Firebrand

She was vaguely aware of him opening and closing her chamber door on his way out. She lay on her side on the cold, cold floor, her bloody tears pooling on the flagstone. Strains of a voice in song, song without words, permeated her pain. The harmony of it created peaceful images of a breeze in a spring-green wood, of a clear stream trickling over rounded cobbles. Leaves rustled, and bees buzzed on blossoms of shad and iris and cinqfoil.

Gone. Cade was gone, and she just wanted to die.

And yet, there was a clarity about her after releasing so much she had held within. Today she wanted to die of the unbearable pain, and probably tomorrow she would feel the same, but maybe, just maybe, as the song lifted her as a leaf upon the breeze, a day would come when she was ready to live again.

TOWER OF THE HEAVENS

“I put Karigan’s aunts off by telling them she had duties to take care of for the king,” Mara said, hands clasped behind her back, “and I expect they will relay that to her father.”

Laren, sitting behind her worktable, rubbed her eyes. She had a mind to go shake those Eletians and demand to know what they thought they were doing. That they had given Lady Estral a voice did not appease her in the least. “What did Ben have to say?”

Mara shifted her stance. “He says that the hard weeping must have caused the shard to cut deeper inside her eye and that’s what caused the bleeding. He said,” and now she looked down at her feet, “that even if the shard came out without hurting her eye further, it’s done enough damage that she probably won’t see out of it again.”

“Damnation,” Laren said. She had held out some hope that Karigan would one day regain normal use of her eye, but now it appeared unlikely. “I trust Ben made her comfortable.”

“Gave her a draught to control the pain and sleep. She took it without argument.”

Laren frowned. Karigan accepting a draught without argument? That worried her more than the eye. “All right, we need to prevent the king from catching wind of this. He would be most . . . upset. Not that he’d do anything rash, but no need to stir him up unnecessarily.”

Mara nodded as if she knew just why the king might be upset with Eletians causing a particular Rider pain.

“On the off chance the king decided to act on his displeasure,” Laren continued, “it could sour an alliance with Eletia.”

“If it helps,” Mara said, “Lhean says he was trying to allow her to express her grief. He thought it would be very bad if she continued to keep it all inside.”

Laren thought he was probably right, but her preference would have been for Karigan to come at it in her own time. The king would not be appreciative of Lhean’s efforts if word got back to him, and Stevic G’ladheon would not be either. “I’ll have to handle her father. I’d rather he not hear of it, either.”

“If you don’t mind my saying, Captain, but as soon as her family leaves, maybe we can keep her extra busy, keep her mind off things.”

Laren nodded. They’d had to be inventive keeping the weather-stranded Riders busy over the winter with additional training, lessons, inventorying gear, working with the new horses, and so forth. “The weather seems to be breaking,” she mused, “and no doubt the king will have a number of messages to go out. Spring will be upon us soon.” Too soon, for battles with Second Empire would pick up where they left off.

“We will be busy then,” Mara said.

“Yes. We’ll see what we can do to keep Karigan occupied in the meantime. If anything changes with her condition, let me know. And make sure the Eletian’s part in this does not spread beyond the Rider wing.”

“I will, Captain.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

Cold air rushed into Laren’s chamber as Mara let herself out, and papers fluttered on her table. Karigan was grieving, and that was all she needed to know to understand what her Rider was going through. Loss, sadly, was part of life, something everyone had to experience at some point. Sometimes that loss came much too early. Laren had been of an age with Karigan when she lost her Sam, who was savagely killed by the Darrow Raiders. She still felt the pain of it, but it was more like her scar, an old wound that hurt but was not as raw as when it was fresh.

There was a knock on her door, and Mara poked her head back in. “Thought you’d want to know,” she said, “Connly just rode in.”

Laren stood. Good news at last.

Alton D’Yer stared at the image of Trace Burns, which seemed to hover like a ghost amid a green glow. His hand rested on the smooth green of tourmaline that was the tempes stone in the center of Tower of the Heavens so he wouldn’t lose his connection to her. She was miles and miles away in Tower of the Ice, but through the magic of the tempes stones—one in each of the ten towers of the D’Yer Wall—they were able to communicate in this way. Did his image look the same to Trace in her tower as hers did to him? Kind of floaty and ghostly?

“Connly says that Estral says you are not to worry,” Trace told him.

At first when Alton heard Estral had reached Sacor City unscathed, he’d about dropped to his knees in relief. He’d been spending the last few weeks in a profound state of worry after she disappeared one day, leaving only a note in explanation. The weather had been terrible and Estral not the most experienced traveler. There were also many dangers along the road that didn’t have anything to do with the winter. He’d wanted to ride after her, but the encampment’s commander, and his fellow Riders, reminded him of his duty.