First Rider's Call

by Kristen Britain

  Ben just stood there on the step, looking bewildered. “Hoof—hoofbeats,” he said. He stuck a finger in his ear as if to unplug it. “I hear hoofbeats.”

  The captain’s face miraculously brightened with delight. “Come in, Ben.”

  The mender stepped in, oblivious to his surroundings. The captain went to her shelves and pulled down a coffer that looked much like the one containing the First Rider’s horn. She set it on her work table and opened it.

  Within were what had to be well over a hundred gold brooches, fashioned into winged horses. Karigan, who had acquired hers from a dying Rider far from Sacor City, had never seen it before.

  Ben stood over the open coffer, fingering through various brooches. He nearly dug to the very bottom until he chose one of which he seemed to approve.

  It rested in his palm and he just gazed at it.

  The captain took the brooch and pinned it to Ben’s smock.

  “Welcome, Rider,” she said.

  The words stirred some memory in Karigan, like a feather brushing against her mind.

  Ben blinked as if just awakening. “What am I—?” He glanced at the brooch now affixed to his smock. “What?” Then he looked at Karigan and Captain Mapstone. “What?”

  “You’ve answered the call, Rider,” the captain said gently.

  “What?” His voice cracked in disbelief. “I can’t—I can’t—” He swallowed hard. “I’m—” He put his palm to his temple as if checking for a fever. “I can’t!” he sputtered. “I—I’m afraid of—”

  Karigan and the captain leaned forward, waiting in suspense for him to finish his sentence.

  “I’m—I’m afraid of horses!”

  They exchanged incredulous glances.

  “I’ve got to go,” Ben said. “Mara!” And he darted out of officers quarters and across castle grounds.

  “Is that,” Karigan asked, “a normal reaction for a new Rider acquiring his brooch?”

  “No,” the captain said. “Usually the Rider sits with me and has a cup of tea while we discuss his or her new vocation.” She shook herself then, as if to break out of some reverie. “I guess I had better go explain things to Destarion. He’ll be none too happy about this.” She paused on the threshold and smiled suddenly. “But I am!”

  Journal of Hadriax el Fex

  Alessandros has been vanquished, they say, and Blackveil will be forever closed off until it heals. It was my words, Captain Ambriodhe tells me, my offering of intelligence, that helped turn the tide of war. My betrayal.

  For that service, I am offered sanctuary and the freedom to go and do as I wish. There is little in these war-torn lands that entice me, and no matter the offerings of the king, I am still to be reviled as Hadriax el Fex of Arcosia, the Hand of Mornhavon the Black.

  I believe I shall seek a quiet, peaceable life on one of the outer islands where few know me and the ravages of war are not so evident. Maybe I will turn my hand to fishing, an honest livelihood. Ironically, the island I am considering is called Black Island. It somehow seems fitting.

  I pray the inhabitants will accept me as I am, a hardworking man with good hands. And perhaps with time, I shall vanish away from my enemies and history, to live an ordinary life, and to die quietly in obscurity. I shall rename myself “Galadheon.” Have not the forces of the Empire already named me as such? He who betrays. Betrayer. And so shall I be known.

  Alessandros may be vanquished, but “forever” is a very long time. And I wonder . . . could so great a power be so simply overcome? If Alessandros should arise again, I would weep for happiness for my old friend lives on, the indomitable spirit. Yet, the man who was my friend is long “dead.” I should, rather, fear for my children, and their children’s children, for Alessandros does not forget, and he will never forgive my betrayal.

  I am, as witnessed by God, no longer Hadriax el Fex, but Hadriax Galadheon.

  A HERITAGE OF RIDERS

  Karigan leaned back into her pillow, laid the manuscript on her lap, and closed her eyes. The enormity of it . . . She had read the journal from beginning to end three times now, her horror mounting with each reading, as Hadriax gave his account of the atrocities of the empire. Atrocities he participated in.

