WarDance (Chronicles of the Warlands #5)(53)

Snowfall slipped back into the room, fresh kavage in her hands.

“Yes,” Simus snorted. “But I need people I trust near me, even when they tell me I am wrong. And yes, I thought of sending you back, but the need for you is here, not there.” He narrowed his eyes at Joden. “Were you avoiding Essa?”

“No,” Joden said shortly.

“Have you talked to Essa?”

“No,” Joden said, his voice still clipped.

“Ah,” Simus said. At the look on Joden’s face, he decided not to press the issue.

Snowfall started to straighten the gurtle pads, moving around the area with a gentle grace.

“Enough serious thoughts,” Simus said, and laughed. “Come,” he said, addressing them both with one expansive gesture. “There is dancing tonight. We will chant and dance patterns and exhaust the opposition. The morning will bring what the morning will bring. For tonight, we dance.”

Snowfall looked at him as if surprised he would include her. She shook her head. “Warrior-priestesses do not dance.”

There was a hidden sadness in her words that made Simus stop and think. Warrior-priests were isolated from warriors, maintaining their own camps. But not to dance? Another mystery in the depths of her eyes, and he wanted answers.

“You must,” Simus insisted, putting a hand to his chest with a flourish. “You are my Token-bearer; you must come. If only to watch me.”

“To watch,” she agreed. “Just let me check on the servers in the back, that all is done properly.”

“And then perhaps tonight, we could share our bodies,” Simus suggested as she walked away. “If only to celebrate.”

Snowfall paused, and looked at him with her calm, grey eyes. “No,” she said.

Joden choked on his kavage.

“What?” Simus said.

“No,” she repeated calmly. “It would complicate things.”

And with that, she disappeared into the back.

Simus stood there, staring after her in astonishment.

Joden was coughing, talking and clearing his throat at the same time. “Thought you didn’t share during the Trials?” he choked and laughed. “Thought it made things complicated?”

“Show more respect for your Warlord,” Simus growled.

Joden just kept laughing.





Chapter Twenty-One


“You understand, I do not wish to trouble the Warprize?” Amyu asked anxiously, embarrassed to be seeking reassurance.

The stone walls of Master Healer Eln’s chamber were covered in shelves, filled with bottles and jars, more than she’d ever seen in a Xyian building. She stood by the large wooden table, glancing around. It made her feel even more nervous, all these things surrounding her. She felt hemmed in. Trapped.

Master Healer Eln sat on his stool by the table, his long grey hair braided down his back. He had a calm presence, a very quiet man. The braid was unusual in a city-dweller; for Amyu, it made him seem safer somehow. Like one of the Plains.

“It’s just that she, the Warprize,” Amyu hurried on, “she has other worries right now, with her kingdom, and her new babes.”

Master Healer Eln nodded, studying her. “You want to talk, as if under the bells, correct?” he asked gently. “That’s why you came here to see me?”

“You’d think they were the first babes ever born.” Amyu reached up and pushed her brown hair behind her ear. “They are good babies, mind you, but—”

Eln snorted with amusement. “But all new mothers are like that, even Master Healers.” He paused. “But that is not why you are here.”

Amyu dropped her gaze, glad that she’d made the journey from the Castle to his shop in the City. Far more private then any tent, with stone walls and closed doors. “The Warprize has said that Xyian Healers hold words told them to their hearts, yes? Like the Singers?”

“I will tell no one what you confide in me,” Eln said softly. “And that is the second time you have asked me that, Amyu. What troubles you so?” The concern in his voice was clear, and reassuring. She looked up when he continued. “Does it have to do with...” His glance fell on her left arm.

So he knew about her lack of tattoos, of her barrenness. Knew that to her own people she was still a child and a failure. Yet still he treated her as an adult, as a person of worth. Xyians were odd that way. It felt so strange, and yet, so wonderful at the same time.

“No, it’s not about that,” she said softly, and cursed the tears that welled up in her eyes when he just nodded, and didn’t press the matter. “It is—” Amyu tried to find the words. “Since the night of the pillar of light, I have—”

Raised voices cut through the quiet and the door to Eln’s chamber burst open. Amyu spun, her weapons in her hand.

“Wounded, Master,” an apprentice explained, holding the door open. Into the chamber rushed a group of four in the uniform of the City Guard, all talking at once, carrying an unconscious warrior face down between them. “Master Healer,” one of them grunted under his load. “Wyvern sting.”

“Here, quickly.” Eln was up, moving his stool to the side, gesturing toward the table. “Where’s the wound?”

“Lower back,” one said.