Firebrand

  Her boots squeaked in the snow as she walked away. She decided to forget about elementals and their complicated spells. She would instead focus on simple magic that would restore feeling to her fingertips and toes.

  As the old human trudged away and faded into the woods, the crow turned his keen gaze to a shimmer that grew from the snowball she had discarded. It coalesced into an icy sphere that rose above the snowdrift and hovered, pulsating with life. The crow cocked his head as he watched. He liked the shiny, but was clever enough to know that this was no treasure for him, that he must stay away, for the sphere emanated ancient power like the force of a blizzard, and predatory intent. He shook his feathers, and then settled to keep watch on it.

  When the sphere rushed suddenly up into the branches, the crow squawked and, flailing its wings, leaped out of the way. He croaked his displeasure as the sphere sped off through the branches and around tree trunks in a silver streak, and set a course southward.

  GHOSTS

  Somewhere in the twilight between sleep and awakening, the spirits of the Rider wing gathered around her bed. Smoky figures whispered, their forms flickering and rustling in spectral currents. They fingered her hair and patted her body as she lay curled beneath her blankets. They left cold touches upon her cheek and neck.

  She flailed out with a hand as if to knock away the filament of a spider web. Dreams. These were dreams. But still the incessant whispers filled her mind as ghosts told her their stories, stories of battles lost and won, of unruly children and handsome courtiers. They told her of loveless marriages and the loss of true heart mates, the latter causing her to cry in her sleep.

  There were triumphs and judgments, complaints and boredom, stories of never-ending tasks lacking fulfillment, that nevertheless repeated themselves over and over. Their stories came in snatches, one crowding out the other.

  From the bed beside his sleeping human, Ghost Kitty hissed and swatted at the apparitions if they annoyed him too much, shredding swaths of revenant translucence with living claws.

  Under the onslaught, his human twisted and turned and murmured. Undeterred, the ghosts kept coming, drawn to the one who could hear them.

  RIDER CROTCHETY

  In the morning, Karigan sat alone hunched over a steaming cup of kauv in the dining hall, her head propped on her hand, oblivious to the comings and goings of others around her. Mara slipped onto the bench across the table from her with a bowl of porridge.

  “You look terrible,” Mara said.

  “Good morning to you, too,” Karigan grumbled, her voice scratchy.

  “My, aren’t we all sunshine and kittens. Your aunts keep you up all night, Helgadorf?” Karigan stuck her tongue out at her, and Mara laughed as she dipped her spoon into her porridge. “Seriously, you look like you are on the wrong end of a full night’s carousing at the Cock and Hen.”

  Karigan could only wish she’d been indulging in the Cock and Hen’s ale to make her feel so miserable. “No. If you must know, I just haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “Is that why you’re drinking kauv? I thought you despised the stuff.”

  “I do.” Kauv was as bitter as all five hells, but it was a stronger stimulant than tea, especially with all the sugar she dumped in it to make it palatable. It used to be difficult, or at least expensive, to acquire kauv beans, but that had all changed with a trade agreement between Sacoridia and the Cloud Islands that had gone into effect while she was away. Several of her fellow Riders seemed unable to function without it now, even though they’d never needed it before.

  “Makes my hair curl,” Mara said with distaste, tugging on a springy ringlet, “and more curling isn’t what it needs.”

  Karigan sipped from her mug and grimaced, and observed Mara watching her intently. Much too intently. “What?”

  “I was going to ask, Rider Crotchety, why you haven’t been able to sleep.”

  “I am not crotchety.”

  “Really?”

  Karigan glared at her.

  “Well?” Mara pressed, undeterred. “Why can’t you sleep?”

  “Dreams, or something.” Karigan shrugged.

  Mara sobered at this. “Not surprising considering all you’ve been through. Do you . . .” She lowered her voice. “Do you dream about where you were? About . . . ?”

