Free Fifth Quarter by Tanya Huff Page A

out of the pool, she reached for a drying cloth. "What now?"
     
    "Now we eat a late but excellent supper and then we get some sleep. We'll be leaving for the Capital in the morning. I assembled most of what we'll need while you were sleeping. Can you ride?"
     
    "No." The cloths were both incredibly soft and absorbent. Vree wondered if they'd miss a couple. "And neither can you."
     
    Standing in the pool, Gyhard stared up at her. "What are you talking about? I've ridden all my life."
     
    Vree smiled unpleasantly. "Your head has, but that body's never been on a horse. Even if you know what to do, you'll have to teach the body how to do it."
     
    "I am not walking all the way to the Capital."
     
    "Then I guess all three of us will have to learn to ride."
     
    Teeth clenched, Gyhard muttered profanity under his breath.
     
    "You enjoyed that, didn't you?"
     
    She tugged the house robe down over her head. "Uh-huh."
     
    "Saddle sores won't be so funny."
     
    "I'm used to the body I'm wearing. I know what it's capable of. He isn't and he doesn't."
     
    "Great. My butt suffers alone."
     
    "You won't be in it."
     
    "On it."
     
    " Whatever."
     
    The robe settled down on her shoulders in time to see Gyhard stepping up out of the pool. He might be in Bannon's body, but he didn't move like her brother and the effect was strangely disconcerting. All at once, she found she couldn't look away. "Bannon?"
     
    "I want to see."
     
    No need to make an excuse this time. Heart pounding, she let him stare.
     
    Gyhard paused, spine arced as he dried his back. "What's the matter?"
     
    "Tell him that I'm just making sure he hasn't lost anything."
     
    When she repeated it, Gyhard smiled but his gaze remained locked on her face and she could see a question in his eyes.
     
    Bannon's eyes.
     
    Not Bannon's eyes.
     
    "Tell your brother," he said softly, "that he's unbelievably vain."
     
    "Tell him yourself," Vree snapped, but her mouth was dry.
     
     
     
    It was too quiet. Vree lay stiffly under the weight of the cotton blanket and stared into the darkness. The sights, the sounds, the smells of the army were missing. No comforting barricade of life surrounded her. She could smell the lingering perfume of the bath; could hear the pounding of her own heart; could see nothing. Couldn't sleep.
     
    "What is it?"
     
    "Nothing." She forced her eyes closed and stared instead at the patterns flaring across the lids.
     
    "Sure is quiet."
     
    "Everyone's asleep."
     
    "You're not."
     
    Moisture spread from her palms to the leather-wrapped hilts lying against them.
     
    "You thinking about him?"
     
    She rubbed her hands dry on the blanket. "No. There's nothing we can do about him now."
     
    "Yeah, I guess."
     
    The room that had seemed so confining before, now seemed infinitely large. She couldn't get any sense of the other lives in the villa and felt as though she were floating alone in the night with no reference points to ground her.
     
    "Vree? You're not alone." His voice laid an arm across her shoulders and pulled her into a loose embrace. "I'm here."
     
    A night bird screamed. The silence swallowed the cry.
     
    What were they doing, Emo and the others? Had they fought? Had they died? Was her pack still sitting where she'd left it? When would they divide her kit? When would they be sure she wasn't coming back?
     
    Her palms were damp again.
     
    "Hey, do you remember how Ugy used to snore? How crazy it used to drive you? You'd get up and slip across the barracks to pinch his nose closed, oh, two or three times before you finally got so pissed off you'd throw something heavy and hard at him. It'd crash and he'd swear and half the squad'd wake up ready to pound him…"
     
    As Bannon built a wall of memories around her, Vree began to relax. The night filled with the familiar, with the known, and his voice became one of many voices. When she finally surrendered to sleep, she took the last words she heard with her.
     
    "It's all right,