Mirror Sight (60 page)

Did Cade expect to forego being a Weapon, if they made it to her time? Otherwise, why ask her the “suitor” question. He didn’t want to go to the past, give up all he knew, just for her, did he? Surely not. She must pose the question to him, make sure that she wouldn’t have to carry that added responsibility on her shoulders, as well. It was comforting, however, to think she would not be going home alone.

The next thing she knew, Cade was shaking her awake again. She’d dozed off.

“Careful,” he told her when she went to rub her eyes. He grabbed her wrist.

“What?” Upon examination, she saw that her hand was covered in mushed up potatoes and butter. Not only had she fallen asleep at the table, but her hand had ended up on her plate.

Cade set the satchel on one of the bunks, and after Karigan cleaned her hands, she wasted no time in digging into it.

“One of the guards saw me shifting the casks around and asked me what I was up to.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Told him I was redistributing the weight to make it easier on the mules. I then had to listen to him complain about all his aching joints and bodily functions before he finally moved on and left me alone. Thankfully he did not offer to help.”

Karigan set aside uniform pieces while Cade watched on in interest. While she sought the shard of the looking mask rolled up somewhere in her greatcoat, he examined her uniform trousers with its rent pant leg and dark, crusted stains. When she found the shard, she held it up in triumph, then perceived Cade’s gaze on her as his hand hovered over the tattered trousers.

“You really are . . .” He faltered.

“What?” Karigan asked.

“A Green Rider.”

Karigan raised an eyebrow. “I thought we’d already been over this.”

“I know, I know.” He raked his hand through his hair. “I’ve seen your uniform before . . . even on you, though I didn’t know what it was at the time. But . . . seeing it here, now, with you, it’s more real.” The awe in his voice was the same as she’d heard when she’d shown him her ability with the staff, back in the old mill. He took the sleeve of her greatcoat, touching the winged horse in gold thread as if he’d never seen embroidery before.

He’d been to the tombs, had even seen her brooch, and now he was impressed by her simple uniform?

“It has truly sunk in,” he said to himself, shaking his head. “Tell me, what was it like? Going into Blackveil?”

“I already told you and the professor about it.”

“You gave us the story but not the details. What was it
really
like?”

Karigan sat on the bunk. “Very unpleasant.” A bit of white caught her eye among the folds of her greatcoat, and she pulled out the feather of the winter owl. She twirled it before her eyes and shuddered with memory.

When Cade gave her a plaintive look, she told him about the wet and chill, the depressing murk, and how everything in the forest possessed an awareness, a hidden intelligence that seemed to watch them at all times. She told him how they lost their first companion to a flock of murderous hummingbirds like the ones Dr. Silk had exhibited at his dinner party, and how they lost their second companion to a tree root come to life like a massive tentacle. She described ruins, poisonous vegetation, and strange creatures, explaining in more detail this time much of what had passed at Castle Argenthyne, including the death of their Eletian leader, Graelalea. She stroked the feather. It had proven resilient, remained uncrushed and unbroken despite all it had been through, including being rolled up in her greatcoat and stashed in a satchel.

“And then I came here,” she concluded. “Well, to Mill City.” She yawned. She had told him more, but not everything, by far. How could she convey the desperation she had felt when she and a blind Yates had become separated from the rest of the group? She did not tell him of Estora’s betrayal, of how the king’s betrothed had sent a Coutre forester with the expedition to murder her.

No, Karigan could not believe it of Estora, but those were his instructions, why he’d been sent, and he claimed to be doing it at Estora’s behest, so what was Karigan to think?

Cade, who now sat opposite her on an adjacent bunk, looked overwhelmed. “I did not know the depth of your travails. I’m sorry I asked you to relive it all.”

Karigan nodded, actually relieved to have spoken of it. She had not realized how the memories had eaten at her like acid. Normally she would have reported to the captain right away upon her return to Sacor City, and that would have helped, but she’d never made it back to Sacor City. At least, not her Sacor City. She set the feather aside.
Enmorial,
Graelalea had called it, memory.

“And those shards of mirror were pieces of the looking mask?” Cade asked.

Karigan nodded, the piece glinting in the lamplight.

“Gossham will be nothing to you after all that,” Cade said.

She thought he meant it as humor, but she hoped he was right. Not for the first time, however, she felt she’d rather face Blackveil than this empire.

“S
o why did you hold onto that one piece of broken mirror?” Cade asked.

Karigan explained to him how she’d seen images of her own time, of her friends and the king, by gazing into it.

“May I see it?” Cade asked. She passed it to him, and he looked closely at it and into it, turning it over on his hand. “I did look at these shards after your arrival, but aside from their being double-sided and curved, neither the professor nor I observed anything extraordinary about them.” He handed it back to her.