  Karigan knew she was about to ask if she dreamed of Cade. Mara was one of the few who knew much about her experiences in the future. She’d been present when Karigan had reported all she could remember to King Zachary and Captain Mapstone. Karigan had not explicitly told anyone what Cade meant to her, but it was clear Mara had been able to guess.

  She shook her head. “No, none of that.” The jumbled dreams, the scattered narratives were blurry and difficult to recall. Of what she remembered, they seemed to have little to do with her own life, as if a thousand strangers crowded into her mind every night to tell her their stories.

  They sat in silence until Mara said, “Weather’s changing,” as if to engage her in conversation. “Clouds moving in.”

  Karigan shrugged, not really interested. It was the same old story of their winter.

  Mara shook her head and sighed in what sounded like resignation. Karigan knew her attitude wasn’t the best, and she gave her friend credit for knowing when to back off and give her peace and silence to sip her kauv. It took her several seconds to realize it wasn’t just Mara who’d grown quiet, however, but the entire dining hall. Servants, laborers, messengers, administrative staff, soldiers, all the commoners who worked in and around the castle and used the dining hall, were staring in one direction. She followed their gazes to the entryway. There stood not only a Weapon, whose clannish order possessed its own dining hall so its members did not have to associate with lesser mortals at meal times, but an Eletian, as well.

  “What in the name of the gods?” Mara murmured, her spoon halfway to her mouth.

  Everyone else appeared to be wondering the same thing, so transfixed were they by the unexpected visitors. Eletians were still enough of a novelty in the land that they attracted attention no matter where they appeared. That one of those magical folk now stood in the castle’s common dining hall was almost too extraordinary a vision to apprehend, but there he was.

  At first, Karigan’s hopes surged that maybe Lhean had come looking for her, then plummeted when she realized it was just his companion, Enver. Enver, for his part, searched the room with his gaze, and when it alighted upon Karigan, he brightened. “Galadheon!”

  Everyone else in the room shifted their gazes to stare at her. Bad enough people looked strangely at her from time to time after her “return from the dead.” She didn’t need Enver adding to the whispers she sometimes heard behind her back.

  As Enver, and the Weapon, Ellen, picked their way toward her table, she muttered, “Five hells. What does he want with me?”

  “Be nice,” Mara warned her. “I am sure King Zachary would not appreciate a diplomatic incident just because you are feeling crotchety.”

  “I am not crotchety.”

  “Are, too.”

  “Am not.” Then Karigan groaned. “Why did I even bother to get out of bed today?”

  “Because you couldn’t sleep?”

  Before Karigan could come up with an appropriate retort, Enver and Ellen halted at their table. Ellen said, “Master Enver wished to see a little of the castle, and visit with you, Sir Karigan.”

  “Good morning,” Enver said with a slight bow.

  “I leave him in your care, Riders.” And Ellen turned on her heel and strode away. Enver regarded them expectantly.

  Mara recovered first. “Good morning, Enver. We were never properly introduced. I am Mara Brennyn, Chief Rider.”

  Enver extended his hand to shake hers. Just as Karigan had been disconcerted by his manner the first time she’d been introduced to him, so now was Mara.

  “How
do you do?” he asked.

  “I am well, thank you,” Mara replied.

  Instead of releasing her hand, however, Enver pulled it closer to inspect it. Mara cast a sideways glance at Karigan and mouthed, Is this normal?

  For an Eletian, she meant. Karigan shrugged. She had probably been around Eletians more than anyone, but they still defied expectation.

  “You’ve missing fingers,” Enver observed. “And many deep burn scars.” He released Mara’s hand and bent close to study her face. She leaned as far back on her bench as she could without tipping over. “Very deep,” he murmured.

  Karigan cleared her throat. “Enver . . .” His examination wasn’t making just Mara uncomfortable.

  “Beautiful,” he said, raising his hand as if to touch her cheek.

  “Enver,” Karigan said more sharply, half-rising from her bench.

  He looked at her, startled. “Yes?”

