Firebrand

“Look, Galadheon,” Enver said from somewhere far away. He pointed, seeming to shed a blur of energy from his hand that lanced across the field toward the woods. “Use your side vision, let go your focus.”

She turned her head slightly, let her vision relax. The pattern of the falling snow mesmerized her. Snowflakes landed on her eyelashes, feathered her cheeks. She may be faded out, but she was still real and solid. Then she saw a flicker of light—she almost missed it for the flash of individual snowflakes. Then another, and another. She forced herself not to look dead on or focus. Soon there was a stream of tiny blue-white flames that flowed across the field, like the fairy lights in children’s tales. All else might be gray in her vision, but this was not. The lights flared and fairly hummed.

And then vanished in a blink.

She dropped her fading and sat there lost in thought until Enver released her hand. She had almost forgotten he’d been holding it. A dull headache pounded in her temple. She glanced at Estral, who had turned ashen. It occurred to her that her friend had never seen her use her ability before.

“You were . . .” Estral began.

“Like a ghost,” Karigan finished. She’d heard others describe her thus. In the daylight, she would not have faded out entirely.

Estral nodded vigorously, still pale. “I knew you could do that, but . . .”

“Seeing it is different.”

Estral nodded again.

“The way appeared to you,” Enver said, “did it not?”

“I saw something,” Karigan admitted.

“You saw the way.”

Enver was nothing if not persistent. She sighed. It would not be the first time she had followed Eletians without maps.

“You say this path of yours is more efficient and easier on the horses?”

“Yes, Galadheon. We will travel with more speed than using your roads and trails.”

“Very well,” she said, still with some misgiving, “we’ll give it a try.”

He nodded solemnly. “Then I must call to my mare so we can all ride.” He turned to face the field and spoke in Eltish, using a normal tone. The breeze took the words from him and carried them away.

That was it? Karigan wondered. They sat but for a moment before Condor gave a deep-throated whicker. Estral’s gelding, Coda, and Bane the pony both raised their heads and pricked their ears. A horse appeared cantering across the field where she’d seen the path. The jingle of harness came to them as the horse neared. She was silver-white in the gloom, her mane and tail streaming out behind her. She slowed to a trot, then a walk, and then halted before Enver. She was one of the most beautiful horses Karigan had ever seen, fine-limbed, her neck a graceful arc. She made Condor and Coda look plain and rangy. Oddly, she was already tacked. Enver stroked her neck and spoke softly to her in Eltish.

“Is she real?” Estral asked.

“Quite real,” Enver replied. “The terrial ada, who have befriended the Eletian people, consent to bear us now and then.”

“Terrial ada?” Karigan asked. “Is that a breed?”

“No, Galadheon, but a race of horsekind rare to these lands.”

A race of horsekind? She had a feeling that if she asked Enver to explain further, his answer would prove even more esoteric. She decided to wait and see if the horse passed gold nuggets and moonbeams.

“She is called Muna’reyes. It is Moonmist in the common tongue.”

The mare nickered and bobbed her head.

“You may call her Mist. She will allow it.” With that, Enver mounted in one swift motion.

Mist’s bridle bore no bit, and the leather of the reins and saddle was ornamented with twining tree and birch leaf patterns. Enver retrieved the lead rope to Bane, and the pony pranced right up beside Mist, arching his stubby neck as though to impress her. She bobbed her head, her mane wafting softly like threads of silk.

“I shall lead us along the path now. You have but to follow.” Enver reined Mist off the road and into the field.

Karigan let Estral follow next, and took up the rear. Condor stepped off the road into the snowy field and proceeded in an energetic walk as if he were as anxious to follow Mist as Bane. As she rode, she was aware of nothing that differentiated the path from the surrounding countryside, except maybe they followed a long furrow between drifts that made it easier for the horses. Soon they entered the woods.

As the day wore on, the farther they got from the castle, the more the sky cleared and the flurries let up. The interlacing of the branches above them further minimized the snowfall. Karigan had to admit that with Enver’s guidance, the going was smooth. There was little underbrush to hinder them, no low-hanging branches she had to duck beneath. Windfalls did not block their way, and the snow was not at all deep.

They rode in silence away from the signs of human habitation, encountering only a doe and yearling, chickadees and nuthatches, along the way. This was the Green Cloak Forest they had entered, and the country would get wilder still.

They rode until twilight when Enver halted at a natural clearing. Or, was it? Was it of some magical making as the path they followed? They set to caring for the horses, and she saw that just like any other horse, Mist was untacked, brushed, and blanketed, and that she drank ordinary water and ate grain. And, indeed, her droppings looked pretty normal, too, though Karigan did not inspect them close up. The main difference was that Enver did not halter or hobble Mist. Even so, she did not wander far. Perhaps she’d turn to smoke and drift away in the night, and return only when Enver called her.