Mystic and Rider (Twelve Houses) Read Online Free

well-deserved sleep, but he might worry that he had gone from one form of misery to another.
    “I’m Senneth,” she said. “The lady with the lovely hair is Kirra Danalustrous.”
    Kirra smiled in her friendly way. “Hey there.”
    “Justin—Tayse—Donnal. They’re traveling with me on certain errands for the king. Your name, I understand it, is Cammon.”
    He nodded, but his attention had fixed on Kirra. Clearly he was remembering some scene from the barroom brawl. “You’re—you pretended to be a boy, then you showed you were a woman, and then—did you change shapes?” he asked with some wonder. “I saw a cat where you’d been standing—”
    Kirra was grinning. “It’s a skill I have. I’m a shiftling,” she said. “So’s Donnal.”
    Cammon looked around at the faces ringing the fire, but Senneth thought he looked more intrigued than frightened. “So that’s why you took me from the bar? All of you are mystics?”
    Tayse snorted. Justin said shortly, “No. Just those three.”
    Cammon gave Senneth a questioning look, and she nodded. “I can’t shape-shift, though. Or at least not very well. But yes, Kirra and Donnal and I are mystics—and, yes, that’s why we rescued you. Because I think you’re a mystic, too.”
    Cammon put his hand to his throat, where the red mark of the moonstone still lingered. “I don’t know,” he said in a low voice. “I never had any kind of magic when we lived in Arberharst.”
    Kirra tilted her head to one side. Any such movement always caused her glorious hair to ripple with light. Senneth grinned to see how the four men, all unwilling, turned to watch that sight. “But you’re from Gillengaria, aren’t you? Originally?”
    Cammon nodded. “My mother was. My father—I don’t know. He never talked much about his past, so I’m not sure where he came from.”
    Kirra shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Somewhere in your mother’s family or your father’s, someone was a mystic, and you’ve inherited the power.” She glanced at Senneth. “Or so some of us think.”
    “Yes, she just saw you emptying a chamber pot in the alley behind the bar, and she said, ‘He’s a special one,’ ” Justin said in a mocking voice. Senneth could tell he was still furious at the detour and delay in plans, though he had no responsibility for their timetable and even less for their mission. He had played his part well, though. Give him a chance to fight somebody, and he was always willing to oblige. “So we had to stop and free you, and now I don’t know what we’re going to do with you.”
    Cammon looked apprehensive, but Senneth said, “We’ll take you someplace safe. Don’t worry.”
    “Food’s ready,” Tayse said briefly and began handing ’round plates. Tayse, Senneth, Kirra, and Justin had all ordered dinner at the tavern—but Senneth, at least, had been too tense to eat much, and the long, cold ride had left them all hungry again.
    “We’ll talk about all this after dinner,” Senneth said.
    Which did not take very long, since the meal was plain and there was little conversation. Donnal and Kirra were murmuring together, as they often did, and Justin got up once to check the horses, but the rest of them just forked meat into their mouths and rejoiced at how much better they began to feel. Warm, dry, fed. All a traveler could ask for.
    Donnal cleaned up afterward. Tayse and Justin sat together, oiling their swords and inspecting their other weapons. Senneth cared for her own blades, but not with quite the same obsessive attention. Then again, she had to admit it: Either one of them could best her any day in hand-to-hand combat, and until she’d met these Riders, she’d considered herself a damn good fighter.
    Kirra drew closer so that she and Cammon and Senneth sat in a little triangle on one of the camp blankets. “Now,” Senneth said. “Let’s talk a bit more about you.”
    Cammon shrugged again. “Like I said. I never had any magical