“Lord Simon has gone to see if it’s really her. He’ll bring her back if it is, though the messenger said she looks too bedraggled to be a proper lady of any sort.” He paused. “She’s also claiming to have information about this bear that’s been marauding up north.”
Abramm felt a frisson of dread. “She specifically said it was a bear?”
“I only know what the messenger told me.” Trap paused. “Surely if she were living in Kiriath, though, you would have known. I mean, wouldn’t she have contacted you?”
“She’s a Kalladorne, Lieutenant,” Abramm said resignedly. “And as angry as she was with me, I could very well see her avoiding me. But let’s go see for ourselves. Whoever she is, if she has news of the beast, I’ll want to talk to her.”
__________
Carissa sat on a bench in the squadron captain’s tent at the northwest edge of Abramm’s camp, Elayne and Cooper seated beside her. She was shaking from cold, exhaustion, and bitter frustration. These men were just doing their jobs, but after all she’d endured to get here, their attitudes of unconcern and disbelief were as hard to tolerate as their slow, bureaucratic ways. And the more she’d let her urgency out, the more they’d dug in their heels. Thus she was forced again to sit and wait.
She and her companions had reached Brackleford shortly before dawn to find the Snowsong had flooded and taken out the bridge, leaving the old fording barge as the only means of crossing. As they had waited to board in the predawn light, the rain had stopped, and fear was reborn. No one else seemed inclined to hurry, and by some perverse fate an extraordinary number of travelers had turned out that morning to ride the first fording. The crowded barge had barely pushed away from the shore when the morwhol bounded up.
It stopped at the water’s edge, its green eyes gone strangely dark. Even so, she’d felt the compulsion of its Command, willing her to throw herself into the water and come back to it. Cooper had held her fast even as the orb flared in opposition at her waist, and so, abandoning its efforts with her, the beast turned to the men pulling the ropes. Their action had almost stopped when Cooper sprang to take the place of one, and Elayne went to stand at the back of the barge, blocking them from the beast’s line of sight. Roaring mightily, it had wheeled away, attacked a nearby cart, savaged a gold-leafed sapling, and finally bounded into the darkness heading east.
“It’ll go upstream to find a narrow place to cross,” she’d told her companions. Which might just give them time to reach Abramm first. Especially if the rain started again. It had fallen intermittently, then more steadily as they neared the Valley of the Seven Peaks. By the time they were climbing the final stretch of switchbacks, they were soaked, their horses drenched, and the trail submerged under a glistening stream. But at least they were assured the morwhol had not beaten them.
When at last they’d reached the top, she’d all but crowed her joy—only to run into these uncooperative soldiers who seemed to think that noble blood somehow conferred upon one a resistance to rain and mud and exhaustion. That a princess would never, by some impossibility of constitution, show up at the edge of a military camp in the middle of the night, and certainly not as ill clad and disheveled as she. At least they had brought her to their lieutenant, who brought her to his captain, who was finally persuaded to send someone to the keep with her message, though it was her mention of the Goodsprings sheep-killer that swayed him more than anything.
Thus she sat with her companions in this tent, the rain drumming on the canvas and trickling to the ground all round them, while the captain sat behind his camp table and regarded them narrowly. Carissa had learned from the guards that Gillard and his army had arrived this afternoon, and that he had accepted Abramm’s challenge to a trial by combat for the crown. A perfectly reasonable solution for the man who had been the White Pretender, she thought. Amusement flickered at the notion, then died before the sudden, gut-clenching realization that this would be no simple who’s-best match. One or both of them could die tomorrow.
Assuming either lived long enough to even face each other.
It felt like an eternity before she heard the sound of hoofbeats and the jingle of tack, a snort or two, then the wet, smacking footfalls of riders dismounting into the mud. Two men pushed through the tent’s hanging flaps and stopped.
Carissa leaped to her feet, astonished, delighted, overwhelmed. “Uncle Simon! Lord Ethan! Surely Eidon does live!”
Simon was staring at her as if he could not believe his eyes. “Fire and Torment, lass!” he said finally. “What horrors have befallen you? And how is it you can be here and none of us have any word?”
