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.

“Earlier when we were talking,” she said, “you never got to the part about what happened to Karigan in the future.”

Mara glanced at her in surprise. “Your voice is back!”

As they walked back toward the common room, Estral explained the gift Idris had given her.

“That is quite a gift,” Mara said, pausing in the corridor.

“Yes, it is, a miracle even, but about the future,” Estral reminded her.

“That’s a hard story to tell, because even Karigan can’t remember much. Something about coming home messed up her memory. She tried to tell us what she could, but it’s pretty garbled. The captain has a transcript of what Karigan told her and the king about it. I suspect she’d allow the heir of the Golden Guardian to see it.”

Estral smiled. Her father was not only a master minstrel, but as Golden Guardian, he was a sort of lord-governor of Sacoridia’s history, culture, and arts. He also oversaw the school at Selium, as well as the city itself, though others managed the day-to-day details. His status conveniently came with a few privileges for his heir.

“Thank you,” she told Mara.

The Rider nodded. “I am glad you are here, frankly. I think Karigan can use all the friends she’s got. She tries not to show how hard it’s been, but you saw her in there. I’m not surprised she’s finally broken down after trying to contain it all for so long.”

High-pitched female voices could be heard at the entrance to the Rider wing. “Oh, dear,” Mara murmured. “What she does not need right now is those aunts of hers barging in on her. I am going to have to sidetrack them.” She licked her lips and tugged on her shortcoat as if girding herself, then took off in a determined stride. Estral wished her luck and proceeded to the common room. Enver and Idris still sat within, gazing into the fire.

Enver, perceiving her presence, said, “Little cousin, Idris and I are wondering if you would like to try singing.”

Estral hesitated in the doorway. Karigan’s obvious suffering had tempered her joy at being able to speak again. Even if she found she could sing, she didn’t really feel it was right to do so under the circumstances. And if she couldn’t sing? She was not sure she could face being incapable.

“I don’t know,” she told the Eletians. “I am worried about Karigan.”

Enver looked grave. “Lhean has lanced her wound. She will not heal quickly, her path is long. But be comforted that she can begin healing. Come sit with us now. I will teach you some of our songs.”

Karigan pointed an accusing finger at Lhean. “You should have released me. You should have let go of me in the end.” She clambered to her feet and reeled away from him. It felt like jagged edges of glass were grinding inside her eye. In a twisted way, she was glad of the pain. It sharpened her focus. All the same, she covered her eye with her hand in an effort to ease it and prevent further visions.

“You would have been destroyed there,” Lhean said, “the both of you.”

She turned on him, tears cold on her cheeks. The cold came from within. “Don’t you understand? I don’t care. All that matters is that I would have been there with him.” Lhean remained serene in the face of her rage, and it only incensed her more. “This world . . . I don’t care. You should have let me go.” She murmured, “I am so tired.” She wanted it all to go away, to sleep, for sleep was an escape from the pain. To sleep and never wake up.

She wanted Cade even more, his touch, his arms around her. A memory came unbidden of a sultry summer evening, she practicing swordfighting forms without the sword, and he wrapping his arms around her from behind, moving with her, his hands gliding down her body so that the forms became a sensuous dance. She cried out in pain as the memory faded, and grasped the corner post of her bed to hold herself up.

Cade . . .

“You can’t do without me,” she snapped at Lhean. “That’s what you told me. What does it even mean? Has your prince made some new prophecy? You need me to fix everything? Why can’t you fix things for once? Why must I sacrifice everything?” When Lhean did not answer, she continued, “I am sick and tired of being manipulated by gods and—and things like this.” She pointed at her mirror eye. “And Eletians. For all I’ve ever done, all I get is punishment. What did I ever do to deserve it?”

“Galadheon,” Lhean said, “would you forsake your home? Your family? Your friends? Yesterday, what if you had not been here?”

“The Weapons would have protected the king and queen.”

“Are you so sure? And what of the young girl, Anna? And all the people you saved by destroying the spell of the aureas slee?”

“Do not put that on me; do not make me responsible!”

“It is true, is it not? There are those who are alive and safe this day because of your actions. Had your queen been taken with her unborn, would it not have bolstered the enemy and demoralized your countrymen? What would have become of your family, had you not been here?”

“Stop!” The tears flowed once more. He was being cruel, so terribly cruel.

Lhean stepped toward her. “Galadheon, your Cade let you go because he wanted you to live, and because he hoped you would create a better future.”

Karigan slid back to the floor, the racking sobs overwhelming her once again. Her hands filled with tears tinted crimson.

Lhean gazed down at her for a moment, a flicker of emotion crossing his face. “Do not move,” she thought she heard him say. “I am going to retrieve the true healer.”

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.