  And this murderer was the founder of the G’ladheon line? She still could not grasp it. It did not matter that he redeemed himself in the end. It did matter that he allowed the atrocities to go on for so long while he struggled with his conscience.

  Who am I? she wondered. Wild magic might no longer taint her blood, but her very own heritage did. And my name means “betrayer.” She shook her head, feeling sick.

  You are who you are.

  Karigan looked about with wide eyes. “Lil?” A greenish glow drifted up from her washbasin. She got up from her bed and walked over to gaze into the water. Lil Ambrioth looked back up at her.

  You have seen yourself in the Mirror of the Moon, Lil continued. Would someone who overcame her fears—tremendous fears—to dispel a terrible danger to her country and those she loves, be even a shadow of a betrayer? I think not. Galadheon is but a name, which Hadriax took in defiance of the empire and in acknowledgment of his own actions. He lived on for many a year with the knowledge of his crimes always torturing his mind. It was, he said, his curse.

  “But—” Karigan began.

  I have forgiven Hadriax his deeds of the past, Lil said. He gave up everything to help us, and saved more lives than he ever killed. A monster he had been, a man he became.

  “I cannot reconcile—”

  You have not known war, hey? Your perspective would be different.

  “I don’t want to know war.”

  And I don’t want you to. I committed my own share of bloody acts, and for those I was called a hero, just as he had been by his own people until the time of his betrayal. But it is now time for you to live in the present and not be a judge of the past.

  Karigan was stunned. She didn’t know what to say.

  Lil blinked, her features blurred beneath the water. Do know you have surpassed my expectations, and continue to do so.

  Karigan couldn’t help but blush at the First Rider’s praise.

  Continue to help the Riders, Karigan lass, they need you, and you need them. Lil sighed, and the surface of the water rippled. I must leave you now. A higher power calls on me to answer for my transgressions.

  “What? No!” But Lil faded away, leaving Karigan to stare at her own reflection in the wash basin. “I didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye,” she murmured. “Wherever you’ve gone, Lil, I pray you are well, and in the good hands of the gods.”

  Karigan wandered through the breezeway into the central courtyard gardens, preoccupied by the journal of her apparent ancestor, Hadriax el Fex, and the words of Lil Ambrioth. Lil’s words eased her mind, but it was still a monumental revelation for her to work through, that her blood was of the Arcosian Empire, the scourge of evil that had almost destroyed Sacoridia so long ago.

  She hopped across the stepping stones of the trout pond. By the calculations of the calendar, it was still summer, yet golden birch leaves, shaped like spearheads, floated on the pond’s surface. In not so many months, the pond would freeze over and the garden would turn brown and barren till the first snowfall transformed it yet again.

  Karigan marked the chill in the air and the lower angle of the sun, and wondered what the oncoming season held for her. She prayed it would be more peaceful than her summer, and that she had truly sent Mornhavon the Black far enough into the future so Sacoridia might have time to prepare for his eventual return.

  She continued along the garden pathway, not really paying attention to where she was going, until she rounded a bend and saw Lady Estora seated upon a granite bench in a patch of sunshine, her golden hair radiant. A cream-colored cloak cascaded down her shoulders to drape in luxurious folds across the bench. Tall spikes of dark purple flowers with drooping blossoms, and yet taller flowers of mauve, surrounded her like a frame; and at her slippered feet,
pale blue asters clustered. The scene was breathtaking, almost unreal.

  At first Estora did not see her, and looked to be as deep in thought as Karigan had been, and perhaps a little pale. Concerned, Karigan strode over to her, and she looked up with a sudden smile.

  “Karigan! Hello.”

  Karigan bowed. “Do you wish for privacy, or would you mind a little company?”

  “Please sit.” She shifted her cloak to make room for Karigan on the bench.

  They exchanged quiet pleasantries, both a little distracted. Karigan was not ready to speak of her heritage or Alton just yet, nor of her recent adventures. Not even to Estora.

