Senrid

  “Without touching off civil war,” the cousin said. “No one wants Marlovens fighting Marlovens.”

  Kitty nodded, questions winging through her mind. But she banished them. The urgency she sensed in all the adults made her anxious to leave.

  “Do you have all that?” Keriam asked.

  “I think so.”

  Keriam looked up at the woman, who closed her eyes and muttered.

  Kitty felt that weird hum of intense magic, and she hunched, bracing for some terrible spell. But when the woman was done, she sat silently, eyes closed, breathing slowly.

  Keriam said, “She has temporarily broken Tdanerend’s mirror ward, but it must be reformed again right away if he is not to find us out. Can you get yourself back to where you came from?”

  Kitty fumbled with shaking fingers at her sash, removed the paper, pictured Hibern’s room, and said the spell as fast as she could.

  Transfer!

  When she appeared in the familiar, warm room, she cried out in sheer relief, and grabbed hold of the edge of Hibern’s wardrobe to steady herself.

  When her vision cleared, she saw them both staring at her, Hibern relieved, Senrid sitting up in bed, still wearing that nightgown, unlaced in front, providing a disgusting view of skinny ribs. His mouth was pressed in a thin line and his eyes were dark, an expression she should have taken as warning, but as the magic-residue wore off and she remembered what had just happened, she remembered that her true goal had been met—she did know all the news!

  “You tried transfer magic?” Hibern asked.

  “Yes, and there was some kind of nasty spell waiting, even though I was careful to transfer from in here—”

  “You can only do magic within this room, fool,” Senrid cut in, his sarcasm in no wise impaired by his honking voice. “Tdanerend got you?”

  “Yes! But I was rescued by—” She paused, and crossed her arms, and grinned. “I forgot. But I’ll remember the rest if a certain promise—”

  “What happened?” he demanded.

  Hibern’s lips parted as she looked from Senrid to Kitty.

  Kitty shrugged one shoulder, grinning smugly. “That for me to know, and—”

  Senrid was out of the bed like a bolt from a crossbow. Kitty gasped, then squawked a laugh when he tripped on the dragging hem of the nightgown and fell headlong.

  But hardly had her laugh gotten past her lips when he rolled, a flash of white linen and pink embroidery, and sprang up, his hands out.

  He gave her a shove. Klonk! Her head bumped against the stone wall. She whooped in a breath to scream at him, but then his fingers closed round her throat. “Tell me. Now.”

  Though he wasn’t much taller than she, his hands were longer than hers, and far stronger. She tugged ineffectually at his wrists, then, after he thumped her against the wall a couple of times, she dug her nails into the tops of his hands as hard as she could.

  He didn’t even flinch. “Who. Was. There?”

  Hibern stepped up, taller than both, her presence somehow calming. “Kyale, your personal quarrel can wait. There are not only Marloven lives in danger, but Leroran as well.”

  Marloven.

  She stared at them, Marlovens both, and for a moment she saw from their point of view how arrogant it was to hold a whole country against her own comfort. But as always, guilt was followed by anger and blame.

  She ignored Senrid, and said to Hibern, “If. I. Could. Talk—”

  Senrid hadn’t squeezed, he’d just held her there, but now he let go, a sudden movement that made her head klonk back against the wall once more. “Ow, you stupid dolt,” she snarled, rubbing her scalp, even though it actually hadn’t hurt.

  “Kyale?” Hibern prompted.

  Senrid returned to the bed, Hibern’s nightgown trailing behind him, but then he turned around, still very angry.

  “Our two spies were with this man with medals, who said his name was Keriam.”

  Senrid’s anger vanished. “Keriam,” he repeated, and he let out a shaky sigh, which turned into another of those long, terrible coughing fits. Then he wheezed, “Go on.”

  “I will when you stop your musical concert,” Kitty said snidely.

  Senrid snorted a weak laugh, too spent to reply. He waved a hand—blood-smeared on top from where she’d dug her nails in.

  Kitty looked quickly away, and satisfied that she’d gotten in the last word, she told it all, omitting nothing. Neither of the other two spoke until she was done; Hibern silently dipped a cloth in the water pitcher and handed it to Senrid, who looked at it absently, then wiped the blood off his hands.

