“We are nearly home.”
Karigan started at her father’s voice. The sleigh was in motion, the brasses and silver of the harnesses jingling. The drays stepped at a good pace, knowing they were headed for the barn.
“What happened?” Karigan asked, looking about herself, but discerning little in the dark.
“All my talk put you to sleep, I guess.”
Karigan tried to remember back, but it was all so foggy. They’d stopped in a clearing. “We were talking about the moonstone.” She patted her pocket and felt the bulge of it there.
“Yes, and I was trying to apologize.”
They rounded a bend and ahead were the lights of the G’ladheon manor house. Her father halted the drays once more and turned to her.
“No matter what,” he said, “you are my daughter and I love you. I am trying to be at peace with the magic. Just know I am proud of you, and of the accolades you’ve received. I’m glad the king recognizes your worth—he is a good man, and our land is fortunate to have one such as he as our sovereign.”
He paused, perhaps gathering his thoughts, and rubbed his chin. “I just hope you can one day forgive me for the secrets I have kept, but also understand why I cannot apologize for the choices I’ve made in my life.”
Karigan felt depleted of anger. It was clear he had never stopped loving her mother, and if he did not exactly like magic, he was at least trying to accept that it was a part of her life. She did not like the secrets, but acknowledged all those she kept herself.
She could not pick and choose the parts of her father she liked and disliked. His dealings with the brothel and piracy were part of the same package as the successful merchant and loving husband and father. All of it made him who he was.
That’s what love was about, right? Accepting the bad along with the good and without condition?
“You and your mother were always the most important things in my life,” he said. “I lost her, and I do not want to lose you.”
“I know,” Karigan said.
They hugged, and being in her father’s arms once again made her life as a Green Rider, and all the battles and dangers she’d endured, seem very far off. She was once again a daughter, finding safety and comfort in her father’s embrace.
A couple days later, Karigan stood at the cairn of stones that covered her mother’s grave. Her father had seen Kariny buried in the old way, the way of the islands, with her head oriented toward the dawn. Karigan’s aunts said he’d erected the cairn himself in his grief, day after day bearing rocks and thrusting them onto the pile. Some were enormous and she wondered how he had managed it. According to her aunts, he would accept no assistance, and by the look in their eyes when they recounted the story, she could tell how difficult it had been for them to witness his pain.
Karigan remembered little of it. Only that her mother wasn’t there, and people dressed in somber colors had spoken in hushed tones around her, and that all the windows and mirrors had been draped, leaving the house in a perpetual state of darkness.
The cairn was coated in ice. In the intervening day since the storm, the sun had shone bright and warm enough to melt snow, which refroze during the night, forming a glaze of ice that cascaded over the rocks like a waterfall trapped in time.
Beside the cairn was a monolith of granite, as if heaved up from the earth itself. Her mother’s name was carved on it, along with the inscription: Of the island born, to the star-lit heavens embraced. The sign of the crescent moon topped the inscription, and the face of the rock was carved with a looping design that reminded Karigan of fishermen’s knots. It represented continuity, no beginning, no end.
Karigan held the moonstone in her hand, its light muted by sunshine, but its inner glow still brilliant. She’d searched the house top to bottom to see if she could find further clues of her mother interacting with Eletians, but she found nothing. She guessed everyone had secrets, even her mother, who took hers to the grave.
She thought to leave the moonstone on the cairn as a sort of offering, but something inside her fought the notion. Her mother had meant for her to have it, after all, and she did not want to go against Kariny’s wishes. She returned it to her pocket.
Finally she kissed her fingertips, touched them to one of the icy boulders of the cairn, and departed along the wooded path that led back to the house.
She arrived just as the stablemaster led a groomed and tacked Condor out onto the drive. The gelding bobbed his head upon seeing her, eager to be off.
“He’s a fine fellow,” the stablemaster said as she approached. “I’ll miss him.” Condor gave him a nudge, almost knocking him over. Karigan smiled.
