Valstarian
K arigan was returning to the tack room with Tucker’s saddle and bridle when she ran into Dix again.
“You still here?” Dix said. “Thought you’d decided to go home after all.”
“I took out the big silver dappled fellow,” she said. “Borrowed Tucker’s gear as I didn’t know what belonged to him.”
“You mean the gray? I thought you already took Storm out.”
“I did. This was the other.”
Dix scratched his head beneath his cap. He looked perplexed. “Er, what other?”
“The one with the striking white mane and tail and black stockings, a star on his forehead.”
Dix stared at her. She stared back.
At length he said, “Lass, we’ve got no such horse here.”
“Come, let me show you.” She shifted the saddle in her arms. It was no light messenger saddle but possessed a heavy tree and layers of leather for training.
She strode down the aisle. “Here...” She faltered.
Where was he? After brushing the horse down, she’d returned him to his stall.
The door was latched closed. “Someone must have taken him out.”
“Rider,” Dix said, “no one else is here. And that stall? Hasn’t been used for at least six months.”
“No, that’s not possible.”
“I don’t know who you think you rode, lass, but it wasn’t any silver dappled horse I know of.”
He left her then, and she stood staring at the stall as if the stallion would magically reappear.
What is going on? A strange feeling crept beneath her skin and she knew suddenly that she needed to talk to Darys.
She returned to the tack room to relieve herself of Tucker’s saddle and bridle, and then hastened to Rider stables, pausing only to ensure the stallion had not been put out in the royal pasture or paddock. He had not. In fact, no horses were out.
At Rider stables she found Jamien scrubbing water buckets, an uncomfortably icy job in winter.
“Hey, is Darys around?” Karigan asked.
“Yep, mucking stalls.”
She found him in Gull’s stall, picking through crusted layers of bedding with his pitchfork.
“Dare,” she said.
He jumped as though she’d startled him. Word of his sightings of a strange young stallion had come to her through Mara and Tegan, and that there had been something of a ghostly horse presence hanging around Rider stables. Darys had received some good-natured ribbing about it.
“Rider?” Darys said.
“Describe the stallion to me that stole your cap.”
He gaped at her, then slowly shut his mouth. “Why?”
“Because I think I’ve seen him. In fact, I think I actually rode him.”
“You think you...rode him?”
She could see him trying to process the concept. She nodded. “Can you describe him?”
“Unusual silver dappling,” he began, and the details he imparted fit the horse she’d ridden perfectly.
Dear gods. What was going on? She paced back and forth with Darys watching on.
The stallion had been a joy to ride, so smooth and well-trained as if he knew what she wanted before she even asked it of him.
Maybe a little too well trained? But she sensed nothing supernatural or special about him beyond that, though that was a lot.
“I forgot to mention his eyes,” Darys said.
Karigan halted. “What about his eyes?”
“Mostly they were regular,” he said.
“Regular?”
“Aye, brown. But, and this will sound strange, I swear I saw the sky in his eyes. The day sky in one eye, and the night in the other. Then it was all gone and his eyes were regular. I probably imagined it all.”
Karigan went very still. Day sky in one eye, and night in the other? Oh, that sounded very familiar.
“What is it, Rider?” Darys asked. “Is he a ghost?”
“No,” she said. Not hardly.
“Rider, what—”
“Thanks, Dare.” She hastily left the poor young man with his questions unanswered.
· · ·
She returned to her chamber in the Rider wing, locked her door behind her, and threw off her greatcoat.
She flopped onto her bed and closed her eyes.
It took some effort to settle her racing thoughts, but she focused on her breathing and eventually relaxed enough to begin visualizing peaceful scenes of the natural world. Her breathing and beating heart slowed.
It had been some time since she had last done this and she was annoyed with herself for not trying sooner.
Were Enver here, he would have begun with a ceremonial cup of tea.
It was as if, however, she could hear his soothing words guiding her on a path that led past a lake of gently lapping waves, leaves rustling in the woods.
She could smell the balsam and greenery as if she entered a summery sun-dappled forest. Slow was her stride, mounds of moss like velvet beneath her feet.
She emerged into the starry meadow full of the song of birds and chirruping of crickets. Listening to the voice of the world, he had called it, and here she found Seastaria, the Day Horse and her aithen, her balance, her protective spirit and guide.
Karigan wrapped her arms around the mare’s neck. It was both solid and air. The fair skies of a summer day shone in her eyes with scudding clouds moving across their surface. Purity and love radiated from Seastaria, as well as peace and strength. She was light.
Karigan let go and studied the mare, who gazed at her in return.
“Salvistar is gone,” Karigan said of Seastaria’s mate.
The mare was untroubled as she nuzzled Karigan’s arm, sensing her sorrow.
He is but transformed to his true nature, the mare seemed to say. It was more a feeling projected into Karigan’s mind than actual words. He lives on in our son, Valstarian.
Wind whipped the meadow grasses and preceded the pounding of hooves. The stallion she had ridden earlier entered the meadow bucking and playfully tossing his head.
He is still young. This came with a bit of exasperation.
Karigan watched him gallop about the meadow whinnying and carrying on as if to show off his beauty and power. She’d already seen and felt it firsthand, though she thought maybe he’d held himself back somewhat.
“He’s grown so fast,” she said. Salvistar had mated Seastaria in the summer, an event she had witnessed. He shouldn’t even be a yearling, much less born, and yet here he was in mature form. She sensed from the mare that time was irrelevant in such matters.
“Is he...Is he Westrion’s steed now?”
Valstarian stopped in his tracks to drop to the ground and roll. He grunted and groaned in a most undignified manner.
None is his master. If he will serve, I know not.
When Valstarian was satisfied, he climbed to his hooves, shook off dust and grass, and sauntered over to Karigan and his dam. Karigan could not help but laugh for he still had grass sticking to his hide, something she could never have imagined of Salvistar.
“Valstarian,” Karigan said slowly, trying out his name. He whickered in approval. She brushed the grass off him and said, “You must not tease the grooms at Rider stables anymore. Especially poor Darys.”
Valstarian only shook his mane.
She petted his neck, and now she saw it, the shimmer in his dappled hide that shone like a cloudy haze.
Then she looked into his eyes. Just as Darys had described, one was the night full of the universe with twinkling stars, and the other was like his dam’s, azure daylight and drifting clouds.
He is day and night, Seastaria told her, dusk and dawn. A more perfect balance.
He seemed to grow bored by Karigan’s attention and turned on his haunches. He bolted across the meadow trailing a wind that bent the grasses, and then vanished.
Impetuous youngsters, Seastaria said.
Karigan smiled, hugged Seastaria once more, and returned to herself. For a time she stared at the ceiling of her bed chamber, feeling lighter and more reassured than she had since the wraith crashed through the ballroom window on Feast of Vendane.
Salvistar was not dead, and his son carried on. That Valstarian came to her and allowed her to ride him probably meant he was willing to take on Salvistar’s role, and that she was still Westrion’s avatar, but she’d worry about that when the time came, which undoubtedly it would.