“Tell me about when you were a boy.”
He was so taken aback that he did not reply for some time. She was, of course, trying to change the subject from herself.
“Please,” she said. In her voice was not just the desire to hear some tale told, but a pleading tone and pain. She was, he realized, desperate to have her mind taken off her wounds and dreams, not to have him reminding her of them. He would help if he could, but he was not accustomed to storytelling, especially stories of a personal nature.
“Of course,” he replied. “I am trying to think of something suitable.” He delved back into his boyhood wondering what might prove amusing. Sadly, his training as a young prince had been far from amusing, but then a memory came to him that made him smile. “I will tell you how your captain and I became friends.”
“Good,” came her muffled reply.
“It happened,” he began, “one day when I was hiding from my brother.” He’d often hidden from his brother. “I chose to conceal myself in Rider stables. Most of the Riders, I recall, were out on errands with the fine summer weather. I must have been seven or so.” He crinkled his brow trying to remember, and nodded to himself. “Besides my brother, I also managed to evade the Weapon who was assigned to me. His name was Joss, and I am certain I was responsible for turning him prematurely gray.” Poor Joss, he thought.
“At any rate, I was hiding and sulking, wishing I could be back home in Hillander looking for crabs along the shoreline, or stuffing my mouth full of blueberries instead of being stuck in Sacor City all summer. I hid up in the hayloft and watched as this red-haired Rider walked slowly and unsteadily down the aisle between the stalls. Her arm was in a sling.”
“A sling?”
“Why, yes. She had a dislocated shoulder, cracked ribs, and a concussion, but I’ll get to that in a minute. I remember being fascinated as she halted in front of the stall of a blue roan gelding. He poked his nose out to look at her, and I could swear the two of them were locked in some mental battle. The gelding, who I soon came to learn was named Bluebird, stepped backward, his head drooping.
“Next thing I know, she’s haltering him and hooking him to the crossties in the aisle. All of this one-handed, of course. After brushing him, she brought out his tack. I think she must have heard the floorboards of the loft creak as I shifted my weight, because she looked up and demanded, ‘Who’s there?’ I replied, ‘No one.’ ‘Well, No One,’ she said, ‘why don’t you come down here and show yourself.’ I remember thinking her rather frightful with her red hair and sharp voice. She could not have been more than seventeen at the time, but she seemed very old to me. I had been taught, of course, to be respectful of elders, so I obeyed and climbed down from the loft.
“She was a fairly new Rider then and did not know me on sight. Royal princes don’t normally spend time in common stables. I think she probably thought I was one of the other castle children. ‘Well, No One,’ she said, ‘what are you doing here?’ ‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘Nothing, eh? Then you can help me put a bridle on this horse.’ And so I did. We saddled Bluebird, and she led him out to the pasture with me opening gates for her.
“She stood there, staring at Bluebird, then prepared to mount. I told her she couldn’t do that, not with her arm in a sling. ‘Whether I can or can’t,’ she said, ‘I have to try.’ You probably won’t be surprised to know that she made it onto Bluebird’s back.”
“No,” Karigan murmured, “not at all.”
“She managed the reins one-handed and rode about the pasture, crouched over in pain. You see, Bluebird was green, hardly gentled, and Laren was green, as well. You know that she’s from Penburn?”
“Yes.”
“From a family of river drivers, many generations counting. She knew boats on unsteady river currents, but not horses. I learned later that two days previous, Bluebird had thrown her off into the paddock fence. She smashed a whole section of it. The hazards Green Riders face are numerous, and horses are just the beginning.”
“When did she realize who you were?” Karigan asked.
