The Will of the Empress - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,156

the sorbus to fortify it against any hazards that might plague a foreigner in Namorn. "And they're here to hunt. I wouldn't talk imperial, either, if I was on leave after fighting Yanjing. Stop fussing."

"They talked about weddings" Zhegorz insisted.

"Men on leave get married. If you don't have anything more serious, go soak your head in the river," Briar snapped. "I mean it, Zhegorz. Tris just told you to come with us so you wouldn't lurk about Landreg House giving her the fidgets. Once they've fixed you up at Winding Circle, you'll be able to manage better. Now scat! And put your spectacles and both ear beads back on!"

Without a word, Zhegorz got to his feet and returned to the inn. Watching him go, Briar felt a rare twinge of conscience. He kicked that out, too. I'll make it up to him later, he promised himself. But truthfully, sometimes a fellow needs time alone with green things. They won't talk me half to death.

Tired of people, he returned to the inn for his shakkan. With it in his hands, he went out onto the riverbank and settled between the roots of an immense willow. There he spent the afternoon, the shakkan at his side, soaking in the feel of all that green life around him.

While Briar relaxed, Daja offered to take Gudruny's children off her hands for a while. Gudruny accepted with gratitude. Once they were awake, Daja took them on a hike along the canyon that opened to the rear of the inn, where she could sense some metal veins in the rock walls. Sandry and Gudruny dozed and read. Zhegorz sulked in the stable, then paced outside the inn, restless under the threat of his calming drops from Sandry.

Everyone ate a quiet supper. Briar's impulse to apologize to Zhegorz died under the older man's glare during supper. He was happy to watch Zhegorz climb the stairs to go to bed early. Briar wasn't sure he could keep his temper if Zhegorz continued to stare at him as if Briar had just murdered his firstborn. Instead, Briar listened to Sandry tell Gudruny's children a bedtime story. Once they had gone upstairs, he helped Sandry straighten her embroidery silks. Despite the naps nearly everyone had taken, all of them were yawning not long after twilight had faded. They soon went to bed. Even the staff vanished. When Briar got up to close the front door, he saw that the guards were asleep around their fire. He had planned to set his shakkan back with the packs before he turned in, but something made him change his mind. After trying to think, and nearly splitting his jaws as he yawned, Briar had simply carried the old pine upstairs.

Zhegorz was already sound asleep in the other bed, a mild buzz of a snore issuing from his lips. Grateful not to have to have to talk to him, Briar set the shakkan on the floor and took off his clothes. Clad only in his loincloth, he crawled under the covers.

Given all the yawning he had done, he had thought he would be asleep the moment he put his head down. Instead, he felt imprisoned by his clean cotton sheets. His brain felt as if it were weighed down by clouds; his nose was stuffy. The feeling was one he knew, one his tired brain associated with blood and weapons in the night. Briar half-heard the roar of Yanjingyi rockets overhead and the shriek of dying people all around. He fought the clouds, turning his fingers to brambles to claw his way out of them. The clouds thickened. Desperate, he made his fingers into hooked thorns and slashed through layers of heavy mist.

The clouds parted slightly. Briar thrust a vine of power out through the opening, groping blindly for help with the weight that made it hard for him to breathe or move. He fumbled and reached — and touched his shakkan. White fire blazed, burning the clouds away in a heartbeat. Briar took deep breaths of clean air and woke up.

For a moment he thought he lay in a Gyongxe temple. The scent of sandalwood and patchouli was heavy in his nose; the ghosts of warning gongs thudded in his ears. When he put his feet on the floor, however, they met thin carpet, not stone. The smells faded in his nose; straining, he heard no war gongs. He wasn't in Gyongxe. He was in a Namornese room. The two had only one