Firebrand

  Torn apart.

  “Nooo!” Karigan screamed. She found herself kneeling on the floor of her chamber, the cold flagstone eating into her knees, with Lhean beside her, supporting her. She screamed again into his shoulder. He spoke softly to her in Eltish as to a child, and held her in his arms, gently rocking her.

  “Why?” she cried. “Why didn’t you let go of me so I could stay with him? Why?”

  “This is your world, Galadheon,” he said quietly, “and we cannot do without you.”

  A LEAF UPON THE BREEZE

  Estral jumped up from her chair at the heartrending screams that keened down the corridor and penetrated through stone walls, but the Eletians remained seated and serene. She dashed out of the common room and followed alarmed Riders to Karigan’s chamber. The Riders clogged the doorway with swords drawn. Estral tried to see over their shoulders, but all she could make out was the top of Karigan’s head. She must be kneeling on the floor.

  “What’s going on here?” Mara demanded from the front of the pack. “What have you done to her?”

  The Riders tensed as they waited, which made Estral’s anxiety rise even higher.

  “Peace, Green Rider,” came Lhean’s calm voice. “It is but grief.”

  A silence fell, except for the sound of racking sobs.

  Oh, Karigan, Estral thought, desperate to comfort her friend.

  “Everyone out,” Mara said.

  The clot of Riders shifted and backed out, sheathed their swords, and at Mara’s order, dispersed, muttering among themselves. Before Mara shut the door, Estral glimpsed Karigan bowed over on the floor, her hands over her face and Lhean beside her. When the door closed, she reached for the handle so she could go in and help, but one look from Mara warned her against doing so.

  “I think this is between Karigan and the Eletian for now,” Mara said.

  Daro Cooper limped up to them. “Are you sure she’s all right?”

  “If you mean, is she in danger? No, I don’t think so. Is she all right? That’s a different question. A lot happened to her when she was in the future time.” She then gave Daro a stern look. “And I thought Master Mender Vanlynn said you were to stay off that leg.”

  “But—”

  “To bed, Rider.”

  Daro gave her an impudent salute. “Yes, ma’am.” And limped away grumbling something about going mad with nothing to do.

  “You might take a look at Rider payroll,” Mara called sweetly after her.

  Daro grumbled unintelligibly, and Mara snorted.

  Estral instinctively looked at her hands as if expecting to find slate and chalk in them, before recalling she now had a voice.

  “Earlier when we were talking,” she said, “you never got to the part about what happened to Karigan in the future.”

  Mara glanced at her in surprise. “Your voice is back!”

  As they walked back toward the common room, Estral explained the gift Idris had given her.

  “That is quite a gift,” Mara said, pausing in the corridor.

  “Yes, it is, a miracle even, but about the future,” Estral reminded her.

  “That’s a hard story to tell, because even Karigan can’t remember much. Something about coming home messed up her memory. She tried to tell us what she could, but it’s pretty garbled. The captain has a transcript of what Karigan told her and the king about it. I suspect she’d allow the heir of the Golden Guardian to see it.”

  Estral smiled. Her father was not only a master minstrel, but as Golden Guardian, he was a sort of lord-governor of Sacoridia’s history, culture, and arts. He also oversaw the school at Selium, as well as the city itself, though others managed the day-to-day details. His status conveniently came with a few privileges for his heir.

  “Thank you,” she told Mara.

  The Rider nodded. “I am glad you are here, frankly. I think Karigan can use all the friends she’s got. She tries not to show how hard it’s been, but you saw her in there. I’m not surprised she’s finally broken down after trying to contain it all for so long.”

  High-pitched female voices could be heard at the entrance to the Rider wing. “Oh, dear,” Mara murmured. “What she does not need right now is those aunts of hers barging in on her. I am going to have to sidetrack them.” She licked her lips and tugged on her shortcoat as if girding herself, then took off in a determined stride. Estral wished her luck and proceeded to the common room. Enver and Idris still sat within, gazing into the fire.

