The Thirteenth House (Twelve Houses) (24 page)

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Authors: Sharon Shinn

BOOK: The Thirteenth House (Twelve Houses)
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Kirra looked again for the one face that she had hoped to see here, even though she knew it was unlikely, it was stupid even to hope, stupid even to think about it. Of course Romar Brendyn was still in Merrenstow, recuperating from his wild journey and apparently inviting new assassins in to try to kill him. Of course he was not in Ghosenhall. Surely the king would have mentioned it if he were here.
 
Surely Kirra had no business feeling such deep disappointment at his absence.
 
Baryn had caught everyone’s attention merely by stepping into the room, and now all the gathered nobles were offering quick bows and curtseys. “I’m not sure all of you know our newest arrival,” the king said, holding out his arm. Kirra came forward and made yet another little curtsey. Really, she was already getting tired of the tedious formality. “Casserah Danalustrous, here for a few days. I’m sure you’ll all welcome her.”
 
There were a few murmurs of “serra,” and everyone nodded or smiled or offered some other sign of recognition. Kirra glanced at Senneth again and found the other mystic’s eyes on her, a speculative expression on her face.
Why has Malcolm Danalustrous sent Casserah here, when Kirra was so recently at court?
When she could figure out how to phrase it, Senneth would no doubt ask.
 
But the chance wouldn’t come at dinner, since they were widely separated by other members of the party. As a new arrival and high-ranking serramarra, Kirra was seated next to the king at the head of the table; Senneth, serramarra of the First House of Gillengaria, sat closer to Valri at the foot of the table. The others were scattered in between them.
 
The food was excellent, the conversation witty enough but very light. No one talked politics or other disastrous topics. Kirra tried to pay attention to how well Amalie was doing, seated between her father and an avuncular man from Coravann. The princess wasn’t exceptionally animated, but she did seem to hold her own when speaking and appeared to be listening to talk going on in several conversations around her. There was something about her eyes, Kirra thought. Expressive. Curious. Intelligent. This was a girl who didn’t miss much, no matter how little exposure she had had to the world.
 
“And how is it I have not ever encountered you before?” the man on Kirra’s left asked before the first hour of the meal had elapsed. He was a Storian man, Rafe’s cousin or some such—Twelfth House, at any rate, and damn proud of it. “Serramarra Casserah Danalustrous! Shouldn’t we have met at any of a thousand balls or banquets in the past three years?”
 
Kirra gave him a small, cool smile. He was maybe in his early fifties, still good-looking but no longer the stunningly handsome man he must once have been, though he didn’t seem to realize it. He was pleasant enough, but a touch too arrogant to appeal to Casserah. “I rarely attend such affairs,” she said. “Almost no one has met me.”
 
“A loss for all of us.”
 
“You could be useful to me,” she said. Casserah would have said it, and just that bluntly.
 
He laughed. “Tell me how!”
 
“Who are these people? Should I know them? What are their Houses?”
 
“Do you recognize
any
of them?”
 
“I’ve met Senneth Brassenthwaite. She’s done work for my father.”
 
His eyebrows rose at that but he made no comment. “Well, the man to her right is from Merrenstow—”
 
Most of the rest of the meal passed with her companion giving her detailed gossip about everyone else gathered around the table, leading Kirra to feel that she knew them all a little more intimately than she’d wanted. She also devoutly hoped he never heard of any of her own escapades that he could then describe with malicious amusement to another stranger at some distant date. She almost wished she hadn’t told him she knew Senneth; she would have loved to hear his comments about
her
, which were sure to be unflattering. He seemed to have a preference for the conventional and a slight aversion to mystics. Senneth would hardly have suited his notions of aristocracy.
 
When the meal finally ended, the group moved to another salon for a more relaxed evening of wine and conversation. Kirra had hoped to get a chance to whisper her secret to Senneth, but it turned out that Casserah Danalustrous was in high demand that evening. She soon had a press of people three deep all around her. Others at the table had been gossiping, she surmised. They all knew she was her father’s heir, and they all wanted a chance to show her how much they valued Danalustrous. By the time she had finished having a small, personal conversation with each of them, it was close to midnight. Most of the room had already emptied, and Senneth was gone.
 
Red and silver hell. If Senneth was spending the night in the barracks with Tayse, Kirra would never have a chance to talk to her.
 
But maybe she wasn’t.
 
Making her way back upstairs, Kirra headed directly to Senneth’s door and knocked. There was a moment of silence inside the room, then footfalls crossed the floor, and the door was pulled open. Senneth was here, after all.
 
CHAPTER
12
 
S
ENNETH was still wearing her dinner dress, a severe and formal blue that turned her gray eyes cobalt and added highlights to her white-blond hair. She was looking a little mussed—the short hair, always untidy, looked as if Senneth had run her hands through it about fourteen times. Her feet were bare. Kirra could only guess Senneth had answered the door after yanking back on a dress that had already been discarded.
 
“Senneth.” Kirra spoke in Casserah’s voice. “I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.”
 
Senneth’s face was absolutely blank. “Casserah. I didn’t get a chance to speak to you at the dinner. I had no idea you were coming to Ghosenhall.”
 
“Entirely my father’s idea.”
 
Senneth hesitated a moment, then stepped back in a tacit invitation. Kirra strolled in and glanced quickly around, but didn’t see any sign that Tayse was hiding behind curtains or under the bed. “It is very good to see you, of course,” Senneth added belatedly.
 
Kirra turned to face her, her expression cool, a little supercilious. “We’ve heard strange tales of you. The lost heiress of Brassenthwaite! And all this time my father knew.”
 
