Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,56
to eat and change horses and catch a few hours of sleep, rising before dawn to continue. The lieutenant Cahal took Ashlin’s place in the carriage the next day, a dark-haired Celanoran who had come to Erisín with the betrothal party three years ago. Half the ostensible mercenaries riding with the coach were the princess’s own guard, and the other half Captain Denaris’s handpicked soldiers. The lieutenant was hawk-eyed and quiet, and a cutthroat tarock player. Savedra might have to pawn her pearls soon.
“Am I being careless with her?” Savedra asked while Cahal shuffled. She’d tried to keep her worries to herself, but the soldier’s calm and obvious loyalty invited confidences.
Cards blurred from hand to hand before he answered. “I’ve ridden with the princess since she was sixteen,” he said at last. “When she was younger, no one could have been more careless with her health than she was. That’s most of why she isn’t heir—too much like her mother.”
Savedra had asked once why Ashlin, the firstborn, wasn’t Crown Princess of Celanor; the princess had said only that a crown suited her younger brother better.
“Did you know the queen?”
He shook his head. “I was too young. She spent little time in the castle by the time I was training there. But I saw her sometimes—bright and fierce and beautiful. A wildling warrior of the old Clans. They call the castle at Yselin the Eyrie, but it was always a mew to her.” He gave a rueful shrug, a soldier speaking of things that weren’t his to know but everyone knew anyway. “She died in battle when Ashlin was thirteen. No king or queen or prince of Celanor had fallen so for generations, not since Dhonail and Siobhan, but Nemain wouldn’t leave the defense of her clanhame to her soldiers when brigands came raiding.” Another shrug. “Ashlin worshipped her, and by the time she was sixteen everyone thought she’d kill herself the same way.”
He grinned wryly, black eyes glinting. “Her Highness has mellowed a great deal since then. In some ways your palace intrigue is good for her—makes her think before she rushes blindly in.” He dealt a new hand. “So, no, I don’t think you’re being careless with her. Coddling only makes her angry, anyway.” This shrug was sympathetic and long-suffering.
They passed the road sign for Arachne as afternoon shadows stretched into evening on the third day. Every other time Savedra had made the trip it had been a leisurely journey of half a decad or more, but neither she nor Ashlin were in the mood for leisure now. The carriage veered off the main road onto the narrower path that led to the Severoi’s hillside estate. They were high in the hills now, near the crux of the Varagas and Sindrel mountain ranges, at the edge of the Sarken border. Miles to the west, the Herodis thundered down from the heights, surging black and icy toward Erisín and the sea.
The ride roughened as the road sloped, and by the time the horses clattered to a stop Savedra’s teeth ached from clenching her jaw and sharp pains pierced through her shoulders and back. She swore like a dockhand as Cahal handed her down, and was rewarded by the amused crease of his eyes. Her left leg had fallen asleep, and stung with pins and needles as she dragged it across the cobbles.
She raised a hand against the sun, and forgot her aches and complaints as her eyes adjusted. The sun slanted across the western mountains, gilding the sharp peaks of the Varagas and blinding the windows of the house. Shadows gathered thick in the lower forests. The air tasted of pine and woodsmoke and dead leaves, and Savedra breathed deep with a sigh. She’d played in these woods with her brothers and the household children, and sulked in them during the miseries of her adolescence. Phoenix House and the Gallery of Pearls might be more a home to her these days, but Evharis would always carry a weight of memories.
Ashlin dismounted, stroking her sweating horse and drawing aside her scarf to bare wind-flushed cheeks. She shaded her eyes as she studied the hills and terraced orchards, and the wilder trees beyond. “I’ve missed the forests,” she said quietly.
Stablehands appeared, hesitating at the sight of mercenaries. Before Savedra could identify herself the great doors swung open and the familiar gaunt form of the house steward descended the steps. Savedra smiled and stepped forward, trying in vain to shake the wrinkles from