“I wish I had kept on looking,” he said.
“I wish I had kept on traveling,” she replied. “For this is proving to be too hard.”
“I don’t know how to change that,” he said. “I could offer to turn back now—let you go on to Nocklyn and Rappengrass without me. But what good would that do? I will see you again and again. In Ghosenhall. In Brassenthwaite. In Danalustrous. You know our paths will cross. Now that I know you are alive, I will suddenly find you everywhere. Or I will make some excuse to go to the places where I think you’ll be. I will try not to, if you tell me that’s what you want, but I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself. I don’t know how I’ll be able to forget about you.”
She felt suddenly dreary. “Then it will be up to me,” she said. “To make sure I am not where you think I will be.”
“To avoid me?”
“If I have to.”
“Do you want to?”
She almost couldn’t speak. “No,” she said at last.
“Then don’t. Not now. Not yet. Not ever.”
“Well, I can’t just at the moment,” she said with a little sigh. “For there are Nocklyn and Rappengrass to get through, and I don’t see either of us heading for home just yet. But I do not think the rest of this trip will be an easy one for either of us.”
“Just do me a favor. When we’re in Rappengrass, be cool to Darryn. Treat him with disdain. Don’t invite him back to Danalustrous.”
She couldn’t help laughing at that, though the laughter felt as if it scrabbled up past hollow ribs in a painful chest. “Why not? I have been wondering if I should try to induce him to come courting Casserah.”
“Because every time I see him flirting with you I want to run him through with a sword. And I don’t think the rest of my tenure as regent would go so well if I start off by murdering serramar.”
She laughed again, a little more naturally. “He’s flirting with Casserah, not me.”
“You might be shaped like Casserah, but when I look at you, all I see is Kirra.”
“I shall have Donnal take Casserah’s shape some day and see if you can tell us apart. I think you will find yourself confused. I think you might then start to question some of these rash emotions.”
“I think I will know you no matter how you present yourself,” he retorted. “Go ahead. Come to me in some other guise and see how quickly I recognize you.”
She shook her head. Her smile was rueful, but at least she managed a smile. “Don’t tempt me,” she warned. “You have no idea how reckless I can be.”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “I saw you on the road to Tilt.”
She widened her eyes. “I think I was most circumspect on that particular journey!”
“You hazarded your life multiple times.”
“I never felt anything but safe.”
“I cannot believe you have lived long enough for me to meet you, even this late.”
She laughed again. “I think you must have led a very tame life in Merrenstow.”
He laughed, too, but almost instantly his expression grew serious. “Why haven’t you ever married, Kirra?” he asked.
For a moment there was no air. Finally, she found a way to breathe. “I’m only twenty-five—twenty-six this fall,” she said. “Plenty of time to charm a young lord with a sense of adventure. If I can find one, that is. The serramar I know are usually quite sedate.”
“And ugly,” he said. “I wouldn’t think you’d like them.”
“You’re right,” she agreed. “Perhaps I’ll run off with a Rider, as Senneth has, or someone equally unsuitable. A tavern-keeper. A sea captain. A smithy.”
“Your father will be shocked.”
“Nothing shocks my father.”
“Your sister, then.”
She laughed. “Even less likely.”
“You’ll break my heart.”
“So you can marry and I cannot?” she said. “That seems a little hard on me.”
“Marry wisely, then,” he said. “Someone I would approve of.”
She was irritated. “Should I let you shop for my groom?”
“That’s a good idea,” he approved. “But I have to warn you, it might take years before I find someone suitable. Decades, even.”
She laughed. “I think I shall take care of my own matrimonial plans, thank you.”
He gave her another serious look. “But why? Truly? Why haven’t you married before now?”
People had asked her this question often in recent weeks. She always found herself at a loss, not least because she thought it was a stupid question. She was happy as she was; she was responsible for no one but herself. Her life was crammed with travel and excitement and a long parade of people. She didn’t feel a lack. And now that Casserah had been named heir, she didn’t even have the pressure to marry for the sake of Danalustrous. She only had to suit herself.
“I never thought about it,” she said finally. “It never occurred to me that I could only have a good life if I was paired with someone else. My life is full as it is.” She flashed him one quick glance and looked away. “And I had never met the man who made me say, ‘Now. This one. Stop looking.’ I wasn’t even looking.”
“Are you going to start looking now?”
Now that you’ve met me, he implied. Now that I’ve made you examine what it might feel like to be in love. “I will go on as I always have,” she said. “I don’t know yet what has changed.”
“Everything has changed,” he said.
“And nothing,” she said. “Not the way I live my life, not the way you live yours. We both go on as before.”
“We go on,” he said, “but I am a different man.”
