King Santanara’s Gift
S ervants brought refreshment into the solar, mainly warm drinking chocolate from the queen’s personal stock.
The Eletians were delighted, and while Karigan did not receive the same revitalizing effects from it that they did, it lifted her spirits nonetheless.
Soon, however, the discussion of her status resumed.
“If King Santanara does have ulterior motives for adopting you into his House,” Telagioth said, “they are known only to himself. In the alluvium he has spoken highly of your deeds, of how you rescued Argenthynian Sleepers and led them to Eletia through a piece of time, and at great peril to your person. More of those Sleepers are awakening with the danger of Blackveil arising, and the king has ensured they know who brought them to safety.”
This mollified her somewhat, this acknowledgment of the risk she’d put herself in to rescue them.
In that piece of time, she had met Santanara himself.
It was some period after the Long War, but before he’d become a Sleeper for so many centuries.
She’d found him bathing his hand in a stream, and something about that stream niggled a flash of a memory, or a dream, but she couldn’t hold onto it. She shook her head.
“The light of Laurelyn still shines within you, though it has faded somewhat with her passing, but not entirely. You carry her light even in her absence and that is an enormous gift for us all, and it, too, is known to the king, and through him it is also known among the surviving Argenthynians.”
She sipped her chocolate as she digested his words. She asked, “What do the Argenthynians make of an ordinary mortal helping them?”
Telagioth smiled. “Many find it difficult to believe for they have no recollection of the exodus. As the truth settles in there is much gratitude, but you must also understand there is much confusion and grief. Confusion to wake up in Eletia and learn that their country had been taken and corrupted by Mornhavon. We have known this all our lives, but to them it is new. They grieve for the many who could not be saved. Even deeper sorrow over those transformed by the evil of Blackveil.”
Dark Sleepers, Karigan thought. Mornhavon had perverted Argenthyne into Blackveil Forest, inhabited by monstrous creatures of his making.
Blight and decay spread through the forest like a disease.
The Sleepers who remained innocently asleep in their Groves had not been immune to the dark and decay that consumed the land, for the roots of the trees they Slept in sipped tainted water, and the corruption seeped inward rotting not only the hearts of the trees, but those of the Sleepers.
They’d been transformed into vicious, dangerous beings.
At least, that’s how she understood it. She licked sweet chocolate off her lips and shuddered.
“Yes,” Telagioth said. “I see you understand the shock of their great loss of kinfolk and friends, of poets, artists, philosophers, great warriors, and the wise. Many who were loved and admired are lost to us. However, the miracle of Laurelyn preserving part of her Grove in a piece of time and you, a mortal woman, leading the survivors to safety is not lost upon them.”
“I am sorry they could not all be rescued,” Karigan said quietly.
“It was beyond even Laurelyn’s ability, she who was the greatest of us all, and the forces of Eletia. This is why it is such a miracle, and this is what gave Prince Jametari pause during your trial in the Alluvium.”
Memories of that fraught scene came back to her from summer when she’d trespassed into Eletia, a high crime for which execution was the usual punishment.
She recalled the natural chamber of the Alluvium, the waterfall like a liquid wall behind her while she awaited judgment, wondering if she’d be tossed over the edge into the torrent far below.
Before the final verdict, however, Jametari had called a recess and departed for a time.
When he returned, there was no verdict announced, but he proclaimed her a scion of the House of Santanara, shocking all who were present.
“Prince Jametari,” Telagioth continued, “left the Alluvium during your trial to seek counsel with the king in the Grove. The king, though he Slept, was able to communicate his wishes in regard to your fate.”
Well, she thought, that explained the sudden change of tenor in the Alluvium that day.
“It was not just your rescue of the Argenthynians, however, that moved the king to adopt you.”
“What else was there?” Karigan asked.
“Our king was deeply bereft by the loss of Graelalea. She often attended him as he Slept. He knows that she held some comradeship with you on your journey into Blackveil and favored you with a rare feather of the winter owl, a sign of great respect and honor, and perhaps most importantly, friendship.”
