Firebrand

“Do you know who this Cade is that she speaks of?” Estora asked.

He looked up, startled out of his own thoughts. “Someone she met in the future time. She has revealed little about him, except that he helped her there. Helped her return home, and for that I owe him my gratitude. We all do.”

Estora knew there was more to this Cade, whether or not Karigan chose to say anything aloud. It was in the pain she carried silently and the story told by a sadness in her face. The yearning when she said his name. She was markedly different from the Karigan who had left for Blackveil last spring, no longer the youth innocent of life’s wounds. The gods had used her harshly, and it displeased Estora to see such a bright spirit now clouded by sorrow and shadows.

How did her husband feel about the mysterious Cade? Truly grateful, she did not doubt, for helping Karigan return to her rightful time, to him. But was he also, perhaps, a little envious of whatever Cade might have had with her?

“Is Karigan ready to resume her duties? She seems . . . fragile.” Estora did not think it was too severe a description for what she had just seen.

“She has been working very hard, but as you know, there have been few message errands to assign due to the weather. When spring comes, it will be Laren who will ultimately decide if she’s ready.”

Estora did not think he was aware that she knew how he felt about Karigan. After they’d married, when they’d made love for the first time, albeit under especially difficult circumstances—he still battling the poison of an arrow wound—he’d called out a name that had not been hers. She never enlightened him, and though it had never happened again, she knew, intimately, his true feelings.

“It must be very difficult for her with the injury to her eye,” she said.

“I am to understand it is painful at times.”

“Poor thing.”

Upon Karigan’s return, shards of the looking mask she had shattered in Blackveil had followed her across time, whether propelled by magic, the gods, or some force of nature, no one really knew. One shard impaled her eye and transformed it into a mirror and, like the looking mask, it contained the power to reveal visions of past and future, and who-knew-what.

The nature of her eye was not widely known, but a secret maintained by Zachary, Captain Mapstone, and a handful of others. Zachary had been reluctant to tell even Estora about it. He feared that common knowledge of Karigan’s strange eye would place her in jeopardy from both those who hated magic, and those who might covet its power.

“Have you gazed into it?” Estora asked.

“Only Somial the Eletian has, and some menders by necessity. I would never ask that of her without good reason.”

She understood why he was protective of Karigan, and understood well. She was joyful her friend had returned seemingly from the dead, and yet?

And yet.

She craved to be the recipient of her husband’s most ardent regard.

She studied him as he gazed into the hearth, firelight playing across his features, shadows highlighting lines of care and a scar that scored his eyebrow. He’d received it in battle with Second Empire, and she shook a little just thinking of it. Someone else might hold his heart, but he was hers. They were bound by marriage, and she carried his heirs. As a man of honor and duty, she did not think he’d stray, but love was potent and one never knew.

There were other threats, as well. She had almost lost him to the assassin’s arrow. Though his Weapons guarded him well, next time an assassin might prove successful, and there would be, she knew, a next time. It was the nature of his position. Then there was the conflict with Second Empire and his desire to lead his troops. Just as it had been her lot to marry a nobleman for alliance and not love, it was also her lot to see her husband ride off to war, never knowing if he would return, never knowing if her children would get to meet their father.

She caressed her belly and was a little startled to feel a flutter. “Oh!” she exclaimed.

“What is it?” Zachary asked.

She stretched her hand out to him. “Come sit with me. One of your children is kicking.”

He sat beside her a little shyly, and she guided his hand to her belly. When the flutter came again, his expression turned to one of awe and delight.

She could not lose this man she had come to love. Perhaps she could not protect him on the field of battle or repel an assassin, but she could, and she would, make sure no one ever came between them. No matter what, no matter who.

ICE AND FIRE

Karigan’s head started throbbing about the time she rushed out the door of Estora’s rooms and past Rory. Her lack of sleep and breakfast was catching up with her, along with everything else. She still wanted to break something, or maybe even several somethings, but first she would bury her head in a pillow and rest.

How could Lhean leave without speaking to her? Her frustration only caused her headache to build. As she strode through castle corridors, anxious to reach that pillow, she heard others around her muttering about the weather, that a storm was brewing. Just what they needed during a winter that had already proven harsh.

She swung into the Rider wing and briefly greeted those she encountered. Daro Cooper caught her arm. “Karigan, wait.”

“What is it?”

“Thought you might want to know that your family is waiting for you.”

So much for her pillow. She thanked Daro for the warning and pushed on down the corridor, her head pounding ever more insistently. When she reached the far end, she paused to collect herself. No reason to burden her father and aunts with her sour mood. She took a deep breath and turned the corner into the ancient corridor she alone inhabited. Light filtered out the doorway of her chamber, clearly indicating they had let themselves in.