flower beds, fountains, statuary, trellises, and follies, and Kirra only knew her way through them because of the days spent roaming with Donnal in animal shape. Where would Romar have gone? Not far, she thought. He might even be walking along the pathways closest to the house so he could glance through the windows from time to time, watch his niece, make sure all was well. . . .
 
She located Romar at last, pacing slowly along an outer path, head down, hands behind his back, seeming to be working out some great problem. It was hard to see him clearly, but Kirra recognized the shape of his shoulders, the tied-back style of his hair, the faint checkerboard pattern of his sash. He looked like a shadow set with a few blurred, familiar details.
 
A few seconds after she saw him, she saw the other men.
 
CHAPTER
18
 
J
UST as Romar passed a stand of ornamental trees, two shadows detached themselves from the thin trunks and came creeping down the path behind him. Kirra could make out the glint of silver in their hands—knives or swords. They deployed, one to the right of Romar, the other to the left and a little behind his companion. Positioning themselves for the first blow and then the second.
 
Kirra didn’t have time to scream, to think of screaming, even to gauge whether they were close enough to the house for Riders to hear her call. The first man charged forward in a silent run and collided with Romar in a blow that sent both men tumbling to the ground.
 
A scramble, a grunt, a choked cry, and the second man was running forward in a low crouch, weapon out, seeking a place to land a blow. Kirra could see the deadly struggle between the two on the ground—Romar not dead, then—but could not tell who was winning the contest.
 
She put a hand to her chest, felt the hard knot of the carved lion under her bodice.
Wild Mother watch me,
she prayed, the words coming to her without conscious thought, and eased her body into another shape.
 
The second attacker had struck twice, hard, and now raised his arm for a third time. His hand never fell. The lion made a perfect spring from the pathway to his shoulders, bringing him down in a thrashing bundle. He screamed once and fought madly to free himself. She raked her claws straight down his face and chest, slicing through cotton and leather and skin. He howled and coiled from side to side in terror or agony, beating at her with his hands. The lion batted him across the face so hard his head slammed into the stones of the pathway. He lay still. She lost interest, turned her head to seek more lively prey.
 
Three feet away, the two other men were locked in a grim struggle, though the attacker with his hands around his victim’s throat had been distracted by the sight of the great cat. Kirra slashed at his exposed rib cage, drawing blood, then darted in and closed her wide jaws over his head. He screamed and fell backward, releasing Romar, who choked and rolled to a seated position. Kirra shook her head with the man’s skull still in her mouth, and his body dragged from side to side on the pathway. He was still shrieking. His hands flailed at her as his feet tried to find a purchase on the ground. She could taste blood in her mouth, smell fear in the air.
 
Romar heaved himself to his feet and staggered, his hands checking his body for wounds. Behind her, Kirra heard halting footsteps weaving away as the other attacker regained consciousness and made a battered run for freedom. She relaxed her jaws and allowed the second man to pull free. Sobbing like a child, he first scrabbled away on all fours, then pitched himself to his feet and ran.
 
Kirra dropped to her haunches and let him go. Her concern now was the man before her, who looked to be a little steadier on his feet and not suffering from any kind of life-threatening wound. His clothes were ripped and there was a trail of blood down one cheek, black in the moonlight, but he looked neither too dizzy nor too weak to stand. Indeed, he took a few hasty steps after his departing assailants before he realized that they were too fast and too far ahead of him. Then he slowed, and stopped, and spun around to stare at the creature sitting in the garden path, licking her mouth once with her broad tongue to clean away the traces of blood.
 
He watched her a long time and she held his gaze, her whole body unmoving. He seemed neither afraid nor confused, though his breathing was still hard and he gave every appearance of a man who had been in a desperate fight. But that didn’t seem to be what concerned him right now. He came one step closer to the lion and continued to stare.
 
“I know you, I think,” he said at last in a low voice. “Show me your true shape.”
 
She had always been a little vain of her ability to change forms with a sinuous grace. She considered the transformation to be like a flower unfurling or a fist unfolding, something elemental and inevitable and marked with its own ritual. Still, it was a curiously intimate thing, to move from one state to another, essentially recast a life, while under someone else’s intense scrutiny. She tilted her head and shrugged her shoulders and felt her bones and muscles realign while all the textures of her body regrouped. She kept Casserah’s red gown and ruby necklace and the lion’s golden hair and stood there in the garden facing Romar Brendyn as Kirra Danalustrous.
 
“How many times will I be called upon to rescue the king’s regent?” she greeted him, keeping her voice light. “I would have thought you would have grown more careful by now.”
 
He glanced over his shoulder as if to see whether more enemies were arrayed against him. “Who were they? Could you tell?”
 
She shook her head. “Someone who knew that you walk in the gardens every night at about this time. That could be any of Eloise’s houseguests—or anyone who has been spying on the house, watching your habits.”
 
“As you have been?” he asked pointedly. “How did you know where to find me? Why were you looking?”
 
For this at least she had an easy answer. “Darryn Rappengrass had a question for you. Senneth Brassenthwaite had seen you leave. I volunteered to fetch you.” She looked around. “Not knowing I would also be saving your life.”
 
He nodded and then he bowed, very deeply, as if being introduced to Valri or Amalie for the first time. “As you seem to be destined to do, over and over. I am so much at a loss for how to thank you that I do not even know how to act. My mind is reeling. I was not prepared for an assault by enemies, and I was not prepared to see you again.”
 
He straightened and looked at her, coming a few steps closer without even seeming to be aware that he moved. His hands were outstretched; his expression was both wondering and joyful. “Kirra,” he said, and without thinking she put her hands in his. “How good it is to see your face.”
 
Her throat was so tight she was not sure she would be able to answer. “Lord Romar,” she managed. “Let me say the same.”
 
He peered at her in the darkness, bending just a little to get a better look. His hair must have come loose in the scuffle, because now it fell alongside his cheek, softening its lines. Whatever scrape had been bleeding seemed to have stopped, but a line of blood still made an interesting stripe down one cheek.
 
“How did you come to be here?” he asked. “When did you arrive? I have had a series of most intriguing conversations with—” He shut his mouth, obviously working it out that very moment. “With you, I suppose,” he continued. “Not Casserah at all.”

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