Karigan stared into her empty cup. Graelalea had called the feather enmorial, which meant memory. She had lost the feather in the future.
“It is, in part, in honor of his daughter that the king has adopted you, and because of her regard for you.”
Karigan thought of Graelalea as they had left her in Castle Argenthyne. She had been slain by groundmite arrows, her body laid out in respect by the Eletians in her party and abandoned.
“Our king marks your deeds and the esteem you have drawn from others,” Telagioth continued.
“If there are deeper reasons, we have not been informed. It is his hope you will visit Eletia as his daughter and be welcomed as befits your station. However, he believes it will be the field of battle upon which you meet.”
All he said reassured her that her adoption into the House of Santanara hadn’t simply been a manipulation to gain access to her powers—mainly her mirror eye—but the part about meeting on the field of battle aroused a sense of foreboding in her.
She had liked the little she’d seen of King Santanara through the piece of time.
He was also the one who had presented the winged horse banner to the First Rider.
Still, after all her dealings with Eletians, she’d have to step carefully, not lower her guard and be lulled by pretty words because she felt with a certainty they’d use her to their advantage and that even an “altruistic” King Santanara possessed motives she could not guess.
“We’ve a gift for you from our king and the Eletian people,” Lhean said. “Cenna?”
One of the Eletians stood and removed a bundle wrapped in fine linen from her pack.
“Oh, more gifts are not necessary,” Karigan said. “I’ve the moonstone and the ring.” She showed them the ring with the emerald birch leaf that adorned her finger.
“Ah, but those were from Ealdaen and Prince Jametari, respectively,” Telagioth said. “The king himself ordered the making of this just for you.”
Cenna bowed as she presented the bundle to Karigan.
Karigan glanced at the expectant Eletian faces—expectant except for Enver, who appeared lost in thought.
She pulled on the string and it simply fell away, no knot to fight.
Beneath the layers of linen she folded back was a cloth of deep forest green, very much the same green as her uniform.
Perplexed, she shook out the cloth to reveal its form.
To her astonishment it was a longcoat. There was the winged horse embroidered into the shoulder of the left sleeve in shimmering white gold, and more intricately stitched than on any of her Rider uniforms.
The material was smooth and soft, richer than silk.
Such material could restore her clan’s fortune, but she had a feeling the Eletians would decline to produce textiles for trade in the mortal realm.
As she stood to get a better look at the longcoat, there was a subtle silvery shimmer to the material, like the underside of a new spring leaf fluttering in a breeze.
The shadows in the folds only deepened, reminding her of velvety moss beneath the Green Cloak’s tall trees.
Embroidered green on green were birch leaves.
“It’s gorgeous,” she said.
“Will you try it on, please?” Cenna asked.
Karigan put it over her work tunic. It was cut like her usual longcoat, yet had an Eletian elegance to it, a flair that made it at once like a Rider coat, and not.
Appropriate , she thought.
It fit perfectly. “How did you know my size?”
“We had an idea of it,” Lhean said, “and the cloth adjusts to its wearer.”
“It what ?” She really had to find out what this material was.
But now a rapid debate ensued in Eltish among the six of which she understood nothing. She shrugged and whirled to see how the coat flowed about her hips and legs, and to see it shimmer.
“Are you pleased with it?” Telagioth asked.
She realized the solar had gone quiet. The Eletians gazed expectantly at her.
“Very much so. I must send thanks to the king.”
“It is well, then. It is our hope you will wear it when we attend your queen’s harvest ball as a representation of both Eletia and Sacoridia.”
It was perfect, she thought. No worries about a ball gown, but raiment that would elevate her formal uniform.
“It has, however,” Telagioth continued, “come to our notice that it is lacking the shield emblem on your right sleeve. If you would return the coat to Cenna, we will fix it.”
Reluctantly she removed it and passed it back to Cenna.
“We would like,” Lhean said, “to tell you of some of our customs, and of our people, while we are here.”
“I would like that.” Any window into the mysterious world of the Eletians would be useful and she could share it with Zachary. Not that she would consider herself a spy or anything.