  When Kitty finished her story Senrid reached for his clothes.

  Hibern put a hand out. “You can’t do anything today,” she said. “The snow is coming fast. And you need rest.”

  “I can’t rest while—”

  “You have to,” Hibern cut in. “While you can. Now, here’s what you have to remember. You’re the enemy in the eyes of many. You could go to Collet’s but she would never tell you anything. Tomorrow Kyale and I will go visit her, and tell her the news, and I will convey your words to me, if you still stand behind them.”

  “I do.” He grimaced. “Though I hardly know—Indevan’s Law. That much, though, I’m sure of. My father overhauled the regs to make them fair.”

  Hibern flicked her palms up, then said, “I shall find out what’s to be done. Meanwhile, you rest, because I expect this is going to be the last rest you’ll get.”

  “You’re right.” Senrid rubbed his hands across his eyes and up through his hair. “Keriam! Leander had spies in the castle?” He grinned. “I never would have thought it of him.”

  “Pure self defense,” Kitty said, nose in the air.

  Senrid snorted—and coughed again. When he was done, he said, “Well, we couldn’t get any in your place, not when you only have half-a-dozen people, and most of ‘em are related.”

  “Hah,” Kitty said, for once pleased with Leander’s refusal to hire more servants.

  Hibern asked, frowning slightly, “Keriam didn’t say anything about Norsundrians?”

  Kitty shook her head.

  “That was my next question as well.” Senrid prowled around the bed once or twice, one hand bunching the nightgown inelegantly at his side so the hem wouldn’t drag, the other pounding lightly on whatever surface was in reach. “The next thing I need to know.” His voice squeaked and honked. “Is Tdanerend going to give in to them?”

  “Do you think he’s that shortsighted?” Hibern asked.

  “I don’t know. What can they offer him?”

  “What can they offer you?”

  Senrid looked up at Hibern. “Nothing,” he said, his scorn plain. “They’re stupid if they think they could offer me anything that would get my allegiance.”

  Kitty sneered, “If Uncle had told you to join them a year ago—half a year ago—you would have fast enough.”

  Senrid retorted promptly, “A year ago, if Mother Mara Jinea had told you to, you would have trotted right along.”

  “Would not,” she shot back, but without much conviction.

  “Oh, right, and you never lie.”

  “Well you’re the king of liars, and anyway that was different.”

  “How?”

  “If you have to ask, you’re too stupid to know,” she stated, nose in the air.

  Senrid groaned. “Why do I waste the time?”

  “Why indeed?” Hibern asked, laughing. “Come on, Kyale. You’re overdue for breakfast—it’s way past lunch—and Senrid is overdue for more beauty sleep.”

  “Overdue by a hundred years,” Kitty cracked.

  Hibern touched her arm and they transferred upstairs.

  Kitty opened her mouth to complain about Senrid and his arrogance and stupidity, but Hibern spoke first. “Do you prefer to be called Kyale, or Kitty? I’ve heard both.” She sat down at one end of the couch.

  “Kitty.”

  “And I like Fern much better than Hibern.”


  “Fern! Faline called you Fern, now I remember!” Kitty exclaimed. “It’s pretty. Though I like Hibern too.”

  “I don’t,” Fern said. “It’s boring—means ‘Right Road’ in old Iascan, of all the dull things. Your name, Kyale, is much more interesting.”

  “It is?” Kyale was delighted. “I know ‘Marlonen’ means ‘Death Conqueror,’ because my mother told me that.”

  “Well, actually it doesn’t. ‘Mario’ is more ‘outcast’, and ‘nan’ was more ‘dead’ than ‘death’ but go on.”

  “She never told me what Kyale meant, only that it was a name for a princess.”

  “It is. For centuries, and the boy version is Kyle, without the ‘ah’ sound in the middle. Ky-lee. Ky-ah-lee means, sort of, ‘royal girl-tree’, from way back when some of our ancestors were forest-dwellers, before they came to these plains. Same with your brother’s name, which was modernized from Anderle, which means ‘Green Tree’.”