CHAPTER 23
LATE in the afternoon there was an ominous crack from the lead carriage. It canted over to one side and halted in the road, the horses neighing and tangling in the lines. The driver of the second coach, drowsing in the sun, yanked his own team to the left, but not in time to avoid ramming his side door against the rear of the other coach. The third driver was more alert and halted without contact, but it was instantly clear that they were faced with a real problem. The lead carriage had broken an axle and the second one had lost a door.
They were going to be here awhile as repairs were made.
Colton, the captain of the Merrenstow guard, seemed to be the one taking care of all logistical problems. He immediately began to sort through the ranks of soldiers to find those with carpentry skills. Romar jogged up to check on Amalie and Valri. Kirra dismounted and looked around, instantly finding what she’d expected: Senneth, Tayse, Justin, and Cammon on foot in a loose huddle, discussing their options. Donnal was on his way to Kirra’s side. She nodded toward the others, and they arrived together at their small knot of friends.
“Good thing Amalie was out of the carriage,” Kirra observed.
“Colton’s checking to make sure it was an accidental break,” Senneth said briefly.
Kirra felt a flash of astonishment. Or possibly fear. “You mean—you think someone—”
Tayse shrugged. “Easy thing to do to cut partway through an axle and then let the motion of the journey do the rest. Could have been worse if we’d been traveling faster.”
“Or on a bridge. Or fording water,” Justin added.
Donnal had his eyes on the crews starting to overhaul the carriages. “This work won’t go fast,” he said. “We’ll still be here by nightfall.”
Senneth and Tayse exchanged glances. “Camp out overnight?” Senneth said slowly. “With the princess and the queen?”
“Terrible idea,” Kirra said. “We’ve got one carriage left. Melly can ride a horse, though she doesn’t like to. I’m assuming the royal servants can as well, and so can you and I. Put Amalie and Valri in my carriage till we get to the next town.”
“We could do that,” Senneth said. She sounded uncertain.
“Everyone knows when we left the Keep,” Tayse said. “Everyone knows how far we’re likely to get to
night. If trouble was to come after us, it might go looking in—” He paused, trying to remember the name of the next market town on their route. “Loben.”
There was silence while they all digested this. “But are we any safer camped out on the road?” Kirra asked. “If someone is truly interested in harming Amalie, she’s in just as much danger out in the open countryside.”
Tayse gave her one of his rare smiles. “I think between us we can manage to protect her,” he said. “Don’t you?”
She laughed. Her concern was starting to give way to her sense of adventure. “You’ll never convince Valri to sleep on the ground.”
“She and Amalie can lie in the carriage,” Senneth said. “Melly can sleep out with us. We’ll put the Riders in a circle around the carriage, and the soldiers in a circle around the Riders. Cammon at one end of the camp, Donnal at the other. Hard to believe anyone could penetrate those defenses.”
Cammon spoke for the first time. “Raelynx,” he said.
They all looked at him.
“We’re not far from the Lireth Mountains,” he said. “Raelynxes cross from the Lirrens into Coravann from time to time, the queen told me.”
“Is that what you and Valri were talking about this whole time?” Kirra demanded. “I couldn’t imagine what you were saying to her—”
Cammon seemed surprised. “I asked her about my raelynx, back at the palace.” It was hardly Cammon’s raelynx, Kirra reflected. Senneth was the one who had caught and half-tamed the wild red cat. Though they’d been lucky it was still almost a baby when they found it. Adult raelynxes were so large, so ferocious, and so indifferent to weapons that they could almost never be captured or killed. Cammon went on, “Valri’s the one who’s been taking care of him, you know, and with her being gone so long, I was worried. But she’s got someone to make sure he’s fed and healthy. And then we just got to talking.” He shrugged. Cammon didn’t have much sense of class distinctions. “But she’s the one who mentioned that we might see a raelynx on this part of the trip.”
Senneth had a palm over her face, probably hiding a laugh. “Bright Mother blind me,” she said, dropping her hand with a sigh. “I don’t know that I can control a full-grown raelynx that jumps out on us by night.”
“I can,” Cammon said, and they all stared at him again. Again, he showed surprise. “Really, I can. And I think Valri can, too.”
Kirra and Senneth exchanged glances. More and more mystery about the dark little queen. “Well,” Senneth said. “I don’t know that we want to make the experiment. I might just set up a ring of fire around the whole campsite to scare off whatever night creatures get curious.”
“Pretty big signal to anyone looking for us,” Justin observed.
Senneth nodded. “We’ll be hard to overlook in any case. If we can only have stealth or safety, I’ll opt for safety.”
They dispersed to spread the news through camp. Kirra followed Senneth as she made her way toward royalty, and was amused to find that Amalie was charmed by the idea.
“Camping out? Cooking our food over an open fire?” Amalie exclaimed. “That will be so much fun!”
“Spiders in your hair by morning and nowhere to wash up,” Kirra said. “Not as much fun as you think.”