Zachary smiled. His story had engaged her. He hoped it distracted her from the pain, at least a little. “Joss found me watching her ride. She overheard him address me as ‘Your Royal Highness.’ I think her face blushed as red as her hair.” He chuckled. “As you can imagine, she had made quite an impression on me, and I think I fell a little in love with her the way a young boy might. I kept turning up at Rider stables to look for her and help with Bluebird—against my grandmother’s wishes, of course. Laren was soon called to the throne room to explain herself. I would have loved to have seen those two formidable women in that face-to-face encounter, but I was not invited. They must have come to some accord, for after that, Laren became a strong presence in my life—not as a tutor, not as a mentor, exactly, but as an elder companion who looked out for me when she wasn’t on a message errand. Because of her, I learned at an early age the stern stuff of which Riders are made.”
After a quiet moment, Karigan said, “Thank you.”
He touched the tent wall as if doing so would bring her closer to him, almost like a caress.
Telling the story had helped him, too. It took his mind away from what had been done to him, away from worries about Second Empire, and it brought other memories to the fore, of Laren reading to him when he was sick or feeling sad, going riding with her, playing games, the countless ways in which she had made his childhood much brighter.
He closed his eyes and almost imagined that Karigan pressed her hand against his from the other side of the tent wall.
BROKEN
Nyssa came into Karigan’s mind whenever she was most vulnerable, when the pain was intolerable and she felt weak and useless and endlessly tired. Nyssa came in dreams, too, or in the gray haze between sleep and waking and, of late, even when Karigan was fully awake and lying prone in Enver’s tent. She came flailing the thongs of her whip.
“You are broken,” Nyssa said.
Broken, broken, broken . . .
The words burrowed deeply into Karigan’s soul, worse than barbs into her flesh, and she knew Nyssa spoke truth.
Nyssa made her relive not only the flogging, but she brought the shadow of Cade to her, as well. He told her yet again how she had failed him. “It is all your fault,” he told her, “that I suffer.”
“No, no, no,” she murmured. She crushed bedding in her clenched hands.
“Karigan,” Estral said, “wake up. You’re having bad dreams again.”
Karigan gazed up at her. “Was . . . was I loud?”
“Not particularly. I was just looking in on you.” Estral placed her wrist against Karigan’s forehead. “Your fever doesn’t seem to be back. That’s good.”
Karigan realized she was dripping with sweat.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Estral asked.
Her voice, Karigan noted, seemed to be eroding by the slightest amounts. “No,” she replied.
Estral’s lips formed a narrow line.
“I’m fine.” Karigan wiped sweat from her brow.
Estral shook her head. “If you are fine, maybe you would feel even better getting cleaned up in the hot spring. It’s quite wonderful, and Enver says it has minerals with healing qualities.”
It did sound enticing.
Go ahead, Nyssa murmured in her mind. Try it. But you won’t feel any better.
Go away, Karigan thought back at the apparition.
You are not strong enough to send me away.
“Think about it,” Estral said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
When she was gone, Karigan tried to summon her voice of command. “Sleep,” she ordered Nyssa.
Nyssa simply watched her with an air of amusement.
“Sleep,” Karigan tried again, but she heard only her own weak voice. And she tried yet again, putting her will into it, but st
ill nothing.
Nyssa laughed. “I told you you were broken. You are not nearly as strong as everyone thinks you are. Give up, Greenie. What is the point of fighting?”
“Won’t let you win,” Karigan muttered.
“You’ve already lost,” Nyssa said.
“Let who win?” Estral asked as she entered the tent.
“No one.”
“How about the hot spring? Enver is scouting and the king is still sleeping, so it’s all ours.”
Karigan scowled at Nyssa. “Yes.”
Nyssa remained silent, but Karigan didn’t think it was because she’d “won.”
“It’ll probably be too much to submerge your wounds,” Estral said as she helped Karigan rise, “but you can wade and wash up.”
Karigan shivered as she stepped outside into the chill morning air, where Nyssa stood waiting, the everpresent smirk on her face.
When Zachary awakened, he felt the need to cleanse himself again, for something of his recent captivity clung to him still. Their camp was quiet in the dusky light, but for the morning chatter of birds. Thinking himself the first one to rise, he walked to the hot spring, only to find it occupied.