  Enver, perceiving her presence, said, “Little cousin, Idris and I are wondering if you would like to try singing.”

  Estral hesitated in the doorway. Karigan’s obvious suffering had tempered her joy at being able to speak again. Even if she found she could sing, she didn’t really feel it was right to do so under the circumstances. And if she couldn’t sing? She was not sure she could face being incapable.

  “I don’t know,” she told the Eletians. “I am worried about Karigan.”

  Enver looked grave. “Lhean has lanced her wound. She will not heal quickly, her path is long. But be comforted that she can begin healing. Come sit with us now. I will teach you some of our songs.”

  Karigan pointed an accusing finger at Lhean. “You should have released me. You should have let go of me in the end.” She clambered to her feet and reeled away from him. It felt like jagged edges of glass were grinding inside her eye. In a twisted way, she was glad of the pain. It sharpened her focus. All the same, she covered her eye with her hand in an effort to ease it and prevent further visions.

  “You would have been destroyed there,” Lhean said, “the both of you.”

  She turned on him, tears cold on her cheeks. The cold came from within. “Don’t you understand? I don’t care. All that matters is that I would have been there with him.” Lhean remained serene in the face of her rage, and it only incensed her more. “This world . . . I don’t care. You should have let me go.” She murmured, “I am so tired.” She wanted it all to go away, to sleep, for sleep was an escape from the pain. To sleep and never wake up.

  She wanted Cade even more, his touch, his arms around her. A memory came unbidden of a sultry summer evening, she practicing swordfighting forms without the sword, and he wrapping his arms around her from behind, moving with her, his hands gliding down her body so that the forms became a sensuous dance. She cried out in pain as the memory faded, and grasped the corner post of her bed to hold herself up.

  Cade . . .

  “You can’t do without me,” she snapped at Lhean. “That’s what you told me. What does it even mean? Has your prince made some new prophecy? You need me to fix everything? Why can’t you fix things for once? Why must I sacrifice everything?” When Lhean did not answer, she continued, “I am sick and tired of being manipulated by gods and—and things like this.” She pointed at her mirror eye. “And Eletians. For all I’ve ever done, all I get is punishment. What did I ever do to deserve it?”

  “Galadheon,” Lhean said, “would you forsake your home? Your family? Your friends? Yesterday, what if you had not been here?”

  “The Weapons would have protected the king and queen.”

  “Are you so sure? And what of the young girl, Anna? And all the people you saved by destroying the spell of the aureas slee?”

  “Do not put that on me; do not make me responsible!”

  “It is true, is it not? There are those who are alive and safe this day because of your actions. Had your queen been taken with her unborn, would it not have bolstered the enemy and demoralized your countrymen? What would have become of your family, had you not been here?”

  “Stop!” The tears flowed once more. He was being cruel, so terribly cruel.

  Lhean stepped toward her. “Galadheon, your Cade let you go because he wanted you to live, and because he hoped you would create a better future.”

  Karigan slid back to
the floor, the racking sobs overwhelming her once again. Her hands filled with tears tinted crimson.

  Lhean gazed down at her for a moment, a flicker of emotion crossing his face. “Do not move,” she thought she heard him say. “I am going to retrieve the true healer.”

  She was vaguely aware of him opening and closing her chamber door on his way out. She lay on her side on the cold, cold floor, her bloody tears pooling on the flagstone. Strains of a voice in song, song without words, permeated her pain. The harmony of it created peaceful images of a breeze in a spring-green wood, of a clear stream trickling over rounded cobbles. Leaves rustled, and bees buzzed on blossoms of shad and iris and cinqfoil.

  Gone. Cade was gone, and she just wanted to die.

  And yet, there was a clarity about her after releasing so much she had held within. Today she wanted to die of the unbearable pain, and probably tomorrow she would feel the same, but maybe, just maybe, as the song lifted her as a leaf upon the breeze, a day would come when she was ready to live again.