“And your sister,” Senneth said with a little grin.
 
“Oh, yes, my sister,” Kirra drawled. “She told me, if I saw you, to give you an urgent message.” She glanced around the room, a little more deliberately this time. “But before I spoke, I was to make sure that you were
entirely alone.
” She looked around again. “I don’t see any Riders under the covers, though. I suppose it’s safe to speak.”
 
There was a moment of dead silence while Senneth’s face was completely unreadable. And then, “You brat,” Senneth breathed. “I can’t believe you tried to trick me.”
 
Kirra couldn’t hold back the laughter. “I
did
trick you.”
 
“Kirra!” Senneth was upon her in two strides, throwing her arms around her neck. The heat of her body was so high it was like being embraced by summer. “Oh, it is so good to see you!”
 
But Kirra was pulling back, yelping in pain. “Ow! Ow! What are you wearing—silver hell, you’ve got another moonstone bracelet on. I thought you’d learned your lesson by now.”
 
“Sorry. Forgot,” Senneth said, stripping the opalescent stones from her wrist and tossing the bracelet to the bed. Then she hugged Kirra again, hard. “What are you
doing
here? And styled like your sister?”
 
They arranged themselves on the bed to talk. Kirra sat at ease, cross-legged under her dress. Senneth had her legs stretched out before her, the folds of the blue gown bunching around her knees. Kirra pointed at the bracelet without touching it. “I can’t believe you got another one of those. It almost killed you last time.”
 
“It didn’t almost kill me. I was hurt. It doesn’t bother me at all when I’m healthy.”
 
“
No
mystic should be able to wear a moonstone. It’s unnatural that you can tolerate it.”
 
“I like it. It makes me aware of things, like how much energy I have to expend to keep it in check. Anyway, it makes people trust me when they see I can wear a moonstone. They forget I’m a mystic.”
 
“I can’t believe Tayse thinks this is a good idea.”
 
“You’re right about that,” Senneth admitted.
 
“And is Tayse in a position these days,” Kirra said with exaggerated delicacy, “to—approve or disapprove of your conduct? To make any comments on your behavior or your accessories or your—self?”
 
Senneth threw a pillow at her. “I can’t believe you would actually ask me that.”
 
Kirra leaned forward. “Oh, I can be more direct. Are you sleeping with him? What kind of a lover is Tayse, the King’s Rider?”
 
Senneth hesitated, blushed, and then laughed. “I can’t even talk to you when you look like Casserah. I can’t. If you want this conversation, you’ll have to change to Kirra.”
 
“I want this conversation.” Kirra concentrated a moment, felt the contour and structure of her face shift, felt her hair lift and curl against her shoulders. “There. It’s me. Tell me everything.”
 
Senneth had drawn her knees up to her chin and linked her hands around her ankles. “Oh, Kirra. This is unlike anything that’s ever happened to me before. I mean, there have been men from time to time—”
 
“You never told me about any of those!”
 
“But Tayse is—I feel so—nothing has ever been like this,” Senneth ended helplessly. “It’s almost as if the world has changed, or the sun has started moving in a different direction. I’m
pulled
to him. He’s become my point of reference. That’s where I start every day, by knowing where Tayse is. I can’t explain it. I wouldn’t have expected it. I would be afraid that this would end, that somehow something like this couldn’t last, except I know he feels the same way about me. Only it doesn’t frighten him, because Tayse doesn’t know what it means to be afraid.”
 
The words struck Kirra to the heart. She felt a sudden deep desire to experience something so all-encompassing, encounter some outside agent that would transmogrify her completely. But she spoke lightly, waving a dismissive hand. “Yes, very pretty. But how is he in bed?”
 
Senneth giggled and dropped her head to her knees. “If people had any idea how crude you are,” she mumbled into the fabric of her dress. “So beautiful, and so depraved.”
 
“Well, you
have
taken him as your lover, haven’t you? Because otherwise I can’t stand it.”
 
Senneth lifted her face, suffused with mirth. “Yes. He’s my lover. It’s perfectly marvelous. I enjoy it very much. I sleep beside him every chance I get. In fact, I walked into my brother’s house in Brassenthwaite and told him I was bringing a Rider into my bedroom.”
 
Kirra’s mouth fell open. “You didn’t!”
 
“I did.”
 
“You haven’t seen your brother in seventeen years, and when you do, you stroll into his house as the most powerful mystic in the realm, the confidante of the king—and you say you’re having an affair with a
guard
? Kiernan must have been ready to die.”
 
“Actually, Kiernan was too focused on essentials to really care, which I have to say raised him a little in my estimation. He just said, ‘Fine, do what you please. You always did.’ Nate acted all offended, talking about propriety and the distinction between the classes, but I just said, ‘Nate. I have consorted with thieves and killers and beggars and slaves. I have taken food from their hands, fought at their backs, called them my friends, and trusted them more than I will ever trust you. Don’t try to lecture me about where my loyalties should lie.’ ”
 
Kirra had pressed her hands over her mouth to choke back the laughter and now she spoke through her fingers. “And what did Kiernan say
then
?”
 
“He said, ‘Are we done talking about this now? Can we move on to more important matters?’ So Nate shut up, but he never did get used to Tayse being in the house.”
 
“And how did Tayse act? Was he ill at ease? Or not?”
 
Senneth laughed softly. “Oh, he was in full Rider mode. Very stone-faced, very serious. Always watching everybody as if waiting for someone to pull a knife and go on the attack. He was having a grand time. At first I thought he was doing it just to annoy Nate and Kiernan, but then I realized he was trying to make a point.”

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