Shattered
T he gray entity hung cloudlike in the air.
“Rider?” Dakrias queried from beneath his desk.
“Stay put,” Karigan told him without averting her gaze.
She could make out no face, no shape to suggest what it was.
It did not speak, did not approach, nor did it move away.
It did not exude the aura of dread and living decay of a wraith, yet a cold sweat dampened her brow and sides for it unsettled her in a way ordinary spirits did not.
“What are you?” she asked.
She thought it emitted a breathy laugh, but it could have easily been the rustle of the last of the dislodged papers settling onto the floor.
“Or should I ask who?” she murmured.
A tendril of mist unfurled from its side like an arm and pointed down at her. “We must finish the game,” it whispered.
“What game?” she demanded.
It began to rise.
“Wait!” she cried. “Attend me.”
“You’ve no power over me, avatar,” it said. “You are but a weak mortal shell for your god. A slave to his whims.”
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want?”
The gray entity’s form undulated with a chuckle. “Your move, Green Rider.”
It shot upward into the dark of the dome and smashed through it.
Glittering daggers of glass rained down. Karigan threw herself under the table just in time.
“Stay under cover!” she shouted to the others.
Glass thunked on the tabletops like hail, and chimed, clinked, and tinkled as it danced and skipped on flagstone like mad translucent sleet shimmering with color.
· · ·
Karigan gazed at the damage to the dome.
Dakrias’ assistants had gone above with lanterns to place behind the stained glass.
Each panel depicted the First Rider, Lil Ambrioth, heroic in battle or receiving laud for her heroism.
Only one of the panels had taken damage, that of Lil receiving an Eletian-made banner of the winged horse from King Santanara while Green Riders and Eletians looked on.
Karigan wanted to weep at the loss. It was an irreplaceable masterpiece that was a rare homage to a Green Rider who had been a great hero of the realm.
“At least we’ve the actual banner,” Mara said as if to assuage her own sorrow.
Karigan had sent for available Riders to help with the cleanup, enduring, in the meantime, glances cast her way by Dakrias and his clerks while she waited.
They had witnessed her commanding ghosts, but had they discerned Westrion manifesting in her or understood the gray entity referring to her as the “mortal shell” of her god?
At a guess, the situation had been so frightful and chaotic they had not, that at the time they were just hoping to survive the ordeal intact.
Also, Westrion did not casually reveal his presence to others.
The clerks had probably just seen a mad Rider yelling at the air.
Glass crunched underfoot, making Karigan wince.
The Riders swept up fragments and set larger shards aside with reverence to be preserved.
Others assisted the clerks with retrieving documents, maps, ledgers, and books the spirits had flung.
Rider Megan Notman, much to the astonishment of the clerks, used her special ability to float up to the dome to ensure no loose pieces of glass would fall and injure someone.
Mara made the clerks swear an oath not to speak of it, but in truth, after the Battle of the Sleeping Waelds, knowledge of the Riders’ abilities had begun to leak out despite centuries of guarding their secret.
After Megan’s performance, Karigan was relieved to find she wasn’t the only recipient of looks from the clerks.
“Riders!” thundered a familiar voice.
Karigan and Mara whirled to find their king striding into the records room, flanked by his Weapons, Fastion and Donal. Dismay rippled across Fastion’s usually stoic expression as he took in the destruction.
Zachary, too, looked shocked. “News of the incident reached me so I came to see it for myself. It is much worse than I imagined. What happened? Was anyone hurt? The reports are...chaotic.”
“Rider G’ladheon was present when the dome broke,” Mara said, “so I will defer to her to explain.”
Zachary’s gaze fell on Karigan. She could not read his expression. “Rider?”
She cleared her throat. “Ghosts, Your Majesty. They got, er, destructive, but thankfully, no one was hurt.”
Her ability to cross thresholds and communicate with the dead was known to him and the Riders.
However, her connection to Westrion, as far as she was aware, had been explicitly revealed only to Zachary.
During the Battle of the Lone Forest, he’d been able to see her as the avatar when no one else could.
Her role as avatar was not a burden she could share, not even with her friends.
They would never regard her the same again knowing that through her the divine walked among them.
They would never be the same knowing gods were not abstract or ineffable notions who dwelled among the stars.
Their reality could be enough to shatter some minds.
