Still looking a little unwilling, but conscious of many pairs of eyes on her, Ellynor stepped up to Justin. She put her hands up and Justin immediately moved forward to press his own palms against hers. “The blessing of the Mother upon you,” she said in a low voice.
She would have dropped her hands right away, but Justin curled his fingers over hers to keep her in place. It was clear she did not want to make a scene, not with so many people watching, so she did not try to jerk free. “Thank you for your kindness,” he said. “Could you do a favor for a penitent?”
She had avoided his eyes at first, but that made her look at him and frown. “What favor?”
“I have no moonstone, nothing by which to call the goddess. I understand that convent novices sometimes hand them out. I would be grateful if that were so—if I could take one from your hand.”
Wordlessly, Ellynor nodded and pulled out of his light hold. She reached into a pocket of her robe and produced a moonstone, small and milky and attached to a silver chain. When she laid it in his outstretched palm, he quickly lifted his other hand to imprison hers between both of his. He thought she flinched, almost as if the moonstone between their hands burned into her flesh. Certainly the gem seemed hot to the touch, scalding his own skin.
He barely noticed. “Thanks be to the Great Mother,” he said piously. “I will treasure this always.”
She nodded and tried to free her hand. When he did not release her, she gave him an indignant look. “May she watch over you all your days,” she said, but her tone was cold.
“Come to me tonight?” he breathed, still giving her the idiot’s smile he expected any man who loved the goddess to wear.
“You have to let go of me,” she replied, her voice almost inaudible.
“Tonight?” he repeated.
“Yes,” she said, and tried again to break his hold.
He hung on. “A promise?”
“Yes.”
He let her go. “Praise be to the blessed lady,” he said. He gave her another broad smile, bobbed his head at one of the other novices who happened to glance his way, and carefully stowed the moonstone in the pocket of his shirt. Whistling now, he continued down the main road, into the heart of Neft, and made his way back to the stables.
THAT night, Ellynor practically burst out of the doorway and flew down the walk to where Justin was waiting outside the gate. Her passage was utterly silent, but she was clearly furious. “Justin! How dare you come to me in public like that? Don’t you know how dangerous that was? Don’t you know that everyone was watching—all the novices, all the soldiers?”
Her hands had been outstretched as if to give him a good hard shove, but he caught them in his and then kept them when she would have yanked away. “I was careful. I didn’t do anything anyone would notice. I wanted to see you.”
She twisted her hands, unable to free them. “Well, I told you I wasn’t ready to see you! I needed time to think.”
“But that’s not fair,” he argued. “Why should you get to choose? Why shouldn’t I be able to decide? What if I have things to say even if you don’t want to hear them?”
She was silent a moment, and she stopped struggling. Then she sighed. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “We’re in a very strange position, both of us, and we cannot give in to moods and tantrums.”
He grinned. “I never have either.”
“Well, you make me want to have both.”
She tugged at her hands again, and he dropped one of them, but kept the other and tucked it into his elbow. “Let’s walk a little,” he said. “I know the front of this house by memory, from staring at it so long.”
She fell in step beside him willingly enough; indeed, he felt her fingers tighten upon the crook of his arm. They strolled forward, following the downward slope of the hill. Justin let the silence run on a little, because Ellynor was clearly thinking about something, and then she spoke abruptly. “I asked Astira, and she said you were right.”
“Who’s Astira?”
“One of the other novices. She was there this afternoon— the tall girl. Well, she said she didn’t think the soldiers killed mystics, but that they tortured them, trying to get them to renounce magic. And when I said, ‘But that’s terrible!’ she gave me this very strange look and said, ‘But mystics are evil. They have to be destroyed.’ And I think all the novices agree.”
“So you believe me now?” She nodded. “Does it make you want to leave the convent?”
The sound she made was half a laugh, half an exhalation of despair. “There have been days I’ve wanted to leave the convent ever since I arrived,” she said. “But it’s not so simple.”
“But you’ll think about it? I could help you leave.”
“I’ll think about what I should do next,” she said, a note of finality in her voice.
So he changed the subject. Sort of. “How long will you be here this time?”
“Only another day, I think. But I might be back. Serra Paulina is doing very well but she told me she starts feeling listless and weak when I’m not around. At first I thought she was teasing, but she’s very frail. I think she could fall sick again at any minute—you know how old people are always catching every cough and fever that comes along.”
“I wouldn’t wish anyone a fever, but I hope she’ll find a way to call you back.”
She laughed. “Yes, because I’m sure your life is quite dull when I’m not around.”
