Paladin's Legacy 01 - Crown of Renewal by Moon Elizabeth

Author:Moon, Elizabeth [Moon, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780345533098
Amazon: 0345533097
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2014-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Dorrin’s last view of Verrakai House, with the early sun shining on its face, the water meadows speckled with grazing cattle, tore at her heart. She had thought herself resigned to the necessity, but everything she saw reminded her of what she had hoped to accomplish. Though Beclan had promised to take care of it for her and clearly hoped she would return in a season or two, she did not expect it. She would die, she was sure, on this venture even if she was successful. Yet she had no choice. Not only her king’s command but her own reason told her the regalia must go somewhere else. The coast of Old Aare? Perhaps.

All the way to the border she could not stop grieving for what she was losing … the first home of her own, the work she had started, the people she had come to love and care for. She would never see trade moving on the road she had begun; she would never see the children grown and know whether her intervention had done them good.

Her escort, silent out of respect, did nothing to distract her from her thoughts. Not until the border itself, where five Lyonyan rangers waited, did her escort speak. “My lord Duke—” That was Natzlin. Her voice sounded thick. “My lord—we will hope for your safe and soon return.” The others murmured assent. Natzlin came forward and bent her knee; Dorrin clasped her shoulder.

“Natzlin, you will do well, and I know you will be a strength for my heir if I do not return. All of you—I believe your lives will continue to prosper. Beclan will have his father’s advice and help; the king himself wants you to prosper.”

“My lord—” Natzlin stepped nearer and lowered her voice. “Will you return? On your oath?”

“I don’t know,” Dorrin said. “I can’t know. If I can, I will return. But if I cannot, then I believe you are in good hands.”

“But not your hands,” Natzlin said. “I will do my utmost for you, my lord, but I hope you do return.”

They stood beside their horses as she remounted and rode forward to join the rangers, into the tall forest of Lyonya. Dorrin did not know these rangers. They greeted her politely but talked little. One handed her a letter from Kieri welcoming her to Lyonya but warning her about magelords … she read the rest of that with astonishment. She would not have believed the tale from anyone else. He and Paks had caused the enchantment the elves wanted him to break? He and Arian had then broken it? She looked at the rangers, but they showed no sign of knowing what she read.

When they stopped for the night at one of their way stations, Dorrin tucked away Kieri’s letter and unloaded her packhorse herself. She set the pack saddle in the back corner of the three-sided shelter, in a row with the rangers’ saddles. The rangers were busy with camp chores; she rested on one of the logs and watched them work until supper was ready.

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