Shadow Gate by Kate Elliott Page B

asked Marit.
    â€œEh!” The envoy laughed awkwardly as she looked back at Marit. “For what? If I could find silk that good in quality, I’d get a length of blue and make a wedding wrap for my granddaughter. But not white, like that. White is—White’s not a color for weddings.” White is death’s color, but any decent person is too well mannered to mention that to someone who clearly has nothing else to wear against the rain.
    â€œMy thanks, Your Holiness. My thanks for your hospitality.”
    â€œBlessed is Ilu, who walks with travelers.” Her smile remained friendly, but it was pitying as well:
Especially poor kinless women like this one, alone in the world. No one should have to be so alone.
    Shaken, Marit retreated from the temple gate and from its neighboring village of Rifaran. She walked back to the glade where she had concealed Warning. She slurped down the porridge, the spices a prickle in her nostrils, but the comforting nai did not settle her. She worked through a set of exercises with the training staff,but the martial forms did not focus her today. Even the delicate shift of the wind in trees flowering with the rains did not soothe her.
    She’d never been a loner. She liked people. But perhaps she liked them better when she didn’t have an inkling of what was really going on in their heads.
    She sank down on her haunches, grass brushing her thighs. Red-petaled heart-bush and flowering yellow goldcaps bobbed as the breeze worked through the meadow. White bells and purple muzz swayed. Everywhere color dazzled, and the scent of blooming made the world sweet.
    â€œGreat Lady,” she whispered, “don’t abandon me, who has always been your faithful apprentice. Let me be strong enough for the road ahead. Let me be strong enough to stop thinking of Joss, to let what was in the past stay in the past. Let me be wise enough to know that what we shared then, we can no longer share. My eyes are open, and there are some places and some hearts I do not want to see.”
    Tears slid from her eyes. She wiped them away. “Hear me, Lady. I’ll stay away from him. In exchange, please watch over him even though he belongs to Ilu. Surely we are all your children. I’ll follow this road, wherever it takes me. I will always act as your loyal apprentice, as I always have. I will serve the law, as I always have. Hear me, Lady. Give me a sign.”
    Warning stamped. A red deer parted a thick stand of heart-bush and paced into the meadow. Twin fawns, tiny creatures so new that they tottered on slender legs, stumbled into view behind her. The deer stared at Marit for a long, cool hesitation, and then sprang away into the forest with the fawns at her heels.
    Marit smiled, her heart’s grief easing a little. The Lady of Beasts had heard her oath, and had answered her.
    S HE NO LONGER needed much sleep, and anyway she didn’t fancy the flavor of her dreams, which seemed tocycle between Lord Radas whipping hounds and archers in pursuit as she fled into a dark mazy forest, or her lover Joss aged into a cursed attractive middle-aged man except for his habit of drinking himself into and out of headaches and flirting up women at every opportunity. She’d never thought of him as a person with so little self-control.
    She napped in the middle of the day, hiding herself and the mare in brush or trees. In early morning and late afternoon she worked through her forms diligently. She rode at night. Under Warning’s hooves, the road took on a faint gleam that lit their way. It was funny how quickly you got accustomed to a piece of magic like that, when it aided you. She minded the night rains less when she was awake. They washed through and away, blown by the winds, and afterward her clothes would dry off as she rode.
    One night, Warning shied and halted, refusing to go farther. Marit led her into cover just before she heard the tramp of marching men. They were a