“It is a long story, Uncle.” She stepped toward him. “I must talk to Abramm. He cannot stay here. Nor can we.”
“They said you have news of the renegade bear?”
“Bear?! It is no bear! It is a beast of the Shadow, made for Abramm, to hunt him down and kill him. And all his kin besides.”
She expected her words to surprise, expected to have to explain and defend them. And though her uncle was surprised, she didn’t think it was because he did not know what she was talking about. He glanced uneasily at Laramor, who murmured, “Perhaps we should discuss this up at the keep, Simon.”
Simon agreed they should, and soon were all trotting upward through the camp, passing innumerable tents and awnings stretched from carts, all gleaming wetly in the lamplight. Carissa was amazed at the number that had gathered here. Through Stormcroft’s outer gate they went, then the inner one, finally stopping at the keep itself, where they dismounted.
The first thing she saw when she emerged into the Great Room was the silk banner hanging from the rafters—white background beneath a golden shield surmounted by a red dragon. The sight gave her a start, for while she knew at once that it must be Abramm’s device, she also knew a man’s coat of arms was designed before he was born. That these matched so perfectly the very symbols Abramm bore on his body could hardly be coincidence.
A great blaze had been built up on the hearth, and the room had been cleared of servants and all armsmen except Abramm’s personal guard. Abramm himself stood with several lords, bent over a pile of curling maps on the long table. He straightened as she entered, and the sight of him made her breath catch, for there was no failure to recognize him this time. And they were right, he did look like Great-grandfather Ravelin.
Standing there, dressed in fine leather and wool, cloaked in dark blue embroidered with gold, and flanked by some of the highest lords and generals in the land, there was no question he was in charge. Not even the shieldmark, glittering defiantly between the open neck edges of his jerkin, could diminish him. If anything, it added to his charisma.
He has become all I ever hoped he would be, she thought as she crossed the room toward him. Wearing that kingly authority as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And I’ll bet he doesn’t even realize it.
He came around the table to face her, but this time she did not throw herself upon him, did not weep tears of joy and relief, though after all the struggle of getting here, all the dreadful fears, it seemed she should have. She’d gone from wanting never to see him again, to wishing for nothing else, to right now complete deadness. Which was not at all how she expected to feel in this moment.
When she said nothing, he took the initiative. “So you’ve come back.”
Pain laced the edges of his voice, springing from the old hurt she had inflicted and was, by her stoicism, continuing to inflict. Except, she had no desire to hurt him anymore, did not hate that shield on his chest at all . . . she simply couldn’t seem to make anything work. As if the whole situation was more than she was equipped to handle. As with everything else, it seems.
A crease formed between his level brows. “They tell me you have news of this bear marauding in the Goodsprings Valley.”
“It’s not a bear,” she said, finally breaking free of her silence.
He waited.
“It is a morwhol. At least that’s what Rh
iad said—”
“Rhiad is with you!” Alarm and surprise opened his face. Like Simon, he did not ask her what a morwhol was.
“I think he’s dead,” she said. “The last time I saw them, the beast appeared to be . . . absorbing him.”
Abramm glanced at one of the men standing across the table from him, an older man with sharp eyes and short gray hair whom she did not recognize. “I think we’d better sit down, and you can begin at the beginning.”
And so she told of her time with Rhiad—how he’d come through the corridor with the little beast, kidnapped her, made her ride with him, and finally how she’d escaped, racing to reach Abramm in time to warn him. Except when she reached this part, she was certain he had already known it was coming.
“You say it cannot travel in the rain nor open daylight?” he asked her. They sat at the long table now—Abramm and herself, Uncle Simon, Ethan Laramor, and the other men, most of whom she did not recognize. There was also a young woman she did not know, and two armsmen, the latter standing back from the table, one of whom looked an awful lot like Trap Meridon.
“That’s right,” she replied in answer to Abramm’s question. “Nor will it touch running water. It will only jump over it or use a bridge.”