Her father, resplendent in a long beaver fur coat, and her aunts emerged from the house to bid her farewell. She hugged them one by one.
“Are you sure you have to leave already?” Aunt Stace asked.
“I think I’ve drawn out my stay as long as I can,” Karigan replied. “I must return to duty.”
“Well, don’t forget us here,” Aunt Brini said.
“I won’t. Of course I won’t.”
Aunt Gretta dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. “You must write us every day.”
“Er, I’ll try.” Karigan grimaced. She was not known as the most diligent of letter writers.
“Oh, stop sniveling, Gretta,” said Aunt Tory. She took Karigan’s hand. “Now, dear, there is a fine young man down Bellmere way, of good stock, whom we think—”
“No!” Karigan pulled away from her aunt. “No match-making!” She remembered all too vividly the fiasco of her father’s last attempt.
“If you turn down every male we dangle in front of you, you’ll end up like us—alone and without husbands.”
“I never thought it so bad,” Aunt Brini said.
“I should think not,” Karigan’s father grumbled. “With me to support you, you want for nothing.”
This pronouncement was followed by sisterly remonstration. Aunt Gretta flicked her handkerchief at her brother.
“See what I must endure?” he asked Karigan. “They are forever uniting against me.” This incurred yet more sounds of disdain. He grinned and handed Karigan a purse.
“What’s this?” she asked, knowing precisely what it was by its weight.
“A little currency to help you get by.”
“But—”
“Yes, I know. You earn pay for your work, and room and board, but such a pittance does not help you purchase the occasional trinket.”
“But—”
“And, you never know, but your aunts might find the right young man for you and you’ll need something special to wear. With your new title, I imagine there will be dozens of suitors tripping over themselves for your favor.”
Her aunts nodded eagerly at this and Karigan scowled, but she knew it was of little use to try and return the purse. She’d use some of the currency to bring her friends treats from Master Gruntler’s Sugary, but most she’d leave at Garden House. Yes, she liked that idea very much.
“And here is my message for Captain Mapstone,” he said, drawing the letter from beneath his coat.
Karigan slipped it into her message satchel and embraced him one last time.
“Take care of yourself,” he said. “Stay out of trouble.”
“You, too,” she replied in earnest. She was both sad and relieved to be leaving her father and aunts. She would miss them, but not all the complicated expectations and emotions that came with family.
She mounted Condor, and as they set off, she overheard Aunt Stace say, “Now Stevic, what is this business about a brothel?”
There was silence, then a quick exchange of words.
Uh oh, Karigan thought. Her father was in for it now.
Before she lost sight of the house at the bend in the drive, she turned to wave one last time, but no one saw her. Her aunts were clustered around her father, apparently deep in heated discussion, arms gesticulating wildly.
Karigan could not help but smile.
She rode on, unaware of a winter owl, in its snowy plumage, perched high up in a tree, watching her as she passed below.
A HOWLING IN THE WOODS
“Hah! Three knights—I win!” Laren Mapstone, captain of His Majesty’s Messenger Service, the Green Riders, slapped her cards down on the rough-hewn table and grinned in triumph.
The man across from her, older, weatherworn, his hair faded to a creamy white, gazed mournfully at his queen and pair of ships.
“No need to gloat,” he said.
A pile of chestnuts sat in the middle of the table and Laren drew them all toward herself. A few rolled off onto the dirt floor. “Mine! All mine!”
“I guess that’s it, then,” the man said. “I’m all out.”
“You are?” When Laren looked, she saw he hadn’t a single chestnut left.
“You’d have thought I’d learned not to gamble with you years ago.”
“What do you say we roast the loot then?” Laren asked.
Elgin Foxsmith, retired Chief Rider of the Green Riders—the first Laren ever served under—collected the chestnuts and dumped them into a pan and placed them before the hearth. He threw another log on the fire and limped back to his seat at the table.
