She must have dozed off, for Enver was suddenly gone. The heaviness, the darkness, descended on her once again. All seemed so bleak and gray, but then soft footfalls padded alongside her and a soft furry body plopped beside her face and started purring.
“Hello, Whiskers,” she murmured.
His fur smelled of the cold air and a sunny rock, and of an indefinable cat spice. It hurt to lift her hand and reach up to pet him, but when she did so, she was rewarded with even louder purrs.
She’d been hurt before, injuries inflicted during clashes with enemies, but never had they been so systematically applied. She’d been made to feel as helpless as possible, unable to defend herself. Nyssa ensured she’d had no control over the situation. Though Nyssa had demanded information, Karigan knew it was only a pretense. She’d seen the look in Nyssa’s eyes, that she enjoyed the torture for the power she held over others. She liked inflicting pain just for the sake of it.
I did not give away the king’s presence, Karigan tried to tell herself, but Nyssa’s voice came into her head, I did not care. Any illusion that Karigan had maintained some vestige of control by withholding information evaporated. A small cry passed her lips, and Mister Whiskers’ purrs grew louder, more resonant. He licked the sweat from her brow with his rough tongue, then settled down again next to her face. More soft footfalls entered the tent, and a small warm body snuggled against her leg. Midnight added her purr to Mister Whiskers’, and perhaps it was their own form of singing the healing. While they were with her, she did not lapse into dreadful memories of Nyssa and her whip.
• • •
When Nyssa did return to Karigan’s dreams, it was King Zachary who was chained to the beam. Only, King Zachary was Cade. She tried to reach for him, crawl to him, but he was always too far away and she was held back by a web of knotted yarn that burned where it touched her. She had nothing with which to slash it.
King Zachary, with Cade’s face, turned to look at her. “You left me behind.”
Nyssa’s lash fell.
• • •
She awakened with a gasp. Sweat dripped into her eye and stung.
“Karigan?” This time it was Estral who sat beside her, her journal and pen in hand. Enver’s muna’riel emitted a gentle glow for her to see by. It was night. “Bad dream, eh?”
“One of many. Sometimes I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.”
“How are you feeling otherwise?” Estral asked. “Any, er, improvement?”
“Hard to say.” Her whole body was still blanketed by pain, but she did feel slightly more clear-headed.
“Well, Enver is out doing whatever it is that he does, and he instructed me to make sure you drink, and to offer you some broth. Do you think you could handle that?”
“Don’t know.”
Estral gave her a skin of water to drink from, and stepped out to retrieve the broth. When she returned, she said, “Enver thinks this will help you regain your strength.”
Karigan sniffed the contents of the mug Estral presented. It did not smell disagreeable.
“The gryphons went hunting and brought back a wild goose. They shared.”
A sign of spring, Karigan thought, if geese were to be found in the north. She raised herself on her elbows and stirred the broth with the spoon Estral provided. Chunks of meat swirled in the liquid. When a spoonful cooled enough to be tasted, she determined that, under different circumstances, she’d probably drink it right down. After a few spoonfuls, she pushed the mug aside and rested.
“Can’t you please try to eat more?” Estral asked.
“Not right now.”
“If you don’t try, you won’t regain your strength to help the king and my father.”
“I’ll try again later.” When she gazed up at her friend, she saw that her eyes had dark circles beneath them and that there were bruises on her face. Her expression was drawn with worry. “Truly, I’ll try again.”
Estral nodded slowly. “Do you promise?”
“Yes.” It was tiring just to talk, but she asked, “Are you doing all right?”
Estral blinked in surprise. “You’re asking me?”
“Yes.”
Estral placed her face in her hands as if to weep, but then she looked back up and folded them on her lap. “I am out of tears, completely dried up.”
“Perhaps you need broth, as well.”
“Karigan G’ladheon, I wish, sometimes, you’d stop being so damnably you.”
Estral did not swear often, which lent more weight to her words.
“I’m sorry?”
“Even when we were in school, you were like this, standing up to the bullies. Now it’s—it’s—” She waved her arms about in futile explanation. “More extreme. You just do these things, and now that I’ve actually seen you do what you do, I wish you’d just stop it.”
Karigan closed her eyes. In her condition, it was difficult enough to make sense of straightforward sentences. “You don’t want me to tell off bullies?”
“Oh, Karigan, you have no idea, do you?”
“About what? I’m having trouble following. So tired.” Her words were met with silence. She opened her eye to see that Estral still sat beside her with head bowed.
“You do know, don’t you,” Estral said, “that not just anyone would go running after me into the Lone Forest?”
“You’re my friend,” Karigan said. “Of course I would.”
“You knew it was dangerous, but you went anyway. You were hurt horribly as a result. You should have left me.”
“I would never—”
“And you still want to go back.”
“The king and your father are—”
“Most people,” Estral said, “after what you’ve been through, would leave such a rescue to someone else.” She then listed several of Karigan’s acts—her rescue of the then Lady Estora, jumping into a river to save Fergal Duff, going into Blackveil. She finished with, “It’s—it’s just too much.”