  “Green Tree! Wow! Will I have fun with that, when I get home.” Kyale sighed. “If I get home.”

  Hibern laughed. “Now, let me tell you more about Collet, then we will have supper.”

  “Collet!” Kitty exclaimed. “I love the idea of a girl being in charge of spies!”

  Fern said, “Collet’s mother is the real link in the white network.”

  A grown lady? Kitty felt a stab of disappointment. “How did that happen?”

  “Well, she’s a distant cousin of the former queen, and her sister, who was Tdanerend’s wife.”

  Kitty nodded, remembering that someone had said that Tdanerend had probably killed both those women, or had them killed. Kitty wondered if he’d drowned them, like Leander’s mother was drowned by Mara Jinea—slipped over the side of a pleasure boat while asleep, after drinking wine laced with a heroic dose of sleepweed.

  Hibern spoke again. “Collet’s mother found out about my secret life through her connections with some of my mage teachers. She was the one who encouraged Collet and me to visit, with the excuse of family connection. It was made easier for us to get together because Collet’s father, as assistant to the Jarl, and Latvian both felt it worthwhile to cultivate the other’s good will, so our families socialized frequently, until Stefan got too unstable for Latvian to risk visitors.”

  Kitty grimaced. She hadn’t seen Stefan—and did not want to.

  “But by then Collet and I had established our secret method of keeping contact.”

  “Spies,” Kitty said wistfully, thinking: Everyone has an interesting life but me. Then a yawn took her by surprise.

  Hibern gave a soft laugh. “I’m sorry! I’ve talked you near to fainting. Here, let’s get you supper and then you can sleep. We’ll have enough to do come morning, I fear.”

  SEVEN

  The castle looked formidable when seen from the road, its towers snow-topped, and one of the two guards that Tdanerend had assigned to Latvian—as mages weren’t permitted to have personal guards—patrolled along the top of the battlements below all the turrets and towers.

  Kyale didn’t like the dazzle around her vision that indicated they were hidden by illusion, but she was grateful for it. They walked along the road, which was already rutted from wagons and horses, so their footsteps made no impression.

  The magic wore off not long after they vanished through the trees that grew in a thick line near Hibern’s tower. Now they walked quickly, their breath clouding. The air was stunningly cold, the sky overhead almost as white as the ground around them.

  Kitty would not have enjoyed the walk anyway, for the shortcut meant stepping into snow that was calf-deep in some places, but the way Hibern kept frowning and looking upward made her particularly uneasy. Kitty glanced fearfully upward, but all she saw were low gray clouds coming out of the west, where before there’d been cool, weak sunshine. As they walked all the shadows vanished, leaving the world bleak and ice-blue.

  They did not speak for a time; Fern had said that cold carries voices, something Kitty didn’t want to test the truth of. She wanted to get to Collet, where there would be warmth.

  After a long, silent walk, Fern said softly, “This is so strange. From my tower I usually can see weather coming, but I did not see this storm.”

  The clouds were now overhead. White drifted down, at first prettily stippling the evergreens around them, but swiftly thickening. Almost blinded, Kitty pressed close to Fern, her head bent, her cloak pulled up around her ears.

  “Old shepherd’s shack,” Fern said, and veered. “We’re not far.”

  Unquestioning, Kitty followed.

  An eternity of slogging seemed to follow, during which Kitty kept her gaze on her feet. One, the other, one, the other. Would they go on forever like this? Then she stepped onto rough wooden planking, and the cold weight of snow abruptly lifted: they were inside a rough cabin. Warmth drew them instinctively toward a fireplace in which a leaping fire roared.

  “This hut was abandoned years ago,” Fern exclaimed. “Is there someone else—”

  She stopped. Both girls had gone straight to the fire, their hands out, but when they turned, they saw the man seated on a rough-hewn bench in the shadows at the other side of the room.

  Kitty felt a wail constrict her throat when a figure rose from the chair and advanced at a deliberate and leisurely pace, the firelight striking ruddy glints in the hazel eyes and brown hair of the man she and Senrid had encountered on the border road.