He grinned. “Mostly. Though Kirra and Donnal passed through last week, and it’s hard to ever be bored when Kirra’s nearby.”
She turned her head to look at him and spoke in the coolest of voices. “Oh? Kirra? Who’s that?”
“One of my mystic friends. She was curious about you, too.”
Ellynor came to a complete halt and pulled her hand free. He was so surprised he let her go. “You were talking about me? To someone else? You were gossiping about a novice from the convent?”
She was angry, but he wasn’t sure why. “I know, the Lestra wouldn’t like that, but you can trust Kirra. It was months before I could actually stand her, even though she’s so beautiful that most men are practically falling at her feet. But now I consider her one of my closest friends. I know she’d do anything for me if I needed help.”
“I certainly hope she’s within call if you’re ever in trouble,” Ellynor snapped, and began stalking down the street.
Dumbfounded, Justin caught her arm and didn’t let go when she tried to jerk from his hold. “Wait, wait! What? I’m sorry, what did I say?”
“Well, why are you standing here talking to me at midnight when this beautiful, delightful woman is your closest friend? The person who entertains you when you’re bored—the person you rely on most—why aren’t you off somewhere visiting with her?”
He stared at her. He had heard people describe jealousy before, he had just never expected anyone to feel it in relation to him. “Ellynor. Don’t be silly. I—”
She wrenched away and clutched her skirts in her hands. “I have to get back to the house,” she muttered, and took off at a run.
Justin caught her in three steps. This time she really was fighting him, but he was much too powerful for her. He turned her in his arms, crushed her against him with one arm so that she had no chance of breaking free, and used his other hand to force her chin up. “Ellynor,” he said sternly. “What are you thinking?”
“Let go of me,” she panted.
“Kirra’s my friend. She’d laugh if she thought you could be jealous of her—”
Wrong thing to say. Ellynor uttered a little cry of outrage and struggled furiously in his arms, kicking at him hard enough to leave bruises, trying to get her hands loose to claw or slap him. He didn’t know what to do. He tightened his hold, lifting her completely off the ground, and when she opened her mouth as if to scream, he kissed her.
For a moment, everything stopped. Ellynor’s struggles, the sounds of the night, Justin’s thoughts, Justin’s heart. For a mo
ment, he lost himself in wonder and sensation as he kissed the girl who lay so calmly in his arms. It was like holding formed silk, tamed fire; it was like heat and luxury and excitement all at once.
Then she broke the kiss and made a mad scrabble for freedom and, cursing himself, he let her go. How many times had she told him she despised ruthlessness, how often had he heard her talk about her brothers and their friends, so rough and domineering? He didn’t want to be like the men she railed against. He didn’t want her to think he was the kind of man who took what he wanted from a woman just because he could.
She was backing away from him, her blue eyes wide and dark, hands out to push him away if he tried to touch her again. He followed, his own hands up as if in surrender, as if showing her he was innocent of weapons. “I’m sorry,” he said, over and over, as she continued to back away, as he continued to follow. “Ellynor, I’m sorry. Please. Wait. Talk to me.”
Against all hope, she halted, and he halted a few paces away, still penitent. “I’m sorry,” he said again.
Her eyes were huge, but even so, she bent forward a little, as if she was having trouble seeing him—she who could read manuscripts in the dark. “Why did you stop?” she asked in a low voice.
“Because I shouldn’t have started. Because that was wrong, that was unfair. I don’t want to be that kind of man. I want to be the kind of man—” He paused and took a shuddering breath. “I’d rather be a man you trusted. A man you felt safe to be with. Ellynor, I’m so sorry.”
She stepped closer, close enough to touch. “I do trust you,” she said, and kissed him on the mouth.
This time, when his arms encircled her, he held her as if she was breakable, as if he could mar her skin unless he was careful. She put her arms around his neck, pulling him closer; her mouth clung to his as if she was afraid he would desert her. The part of him that was not alive with physical pleasure was drunk with marvel—that he could be holding such a woman, that she could be kissing him, that she could seem to want him as much as he suddenly wanted her.
There was a jingle, a hoofbeat, a horse’s snort, and Justin was suddenly slammed with combat adrenaline. Riders approaching, and he had not heard them till they were almost upon him! In a few rough motions, he had torn away from Ellynor, thrust her behind him, and drawn his sword. He could see the three mounted men picking their way up the hill, turning their heads this way and that as they peered into the shadows. Within seconds, they would spy Justin and Ellynor, foolishly standing like landmarks on the edge of the road without a shelter in sight. Running would only draw more attention to them. He tightened his hold on his hilt.