  And Estora, who was often keenly interested in the doings of Green Riders, did not ask for the latest news. They fell into a companionable silence, each wandering in their individual thoughts as leaves rustled on trees and ravens circled the castle heights. The roses of the garden were long past, and only their fruits littered the ground. The breeze that riffled Karigan’s hair held an air of change about it.

  A movement of shadow beside a shapely cedar startled Karigan, and she discerned a Weapon there, standing in a watchful posture. It meant the king must be nearby, and eagerly she searched the garden with her gaze, only to be disappointed.

  “I wonder what—” she began.

  Estora, who had also started to speak at the same time, said, “I’ve had—”

  They glanced at one another and laughed.

  When the laughter subsided, Estora indicated that Karigan should speak first. Karigan nodded toward the Weapon and said, “I was just wondering what he was guarding. I don’t see the king nearby.”

  Estora’s buoyancy faltered. “He is not assigned to the king.”

  “A tomb guard then? What would he be doing here?”

  Estora turned in her seat to face Karigan directly. “He is not a tomb guard. He has been assigned to—to watch me.” Her words flowed now in a freshet. “The king has agreed to my father’s contract of marriage. I’m to be King Zachary’s queen.”

  Karigan could only stare at her. Her world narrowed to just the two of them and the patch of garden they sat in. Everything else vanished, failed to exist.

  Already burdened by other revelations, Karigan had to turn Estora’s words over in her mind until she comprehended their meaning. When she did so, everything she thought she understood about herself in relationship to the king tilted off balance like a foundering ship in a gale, and she had to grab hold of the edge of the bench lest she slide off.

  Estora was to be King Zachary’s queen.

  A cargo hold of dreams and possibilities tore loose of their anchorings and rammed into her, and she found herself incredulous—not so much over Estora’s announcement, though it in itself was stunning—but by the dawning realization that her feelings for King Zachary had sometime, somehow, surpassed mere admiration and attraction.

  I . . . am I in love with him? She had hidden it from even herself, made it a secret, a secret she had not wished to admit, for she knew it was an impossible situation to love one like him, one who was a king and so far out of reach for a mere commoner. How could she not have seen it?

  And how could she not have seen how it made perfect sense that Estora would become Zachary’s wife? It was like a piece of a puzzle fitting neatly into its space. Lord Coutre wanted to marry off his daughter as advantageously as possible. At the same time, the nobles were exerting pressure on King Zachary to marry and provide the realm with a heir. Politically? It was the perfect situation, the proper fit. Only Karigan’s heart did not work in such political or logical ways.

  Somewhere in that secret place in the back of her mind, she had hoped, despite it all, there would be a way that her commoner status could be overlooked, that the breach of rank wouldn’t divide her and King Zachary after all. She almost laughed at herself, a cruel laugh, at how childish it all now seemed. How did she even know the king was interested in her in that way?

  “King Zachary is a good man,” Estora said. “He is a good man, but it shall not be a marriage made of love.” She shook her head and looked down, the liquid gold that was her hair flowing down her shoulders. “I’ve loved only F’ryan, and having known love . . . it is hard. This marriage, it is to fulfill a contract only.”

  Not a marriage made of love . . .

  Unreasonably, hope surged anew in Karigan’s breast, that there might still be a chance for her. She fought with it, wrestled it down. Emotions of every kind pummeled her and she felt as if she might drown in stormy seas.

  The lilting call of a chickadee, absurdly cheerful under the circumstances, brought Karigan back to herself in time to hear what Estora had to say next.

  “I envy you.”

  Karigan almost laughed out loud. What was there to envy? Her evil heritage? The battles and deaths of companions? Wounds that scarred her flesh and mind? Who was Estora to speak of envy? She led the life of a lady with servants to see to her every comfort. Her life was genteel, and lacked hard labor and danger, while Karigan’s meant blood, sweat, and calluses.

  And Lady Estora was going to marry King Zachary.

