A Hint of Light
Z achary stood in the middle of the gray ballroom.
Gone were the festive lights and decor of the harvest ball a week ago.
The window the wraith had smashed was boarded up.
It had taken some time and effort for laborers to remove the wraith’s dead horse.
Rain and sleet pattered against the remaining windows.
He gazed all around. But for the one window, and the destruction of a portion of the floor and ceiling by some great force, all evidence of the ball and the wraith’s incursion had been cleared away.
The many who had perished had been returned to their families, and the glass, the overturned refreshment tables, and the blood were all gone.
There had been no sign of Karigan since that night except for a medal found by one of the laborers amid the broken shards of glass.
It was the one he had bestowed upon her when he raised her to the knighthood.
The ribbon that had gone around her neck had snapped.
He pulled the medal from his pocket and turned it over in his hand.
Gone a week with no other sign.
She did appear in his dreams. Endlessly she tumbled. Tumbled through the heavens, the stars bright points around her. They were but dreams, dreams of loss.
His counselors conjectured she’d been taken by the wraith, and now she belonged to Mornhavon the Black.
He could not believe it, would not, but he knew of no other explanation.
The Eletians had refused to speculate, and their visits to the city were few.
Her horse Condor seemed to know more than anyone but could not speak.
The gelding worried around his stall, barely ate.
The Green Riders and grooms were keeping a special watch on him in case his worry led to colic.
How had it all gone wrong? She’d passed on a warning from the aureas narivannis.
He’d set an extra guard for the ball, and yet the wraith had made its way through the city and onto castle grounds.
Stories continued to flow in of a great dread that had sped through the streets and of gate guards slain.
His best trackers, however, had been unable to find it.
The last words he’d given her were to push her away, to tell her to seek love and a life apart from him. To be free. He closed his eyes. How had that made her feel? Confused, perhaps? If it was anything like how he felt saying it, it was an ax cleaving his heart in two.
Empty, soulless, grieving.
“We’ll keep looking,” he murmured. It was the only thing they could do.
“She always returns,” Fastion said.
Zachary looked up at his Weapon, who stood nearby. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. Fastion stood ramrod straight, his expression as stoic as ever.
Karigan’s affiliation with the Weapons was an oddity he still did not understand.
They would not discuss it with him, and he’d pored over the books of his expansive library to find out if there were references to the Black Shields taking on “honorary Weapons” in the past, but he’d found none.
Did they know something no one else was privy to?
One day, he thought, he ought to go out to Breaker Island and browse through their library.
“You sound very sure,” Zachary said.
“She is an honorary Weapon,” Fastion replied, “and she always returns.”
Zachary gazed at him askance, but did not remind him the Weapon motto was, Death is honor .
The wind whistled between the boards covering the broken window. He shivered at the cold air currents that blew inward. Lingering here was of no use. It would not bring her back.
He gazed once more at the ballroom, the damaged diamond patterned tile depicting the legend of Hiroque, Son of the Clans, which looked like an oversized Intrigue board.
His footsteps and voice reverberated in the cavernous space.
He closed his eyes and recalled the dancing, the two of them together beneath the golden light, the music slow, she looking up at him with that one bright eye of hers, and the other, the one that held the heavens within, concealed beneath its patch.
Wind and sleet now pounded the windows and jarred him from his reverie.
He took a final glance at the spot where she’d last been seen near the boarded window.
For a moment he thought he saw a flurry of movement in the shadows.
He blinked. Nothing. He was about to dismiss it when he saw it again.
A fluttering of silver light. He approached cautiously.
“What is it, sire?” Fastion asked.
“I don’t know. I—” There it was again.
He abandoned caution and ran to the spot, Fastion pelting behind him, only to find nothing there.
“My imagination,” he said, hope dying.
Then she was there, lying on her side, armored as the avatar. Her form fluctuated in and out; there, but not quite there.
“Karigan!” he cried. “Do you see her?” he demanded of Fastion.
“A hint of light,” Fastion said, “like a daytime moon.”
She flickered out again.
“Come back, come back, come back,” Zachary cried.
And she did. He fell to his knees beside her and reached for her, Fastion poised to grab him to safety if need be.
She raised her hand as though to warn him off.
Sparks of energy crackled about the armor.
Light bled from wounds in the steel of her breast plate and corrosion spread across it.
Her body jerked with arcs of energy dancing on the armor.
When her winged helm fell off, her hair spilled out with the feather still bound into its braid. Her cheeks were ghastly pale.
“Please come away, my lord,” Fastion said. “It is not safe.”
Zachary ignored him. “What can I do?” he asked her, desperation in his voice.
She did not reply, only continued to warn him away with her hand, a grimace of agony on her face.
And she vanished.
The helmet disintegrated and left no trace it had ever existed.
“Come back!” he cried, and when she did not after many minutes had passed, he screamed into the dark, empty ballroom, “Come back! Come back to me.” Only the echo of his own voice answered him.
E stora brought reinforcements with her to the ballroom, consisting of Donal, Drent, Captain Connly, and three Eletians, for Zachary would not leave. They found him sitting in a chair staring at the spot where he had last seen Karigan. He’d been there overnight and showed no signs of moving.
“My lord,” she said, “it is time you left so you can attend to the needs of your people.”
He looked up at her, haggard lines scribed across his forehead. “What if she reappears? I must keep watch.”
“I have brought help,” she replied. “The Weapons, the Riders, and the Eletians will keep watch on your behalf.”
“I wish to be here,” he said, “in case she comes back.”
“My lord, I understand fully,” she replied.
“I understand more than perhaps you know.” And, indeed, she did.
The connection between Zachary’s and Karigan’s souls was breaking him, and that was a problem for the realm.