Two horses and a donkey watched the proceedings in the dim, one-room cabin through a window cut into the wall of the adjoining stable. One horse was Laren’s gelding, Bluebird, and the other, Elgin’s mare, Killdeer. Killdeer was getting on in years, her sweet face looking grayer than ever, and Laren worried how Elgin would cope when the time came for her to pass on. He lived a solitary life out here in the woods, claiming he’d had enough of all kinds of people during his stint in the messenger service to last a lifetime.
She worried about him all alone out here, especially with the harsh winter they’d had, so she made a point of visiting him as often as she could, bringing him news, preserves, books, blankets—anything she thought he might need. He was nearly self-sufficient, keeping a garden, a milk cow, sheep, and some chickens. Hunting and fishing rounded out his larder.
And while reclusive, he wasn’t entirely a hermit. He made periodic trips to the village to acquire goods, like fodder and grain. Still, he wasn’t getting any younger, and Laren did not know how much longer he could handle this rugged life on his own.
A bang-clatter in the stable made Laren jump.
“Bucket!” Elgin shouted. “Enough!”
Bucket was the donkey, and Killdeer’s companion. He had a habit of banging his food bucket around, hence his name. He was, Elgin claimed, not much good for anything, but Killdeer liked him so he remained. Laren knew that without Bucket, the garden would not be tilled, wood would not be hauled in, and items couldn’t be carted in from the village.
“So, Laren said, “have you considered my offer?” This time, she came not only to check on Elgin’s welfare, but to present him with a proposition.
Elgin grumbled something, then passed his hands through his hair. “Don’t think I can go back there, Red. Besides, my brooch abandoned me a long time ago.”
“Unless I’m mistaken, your knowledge and experience have not.”
“All those people crammed into one place,” he muttered. “And who would look after the girls? I can’t just leave them.”
Elgin referred to his chickens and the cow. “I don’t know,” Laren said, “but there are ways, it seems to me. And if you don’t like the work or being back at the castle, you could leave anytime.”
“And what about your current Chief Rider, eh? Can’t she handle the job?”
“Mara is a wonderful Chief Rider.”
“See? You don’t need me. Besides, I wouldn’t want to step on her toes.”
“You wouldn’t. Our numbers have more than doubled over the last year. Mara has only just recovered from terrible wounds, and while the winter has kept our senior Riders close to home and helping with training, spring is nearing and soon Zachary will have them off on errands.”
The cabin shuddered in a gust of wind as if to counter her words.
“Heh, hard to think of the prince a man full-grown, and getting married, too,” Elgin said.
“King,” Laren reminded him. “King Zachary.”
“Er, right. Just a lad when I last saw him.” Elgin had served Zachary’s grandmother, Queen Isen. He sighed. “Look, I appreciate you thinking of me, Red, but too much time has passed. I don’t know how things work up there at the castle anymore. I’d be no better than a green Greenie myself. Besides, I’ve no mind to be scraping and bowing to all the gentry. All those people! I’m my own man here.”
Laren folded her hands on the table before her. They were roughened and calloused, and nicked with scars. They looked old to her. Just as old as she sometimes felt, especially when she got up in the morning all aching and stiff. She could appreciate Elgin’s desire to stick to his life out here in the cabin—no need to adapt to the expectations of others, which, she thought, was all she’d ever done. She couldn’t remember a time when there weren’t orders to follow, or to issue. Her life was not her own, yet she did not resent it, for the messenger service gave her purpose.
Elgin was well beyond her in years, but she was now older than he was when he retired. In fact, most Riders left the messenger service within four or five years, if they were not killed doing their duty first. But the calling still clung to her as strongly as it had when she first came to the service some twenty years or more ago. It appeared there was work for her yet to do, so long as she was not cut down in the process.
“There is another reason I request that you come to assist in the training of the new Riders,” she said. “The king is preparing—quietly, mind you—for conflict. He does not know when or how, but he wishes to be prepared.”
