|
As they grew up, Saeryn and Degas were so rarely apart that they rarely had chance to notice what happened when they were not. But on rare occasions when they were apart and something momentous occurred, the other tended to know faster than logic allowed for.
When Degas fell from their father's horse and broke his arm when they were seven, Saeryn began to cry in the middle of her work on a tapestry, and ran from the room. She was followed, and her sister found her on the ground, holding Degas while someone ran for a healer.
When Saeryn found herself in the hayloft of the stable at age sixteen, sharing kisses with the stable boy, Degas knew the exact moment she panicked and fled as the boy grew more insistent. Degas first comforted his sister, and once she was calm and indoors, her fright forgotten, Degas confronted the stable boy, breaking the fingers of the offending hand.
It was harder when Degas was in Gondor, because any unexpected flare of emotion could not be easily investigated. But here, now, Degas felt both his fury and humiliation and his sister's.
Letting his horse guide herself, he sat introspectively and was only half surprised when he found himself at the gate into the courtyard. There she was.
"Sister!" he called.
Saeryn, who had been standing near the well, her face a mask, looked up.
"Ride with me? Gleowyn will gladly carry two."
|