Fires of Aggar Read Free

and tan. She carried a wooden bucket of grain for the horses, but her empty hand lifted in a friendly greeting. “Mother’s blessings, Royal Marshal—”
    “Marshal indeed!” taunted the newcomer. “Have I been gone so long, Tawna?”
    The horses drew nearer in the dimness, and a sudden smile brightened the other’s face. “Gwyn! I didn’t recognize you bundled so neat. Come in, Soroe! So late in crossing? You’re lucky to have made it — I was sure you must be a lowlander or some Sister returning. What makes you dally or have you done the two days crossing in one!?”
    “In truth, I did just that,” and the young woman sighed as she stepped down from the stirrup. The saddle creaked and the bay, Cinder, grunted in relief as the girth uncinched for the first time since dawn.
    Tawna squinted, her dark eyes shrewd as they took measure of her guest. The lines in Gwyn’s faced underlined her fatigue. Between the grit and the apricot gold of her skin, the creases seemed almost to be worked into wood. Gwyn was a Royal Marshal by trade as her bright copper-bronze coat declared; she was Niachero — Daughter of the Stars — by birth as her height and tan attested, but she was a young Sister too. Twenty-seven by the reckoning of the ancient home stars or thirteen-and-some by the tenmoons of Aggar, not so very old and not so very young. Yet Tawna noted the weary tightness about her lips and that all-too-knowing squint about her eyes. That sensitive, assessing face should have belonged to someone much older. It wasn’t fair, Tawna thought, even without knowing what the duty was this time; Gwyn was too young to be cheated of her own youth. But then Niachero were born with that bittersweet brilliance — that stubbornness of ability — to carry what must be carried.
    “Has the eitteh arrived?” Gwyn asked abruptly, stripping the red leather saddle from her mare and heaving it onto the corral’s stony fence.
    “Aye, it was Sable. But she wouldn’t wait to take an answer.” Tawna felt her throat close with momentary despair. The business must be more serious than she feared, if the eitteh was sent out so quickly after Gwyn’s home departure. Then with a sudden shake of her head, Tawna gathered her resolve and opened her arm to hug the taller woman close. Gwyn was Niachero, she could take care of herself.
    Surprised, Gwyn returned the embrace and looked at her friend questioningly, “Nehna?”
    “Rash fool,” Tawna muttered, her mouth curling with a strained smile.
    “We both,” and her eyes glinted with an old teasing.
    The sudden strength of Gwyn’s mischief broke Tawna’s misgivings like a prism does sunlight, and the woman caught her breath.
    Gwyn laughed as the bucket of grains was suddenly dropped at her feet. Tawna shook her head, striding away with an exasperated cry, “See to your poor beasts! A single day’s crossing? They’ve been abused enough without waiting for their feed as well!”
     
    ◊ ◊ ◊
    “Do you ever get tired of being alone?” Gwyn murmured, half-lost in her own world, and Tawna smiled gently, brushing the feathery copper from Gwyn’s forehead as they lay. Gwyn’s attention shifted, returning from that far-away place and worry etched faint furrows between her eyebrows. “How do you manage?”
    They were wrapped in a soft spun blanket, the fire in the hearth flickering with a heartwarming glow that echoed the tenderness of the touch they had shared. The small cottage smelled of wood smoke and herbs, far cries from the musty ash of sulfur in those distant heights. It was a good place to find refuge and it reflected the woman’s care and welcome. But tonight the Sisters’ Gatekeeper was not to be deluded by her dear companion’s rhetoric, and Tawna’s head shook with a sympathetic smile. “You’re missing Selena then?”
    A pause, a sigh, and a weary denial closed Gwyn’s copper-hued eyes. “I wish it were simply that.”
    Tawna studied her carefully. “It’s almost