Starborn. Katie MacAlister

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      I stared at him, the soft folds of my velvet gown in my hands. “You can shapeshift?”

      “Me? No.” He shook his head, gathering up a couple of journals and the sword that Deo’s father, Israel Langton, had given him. He strapped it to the top of the pack. “Master Wix never taught me such things. I doubt if he knew the way of it, himself. But Avas has spent much time in isolation, perfecting his abilities to shape arcany, and evidently he can don the appearance of other beings for a short time.”

      I carefully folded my gown and tucked it away in my leather pack. “So he went into Jalas’s bedchamber disguised as a bear, and the other bear attacked him?”

      Hallow made a choking noise, his face averted as he tucked the journals into his pack. “In a manner of speaking.”

      “But…” I thought about that for a minute. “Did he disguise himself as a female bear?”

      “No.” Hallow’s face was a mixture of amusement and what I assumed was sympathy for the arcanist who was helping him.

      “But what did Jalas’s bear do to him if not attacking or attempting to mate?”

      “Er…I didn’t actually say the latter.”

      My eyes widened. “Oh. You mean…oh! I see.”

      “I fervently hope you don’t, my heart,” Hallow answered, laughing now. “You are a priestess, after all.”

      “Pshaw,” I said, gathering my bow and quiver. “I’m not as innocent as you think, arcanist. We have men in Temple’s Vale who prefer the company of other men to those of women. Sandor said that all were blessed in Kiriah’s eyes, although she didn’t care much for those who rutted with the temple’s sheep.”

      “The goddess said that?” Hallow asked, his eyes round with surprise.

      “No, Sandor did.” I added a metal girdle that was set with silver links that Sandor had given me upon leaving the temple, feeling it would go well with the velvet gown, then closed the pack, and buckled the straps. “She said it made the sheep overly skittish around the shearers.”

      “I should imagine so,” Hallow said, his lips twitching again.

      Silence fell for a few minutes while he finished packing, then slid into the scabbard on his back the straight black wooden staff that contained the spirit of Thorn, a previous Master.

      “Mind you, she threatened to shut the sheep buggerers into a shed with one of the rams just so they could see how traumatizing it was for the ewes, but I don’t know that she ever did so. The older priests were reticent to answer my questions about that.”

      “Allegria!” he said with a shout of laughter, taking me into his arms to kiss me on the nose.

      “What?” I asked, wiggling against him, wondering if we had time for a little dalliance before we had to be on our way.

      “You are a priestess. You shouldn’t know of such things such as men preferring sheep over women, let alone terms like ‘sheep buggerers.’ You, my love, are incorrigible.”

      “I like to think of it as being curious. And that same curiosity is prodding me to ask if we’re leaving immediately to sail to Aryia, or if we have time for me to make sure that your exposure to intensive arcany last night hasn’t caused you any bodily harm.” I waggled my eyebrows at him.

      He glanced behind me toward the screen and bed. “I had intended for us to be on our way as soon as Kiriah graced us with light, but perhaps I should have you check. So long as you let me check you over, as well.”

      His hands were roaming as he spoke, sliding the bow and quiver from me and unbuckling the scabbard I wore on my back.

      “I would appreciate that,” I told him, my breath catching in my throat when the warmth of his hands seeped through my linen tunic.

      His head bent toward mine, his breath hot on my mouth when all of a sudden he swore and jerked backward, spinning around to glare at the window. “Kiriah’s bane on him!”

      “No,” I said on a whimper. “Don’t tell me.”

      “I’m sorry, my heart,” he said, handing me my scabbard before pulling the straight black staff from his back and holding it out.

      A little breeze ruffled my hair when a small black swallow darted through the window, circled us both three times, then landed on the top of the staff. The bird—like the staff itself—was made of wood.

      Thorn had returned.

      I sighed, wondering how long it would take Hallow to find some other mission upon which he could send Thorn. Although the former Master of Kelos meant well, he drove Hallow nigh on to madness with his inane chatter, demands, and orders about how to run both Kelos, and the arcanists themselves.

      “Yes, I heard you.” Hallow slid the staff into place on his back before turning an apologetic glance to me. I shrugged, knowing that Thorn was chattering away at Hallow, even if only he could hear the spirit’s voice. “Yes, she does look annoyed, but it wasn’t I who annoyed her. Thorn offers you greetings, Allegria.”

      “Hello, Thorn,” I said, trying to look less sexually frustrated than I felt.

      Hallow heaved up one of the packs onto his shoulder and reached for mine. I let him take it, collecting my bow and quiver, as well as gathering up some bread and fruit in a clean cloth. I followed him down the stairs, and out of the tower, smiling to myself despite the way the morning had turned out. It always amused me to listen to Hallow deal with Thorn’s excited chatter.

      “No, I’m not going to take down in writing what you have to report. We don’t need to have a permanent record of your words. If that happens, and I find it difficult to believe that vast herds of arcanists down through the ages will be lusting for a record of your every word as you think they will, then I will take responsibility for their anger. No, I am not going to employ a scribe so that I can dictate your words to him. It’s not about the coin that it would cost…Thorn, Allegria is a priestess, a lightweaver, and a former Bane of Eris. She is not going to become your scribe either. For the love of the goddesses, just tell me what you found in Starfall.”

      As we hauled the packs out to a small cart, Hallow murmured to me to tether Buttercup to the back while he fetched Penn, his gelding, all the while dealing with Thorn’s obviously non-stop liturgy of demands, comments, and information.

      “Right. I will. No, she isn’t mad at you; she would simply like to be able to talk to me, and she can’t do that if you’re talking. Yes, well, she doesn’t know how lucky she is that she can’t hear you. That wasn’t a slur…for the love of the stars and moons above, go! I don’t care where you go, just go before my mind snaps!” Hallow, who had tied his hair back in a leather thong, had run his hands through it so many times in the last fifteen minutes that tendrils flickered in the slight breeze. Thorn rose off the staff, plopped onto his head, making a rude gesture with his wooden hindquarters, then flew off to the north.

      “I’m sorry,” Hallow said, turning to me. “He was worse than usual.”

      “He just gets excited about things,” I said with a little shrug, deftly avoiding Buttercup’s teeth when I tossed a couple of СКАЧАТЬ