  He stepped between the girls and the door.

  Hibern untied her cloak and laid it down before the fire as if she and Kitty were alone in the room, but Kitty saw a vein beating in her temple.

  Kitty was too scared to take her cloak off. She hunched closer to the fire, as if that would protect her, ignoring the sharp scent of singed wool that arose.

  “I was hoping,” the man said, as if continuing a conversation, “that you would emerge from your citadel, Hibern Deheldegarthe.”

  Fern’s face flushed bright red. “I’ve never touched a sword in my life,” she said—and then turned even redder.

  “Guardian of the world, ready to take on everyone’s battles but your own,” the man continued.

  Kitty had no idea what he was talking about, but she felt the sting in that smiling voice.

  “Will you engage with us?” he asked, when Hibern stayed silent. “Or will you run?”

  Fern’s black eyes narrowed, the first time Kitty had seen her angry. “You are a disgrace and a mockery,” she said. “I won’t treat with you, so either begin your battle, or be gone.”

  Her voice was thin; Kitty wavered between admiration and dismay at her temerity. Even though, so far, the man had done nothing whatsoever that was even remotely threatening, Kitty felt danger as intensely as she had when Tdanerend had ordered her dragged off and shot.

  “You are not yet worth my time,” the man retorted, without any hint of anger at all.

  And he vanished.

  “Ugh,” Fern exclaimed, and flopped down onto the dirty hearth. “Oh!”

  Outside, the storm rumbled and the wind shrieked. Kitty crouched down, her knees watery with relief.

  “What? I don’t understand,” Kitty said tentatively.

  “That horrible name. He’ll probably spread it all around, and—”

  “What?”

  Fern looked up, her mouth long with rueful humor. “Deheldegarthe. Means, oh, ‘Battle Daughter,’ but it was used in our history for heroines of stature, and before that, fighting queens.” Her eyes turned toward the fire. Kitty saw twin flames reflect in them. “Hibern Deheldegarthe! I’ll probably never hear the last of that. Fight my own battles! Phew! I put the no-growth spell on poor Stefan, so he won’t age while I try to learn enough magic to give him sanity again… But use magic against my father? I won’t… I wish…” Fern began, then stopped as she studied the leaping flames.

  Her frown gradually smoothed out.

  Kitty turned her own face toward the fire, enjoying the warmth. The flames wove upward in br
ight patterns that she could almost descry, almost, if she watched a little harder, a little longer…

  Her thoughts seemed to dissolve in the bright flickering oranges and golds and yellows, a pleasant sort of dissolution that reminded her—reminded her—

  A mental image appeared among the flames, gray eyes flecked with green, a steady, unblinking gaze that—

  “Augh!” she yelled, ripping her focus away from that fire.

  Fear burned through her, chased by the icy relief of a near escape. “Uhn!” She picked up Fern’s cloak and flung it over the girl’s head, then looked about wildly for something with which to put that fire out.

  Fern let out a muffled exclamation, and clawed the garment away from her face. She stared at Kitty, her eyes wide, her hair ruffled. “What—oh, Kitty!” She gave a shuddering sigh. “That was a near one. Thank you.”

  Kitty said shakily, “What is it, a spell on that fire?” She had her back to it now. “I almost got caught, too, but it felt like the other day, when he did that with his eyes.”

  Hibern whirled her cloak about her shoulders. “Storm or not, we had better go.” She stalked out onto the smooth, snowy ground.

  But the storm had already abated considerably, as suddenly as it had come. That probably had been magic too, Kitty realized, and shuddered. The subtlety and effectiveness of such magic was nastier than all of Tdanerend’s screaming and threats.

  Hibern walked fast, her head low, her mouth compressed tightly. Kitty could feel her anger; Fern was only aware of her own fear, and how she tried to hide it from Kyale, who could do nothing to help.

  The girls made rapid progress the rest of the way through the wooded parkland to the nearby estate where Collet’s family lived in a long, rambling building that was not a castle. Again Fern used illusion to cloak herself and Kitty as they passed through an open gate in a high wall along which armed warriors in green and yellow livery patrolled.