“There is a new constellation in the sky and it is causing turmoil among your people, for they do not understand its significance.
Prime Brynston and his priests insist on speaking with you, and even I have not been able to placate them.
Alarm and rumors are spreading about the incursion of the wraith.
“Karigan would not want you to lose sight of the work that needs to be done because of her. Everything she has done has been in service to the realm, and at great sacrifice. It would be a dishonor to all she has achieved to neglect your duties thus.”
She spoke boldly and any other king might have punished her for it, but the last seemed to get through to him. She added, “We have children now, you and I, and we must continue the fight to ensure they inherit a safe future.”
Anger now sparked in his eyes, which meant she had been successful.
“I need no lectures to know my duty and the sacrifices she has made on our behalf,” he said. “I know perhaps better than most what she has endured.” He stood and turned to Donal and Drent. “What is the plan for the watch?”
“There will always be a Weapon and Rider on watch here,” Drent said, “rotating at four-hour intervals.”
“And three Eletians, as well,” Telagioth said, “for she is our Dama and we are anxious to have her back.”
Zachary nodded his agreement to them. To Donal he said, “You will add me to the watch roster.”
“Yes, sire.”
His expression was grim as he left the ballroom with Estora. He would not thank her for this, she knew, but sometimes, the larger issues demanded one to do uncomfortable things.
She accompanied him throughout the day, including a ride through the city to help reassure the populace, and he maintained his regular schedule.
To all others he was his usual self, but she detected a sharpness, an edge of danger to his presence.
It never came closer to the surface as when Prime Brynston came before them in the throne room.
It was Brynston’s way to instruct. He was, after all, a priest, but she had to admit, for all he was her friend, his manner could be rather arrogant.
“A new constellation has arisen in the sky, my lord, and this is no ordinary occurrence,” Brynston said.
“I noticed,” Zachary replied.
“Of course, Your Majesty. My astrologers possess no record of such a thing happening before.”
“Nor do my star masters.” Notably Zachary did not consult astrologers. “What is your point, Prime Brynston?”
“It is a sign. A sign of what, we can’t divine, but we should be prepared for great catastrophe. People are anxious. As priests, we are among the people all the time—” suggesting Zachary was never among his people, “—and they are extremely worried. They speak in the streets of the coming doom.”
“Perhaps because that it is what you tell them to expect. If you altered your message, they would not panic. When I went among them this afternoon, we were able to reassure a good many.”
But Brynston would not be swayed. “There are other signs—the arrival of Eletians, and the intrusion of the wraith creature. Signs of evil.”
Zachary stood. From the top of the dais he towered over Brynston and was fully the king.
The air turned chill as he stared for long moments at the luin prime.
When he spoke, it was with a cutting edge.
“This is not the first time this castle has been attacked by the minions of Mornhavon the Black. They were routed and the realm did not fall to its doom. As for the Eletians, their presence speaks only as a sign of our alliance in defeating Mornhavon.”
“One could interpret,” Brynston said, “that something about this castle is cursed.”
Brynston’s bold words to Sacoridia’s high king shocked Estora and she tensed in anticipation of Zachary’s furious response.
“After all,” Brynston continued, “I have heard about the Eletians venerating one of your Green Riders, made her a princess or some such. Eletians are heathens. They know not the gods, and they are of magic. Anathema. Heretical. These things would well displease the gods.”
The explosion Estora expected from Zachary did not materialize. Rather, he laughed, which was worse.
“You forget that the gods gifted our people with magic,” he said.
“Those who relished power committed genocide of magic users after the Long War by declaring all magic evil even though this was not true. They did not want anyone to have what they perceived as an advantage over them, so they branded the magic evil and murdered innocents in the name of the gods.”
“I do not agree with your interpretation,” Brynston began. “It—”
“Silence.” Zachary’s gaze grew deadly and was a reminder of who ruled here. “I was not finished.”
Brynston bowed deeply. It was, Estora thought, more performative than an act of contrition.
“I doubt the gods care about the absence or presence of Eletians in this castle,” Zachary said.
“If you find them so very offensive, then I recommend you stay clear of them. They are emissaries from a sovereign realm that happens to be a longtime ally of Sacoridia and will continue to be honored and welcomed as such.”
Estora was relieved he did not address the part about Karigan’s Eletian status.
Zachary extended his hand to her. “My lady, shall we move on with our day?”
“Yes, my lord,” she said, still stunned by the exchange she had witnessed.
They stepped down the dais steps.
“Good day, Luin Prime,” Zachary said, walking by him and his priests.
“But what of the constellation?” Brynston asked.
“My star masters call it the Great Horse,” Zachary said without pausing.
Estora hoped Brynston would leave it at that, but he did not. “One hears rumors of magic users in your court.”
Zachary halted.
Oh, no, Estora thought.
Zachary turned to face the luin prime. His expression on the surface was pleasant, but she could sense him bristling with anger.
“Perhaps, Prime Brynston,” he said, “one of your station should beware rumors and speculation. Should magic be present in my court, or in any other part of Sacoridia, then it is as the gods intend and we should celebrate it.”
He set off again, and she beside him, toward the private exit with Donal and Fastion escorting them.
Brynston, however, was not finished. He spoke softly, but the nature of the throne room was such that it carried his poisonous words to them: “Magic is a mark of deviance born of the hells that must be cleansed before it corrupts all, including in this very court.”
Raw fury burned in Zachary’s eyes but he chose not to dignify the luin prime with a response.
The rift between throne and chapel, Estora thought as she followed him through the door, had widened so much she feared it irreparable.
Had she not fallen in love with a Green Rider, she might have come to believe as ardently as Brynston about magic.
Fortune would have that she did not, but she feared what difficulties, what danger, the beliefs of Sacoridia’s foremost priest would present to Green Riders.