Firebrand

Few had seen her eye, for it was disturbing, but those who had had seen things, she knew, but could not say what. The past? The future? Dreams and illusions? The original looking mask opened a window of the universe and the weaving of all the world’s possible outcomes, and now her eye was a microcosm of it, painful, and one over which she had no control. Had she not smashed the looking mask, had she worn it, she would have been its servant as much as its master, rethreading futures, pasts, and presents. She had rejected the power, but the small remnant in her eye forced her to serve anyway.

Lhean placed his hand on her cheek, and though his touch was warm, she shivered. He gazed into her mirror eye, and as usual, she had no vision in it, just the dark infinite nothing. A minute, two minutes, three, or perhaps an hour elapsed, and they both stood motionless. The fire popped in the hearth on the other side of the room, so she knew the world still went on.

A streak of light slashed across her vision, and she cried with the sudden pain of it. Then there was another, and another. Threads of light, tails of falling stars, perhaps, demarked the weaving of the world. These were accompanied by an assault of images, which had never happened before. They came like an avalanche pummeling her so fast she could make no sense of them. Then they slowed so suddenly that she staggered. Lhean caught her so that she did not fall.

Impressions of the future time came to her. They were cloudy, unfocused. Dirty skies roiled across her vision, along with dreary brick buildings, carriage wheels bumping over cobble streets, a tiny metal man in an open timepiece. She saw people she recognized from Yates’ drawings—Mirriam with her hands on her hips and a stern expression on her face, the professor sitting at a big table with a cup of kauv and a paper, Luke saddling Raven. Raven with his dark dappled bay coat.

And Cade. Cade trained with a practice sword, flowing through forms with grace and power, the ways in which he moved so familiar to her. The vision changed, and he smiled as he told her some story about buttons. Buttons? This, too, slipped away into yet another vision, but one that drew her in, made real as though she could feel his warmth as they lay entwined in the night. His heartbeat, his breaths, the taste of him. She quivered as his hand brushed across her skin. The elation of their joining.

She was thrust into another vision and saw Cade in the light of thousands of moonstones and the maelstrom of a world crumbling around him. She grasped his hand, trying to take him home with her, but he was anchored in the future, anchoring her, too. Lhean was also there pulling on her other arm, attempting to haul her back to their present. She was caught in between, being ripped in two. She would not go home without Cade, but he would not allow her to be trapped in the future, a dangerous future in which it was likely neither of them would survive. Karigan, he said, I love you, and he released her hand. Let her go so she could return home and live, and maybe change the course of history.

Torn apart.

“Nooo!” Karigan screamed. She found herself kneeling on the floor of her chamber, the cold flagstone eating into her knees, with Lhean beside her, supporting her. She screamed again into his shoulder. He spoke softly to her in Eltish as to a child, and held her in his arms, gently rocking her.

“Why?” she cried. “Why didn’t you let go of me so I could stay with him? Why?”

“This is your world, Galadheon,” he said quietly, “and we cannot do without you.”

A LEAF UPON THE BREEZE

Estral jumped up from her chair at the heartrending screams that keened down the corridor and penetrated through stone walls, but the Eletians remained seated and serene. She dashed out of the common room and followed alarmed Riders to Karigan’s chamber. The Riders clogged the doorway with swords drawn. Estral tried to see over their shoulders, but all she could make out was the top of Karigan’s head. She must be kneeling on the floor.

“What’s going on here?” Mara demanded from the front of the pack. “What have you done to her?”

The Riders tensed as they waited, which made Estral’s anxiety rise even higher.

“Peace, Green Rider,” came Lhean’s calm voice. “It is but grief.”

A silence fell, except for the sound of racking sobs.

Oh, Karigan, Estral thought, desperate to comfort her friend.

“Everyone out,” Mara said.

The clot of Riders shifted and backed out, sheathed their swords, and at Mara’s order, dispersed, muttering among themselves. Before Mara shut the door, Estral glimpsed Karigan bowed over on the floor, her hands over her face and Lhean beside her. When the door closed, she reached for the handle so she could go in and help, but one look from Mara warned her against doing so.

“I think this is between Karigan and the Eletian for now,” Mara said.

Daro Cooper limped up to them. “Are you sure she’s all right?”

“If you mean, is she in danger? No, I don’t think so. Is she all right? That’s a different question. A lot happened to her when she was in the future time.” She then gave Daro a stern look. “And I thought Master Mender Vanlynn said you were to stay off that leg.”

“But—”

“To bed, Rider.”

Daro gave her an impudent salute. “Yes, ma’am.” And limped away grumbling something about going mad with nothing to do.

“You might take a look at Rider payroll,” Mara called sweetly after her.

Daro grumbled unintelligibly, and Mara snorted.

Estral instinctively looked at her hands as if expecting to find slate and chalk in them, before recalling she now had a voice.