Read Online The Shapechangers by Jennifer Roberson - Free Book Online

nothing more than to leave the shapechangers’ presence with Carillon accompanying her, she far preferred Duncan’s company to Finn’s.
    In the evening she sat before a small fire with Carillon, staring into the flames in exhaustion. The prince had shed his green cloak and draped it over her shoulders. She folded it around herself gratefully. He looked tired and worn as he stretched his hands out to the fire’s warmth; for all it was the beginning of summer, the nights were still cold. Alix knew her own appearance was no better. Her braid was loosened and tangled and her gown showed the results of too long a time spent in it. Her face felt grimy and the welt left by the tree limb stung.
    The Cheysuli, she marked, took little with them on a raiding mission. Their mounts were packed lightly and the warriors carried only a belt-knife and the hunting bows for weaponry. Alix eyed them glumly as they quickly set up a small camp, spreading blankets where they would sleep and building tiny fires to heat their evening ration of journey-stew. The colored pavilions were kept packed away; Alix realized she would spend the night unprotected by anything save a blanket.
    Uneasily she slanted a glance at Carillon, seated next to her on Duncan’s blood-red blanket. “I would near give my soul to be safe in my own bed in my father’s croft.”
    Carillon, gazing blankly into the fire, looked over to her with an effort. Then he smiled. “Had I a choice, I would be in my own chambers within Homana-Mujhar. But even your croft would do me well this night.”
    “Better than here,” she agreed morosely.
    Carillon shifted and sat cross-legged. The flames glinted off the whiteness of his teeth as he smiled maliciously.
    “When I have the chance, Alix, these demons will regret what they have done.”
    A strange chill slid down her spine as she looked sharply at his determined face. “You would have them all slain?”
    His eyes narrowed at her reproving tone. Then his face relaxedand he touched her ragged braid, moving it to lie across her shoulder. “A woman, perhaps, does not understand. But a man must serve his liege lord in all things, even to the slaying of others. My uncle’s purge still holds, Alix. I would not serve him by letting this nest of demons live. They have been outlawed. Sentenced to death by the Mujhar himself.”
    Alix pulled the cloak more tightly around her shoulders. “Carillon, what if there was no sorcery used against your House? What if the Cheysuli have the right of it? Would you still see to their deaths?”
    “The shapechangers cursed my uncle’s House when Hale took Lindir away with him. The queen consequently died of a wasting disease, and Shaine’s second wife bore no living children. If not sorcery, what else could cause these things?”
    Alix sighed and stared at her hands clasping the green wool. She pitched her voice purposely low, almost placating. But what she said had nothing to do with placation.
    “Perhaps it was what the Cheysuli call
tahlmorra.
Perhaps it was no more than the will of the gods.”
    His hand moved from her braid to her jaw and lifted her face into the light. “Do you champion the demons again, Alix? Do you listen to them because of what you have learned?”
    She looked at him steadily. “I do not champion them, Carillon. I give them their beliefs. It is only fitting to acknowledge the convictions of others.”
    “Even when the Mujhar denounces them as sorcerers of the dark gods?”
    Alix touched his wrist gently and felt the ridged scars of the bite from Storr. Once again the image of Finn shifting his shape before her eyes rose into her mind, and it was only with considerable effort she kept the frightened awe from her voice.
    “Carillon, will you allow him to denounce
me
?”
    He sighed and closed his eyes, withdrawing his hand. He rubbed wearily at his brow and irritably shoved hair from his eyes.
    “Shaine is not an easy man to convince. If you go before him claiming you