“Well, when you list it all like that, it does sound rather mad.” Karigan started to drowse, the waking world becoming a distant twilight. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“And now you’re the one apologizing when I owe you everything. Why do you have to be the hero all the time? I am not sure I know who you are anymore . . . or what you are.”
Karigan tried to shake herself awake for Estral was clearly agitated. It took great effort. “I know it’s not normal, but I’m still me.”
After several moments of silence, Estral said, “Oh, gods. I’m sorry. That was a terrible thing for me to say. It came out all wrong. I just can’t believe . . . It’s hard. Your back, and all of it. Why must it always be you? I hate that these things happen to you, especially when the latest is all my fault.”
“Nyssa’s fault,” Karigan muttered. She was too tired to offer further comfort.
“I hope you can forgive me, and I’m sorry for carrying on like this. It’s not what you need.” Estral paused. “I did want to tell you that I am probably leaving in the morning.”
This woke Karigan up enough to ask, “What? Where?”
“Enver wants me to ride Mist to the River Unit for reinforcements.”
“That’ll take too long,” Karigan replied.
“I know, and my father is so close. I don’t want to go.”
An image came unsummoned to Karigan of a pale cat sitting beside her with a message tube attached to its collar. Was this some fancy, some whimsical detail out of one of the novels she liked to read? Or, was it memory?
“Send a cat,” she told Estral, and finally she let go, slipping into a deep slumber.
DETERMINATION
During one of Karigan’s awakenings, she heard Enver humming softly. When she looked, he was seated beside her, his back erect, and his eyes closed. The quiet glow of the moonstone
revealed his peaceful expression. For all that they had traveled so far together, she really hadn’t learned a whole lot about him, his history. He liked to sing, he was keen on spiritual matters, he was as good an archer as any Eletian she’d ever met, and he’d always seemed interested in the ways of Sacoridians, which she had found at once annoying and endearing. All of that was on the surface, but there had to be more depth than his seemingly simple nature revealed.
“Galadheon,” he said without opening his eyes, “how is your pain?”
For how long had he perceived her studying him? “It hurts.”
Now he opened his eyes and looked down at her. “More, or less than before?”
“I don’t know. More bearable, I guess. Could be getting used to it.”
He checked her for fever. “Ah, not as fierce. That is an improvement. Here is some water to drink.”
She accepted the skin he passed her and drank without complaint.
“We sent Mister Whiskers to Captain Treman,” Enver told her, “thanks to your suggestion.”
“Why? What suggestion?”
“I was going to send Lady Estral to inform him of the situation here, which, of course, would take time. When Lady Estral told you this earlier, you suggested we send the cat.”
She had? It sounded familiar . . .
“It will take much less time for a gryphon to fly there, though we instructed Mister Whiskers to approach the encampment in his small cat form. Should he arrive as a gryphon, well, there is no telling how the soldiers might receive him.”
They’d find a house cat strange enough, she thought, but whether or not she remembered making the suggestion, she was glad she had. It would cut down on the time getting word to Captain Treman.
“Lady Estral, of course, wrote the missive. She borrowed your sealing wax and pressed it with her father’s signet ring.”
That would be another surprise for Captain Treman—the Golden Guardian’s sigil in messenger green wax. She was sure Estral explained all in her message to him.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“An hour after midnight.”
She felt oddly restless, but perhaps it was because her head was clearer. “Enver, this Eletian woman who is here . . . Nari? How did you come upon her? I seem to have missed a few things since the Lone Forest.”
“I was searching for the way to the p’ehdrose when I spotted her from afar, walking across the rocky plain. When I investigated, I found it was Nari of Argenthyne.”
“Argenthyne,” Karigan murmured. “But Argenthyne is gone.”
“Yes,” Enver said. “She was abducted by the aureas slee well before the fall of Argenthyne and held captive all this time. I sang to you of her back when we were at Eli Creek waystation.”
“Wait . . . Narivanine?”
“Yes, but she prefers Nari now, for it represents that she has lost much.”
“Hadwyr,” Karigan said.
“She tells me she knew in her heart he was gone. Eletians have a way of knowing such things, and perhaps she is more perceptive than most, for she was an attendant of the Sleeper’s Grove by Castle Argenthyne. But, it was still grievous for her to hear it confirmed. Now she hunts the aureas slee in vengeance, though she has paused her search to help us and, I think, to speak with me, an Eletian. She has not seen another of our kind in many a year. Not only that, but she feels indebted to you for helping the Sleepers who were trapped in Blackveil.”
“She knows about that?”
He recounted to her the conditions of Nari’s captivity and how King Zachary had also been imprisoned by the aureas slee. “He told her of what you had done.” He went on to explain that somehow, following the aureas slee’s battle with the gryphons, King Zachary ended up in the Lone Forest among Grandmother’s people. Karigan couldn’t wait to find out how that happened.
“We must get him out,” Karigan said with determination.