The adventures she had endured as a Green Rider, the oddities that surrounded her, such as the fact she’d traveled through time, already made them look askance at her, and some kept their distance. It made her feel other, and lonely at times, and she yearned for ordinariness.
“I wish to speak with Rider G’ladheon privately,” Zachary told Mara.
Mara bowed and left to supervise the cleanup. Zachary led Karigan aside where they could speak without listeners. The Weapons remained at a watchful distance.
“What really happened here?” he asked.
“It is true, the ghosts did go berserk.”
“I can see that readily enough, but what is the whole story?”
She looked down at her feet. “I, uh, summoned them.” A quick glance revealed a knowing look in his eyes.
“And what prompted you to summon them?”
After she explained, he said, “You were trying to figure out what had become of the ghosts, why they were avoiding you.”
She nodded vigorously. “I don’t remember commanding them to go away, but I guess I did at some point. I fear it is all my fault the dome is broken.” She brushed a tear away.
“Perhaps by summoning the ghosts the scene for destruction was set, but it was through the actions of this gray entity that the panel was shattered.” His gaze grew distant as he continued.
“A power can be a useful thing, whatever it is, but perhaps wielding it only when necessary is the surer course.”
She hung her head. Her recent missteps with the Turvals, and now this, were making her seem no better than the greenest of Greenies. “I am so sorry. I don’t even know where to begin.”
He reached to her, lifted her chin. “I know you are, dearheart, but I don’t blame you.”
She caught her breath at his touch and the endearment. The moment lingered, tantalizing, feverish, and impossible, before his hand fell back to his side. Only then could she breathe again.
“The ghosts here have been known to be destructive in the past,” he continued. “Administrator Brown has been stalwart in putting up with them. I was going to suggest to him that we move the records to another space, but you say you banished the ghosts?”
“Most of them, I believe, including King Agates.”
“To think that old manipulator was still haunting these corridors.” He shook his head. “Better his spirit is removed to where it belongs. This entity that broke the glass, however, appears to be a different matter.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “It was not banished—it came and went under its own power. Westrion did not intervene.”
“Through the dome,” he murmured, gazing upward at the destruction.
“We’ll find a way to repair it, but I cannot help but note the coincidence that the panel containing the scene with the Eletians presenting the First Rider their banner was the one that was broken when Eletians have so recently arrived here as our allies. ”
She hadn’t thought of that.
“Speaking of which,” he said, “the Eletians will be staying near the city for a time. Estora has invited them to the harvest ball, and I think they wish to see more of you.”
Good, Karigan thought, because she had questions. Not that the Eletians would directly answer any of them.
“You should also know,” he said, “my agents have returned from Varos and they saw your colonel.”
Her heart thudded. “What—”
He stilled her with a gesture. “At the time of their visit, King Farrad Vir consented for them to meet with her to ensure her well-being. They say she was in good health. Alas, negotiations for her release failed.”
Another blow.
“Do not despair. It was not an unexpected outcome, and all may be to our advantage. Your father should be arriving in Varos soon if he hasn’t already. He was quite prepared, I understand, to bring her back, regardless the obstacles.”
So long as he doesn’t get himself killed, she thought. She wondered about Zachary’s statement, however, that the failure of his negotiators “may be to our advantage.” What in the hells did that mean?
“I’ve informed Captain Connly of this news,” he said, “and he will in turn inform all Riders. In the meantime, do please keep it to yourself.”
“I will.”
“I know.” He paused before adding, “I do not like the sound of the entity. Be careful.”
His eyes were so soft, so earnest, her heart quickened, and then like that, he swept away to talk to Dakrias and Mara.
She stood there breathless for a moment, overcome with a mixture of emotions—her sorrow over the broken panel, waning hope for the return of Colonel Mapstone, then hope restored for her possible return, and the heat of love and desire.
She took a deep breath before she returned to work picking up scattered debris, part of her attention never leaving Zachary as he spoke quietly with Dakrias. When finally he moved to leave, they locked gazes and he gave her a smile. And then he was gone.
It distracted her enough that she sliced her finger on a sliver of glass that had impaled a map to one of the reading tables.
“Damnation.”
Blood pattered onto parchment. She wrapped her finger in a handkerchief and used a corner of it to dab the blood off the map. It depicted, she discovered, the landmass that was Varos and its neighbor, Kir-kranya. The glass had stuck right into the capital’s port.