“Most of the time I see nothing in it,” she said, “but my own reflection.”

She sat cross-legged on her bunk, and even now saw a fragment of that reflection, her own tired eyes with dark rings beneath them. Cade moved so he could gaze over her shoulder. He was near enough that she could feel the warmth of his body.

“Why did you want it tonight?” He asked. “What do you expect to see?”

His question made her feel a little guilty. She’d heard hoofbeats—the hoofbeats of an imperial messenger riding by, but nevertheless, hoofbeats. It had stirred her up inside and left her yearning for home and, well, to once more hear the Rider call and answer it. Otherwise, there was no other practical reason to seek a vision in the shard. Previous visions had done little more than connect her with home, but provided no hints about how to return or how to contend with Amberhill and his empire.

Belatedly she realized how much she had endangered Cade and their mission by sending him out to rifle through the secret compartment of their wagon. What if that guard had been more cautious? What if Cade had been caught? She gazed at her uniform spread out on the bed. What if someone barged in right now and saw it?

She closed her eyes, flooded with guilt, and berated herself for her selfishness. She could not even blame the morphia. “I don’t know if I’ll see anything,” she said. “It doesn’t work on demand, but I just felt a need to look.”

Cade’s reflection in the shard nodded gravely and he did not question her reasoning. He trusted her, she realized, now feeling doubly guilty.

She gazed into the shard, all too conscious of Cade’s closeness. If a vision was revealed to her, would they both see it? A long stretch of time passed—she did not know how much—when Cade finally gave up. She felt him draw away, heard the floorboards creak as he moved about, his yawn and the cracking of joints as he stretched. A bunkbed groaned as he lay down, and the groan was soon followed by deep, regular breaths and light snoring.

Perhaps because Karigan no longer felt under the scrutiny of another, she relaxed, and the mirror shard’s surface rippled like the surface of a lake. The vision came, at first in muted tones and indiscernible shapes, but then focused to reveal King Zachary astride a heavy warhorse she had not seen before, a tabard of black and silver over his armor. His helm was tucked beneath one arm, and he raised his sword high with the other. The banners of Sacoridia snapped behind him in a strong breeze. She had an impression of many soldiers before him, her perspective as if she were among them, and by the way he rode up and down the line, he appeared to be rallying his troops.

Where was this? Was he about to go into battle? Had war with Second Empire progressed so much since she’d been gone? She could not see the force with the king or how they were arrayed. She could not see the enemy. She wished she could hear what he was saying. He sat his horse with calm assurance, his face determined, so earnest, so much the man she knew. Unlike many who led, he would personally fight for his own country like the warrior kings of old. She knew this about him. He would not hide behind the ranks, but stand before them, and great fear grew in her, not just for the safety of her king, but for the man.

The image moved and blurred as if time itself passed before her eyes, and solidified once more into a confusing mass of steel clashing, blood smearing across shields and armor. In the center of it all she saw him, missing both his horse and his helm, his sword hacking, sweeping, thrusting. The elegance of the swordmaster’s technique became exquisite butchery in the reality of battle. Graceful, deft, merciless.

An enemy broke through those who guarded him. Karigan emitted a strangled cry as a sword descended toward Zachary’s unprotected head.

No!
she cried within, unable to speak aloud.
No!
She wanted to press through the shard, be there to protect him, but she was helpless. She could not pass.

Before the sword fell, the scene clouded up and vanished.

No!
Tears splattered on the surface of the mirror shard. What had happened? Her insides felt flayed apart with fear, grief. She willed the shard to show her more, to show the outcome. She had to know if Zachary lived, if he was all right. At first there was nothing, then the mirror shimmered and thrust her through images so quickly that she had only impressions streaming before her eyes, of people and places she could not identify. It was like flipping the pages of a book to get to the end.

Finally the motion ceased, but all she saw at first was vibrant color, like paints running together. The images then resolved into geometric patterns, like pieces of stained glass bound together with lead. It took her a moment to realize that was exactly what she was seeing.

Please show me that he is all right.

Her point of view pulled out so that the dome of the First Rider opened up like an umbrella above her. She could not tell how, but three figures appeared to hover in the air within the dome, silhouetted by the lights that shone behind the glass to illuminate it.

She recognized Captain Mapstone’s slight form in between two men. With a quickening of her pulse, she also recognized the shape of Zachary, his broad shoulders and the posture of a warrior.
Thank the gods,
she said over and over in her mind.
Thank the gods.
He was alive. He was all right. The mirror had moved her ahead in time. Yet doubt gnawed at her. Was it truly so? Did the shard necessarily show her scenes in their correct sequence? The mirror man who had given her the looking mask had been a trickster. Was the shard playing tricks on her now? No. She must believe the sequence was correct. Zachary had to be all right. He had to have survived that battle.