“So with the Brackleford bridge out,” said Ethan, “it’ll have to go upstream to cross. And with the flooding it won’t be a short trip. If the rain forces it to ground we’ll have an even bigger window. I doubt it will get here before tomorrow night, sir.”
“We’ll have time to find it, then,” said Abramm.
“Find it?!” Carissa squeaked, staring at him in horror.
He looked up from the map and cocked a brow. “You think I should leave it free to kill whomever it encounters as it pursues me?”
“Abramm, you cannot stop it.”
“No, I am the only one who can stop it.”
Her eyes dropped reflexively to the mark on his chest, the old anger rising. “Why does it always have to be you?”
“Because it was made for me. You said it yourself.” He leaned over the map again, running a finger along the blue line that represented the Snowsong. “Assuming Ethan’s right, we have a day to find it. Once we figure out where it might cross, we’ll have an idea of its route.”
Absorbed in his plans, he did not see his men exchange uneasy glances, but Carissa did and gave thanks that someone here had sense. Until Simon opened his mouth and made things even worse.
“My lord, we can’t possibly find it before noon tomorrow.”
Abramm’s head came up and he regarded his uncle gravely. Noon tomorrow, Carissa thought, suddenly sick again. That’s when he’s supposed to face Gillard! Fire and Torment! Eidon, he is your servant! Why are you letting all these enemies come against him?
“You’re saying I should wait,” Abramm said quietly.
“I am.”
“And how many innocents will die because I’ve tarried?”
“How many more will die if you don’t?”
“If I’m dead at its hand, though, there won’t be a—” He broke off, glanced at Carissa, then said, “You must be exhausted, Riss. We’ll not keep you any longer. Lieutenant Merivale, will you escort the princess to her chambers?”
“Yes, my lord.” The man who looked like Captain Meridon stepped to her side and pulled back her chair as she arose.
As they ascended the stair, the conversation resumed, Simon quietly continuing with his point. “Sire, you’re set to win the crown for good tomorrow and end this war before it starts. Don’t throw that chance away. You know where this creature is right now, and that it is driven to seek you out. Let it come to you, then. The north banks of the upper Snowsong are mountainous and unpopulated. . . .”
Despite Carissa’s pretense of being too fatigued to climb the stairs quickly, his words fell out of earshot before he’d finished, and Lieutenant Merivale was there to ensure she didn’t go back and eavesdrop. He led her to her third-floor chambers without comment, where Elayne awaited her, having agreed to serve as her maidservant, while Cooper had been quartered in the barracks with the royal guard off the first floor.
Carissa was glad for someone to whom she could pour out her frustration at being cut off and dismissed, her warnings virtually ignored. “It’s just like when I found him in Esurh,” she railed. “He has his own plans and I’m not part of them.”
“My lady,” Elayne said when she’d finally run down, “Eidon’s hand is on him. Did you not see the banner of his coat of arms? Felmen says he wears both those devices on his body.”
Carissa looked up at her from where she sat in the chair by the fire. “So what are you saying? That Eidon will protect him? The way he protected Professor Laud? And Brenlan Throckmorton, while he was being tortured to death at the hands of the Gadrielites? Elayne, no one for whom a morwhol was made has ever survived the encounter.”
“I know. But you have done what you can do. And it is out of your hands.”
Carissa threw up her hands and turned away. “So what am I supposed to do? Just forget about it?”
“For now. And trust him. Know that he is worthy of that trust.” She smiled. “You’ll see.”
But Carissa only snorted and thought she’d seen quite enough to know just how worthy Eidon was of being trusted. But later, bathed, fed, and wearing the nightgown Elayne had brought down from Breeton, Carissa lay on the straw-mattressed bed in her chambers and stared at the ceiling. The fire flickered erratically, casting strange lights across the planking and rafters. Elayne, exhausted, had long since fallen asleep on her pallet by the hearth. No less exhausted, Carissa could not find slumber. Everything that had happened, everything that was set to happen, ran through her mind like an endless waking dream. After all her fears and struggles to get here, she’d changed nothing, and it left her feeling empty and confused. Why did I have to come at all? Just to have my nose rubbed in the fact that I’ve been wrong about Abramm and that precious shield?
