Guardian of Honor by Robin D. Owens

Author:Robin D. Owens
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Luna Books

14

Alexa hated being a hero. Word of her reviving the border—even for the short time of a day before it died again—had spread through Lladrana and the Marshalls had sent her on a goodwill tour. Alexa deduced they wanted to prove that their decision to Summon an Exotique was a good idea. To show the rest of Lladrana that the Marshalls were still viable, strong leaders.

She felt like everyone was now looking to her to save them. A load of responsibility burdened her, like invisible weights on her shoulders.

Though she was learning a lot about Lladrana and the status and popularity of the Marshalls, Alexa didn't like the travel. It rained continually, so the countryside looked more mud brown than spring green from Alexa's carriage window.

She supposed the inns she stayed at were the best each town had to offer, and some rivaled the Castle's luxury, but she was tired of sleeping in alien beds. She traveled with a retinue, only two of them of her choosing—Sinafin, who was having a great time, and Alexa's new maid, Umilla.

The Marshalls hadn't been pleased with Alexa's choice of servants, but Alexa had ignored all their protests. She liked the black-and-white; the woman treated her with respect, didn't laugh at her accent, and Umilla pronounced her name correctly. Umilla now wore Alexa's purple livery. Alexa had had qualms about that, until she noticed Umilla took pride in the clothing and no longer walked with a stoop. There was no denying that Alexa needed help in dressing herself in the chain mail.

Three others traveled with Alexa—her language teacher, the Castle Medica, and an older woman who taught Alexa magic and was the strictest prof she had ever experienced. Alexa was doing well in her magic lessons, but not as well in her language lessons. Just when she thought she understood some concept of grammar, the rules seemed to change.

The worst was that everywhere she visited she was a curiosity, the Exotique. She'd never been a wildly outgoing person, and now she struggled to keep a smile on her face and be civil—she had pat responses in fair Lladranan to common questions, but anything unusual meant halting speech. She felt stupid, and she felt like a freak.

After ten days of touring, they reached an inn called The Singer's Hand, and Alexa desperately needed time alone. Time pretending to be a normal person. The past two nights she'd awakened in the middle of the night and nearly wept for home and faces she knew.

That day Sinafin had been prodding her at every instant, impossible to bear. Alexa had managed to talk to the folks who approached her in the private room behind the taproom until everyone's questions were satisfied—all during the day and until the gray, rainy evening. With a little strategy, she eluded everyone, even Sinafin, dressed in some ordinary clothes and pulled on a royal-blue cloth cloak that the innkeepers kept for guests.

She opened the back door and peered out at a small cobbled courtyard between the inn and the stables.

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