  TOWER OF THE HEAVENS

  “I put Karigan’s aunts off by telling them she had duties to take care of for the king,” Mara said, hands clasped behind her back, “and I expect they will relay that to her father.”

  Laren, sitting behind her worktable, rubbed her eyes. She had a mind to go shake those Eletians and demand to know what they thought they were doing. That they had given Lady Estral a voice did not appease her in the least. “What did Ben have to say?”

  Mara shifted her stance. “He says that the hard weeping must have caused the shard to cut deeper inside her eye and that’s what caused the bleeding. He said,” and now she looked down at her feet, “that even if the shard came out without hurting her eye further, it’s done enough damage that she probably won’t see out of it again.”

  “Damnation,” Laren said. She had held out some hope that Karigan would one day regain normal use of her eye, but now it appeared unlikely. “I trust Ben made her comfortable.”

  “Gave her a draught to control the pain and sleep. She took it without argument.”

  Laren frowned. Karigan accepting a draught without argument? That worried her more than the eye. “All right, we need to prevent the king from catching wind of this. He would be most . . . upset. Not that he’d do anything rash, but no need to stir him up unnecessarily.”

  Mara nodded as if she knew just why the king might be upset with Eletians causing a particular Rider pain.

  “On the off chance the king decided to act on his displeasure,” Laren continued, “it could sour an alliance with Eletia.”

  “If it helps,” Mara said, “Lhean says he was trying to allow her to express her grief. He thought it would be very bad if she continued to keep it all inside.”

  Laren thought he was probably right, but her preference would have been for Karigan to come at it in her own time. The king would not be appreciative of Lhean’s efforts if word got back to him, and Stevic G’ladheon would not be either. “I’ll have to handle her father. I’d rather he not hear of it, either.”

  “If you don’t mind my saying, Captain, but as soon as her family leaves, maybe we can keep her extra busy, keep her mind off things.”

  Laren nodded. They’d had to be inventive keeping the weather-stranded Riders busy over the winter with additional training, lessons, inventorying gear, working with the new horses, and so forth. “The weather seems to be breaking,” she mused, “and no doubt the king will have a number of messages to go out. Spring will be upon us soon.” Too soon, for battles with Second Empire would pick up where they left off.

  “We will be busy then,” Mara said.

  “Yes. We’ll see what we can do to keep Karigan occupied in the meantime. If anything changes with her condition, let me know. And make sure the Eletian’s part in this does not spread beyond the Rider wing.”

  “I will, Captain.”

  “Good. Dismissed.”

  Cold air rushed into Laren’s chamber as Mara let herself out, and papers fluttered on her table. Karigan was grieving, and that was all she needed to know to understand what her Rider was going through. Loss, sadly, was part of life, something everyone had to experience at some point. Sometimes that loss came much too early. Laren had been of an age with Karigan when she lost her Sam, who was savagely killed by the Darrow Raiders. She still felt the pain of it, but it was more like her scar, an old wound that hurt but was not as raw as when it was fresh.

  There was a knock on her door, and Mara poked her head back in. “Thought you’d want to know,” she said, “Connly just rode in.”

  Laren stood. Good news at last.

  Alton D’Yer stared at the image of Trace Burns, which seemed to hover like a ghost amid a green glow. His hand rested on the smooth green of tourmaline that was the tempes stone in the center of Tower of the Heavens so he wouldn’t lose his connection to her. She was miles and miles away in Tower of the Ice, but through the magic of the tempes stones—one in each of the ten towers of the D’Yer Wall—they were able to communicate in this way. Did his image look the same to Trace in her tower as hers did to him? Kind of floaty and ghostly?

  “Connly says that Estral says you are not to worry,” Trace told him.