“Then you must regain your strength. You must eat even if you do not wish to, and rest; then as time passes—”
“Enver, we can’t let time pass. Every moment the king is there in the Lone Forest?” She bit her bottom lip.
To her surprise, he did not argue. “Then rest, Galadheon. We will see what daytime brings.”
Karigan exhaled a long breath, and as she drifted off once more, she thought of Nari and her lost love, Hadwyr. She thought she could understand how that felt, but to carry it for centuries? That, she thought, would be worse punishment than bearing the lash of any whip.
• • •
She awoke at mid-morning, determined to get up, and demanded her clothes. Enver lent her one of his shirts, telling her it would be less abrasive to her back than her own. It was lighter and smoother than silk, and she thought her father could make an entirely new fortune if he could get his hands on the fabric. It was a blue as pale as the winter sky, and the motion of putting it on hurt more than to have it touching her back. It was a little large, but she rolled up the sleeves and pinned her brooch to it.
Estral brought her socks, boots, and breeches. Karigan could not bend to pull on the socks, so Estral helped.
As for the breeches, Estral said, “I tried to wash these out best as I could. They were stained.”
With blood. They were still dark around the waist, but Estral had done a good job of washing them out.
“Thank you,” Karigan said. “That could not have been pleasant to do.”
Estral shook her head. “I burned what was left of your shirt. It was . . . very bad.”
Karigan could only imagine. She was glad it was gone and that she didn’t have to see it. Just thinking of it brought Nyssa’s leering face into her mind. She shuddered.
“It is cold outside,” Estral said. “Do you think you can bear your greatcoat over your shoulders?”
“I don’t know. Let’s try without first.”
Estral helped her stand, and she wavered.
“Do you need to sit back down?” Estral asked.
“Forward. Forward motion,” Karigan murmured.
“You aren’t going to faint on me, are you?”
“Keep moving.”
Lightheaded and with a fog filling her vision, she held on to Estral and exited the tent. The cold air was invigorating, and her vision resolved. She found Enver, Nari, and Midnight awaiting her by the fire. Condor neighed to her and would have, she knew, come running to her if he hadn’t been hobbled.
“Condor. Take me to Condor.”
Estral helped her. He was not too far away, but it felt like miles. When she reached him, she pressed her forehead against his neck. He stood still as if afraid any movement might break her.
“I’m all right, I’m all right,” she told him.
When she stepped back, he gave her a gentle whuff of air that stirred the one long strand of hair hanging in her face. She pushed it away and patted Condor’s nose. Then they returned to the fire.
“I need a knife,” she said.
“What for?” Estral asked.
Karigan held out her hand, and it was Enver who handed her his knife. The blade had a graceful, deadly curve to it, unornamented but for some characters in Eltish. The blade seemed to collect the light, as though it were white steel. She grabbed the long lock of hair and cut it off in one easy slash so that it was even with the rest. Just that simple movement pulled painfully at her back. She returned to Enver his knife, hilt first, even as the lock of hair drifted to the ground.
“Thank you,” she said.
They’d arranged seating out of logs and rocks. She dropped onto a log with a saddle blanket over it. Sweat glided down her temple and cheek. Curiously, her borrowed shirt kept her comfortable, but for the occasional chill breeze that snaked beneath her collar.
“It is good to see you up,” Enver said. “Would you have some broth now? It might help disp
el any lightheadedness.”
Karigan consented to having broth brought to her. Her stomach still wasn’t sure about accepting much into it, but if it meant regaining her strength, she would try.
“Nari and I have spied the enemy searching,” Enver said, “but they are some distance away, and far off the trail. I made several false trails, but they haven’t even found those.”
Karigan nodded, sipping the broth slowly. Just sitting strained her back and the stab wound. She was tiring very quickly.
“Nighttime,” she said, “is when I go.” When her pronouncement was met with silence, she looked up from her broth to see the three exchanging glances. “What?”
“You can barely sit up,” Estral said. “The gods know I am anxious to get my father out of there, but I don’t want a rescue to fail because you are not well.”
Karigan gazed into the broth. To her surprise, she’d consumed almost the whole mugful. Rationally, she knew Estral was right. She was weak. Using her ability to slip into the encampment would be a drain on her energy she’d be unable to sustain.
“I know,” she said finally, though it pained her to admit it aloud, “but I don’t dare leave the king there, or Lord Fiori, and I certainly don’t dare await Captain Treman.”
“We understand this,” Enver said. “Perhaps we will not go this night, but tomorrow night may be another story, yes? If you continue to eat and drink, and accept my ministrations, we may be able to do what is necessary.”
“There is no ‘may,’” she said. “There is no other choice.” If she weren’t half falling off her seat, she’d go right then.
“We have not been idle during your rest,” Enver said. “All will be ready when it is time.”
When exhaustion claimed her, Enver helped her back to the tent. She nearly collapsed onto her bedding, wondering how in the hells she was ever going to be of any use in a rescue attempt.
“May I suggest,” Enver said, “that putting yourself into a state of tranquility would promote healing and energy? You can focus with your breathing.”