  A quick glance around revealed that others in the dining hall watched Enver with deep suspicion, which manifested in scowls and muttering over his presumption. His own expression was ingenuous. He had no idea, she realized, he had transgressed the boundaries of appropriate conduct, of appropriate human conduct. She took a deep breath to calm her own irritation, but needed to act quickly before anyone decided to “teach” him manners.

  “Enver, please have a seat.” She patted the bench next to her.

  “Have I done something wrong?”

  So, he wasn’t entirely witless. “Please, sit.” When he slid onto the bench, she explained, “The attention you gave to Mara’s scars is considered . . . unseemly.”

  He looked from Karigan to Mara and bowed his head. “My pardon, Chief Rider Brennyn. I did not mean to cause offense. I have some learning in the healing arts, and what I saw in you was a triumph of healing, and thus beautiful. It seems I need to learn more of your ways so I may express myself correctly.”

  Karigan thought it strange that the Eletians would send to the castle one who was not versed in the customs and etiquette of its people, but then again, were any of them? They were other, and in Karigan’s experience, diplomacy did not seem to be of overriding importance to them. At least the tension in the dining hall eased, with the watchers returning to their breakfasts and their own conversations.

  “No offense taken,” Mara said. “I had never thought of my scars in that way before . . . as beautiful. I think . . . I think I like it.”

  “The healing is not only of the flesh,” Enver said, “but of the spirit, which shines through you. You are radiant.”

  Mara looked taken aback, unable to speak, maybe a little flustered. Enver’s demeanor did not reveal whether he was intentionally flirting, or if this was another of the “ways” about Sacoridians he did not understand. If the latter, combined with his ethereal good looks, it could lead to a lot of painful misunderstandings.

  “Thank you,” Mara said finally. “Would you like some breakfast? Kauv? Tea?”

  “I thank you, but I am sated for the time being.”

  Karigan sipped her tepid kauv as Mara questioned him about how his night had been. He and the others, he said, had passed the night outside the city for Lhean did not like sleeping upon the mortal dead. Mara’s brow creased, and Karigan shook her head at the oblique reference to the royal tombs that catacombed the small mount that the castle and city sat upon.

  Eletians, she thought in exasperation. She pushed her half-finished mug of kauv away and interrupted whatever Enver was about to say next. “Do you know where I might find Lhean?”

  “He is meeting with your king.”

  Damnation. When would she get to see him? She tapped her fingers on the table in annoyance. Maybe it was the kauv, maybe it was Enver, but she was feeling twitchy. She suddenly needed to move, to get up and go, but without Enver underfoot. She stood abruptly and cast Mara a pleading look, hoping her friend would understand and help. After all, Enver had come looking for “the Galadheon.”

  Mara raised an eyebrow and seemed to grasp what she wanted all right if her expression of disapproval was any indication, but she did not argue. Karigan mouthed a “thank you” and Mara pursed her lips. She wondered what favor she would owe Mara as a result of this.

  “It was very nice seeing you,” she told Enver, “but I must . . . I must attend to my duties.” Technically, the king had given her leave to spend time with her family, but wasn’t seeing family a sort of duty?

  “I will talk to you later,” Mara said.

  Karigan did not doubt she would. Enver looked a little confused, and when Karigan started to walk away, she heard the bench creak as he rose from his seat to follow.

  “I wouldn’t,” Mara warned him, loud enough for her voice to carry. “She’s a bit crotchety this morning.”

  Karigan winced. She deserved that.

  A quick glance over her shoulder revealed Enver sitting back down and asking, “This crotchety—is it a malady? A disease?”

  This morning, Karigan thought, it surely felt like it, and she hastened her steps to leave the dining hall behind, hoping Mara didn’t mind too much being saddled with the curious Eletian.