  “I envy you,” Estora continued, “because you are free—free to choose what you will do with your life; free to marry whom you will. But I must live a narrow life only to further the honor of my clan. I must obey the will of my father. It’s what I was born to do.”

  Free? Karigan wanted to scream at Estora, tell her how she’d been forced into the life of a Green Rider, that because she was bound by magic, she wasn’t free at all.

  “How can you . . .” Karigan began, but her throat was so constricted it came out as a croak. “How can you have known F’ryan and say that to a Green Rider?”

  But Estora’s sad eyes pleaded for understanding. She had once loved a Green Rider, an affair forbidden because she was a noblewoman and he was a commoner. Had they been discovered, Estora would have been cast out by her clan and forced to fend for herself in the wide world, something her upbringing had not equipped her to do.

  Yet in the end, there had been a far greater sacrifice, the death of F’ryan Coblebay, her one great love taken from her by two black arrows in his back. Because of Karigan’s connection to F’ryan it seemed Estora tried to reach him through her, seeking comfort, and maybe forgiveness.

  Estora gazed off into the distance, a tear in the corner of her eye. “He was more free of spirit than anyone I knew. He embraced the bonds placed on him, then broke them.”

  Karigan did not hear this last, because she was struck all at once at how eerily opposite, yet alike, their situations were. Estora was constrained by her status as a noble, destined—in servitude to her clan and country—to a noble marriage she did not desire. Karigan served her clan and country as well, but was bound to do so as a messenger, and a commoner.

  Estora’s love of F’ryan, a commoner, was forbidden, and any aspirations Karigan might hold for one who was of the lineage of the high kings of Sacoridia, was likewise forbidden.

  They were both trapped, neither free.

  Karigan could not scream at Estora, nor could she find words of comfort. She stammered an excuse and hurried away, the gardens blurring in her vision. None of it mattered. She had known all along King Zachary could not be for the likes of her.

  I am so stupid.

  And in her disappointment, more disappointment than she could have ever imagined, she grew angry and turned it inside.

  Emotions stormed within her as she strode down castle corridors, but she allowed none to surface. Lil Ambrioth had shared her love with King Jonaeus, but he had not been royalty when he started out in life, just a brave clansman whose decisions in war earned him the trust of people, enough so that they made him their first high king and united behind his banner. And had Lil truly shared a life as his partner, or did she die prematurely?

  Karigan let go a rattling sigh as she turned a corner toward the Rider wing. This was all for the best, wasn’t it? Not just the political reasons, but for Karigan hers
elf. It cut short any girlish notions she might entertain. This was the real world, and now she’d just have to throw herself into her work and drive King Zachary out of her mind.

  Only, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

  She threw open the door to her chamber, halting just inside. She stood there, unsure of what to do. She wanted to be alone, to work this all out in private, but she’d go mad in the tiny room. She needed to do something, to work it out actively.

  “Riding,” she said. She’d go riding into the countryside where she could be both alone, and be doing something physical. It would make Condor happy, too.

  “At least someone should be happy,” she murmured.

  She was about to leave when she spotted something different in her room, the sun slanting through the narrow window and shining on objects on her washstand. Cradled in an open coffer in deep, luxurious purple velvet, lay a silver comb, brush, and mirror.

  She crossed the room and carefully took the mirror into her hands. Reflected light glared into her eyes until she tilted it away from the sunshine. It was a dainty thing, light to hold. A hummingbird poised at a flower ornamented the mirror’s back, and so did her initials, just as her mother’s mirror had been engraved.

  She traced the hummingbird with trembling fingers, feeling as she had not in a very long time, like a young woman who had no need of swords or uniforms, or any special duty. Just free to be herself, to be as she should have been, without worldly cares. And she felt . . . she felt feminine. How long had it been since she had worn a dress, or even jewelry?

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the mirror and its fine workmanship, wondering where it had come from, and who would have known of the loss of her mother’s mirror. She searched for the maker’s mark and found it easily enough. Her cheeks flamed. The mirror nearly slipped from her fingers.

  The royal silversmith.