He backed silently into the trees and observed Karigan, facing away from him, shadowed and hip deep in the morning-gray pool where twists of steam rose around her in an ephemeral fairy dance. His joy at seeing her up and about was tempered by how stiffly and slowly she moved, as though in great pain, when he was accustomed to seeing only her strength and grace. Estral sat on a rock, knees drawn to her chest, keeping watch.
Not wishing to be a voyeur, he started to turn away to retreat to their camp, but Karigan stepped into a shaft of sunlight that slanted down through the trees, and he could not look away. He saw, in full brilliance, her back, its slender contours ravaged, her flesh in tatters. All that was not blood-crusted scabs was still-angry welts and bruises.
Dear gods.
He reeled away and stumbled down the path, only to pause and lean against the trunk of a tall pine to catch his breath. Nari had told him what had been done to her and hearing about it had been bad enough, but seeing it was all that much worse.
I am so sorry, Karigan.
If he hadn’t already slain Nyssa, he’d do it again, but more slowly this time. He’d make her suffer as she’d made Karigan suffer. Alas, that retribution was denied him, and he could only hope that her soul, if she had one, was delivered to the deepest, darkest, and cruelest of hells.
Back at the campsite, he sat by the fire and stared into the flickering flames. He tried to still himself, but he could not get the image of Karigan’s back out of his mind. He stood once more and paced. He thought back to when she had first arrived in Sacor City. Had she been sixteen? Seventeen? Young, at any rate, and already she had faced villains and monsters, and, against the odds, survived the journey to bring him a message for which another Rider had been killed. He’d known she was an extraordinary person then, but even so, he never suspected all she would do and accomplish in the following years.
I never wished this for you, Karigan, he thought. You would have been much better off staying a merchant, perhaps marrying someone to help carry on the work of your clan. Having a family. However, he knew the call to be a Green Rider could not be ignored, but oh, how she had tried. He shook his head at the memory. She had held out far longer than he and Laren had expected.
He was grateful when she’d finally answered the call, not just because of what she had done for his realm, but for his own selfish reasons. If only rank and status did not matter . . . He sighed. There was no use in stewing over what could not be.
A cry for help came faintly, but urgently, from the direction of the hot spring. He sprinted down the path. About halfway, he found Estral trying to support a sagging Karigan.
“We overdid,” Estral said.
“I’m fine,” Karigan said in a slightly slurred voice. She was in Enver’s oversized shirt and wrapped in a blanket.
“You keep saying that,” Estral said, “and yet here I am holding you up.”
Zachary helped lift her to her feet, careful not to hurt her back; then he took her into his arms and carried her back toward camp. She did not protest, which he thought of as a bad sign.
Once they were back in Enver’s tent, he helped her down onto her bedding. She lay on her stomach, and he nested the blankets around her. Estral tugged slippers from her feet that looked distinctly Eletian. Enver had been tending her in his tent, she was wearing his shirt and slippers . . . Zachary let go an irrational swell of jealousy before it could overcome him. Enver had also rescued her, and was mending her. For those two things, Zachary was most grateful.
Karigan looked tiredly up at him. “You lost your beard.”
It took a moment for her words to make sense. He scraped his stubbled chin with his hand. “Yes, do you like it?”
“It is better than the beard you had when we found you,” she replied, “but I miss your old beard.”
“Very well. Then I will grow it back as it was before.”
She plucked at a length of her own wet hair. “It grows back. Hair. A good thing.”
“Would you like another story?” he asked, but she did not answer. Her eye was closed and she breathed deeply as though she were already asleep. He drew a blanket over her.
Estral motioned that they should step outside. When they did so, she said, “Thank you for the rescue.”
“I was going to bathe,” he told her. “I didn’t realize the two of you were there. I saw—I saw her back.” Estral remained silent, so he continued, “I never wanted, never meant for her to be hurt. Not any of my people, but especially not her.”