Certainly she had been wrong. Seeing him in the Great Room with his lords, seeing their deference to him, their admiration for him—even Uncle Simon!—was a memory that surfaced over and over, often swiftly overlaid by more fearful images, but always returning. The quiet way he was determined to do whatever he had to do, regardless of what it cost him. She had hated that part of him in Jarnek. That sense of duty that had driven him back to face Beltha’adi when he could have fled with her to safety. Although in retrospect she’d come to realize that had they fled, neither of them would’ve left the SaHal alive, even apart from Rhiad’s treachery. It had been his courage and willingness to risk his life facing Beltha’adi that had saved not only the two of them but all the Dorsaddi, as well. And so it was here.
She rolled onto her side, straw crackling beneath her, pieces of it poking through the linen cover, and her gaze caught on the Terstan orb left on the bed table when her clothing was sent off to be cleaned. It glowed softly against the stained and pitted wood, its white light a stark contrast to the hearth fire’s reddish illumination. After a moment, she pushed up on one elbow and picked it up, remembering how upset she’d been in that cistern when she’d first seen the shieldmark on his chest. Shock, fury, grief. She had not understood how he could have done such a hateful thing to himself, for she had believed it would cripple him and drive him mad. If he ever returned to Kiriath, he would be ridiculed and humiliated. Instead, here he was at the head of an army determined to fight for him, revered by men who had given him their fealty. The shield she’d been so sure would ruin him had only made him stronger. Had, in fact, made him what he was.
Yes, she’d been wrong about it. Completely and utterly wrong. And it was humbling to have to admit it. Perhaps that was part of the reason she hadn’t wanted to confront him. Seeing him strong and whole and successful would not have reminded her so much of the gulf that lay between them as it would the fact that his new faith had not destroyed him. And if it had not done all the things she had said it would, what did she have to h
old against it?
She rolled the orb between her fingers, studying its bright, clear light, and thinking about the recent events in her own life. Even though she couldn’t see the purpose in it, yet she saw the way it had been orchestrated. Was it just luck that Cooper and Elayne had seen her trail and followed? Happenstance that Heron had bolted straight toward them instead of a compass-full of points elsewhere? Was the rain that had chased away the morwhol last night a coincidence? Or the washed-out bridge that had forced it north up the Snowsong, or the Brackleford ferry pushing off just in time? Or was Someone’s hand behind it all?
She stared into the orb, recalling how it had stopped Rennalf from taking her to Balmark, how it had destroyed that horrid corridor, protected her from the morhol’s Command and maybe even from its claws. She’d thought it was Rhiad protecting her, but maybe there’d been someone else. Maybe she’d not been as alone as she’d believed.
“Go to your brother. I will make you a way.”
I only half obeyed that command, she thought. And everything went wrong and it was miserable and horrible, and yet . . . here I am. Can you hear my thoughts? Did you make me a way? But if you did, why? I don’t seem to have anything to give to Abramm. And what does he have that I want?
Well, the last one was easily answered. He had purpose. He had a place in the world. People who loved and admired him. He had right now almost everything he’d ever wanted in life. And he had a relationship with the one whose Light lived in this orb.
Is that what I want?
The question hung in her mind, as bright as the orb itself, and she remembered the scar-faced man who had stood between her and the north gate at Highmount, barring her way as the ells had urged her on. “I will let you go,” he had said, “if that is truly your wish.” But it was not her wish at all.
The orblight beat against her face in a warm and soft caress, drawing her sight down into it. She frowned, peering closer. Is that him? Her heart began to thump. Yes!
Light flared around her, clean and bright and clear, after all the darkness she’d endured. He stood before her, his dark eyes gentle and full of understanding. He knew what she had felt and feared and longed for. He knew. His orb burned against her palm, his power reaching out to her. And suddenly she saw. He was real and with her now, as he had been all along. Ignored, discounted, railed at, yet he had not abandoned her. Emotion welled in her— remorse, desire, wonder that he should care when she had not, wonder at what he offered her: a chance, finally, to belong. To be wanted and protected and loved, even when she had been so thoroughly unlovable.