Firebrand

Estral waved her hand through the air as though it were inconsequential. “Can you imagine? Gryphons roaming the wild again?”

Karigan was not sure she wanted to. The world had grown strange enough to her mind. Did it really need gryphons, as well? She was envisioning the sky filled with flocks of flying cats when Estral interrupted her thoughts.

“What I wanted to talk about was your mission to the north.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I’ve been speaking with Captain Mapstone about my own plans to resume my search for my father, and of course look for the person who stole my voice. As you know, I was going to look north. I thought it would make sense for us to travel together, at least for a little while.”

Karigan would not mind in the least having her friend along, however . . . “I don’t know if the king is going to actually approve the mission.”

“The captain seemed pretty confident he would, and she had no objection to my going along so long as you and whoever the Eletians send don’t.”

“Well, then,” Karigan said, “this will be a first.”

Estral smiled. “I promised the captain I wouldn’t get in the way. In fact, I’m doing some weapons training with Arms Master Gresia. As you may recall, I was not one of Rendle’s most adept students in Selium, so I thought it would be a good idea to brush up on my skills. I’ve also been studying maps and researching the north.”

It could almost be, Karigan thought, a pleasant excursion with her best friend, but the north, she knew, contained plenty of danger.

“What do you mean you looked into her eye?” Zachary demanded.

Estora, from her place on the sofa, looked startled by his vehemence. “She consented.”

Zachary stood at the hearth, staring into the fire as flames leaped and wavered. “You are her queen. Of course she consented.” It was a position of power. It was the lot of those who served her, and who were ruled by her, to obey. It was in her rights to demand anything of her subjects and their compliance was required. The difference between a just monarch and an unjust monarch was where they drew the line. The unjust monarch abused his subjects. In Zachary’s own rule, he was at pains to maintain the trust of those who served him. He preferred they served out of loyalty rather than fear, though fear had its place and had worked admirably for a few of his predecessors.

“You are displeased because it was Karigan,” Estora said.

“I would be displeased if it were any of my subjects,” he said, perhaps too quickly, his voice cold. “I told you that her eye caused her pain. She could hardly stand when I came upon her in the corridor.”

Estora gazed down at her hands folded on her lap. “I am sorry,” she said, her voice remorseful. “In my excitement over the children, I forgot myself, that Karigan and I are no longer simply friends, that I am also her queen. Even as just a friend, I should not have asked her. I am sorry.”

“I am not the one to whom you should apologize.”

“I know it. But . . .” She looked up at him with hungry eyes. “Do you not wish to know what I saw?”

“No.” He left the hearth and headed toward the passage that led to his own rooms. Jasper jumped off the sofa and trotted behind him.

“Zachary!” Her voice came after him sounding desperate now. “I saw our children.”

He paused in the passageway despite himself, but only for a moment. Before she could say more, he entered his apartments and closed the door behind him. He did not slam it, but closed it gently. He then sought his favorite chair and dropped into it. Jasper leaped onto his lap and he scratched the terrier beneath his collar.

Usually, Estora used good judgment, but he remembered how excited she’d been by the tumbler with the looking mask during the masquerade ball they’d thrown about a year ago. The tumbler had been, seemingly, more than a tumbler, for Zachary had seen visions of his own. Visions of arrows arcing across the sky. Estora had seen their child. She’d been tremendously excited. And now, of course, with her pregnant, she’d want to see what Karigan’s mirror eye might reveal. In a way, he could not blame her, but as queen, she must exercise restraint.

Besides, how accurate were these visions? At the masquerade ball, she’d seen only one child, but now she carried twins. Why the discrepancy? Had the mask not revealed the whole story? Or had something more fundamental shifted in the weaving of the future?

Just because she carried twins did not mean both would survive. Perhaps neither would. The prospect clenched his gut, and Jasper licked his hand as if sensing his distress. Estora, however, had sounded as if she had seen something positive in Karigan’s eye.

He refused to return to her sitting room to ask. It would invalidate his belief in how a monarch should conduct himself with his subjects. He did not wish to encourage her, and . . . he was not sure he wanted to know the future, good or bad.

A PRECURSOR TO TROUBLE

The days came and went, the sun lengthening its stay in small increments, the icy weather alternating with influxes of milder air. Karigan continued to receive batterings in swordmaster training, and helped Arms Master Gresia with her trainees. She saw nothing of King Zachary, which she deemed for the best, nor did Estora invite her to visit again. Garth departed for the wall, but Tegan returned from her personal leave after helping her sister with her newborn baby.

Karigan assisted Elgin daily in the records room. One afternoon as she entered, Dakrias Brown rose from his desk to greet her, and after an exchange of pleasantries, he squinted at her through his specs.