  “Er, not a disease,” Mara told Enver, “but a matter of temperament.” She watched Karigan disappear through the doorway. She would indeed speak to her later, but more out of concern than reproach. She rarely saw her friend so out of sorts, and even after all her experiences in Blackveil and the future, her loss of Cade and the oddity of her eye, she’d done a good job of maintaining outward equilibrium, but Mara could see through it, how a heaviness weighed on her, how she threw herself into her work, how she sought to be alone more often than not. She was not as quick to smile or laugh.

  A patch covered Karigan’s mirror eye, but in her other eye, Mara caught flashes of sorrow, and something else, a fathomless dark, like a well of the heavens. Thinking of it made her shudder.

  Enver had watched after Karigan, as well, his gaze thoughtful. “I do not think she remembers me.”

  “From when she returned on Night of Aeryc? Of course she does.”

  He shook his head, his eyes growing distant. “It was nearly five of your years ago. Our tiendan was traveling the great wood that your people call the Green Cloak, and in the night we saw the light of a muna’riel. We sensed no others of our own kind nearby, and investigated.”

  “It was Karigan?”

  “Yes. She had just slain a creature of Kanmorhan Vane and was fevered with its poison in her blood.”

  Mara realized he was speaking of when Karigan, a runaway schoolgirl and not yet officially a Green Rider, had carried a life-or-death message given her by the dying F’ryan Coblebay to King Zachary. One of her amazing feats along the way was slaying the monstrous creature and its numerous young.

  “You were there?”

  Enver nodded solemnly. “There were twelve of us. We danced and sang the healing while my father treated her wounds.”

  “Your father? Your father is—?”

  “Somial, yes.”

  “Huh,” was the only thing Mara could think to say. She wondered what Karigan would make of it.

  “I ask that you do not speak to her of it for I do not think she is one who would wish to be reminded of a time when she was weakened and helpless, and at the mercy of strangers.”

  Mara reassessed Enver, his earnest demeanor, his desire for her to honor his request. His hands were folded on the table, and he waited for her response with a stillness she believed no mortal could attain. His artless conduct might lead to misunderstandings between his culture and hers, but his shrewd observation showed he had no trouble when it came to understanding Karigan G’ladheon.

  A POET AND MEMORY

  Thanks in no small part to Mara, Karigan was free of the dining hall, but not of other obligations. She went to the mending wing to check on Estral, but peeking through the cracked door revealed that he
r friend was still sound asleep. Truth be told, she was rather envious.

  She meandered out of the mending wing, a little at a loss. Estral was asleep and Lhean unavailable. She’d been given leave to spend time with her family, but in the flurry of the previous night’s events, she hadn’t even thought to ask her father where he was staying, so she’d have to wait for him to find her, however long that would take.

  As she stepped into the main hall of the castle, she was accosted by a Green Foot runner.

  “There you are, Rider,” the boy said, huffing and puffing. “Been all over looking for you.”

  “Is there some emergency?”

  “No, ma’am. The queen requests that you attend her.”

  Karigan wanted to tell the boy she was not a “ma’am,” but she just watched him trot off to his next task. Estora wanted her to visit? What a morning. It wasn’t that she disliked Estora; on the contrary, they had been friends, but as to their relationship now? “Complicated” didn’t even begin to describe it. Since her return, she’d made no effort to see the queen, which was rather easily accomplished since Estora was sequestered due to her pregnancy, a pregnancy made more perilous by the fact she was carrying twins. Master Mender Vanlynn was being adamant about her remaining confined for her safety and that of the babies. It was essential for the realm that she produce healthy offspring.

  Karigan felt guilty she had been avoiding Estora, but seeing her as King Zachary’s wife was just so very difficult. No matter how hard she tried to get past it all, the pain was ever-present. But now, Estora had requested to see her, and she had no real excuse not to. She did consider riding away somewhere to avoid everyone—the queen, Enver, her family—but she’d pretty much made herself give up running away. The adult thing was to face her challenges. Besides, a glance outside revealed more winter weather was on the way, which would make riding neither pleasant nor easy.