  At first when Alton heard Estral had reached Sacor City unscathed, he’d about dropped to his knees in relief. He’d been spending the last few weeks in a profound state of worry after she disappeared one day, leaving only a note in explanation. The weather had been terrible and Estral not the most experienced traveler. There were also many dangers along the road that didn’t have anything to do with the winter. He’d wanted to ride after her, but the encampment’s commander, and his fellow Riders, reminded him of his duty.

  Garth volunteered to go in his stead, and though Alton felt guilty about sending him out in the weather, he could not help himself. He was sure Captain Mapstone would be unhappy. Garth was not his to command beyond business pertaining to the wall and its towers. He’d been assigned to stand watch at Tower of the Trees, not to go chasing after errant journeyman minstrels.

  Now that Alton knew Estral was safe, he was angry, and it came out in his voice. “Not to worry? Not to worry she could have gotten herself killed? Lost a foot to frostbite? How am I not supposed to be worried?”

  “Do you wish for me to convey your tone?” Trace asked, an eyebrow raised.

  He passed his hand through his hair in an abrupt gesture. “Do as you see fit.”

  Trace nodded and closed her eyes as she mentally conferred with Connly back in Sacor City. Poor Connly, whom he’d made Trace harass daily for updates on his journey to the city in hopes he would find Estral there at the castle. It was bad luck he’d been caught in snowstorms out west. More than once Alton had wished he had the same rapport with Estral that Connly shared with Trace. He wondered what it would be like to be so intimately in one another’s thoughts.

  Trace’s image wavered, and she opened her eyes. “Connly says that Estral asks you to forgive her, but that she was driven by fear for her father’s well-being.”

  Alton knew that. She’d been worrying since the fall about Lord Fiori having gone missing, on top of what had happened to her voice. He could not blame her for deciding to take action, and in a way, it was a good sign because previously she’d been so despondent over the loss of her voice. He just wished she’d told him in person instead of leaving a note, and had waited for the weather to improve.

  Of course, if she had told him, he would’ve done his damnedest to talk her out of it. Gods, he missed her.

  “I will consider forgiving her, especially if she comes back.”

  Trace gave him a look.

  “What? I miss her.”

  She shook her head and went into her rapport with Connly again. Eventually she told him, “Estral says that she intends to continue her search. She loves you and is sorry, but it is something she has to do.”


  Alton took a deep breath and expelled it. “Could Connly, or better yet, Karigan, talk some sense into her?” He remembered belatedly that Karigan and Estral might not even be on speaking terms. When last he’d seen her, Karigan had been so angry with them both.

  Trace relayed his message, then said, “Connly says he’ll speak to her about it, and that Karigan is currently indisposed.”

  “Indisposed? What does he mean by that?”

  “Not sure,” Trace replied. “Connly says he’ll tell me later when he knows more.”

  Whatever it was, Alton was sure she was fine. She was resilient, Karigan was, and had a way of bouncing back from whatever challenges she faced. Knowing her, she was probably barely ruffled by her journey into Blackveil and the future. He dismissed her from his mind, rather more concerned about Estral.

  “Connly also says . . .” Trace’s expression showed surprise. “He says that Estral has a voice again.”

  “What? How? She has to come back now!” Estral’s singing had been helping to mend the cracks in the D’Yer Wall. The incorporeal spirits that were the guardians within the wall had responded to her in a way they never had to Alton. She had also been working out a riddle of music crafted by an ancestor of hers that might be the key to fixing the wall in its entirety.

  “Estral says that the voice is not really hers.” Trace scrunched her brow as if trying to understand. “Somehow an Eletian has temporarily transferred the use of her voice to Estral. In order for Estral to regain her own voice, she must seek out the thief who stole it. She plans to do this while looking for her father.”

  It was a mix of emotions that assailed Alton, joy that Estral had a voice, however it came about, and frustration all over again. His frustration at being helpless to aid her made him want to break something. When he was done here, he would go chop more wood. He used to pound his fist against the wall when he felt angry and helpless, but had mostly learned to channel his anger into less self-destructive activities. The cooks loved it when he needed to split wood.