Valri did not look as horrified as Kirra had expected. The queen turned a searching look on Senneth. “Do you think we’ll be safe here?”
“I think that’s why we travel with so many soldiers around us,” Senneth said. “And we have ways to protect ourselves.”
“It might be a good idea to change our schedule unexpectedly,” said Romar, still lingering at Amalie’s side. “I approve.”
The whole caravan was already engaged in the business of making camp as efficiently as possible. Colton had moved the main group off the road, where soldiers had already trampled out a clearing big enough to hold the men, the horses, and all three carriages. Now some went foraging for fuel, some for water.
“The men have enough dried rations to last a few days,” Colton said, reporting to Senneth. “But what about the princess? Should we make her a meal from the items we can throw together?”
“We’ll have game. Donnal’s hunting,” Senneth said. “And I might send serra Casserah off to look for edibles. I’m sure she’s had much practice in such an activity during her soft life in Danalustrous.”
Kirra had to restrain herself from making a face. In fact, Casserah never spent time in the wild, but Kirra had wide experience scavenging for berries, roots, and nuts, and she could live off the land for a long time if she had to. Longer in animal than human shape.
“Let me know if you need any contributions from the men of Merrenstow,” Colton said, and went off to review everyone’s progress.
Kirra checked in with Melly, to find her unenthusiastic about the prospect of camping overnight but resigned to the thought. She even volunteered to go foraging with Kirra. “And I can cook, too, venison or pheasant or whatever your man brings back,” Melly said. “As long as we’re stuck here, I may as well make myself useful.”
They were gone about an hour and came back in early golden evening to find a cozy sight: smoke rising from four fires, blankets laid like tablecloths along the ground, the coaches pulled off the road and arranged in a line, soldiers deployed in tidy rings around the whole encampment. Kirra and Melly had stumbled across a stand of wild apple trees, so they had picked anything that looked halfway ripe, and they distributed the extra fruit among the soldiers. Melly had also dug up some kind of tubers that she said would roast well among the coals and taste like rather mealy bread, so they had returned with a basket of these as well. Donnal had brought back four grouse, and Justin had matched him in squirrels, and so they had more than enough for their own particular group of diners.
“Squirrel stew,” Kirra said with a sigh, dumping all her treasures beside the central fire. “I can hardly wait.”
Much to her surprise, Valri was kneeling before the fire and already stirring up a base in a cookpot that Colton or some other kind soul had lent the royal party. Since when could the queen cook rough fare on the open road? Valri exclaimed in pleasure when Melly handed her a fistful of limp leaves snatched from a wild patch of herbs.
“This will be tastier than you expect,” Valri told Kirra. “You’re actually going to like this meal.”
Indeed, they all had a splendid time. The fresh air or the extra work or the necessity for improvising had given them all huge appetites, and there was a certain air of gaiety generated by the very unexpectedness of their situation. A congenial group gathered around their own fire—Senneth, Kirra, Donnal, Justin, Tayse, Cammon, Romar, Amalie, Valri, and Melly—and no one seemed too worried about rank or protocol. The food was excellent and everyone said so, eating additional portions until the pot was emptied. No one was eager to leave the campfire once the meal was over, so they lingered, talking idly in divided groups. Valri and Melly discussed recipes that could be made from game and roadside spices. Justin showed Romar a few tricks he’d learned with the knife that the regent had given him. Senneth sat with her back against Tayse’s chest, her head half turned so she could smile up at him when he spoke to her in a low voice that no one else could overhear. Kirra, Amalie, Cammon, and Donnal played a card game and argued over who might be cheating. Kirra sat so close to Donnal that her shoulder rested against his and she could, if she wanted to, read every card in his hand.
“I think it’s the princess who’s cheating,” Donnal said. “Everyone thinks it’s Cammon because he can read minds, but I think the princess considers it a royal right that she win the game.”
Amalie was not at all offended by the accusation. “Well, I think it would be kind of you to let me win, but I’m not cheating. I don’t understand the game well enough to even try!” she said. “But can Cammon really read minds?”
“No,” Cammon replied.
“Yes,” Kirra and Donnal said in unison.
Amalie made her face very serious and pointed at him wi
th a regal finger. “Explain. Your princess commands you.”
“I can’t read minds,” he said. “But sometimes I can tell what people are thinking. Especially when they’re feeling strong emotions like rage or fear. Then it’s like someone’s shouting at me. But it comes through as—as—” He gestured broadly. “It’s like someone’s standing on the other side of the room waving a brightly colored flag. It’s not like I hear words. It’s not like I hear someone’s voice in my head. Not yet, anyway.”
“Not yet?” Kirra repeated. “Not yet?”
“That’s something we’re working on. Jerril and Areel and me.”
“Those are his magical tutors in Ghosenhall,” Kirra informed Amalie.