Then she remembered that he must have, only to die in the final battle before Sacor City. She recalled the account in the diary of Seften, which the professor had shown her. King Zachary rode out to support his troops, only to be overcome by Amberhill’s great weapon. Even remembering this, however, was a relief. She had time, time to get back to him, time to change outcomes.

Unless time was really speeding away from her.

The other man with the king and captain appeared to be gesturing at the glass. There was something familiar about him and about the way he moved, but she could not place him. Her eyes were drawn to the king, anyway. He, like the captain, gazed where the unknown man pointed. She could not see much of the king’s face, his expression, only the hint of colored light shining on his hair and glancing off his cheek.

Have you forgotten me?
she wondered.

Had they all resigned themselves to the fact she was never returning from Blackveil? That she was dead? But the captain had left that odd message, passed down through generations of chief caretakers in the tombs. The captain, at least, must have had some hope, some idea, that Karigan might return. If only she could pass through the mirror shard itself and be there. If only a whisper from her lips would reach their ears. Zachary’s ears.

There is no one,
she had told Cade. Truth or lie? Perhaps only Captain Mapstone’s ability could tell her for sure. When—
if
—she reached home, she’d be tested when once again in Zachary’s presence. It was too easy now with her so far away to believe one thing or another. She knew, rationally, that he and she could not be together, but what had to be did not necessarily govern how she felt deep within.

Was she being fair to Cade who had expressed his desire to travel back with her, to be with her? One thing she was glad of was that he slept and did not witness her reaction to seeing Zachary. Her feelings about the two men twisted up inside her, so she tried to do what she was getting so very good at and locked away her feelings, her uncertainties. It was the safest course. To set aside the issue, to mute her feelings, not think about it, go on with life. At the moment, that meant trying to absorb this gift, this vision of home she had been granted, and puzzling over what it was about the stained glass that was so interesting.

“What are you looking at?” she murmured. It was vexing to not be able to hear what they were discussing.

She brought the shard close to her face, but it was a mistake, for when she did so, the mirror flashed intensely into her right eye with a sharp, searing pain. She cried out and dropped the shard on the bed, and clapped her hand over her eye.

“Wha—what is it?” Cade was up immediately, came over to her.

“My eye! The shard flashed and—”

“Let me see.” He carefully pried her hand away from it. “You must have gotten something in it.”

She blinked against the sting, but it was quickly dissipating. Cade placed his hand against her temple to lift her eyelid, and she squirmed.

“Hold still,” he commanded. She did her best as he peered into her eye.

“I don’t see anything.” He let her go. “How does it feel now?”

Karigan blinked rapidly, but the sting had faded. There was an afterflash, like a mote of silver in her eye. “It’s all right. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“What happened?”

She explained her vision, and she could tell he was still struggling with the whole idea that it was real, but he did not interrupt her. She told him about the flash of light, as he sat wearily on his bed.

“I—I don’t understand how that little piece of mirror did all that,” Cade said. “Magic is all but a myth, except to the Adherents and the most Preferred.”

“To be honest,” Karigan replied, smiling but exhausted from all the visions the shard had put her through, “I don’t understand it much myself. The looking mask was an object of unknown power—the fact that I’m here proves it, and even its broken remnants retain a certain amount of power.” She picked up the shard once more. It showed her no new images, but counter-reflected in her right eye, turning her iris silver. She blinked, and the illusion was gone.

All at once her reserve of energy drained away. The morphia was not entirely done with her yet, and her exertions left her shaking. She lay down, right across her Rider uniform, and slid quickly into a deep slumber, never knowing that Cade carefully pried the mirror shard from her fingers and placed it on the table next to her bed, and covered her with a blanket.

“Good night, Green Rider,” he whispered, and he kissed her forehead.

I
n the present: Captain Mapstone

“So as you can see,” Master Goodgrave explained, pointing at the glass, “we have cleaned the entire panel, and it has clarified some of the details with remarkable results.”

It was, Laren thought, astonishing to be so high up above the floor of the records room on the scaffolding of the glass craftsmen, virtually surrounded by the intense colors of the stained glass dome. Lit from behind by lanterns, it was breathtaking, really, the subtle shades and details that had come to life with cleaning. She wondered what it had been like, before the dome had been built over, when bright sunlight shone through the glass. She could only imagine that it was brilliant, and the clouds and changes of weather only lent drama and movement to the scenes.

By Zachary’s stillness, she could sense that he, too, was overwhelmed by this new view of the dome.

Master Goodgrave and his helpers had only just finished their meticulous cleaning of the panel that depicted the triumph of the First Rider after the Long War. She saw ripples in banners and cloaks she had not noticed before, the emerald of the First Rider’s eyes, and the gleam of sunlight on armor and swords. The cleaning had added depth and dimension to the scene. And there was more . . .