“Don’t worry,” Ellynor breathed in his ear. “They won’t see us. Stand very still and they will pass us by.”
Before he could ask what she meant, a filmy black shadow seemed to settle over the spot where he and Ellynor waited. It was as if an errant drift of night sky piled around them, dense and opaque, but light as air. Ellynor’s hands stole around his waist and he felt her lean against his back, but otherwise she was frozen in place. Justin stood motionless, listening intently, since it was difficult to see through the haze of black. The slow clop of horses’ hooves, the low murmur between men, the creak of saddle leather. Coming closer, moving on, finally disappearing altogether.
Justin drew a deep breath and seemed to inhale all the black fog, or else it dissipated in a single instant. Sheathing his sword, he turned slowly, careful not to displace Ellynor’s grip, and put his hands on her shoulders. “What did you do?” he asked quietly.
She was smiling. “I told you. My brothers taught me how to creep from a house—or cross a mock battlefield in stealth. Torrin can call a darkness so profound it covers an entire valley. I can only do little tricks, like that one.”
He wasn’t even sure how to ask the question. “What kind of magic is that?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. It’s not magic. It’s just—I told you, my family worships the Black Mother, and she responds when we send her our prayers. I prayed for darkness just then—and you see, she answered!”
His thoughts were in a complete jumble. He didn’t know enough about magic to know if this was the way it worked for other mystics—if, indeed, this sort of skill would be in their repertoires. But it seemed like power, nonetheless, and something Coralinda Gisseltess would view with great suspicion.
“You don’t want to say those kinds of prayers when you’re in the convent,” he said urgently. “You say it’s not magic, but it might look mystical to the Lestra. You don’t want to call darkness or even talk about how the Black Mother helps you heal sick people. You don’t want to put yourself in danger.”
She had been smiling, pleased with herself, but now her face took a somber expression. “I won’t. I haven’t. I mean, I’ve helped out in the infirmary, but I’ve been careful what I’ve said—mostly—” Her voice trailed off.
His hands tightened on her shoulders. “Ellynor, I’m not sure you’re safe there,” he said. “The more I learn about you, the more I think you shouldn’t be living there.”
She dropped her arms and stepped back, and he let his own hands fall. “I know what you think,” she said. “I need to decide that for myself.”
He sighed, unwilling to have an argument again. He glanced back over his shoulder, but the men were truly gone. “Who were they, could you tell?” he asked. “I couldn’t see through your—haze.”
“Soldiers from the convent,” she said shortly. “They would have been most unhappy to find me out with you.”
Kissing in the dark. Yes, Justin could imagine how unhappy the guards would have been. “We’d probably better get you back then,” he said, “in case anyone else comes looking for you.”
They turned in the direction of the Gisseltess house, no more than a quarter mile away. But they moved slowly, neither of them eager for the night to end. Experimentally, Justin reached for Ellynor’s hand, and she allowed him to take it. She even squeezed his fingers as if to make certain he was real.
Outside the gate, they stopped and regarded each other by insufficient starlight. “I think some things have changed tonight,” Justin said hesitantly.
Ellynor nodded. “I think so.”
“I’m not good at this. I don’t know how to do this. But Ellynor, I—I have to see you again. This has become too important to me.”
She nodded again. “It’s important to me, too, Justin. But I don’t know—there are so many reasons—I don’t think there are any promises I can make. I want to see you, please believe that. If I stay away, it’s because I don’t have much control over my comings and goings or—or—because it seems better for both of us that we’re not together.”
“It won’t be better for me,” he said immediately.
She smiled, but he thought the expression was a little sad. “Someday we’ll tell each other our secrets,” she said. “And everything may change again.”
She lifted her face, an invitation, so he bent to kiss her one last time. When he lifted his head, her fresh smile was a little brighter. “There’s something to dream about,” she said in a whisper. And she slipped away from him before he could kiss her again. A few moments later she had disappeared inside the house.
CHAPTER 16
ONE more night when Ellynor met him in secret—one more rapturous interlude of shy smiles and stolen kisses—and then she was gone. Justin was watching from the side of the street when the cavalcade rode by, five novices and nine guards. If Ellynor saw him, she made no sign.
Justin found himself wondering how soon he could go out to Lumanen again. Convince Delz he needed another two or three days off, then creep through the forest and find himself a convenient perch to spy on the convent. How could he communicate with Ellynor if she was inside the walls and he outside? If she knew he was loitering in the forest, could she make up some excuse for going outside the gates? Why hadn’t he thought to ask these questions, make these preparations, before she left town again?