“Conflict? Is this about the Blackveil business?”
Laren nodded. She had regularly apprised him of all that had come to pass during each of her visits, and especially the involvement of the Green Riders. “Mornhavon the Black will return sooner or later, and we’re already contending with Second Empire. We’ve word they’re consolidating their forces.” Green Riders had died trying to bring back the information.
Elgin scratched a bristly cheek, deep in thought. Presently he said, “I am an old man. What am I against all that?”
“We’re not asking you to solve the world’s problems,” Laren replied. “Just to help us so we can take care of it. Maybe you don’t remember how young some Riders can be. Our newest boy just turned twelve. Your experience will help give them what they need to survive—prepare them for the storm to come.”
He turned away and she wondered if she said the wrong thing, hit too close to his heart. The cabin dimmed even more and creaked in the wind. Sparkling snow blew through cracks in the chinking and beneath the door. The horses and Bucket watched with ears perked, as if expecting some momentous proclamation.
But Elgin remained silent.
“I’d better get going,” Laren said, rising from her bench. “I want to reach the city before it gets dark. The clouds were building like it might snow again.”
Elgin nodded. “Best take your chestnuts with you. Should be ready by now.”
Shortly after, roasted chestnuts warmed Laren’s coat pockets as she sat astride Bluebird. It was already snowing and it looked like it could really pick up.
“Be careful,” Elgin said from his doorway. Snow mounded the path to either side of him, and a thick layer overhung his roof. “I’ve lost some sheep to critters. Been thinking about getting a dog.”
Laren thought a dog a sensible idea. “You be careful, too, Chief. And if you decide to give us a hand, know that you’ll have the gratitude of your king. And me.”
He made a dismissive gesture and went back inside. Laren reined Bluebird down the path away from the cabin.
“I think he’s interested,” she confided to her horse. “At least he didn’t tell me to go to the five hells.”
Bluebird snorted and Laren slapped his neck.
&nbs
p; The snow fell heavily, dropping through the woods in curtains. It damped down the world, blanketing it all in an eerie hush, except for the creak of a tree limb or the thud of Bluebird’s hooves.
Laren was glad the path from Elgin’s cabin was wide enough for his cart, for it made the way obvious in the snow, when a narrower track would have been obscured, the terrain and sameness of the trees disorienting. She supposed if she got lost, Bluebird would know the way home, but it was, nevertheless, reassuring to have a clear path to follow.
She rode on, warm in her fur-lined greatcoat, confident in spite of the weather and the fading daylight. The rhythm of Bluebird’s steady pace and the mesmerizing flurries floating down down down, allowed her to lose herself in an array of mundane thoughts. What was the next day’s schedule? Meetings. There were always meetings, and piles of paperwork, and checking on the progress of the new Riders. Many did not have even a rudimentary education, so in addition to learning court etiquette, how to handle a sword, and ride, they must also be taught writing, reading, figuring, and geography. The long winter had been a bonus, keeping her senior Riders available to assist.
A howl raked the serenity of the forest. Bluebird sidestepped nervously. Caught unaware as she was, Laren kept her seat by sheer instinct. No sooner did she steady Bluebird when the howl came again.
Wolves? she wondered.
More cries followed, some closer, some farther away, and the hair on the nape of her neck stood.
Ordinarily she wouldn’t be too concerned about the wild creatures, as they tended to shy from people, but with such a severe winter, she imagined they were desperate for a meal. Bluebird was definitely a prey animal, and if the howling creatures were starving, they would overcome their natural fear of her.
She urged Bluebird forward into a trot, peering into the graying forest, and the cries came again, louder, closer, all around her. If she pushed Bluebird into a gallop, wouldn’t it just incite pursuit?
When the cries filled the forest again, they didn’t sound quite right. Not exactly like wolves or coyotes. There was an almost human quality to them.
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