“She is a Green Rider,” Estral said, as if it explained all, and in a way it did.
The rage he always held at bay made him tremble. “Green Riders ride into danger. I know that.” He shook his head. “I have witnessed floggings before, and it is an unpleasant punishment, but what was done to her was not just flogging, not even just torture. It was the work of a sadist.” He clenched his hands, the cheerful song of the birds counterpoint to the darkness that welled up within him.
“I know,” Estral said after a time. “I saw Nyssa’s pleasure as she hurt Karigan. Karigan was strong during it all. She never told Nyssa a thing, not even to make her stop.” She took a shaking breath. “Do you know that when we were imprisoned in Nyssa’s workshop, Karigan didn’t tell me she’d seen you and my father in the keep? She knew I would not be able to withstand torture, or even witnessing her being tortured, so she kept the information to herself with the hope that Second Empire didn’t know who you really were. I did not find out you were there until after Enver rescued us and she regained consciousness and told us.”
Even under those circumstances, he thought, she’d been protecting him. Her honorary Weapon status had been well bestowed.
“I was so eager to find my father.” Estral squeezed her eyes shut, obviously still racked by guilt. “If Karigan hadn’t followed me into the Lone Forest, we would not have known you and he were there. Thank the gods you are both now safe, but I keep asking myself, would I run off into the forest again knowing what would happen to Karigan? Do I prefer to have Karigan safe, but my father in the hands of Second Empire? Or to have my father safe and my best friend savaged by Nyssa?”
“It is an impossible choice,” Zachary replied.
“Yes. You cannot win when playing such games with the universe.” She shuddered. “Her screams, I can still hear them.”
He’d been assailed by what-ifs, as well, but no matter how dire his situation, he would have dealt with it if it meant sparing Karigan. If he entered his realm into the equation, and how Grandmother might have used him against it, the question grew murkier for the situation became much greater than the fate of two individuals. Estral was wise, he decided, not to play that game.
&
nbsp; “I know that Karigan asked that you not see her,” Estral said. “She did not want you to see her wounds, because of how it would make you feel.”
“She should not be ashamed by how her injuries look,” he whispered.
“No, my lord, it is more than that.” Her sea green eyes were earnest.
“What do you mean?”
“She thought it would make you angry, and she knows you have more than enough to worry about than just her.”
How fortunate for Cade Harlowe, he thought, to have had her love.
Estral continued to gaze at him with a tilt to her head. “Your Majesty, she didn’t want you to see her because she cares about you. More than cares, and she didn’t want to cause you pain.”
He stared at her, hope surging.
“She loved Cade Harlowe, yes, but she loved you first.” Estral took his hand and squeezed it, then let it go. “Perhaps you would sit with her a while? I am going to go watch for Enver.”
“Of course,” he said more calmly than he felt. He slipped back into the tent and sat beside Karigan.
He had always been certain of his own feelings for her, but he’d never known hers for sure. Until now. Estral had provided confirmation, and he trusted her word as Karigan’s best friend. With the thrill of confirmation, however, came severe disappointment, the disappointment he could not act on it. He had tried a few years ago, and had failed miserably. He’d made the choice to marry Estora for the good of the realm, but had tried to have it both ways. Karigan had rejected him then, as well she should have. He’d been foolish. The irony of being king, the most powerful person in the land, was that he had so little power over his own life to do with as he wished.
Karigan awoke, cracked her eye open to see, to her surprise, her king sitting beside her. He was gazing off into the distance, his expression, in profile, pensive. There must be a thousand things on his mind, she thought, not least of which was what to do with Second Empire.
Was he really sitting there, she wondered, or was it just another false dream? At times, it was difficult to separate the dreams from reality. She thought to reach out to touch him to see if he was, in fact, real, for what king would sit with one of his lowly servants?
Firebrand Page 63
