The Doom of Kings_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [16]
“Baerer can go in my place.” Ashi put her back to Vounn and went to her wardrobe. Her fingers fumbled with the seams of her fitted dancing shirt, then she simply grabbed the fabric and tore the stitching apart. A sleeveless shirt—the better to show off her dragonmark. Her mouth twisted in disgust. Flinging the rags away, she reached into the wardrobe. “Or better yet,” she said, “let my mark sit in the chair. Ah, but you can’t, since it’s coming with me.”
The shirt she pulled from the wardrobe had long sleeves. She tugged it over her head, then grabbed the fingerless gloves and scarf she habitually wore, when away from the enclave of Sentinel Tower, to hide the magical pattern on her skin.
“You can’t do this,” said Vounn.
Ashi glanced over her shoulder at the lady seneschal. There were two spots of color high on her cheeks. “Why not?” she asked her. “Because it will spoil your plans? Because it will mean trouble for the relationship between Deneith and Darguun? I don’t think my being there or not will make that much of a difference.”
She reached back into the wardrobe and took out one thing more: her sword. Her real sword, not the lightweight piece of metal from the dance but a proper blade, the one thing she’d carried away from the Bonetree clan and her old life. Singe had identified it as an honor blade of the Sentinel Marshals of House Deneith, a weapon presented only in recognition of the most heroic acts. It had belonged to her grandfather, a legacy along with the blood of Deneith. Ashi buckled the sword belt around her waist, then turned to go.
“You’re not leaving Sentinel Tower,” said Vounn. She hadn’t moved, as if frozen with disbelief that her charge would disobey her. “You will be at that dinner.”
Ashi stopped and met her gaze. “How will it look to the Darguuls,” she asked, “if they see House guards dragging the bearer of the Siberys Mark of Sentinel through the halls and up to the dining table?”
Vounn closed her mouth, but her eyes remained hard. Ashi could guess what was going on in her mind. There was more than one way to get an unwilling person to do something, and she didn’t doubt that Vounn would use any means at her disposal. Fortunately, Ashi had the ultimate defense against any sort of mental manipulation. She narrowed her eyes and concentrated. For a moment, the lines of her dragonmark seemed to brighten. Heat flared across her skin, wrapping her in a flash of warmth that, when it faded, left a kind of hard-edged clarity behind it.
The power of her mark had stood against Dah’mir and against his lord, the terrible, alien daelkyr known as the Master of Silence. It would stand against anything Vounn could throw at her. What was more, its power would conceal her from any divination magic the lady seneschal might order used to try to locate her.
“Give my regards to Tariic,” said Ashi, and she walked out of the room.
CHAPTER
THREE
The passages of Sentinel Tower were generally bustling at any hour, but as Ashi stalked from the living quarters of the great tower into the more public areas, it seemed to her that even more people than usual were rushing about. Most were talking about the Darguuls, about Tariic and the evening’s feast, about Baerer and his performance of the sword dance. Ashi did her best to avoid the thickest knots of gossip—a goal made easier once people got a look at the fury on her face and quickly moved out of her way. She’d never been good at concealing her emotions, and while Vounn had managed to teach her some control, the last thing Ashi felt like doing was following Vounn’s lessons.
No, she realized as she turned a corner and stopped sharply, following Vounn’s lessons was the second to last thing she felt like doing.
Around the corner, as startled and frozen as she, was Baerer. Her one-time instructor was dressed in fine clothes, clearly ready for dinner. His face still glowed with the joy of his dance, though that glow vanished even as she watched, replaced by a kind of haunted shame. “Ashi—”
“Lord Baerer,” she said formally, some