First Rider's Call

The scene changed abruptly to a castle corridor where King Zachary walked with Old Brexley trailing behind. Lady Estora strolled beside him, conversing. She could almost hear their words, and the tolling of a bell . . . Then she saw Captain Mapstone standing in the night, the light of a fire dancing against her face.

A new scene unfolded, a scene of snow swirling against the night, and she sensed the mist around her mimicking it, setting the clearing in the middle of a maelstrom like a fine lady’s snowglobe violently shaken. The storm’s wind roared through tossing branches and flying snow—she thought she could feel the bite of it against her face. A figure trudged through the snow, hunched over as though badly wounded, on the brink of death.

The wind blew hair away from the figure’s face revealing her identity. Karigan looked upon herself. She opened her mouth, but no words would form.

The figure in the vision glanced over her shoulder, and then pushed on with renewed determination as if she were being hunted.

Then the vision faded and the water turned to silver again. Karigan glanced up at the prince. What did the scene portend? How was she wounded? Would she die of it? When would this happen?

But the prince told her no secrets. Instead, he said, “It is not done. Look again into the mirror.”

She did, but once again found only her reflection.

“No, look truly.”

She drew closer, seeing herself peering back. Brown hair framed her face. Her features, an echo of her mother’s, sagged a little in exhaustion. Otherwise, she looked much the same as she always had. The water simply reflected a Green Rider, the daughter of a merchant.

But as she gazed ever more deeply, she saw someone unable to admit how afraid and overwhelmed she was by the events flowing about her. She saw a young person caught up in grand things, shouldering weighty responsibilities. Perhaps too weighty.

Bright eyes reflected and counter-reflected. Those eyes had seen violence, and much that was strange and hurtful. With a heaviness of spirit, she realized a simple life as a merchant was truly lost to her.

She saw also her thin veneer of confidence that masked fear and fragility. There was so much on her small shoulders . . . Helping the Riders while leaderless, enduring supernatural visits by the First Rider, and travels to the past. And now there was all that the Eletian prince had told her. How could she carry such a burden? She had not the strength.

A current of self-doubt shook her. Her fears went deep, clutching at her heart. She feared losing her father, her one remaining parent and the foundation of her character. If anything happened to him, she would be alone in the world.

Alone . . .

She feared meeting terrors in the night, cloaked in shadows, that spoke her name. She feared for Alton, having seen his condition, and for all the Riders. She feared losing any one of them.

And she feared love. Love that would pass, unfulfilled.

Finally, she feared changes wrought across her homeland should the darkness of Blackveil persevere.

Fear, she realized, propelled her forward, not courage, and certainly not just duty to king and country. Fear.

The mirror had peeled away all her self-perceptions, laid them raw and bare. She did not see the portrait of a confident and duty-bound Green Rider, but someone she did not like to acknowledge, someone with much to fear.

It was all there in the mirror, cradled in a fragile bowl, the essence of what drove Karigan G’ladheon, a young, frightened woman caught up in events greater than herself.

She passed her hand over her eyes. Only a patchwork of threads held her together.

“Galadheon,” Prince Jametari said in a prophetic voice, “You shall hear Westrion’s wings brush the air. To live, you must first die.”

Birds chattered away and whistled in the branches above Karigan’s head. The morning sun glistened on dew-laden leaves. She found herself sitting cross-legged next to a long-cold campfire, her hands on her knees. Had she been dreaming sitting up? Dreaming of a fanciful visit with Eletians?

The strange membranous leaf cloak, dappled with gems of dew, remained draped over her shoulders.

Not a dream, then.

She shook her head and cobwebs fell from her mind. Condor watched her from the fringe of the woods, grass sticking out the corners of his mouth.

Karigan stood and stretched, the membranous cloak dissipating like a mist from her shoulders. Just another oddity to add to her growing list.

“So, where’ve you been all this time?” she asked her horse.

He dropped his nose back to the grass to graze.

Eletians may have their mysteries, she thought, but at least some things never changed.

ILL NEWS

Karigan rode Condor at a slow jog, he tossing his head and anxious for a run, but she was too preoccupied by all that had happened. She judged she had been away for two nights, but caught in the web of the Eletians, it could have been twenty. No matter how many nights it had been, Mara would be worried, and with good reason, for Karigan’s ordinary message errand had turned out to be anything but.

She darted glances up and down the road, and peered into the woods that bordered it. She expected any moment to see an Eletian emerge from between the tree trunks with bow bent, a shiny arrowhead aimed for her heart.

How dare they? she fumed again and again. How dare they threaten me just because they think I might interfere with the wall?

Everything she stood for, everything she would ever endanger herself for, was for the safety of her homeland and life as she knew it. The Mirror of the Moon had shown her this much. She did not want the wall to fail. How dare the Eletians suggest otherwise? ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">