“I guess this is yours,” Aunt Stace said, holding the crystal to the light, entranced by its beauty. “It is yours, come to you after all these years. At the time, we had no notion of what your mother was talking about, nor were we aware of the crystal’s existence, so we could not give it to you as she requested, and we thought ... We thought it best not to tell you about her last words, because we could only guess it was the fever that made her speak so, and we did not want an account of her confused state to sadden you.”

More secrets, Karigan thought, but she was not angry. Just stunned. Stunned and perplexed.

“Here you go, dear.” With some reluctance, Aunt Stace rolled the moonstone onto Karigan’s outstretched hand.

The moment it hit her palm it illuminated with such brilliance they both had to shield their eyes.

“My heavens!” Aunt Stace exclaimed. “How did it do that?”

“It’s Eletian,” Karigan replied. “A muna’riel is a moonstone—it contains a moonbeam.”

“Eletian magic?” Aunt Stace asked in a hushed voice.

Karigan nodded, and the moonstone’s radiance faded to a soft, silvery glow. It sent warmth through her palm and up her arm. She had not been sure if it would light up for her, but it had, just like the very first moonstone she touched. That one had belonged, originally, to a pair of eccentric, elderly sisters who lived in the heart of the Green Cloak Forest. It was one magical artifact among many others their father, Professor Berry, had collected over his lifetime. The Berry sisters had been so impressed it lit up for Karigan when it never had for them that they had given it to her.

She was never clear why the magic worked for her and not others, but a while after she had acquired the moonstone, she had met an Eletian named Somial who had told her the moonstone’s favor meant she was “Laurelyn-touched,” a friend of the Elt Wood. Exactly what that meant, she could not say, especially when some Eletians treated her more like an enemy.

Laurelyn the Moondreamer was a fabled Eletian queen of old, queen of the legendary, lost realm of Argenthyne. Fabled until Karigan learned both Laurelyn and her realm had truly existed. Argenthyne had been conquered by Mornhavon the Black and transformed into Kanmorhan Vane, the Blackveil Forest. Laurelyn’s fate was unknown, even to the Eletians.

At the moment, however, she was more overcome by the idea that this moonstone had been her mother’s. How? Why? And Kariny had wanted her to have it, which only prompted more questions.

When she glanced up, her aunt had that look in her eyes again. “It is strange,” she said. “Strange your mother should possess such a thing. Eletian, for heavens’ sakes! And yet ... And yet, it is in a way not strange to me.”

Karigan waited, not daring to interrupt.

“Your mother, as sensible a woman as she was, also had another side to her. A bit dreamy. Came down the maternal line, no doubt.” Without explaining the last, Aunt Stace continued, “That’s where all the songs and stories came from, from that dreamy part of her nature. How she loved to tell you those stories and sing to you!”

It occurred to Karigan, with a prickling on the back of her neck, that her mother most often sang of Laurelyn the Moondreamer and Argenthyne.

“Then there were the times,” Aunt Stace said, “when she’d ride out at night. To sing to the stars, she told us. Stevic often joined her, and they were like two youths caught up in love for the first time, rather than married folk with responsibilities and a child to attend to.”

“I don’t remember,” Karigan said.

“There is much a child will not remember, especially when it’s something that happened after her bedtime! And, actually, they went out like that well before you were born. Two young lovers. It would not surprise me in the least if you were conceived during one of their jaunts.”

Out in the woods? Her parents? Among the trees, ferns, and wild creatures? Karigan’s cheeks warmed. Knowing her parents were her parents was one thing, but thinking about the act that made them her parents was quite another. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands as if to banish the image now planted in her mind, of her parents joined together on the mossy floor of some forest glade with the moonlight beaming down on them ...

Aunt Stace smiled in amusement, seeming to know exactly where Karigan’s thoughts ventured, but then she sobered and resumed her story. “Even when Stevic was away, Kariny rode out into the night alone. Sevano used to have fits over her safety, but she refused his escort and always returned unharmed and happy. She especially loved full moons. It makes me wonder ...”

“If she was having an affair?” Karigan demanded, her mind still stuck in that moonlit clearing.

“No,” Aunt Stace replied thoughtfully. “It was not in her, I think. She loved your father wholly, was devoted to him. But I wonder if, in her wanderings, she met Elt out there.” She gestured vaguely to indicate the countryside. “Ever since the trouble at the D’Yer Wall, you do hear about more sightings of the Elt. Even near Corsa. But maybe they’ve always been out there and just didn’t show themselves. Maybe they befriended your mother and that’s how she came to possess the crystal.”

It was as good an explanation as any, Karigan thought. Eletians did wander, and had, as her aunt suggested, always been “out there,” even though for most Sacoridians, they inhabited only legends. They’d become more apparent after the D’Yer Wall was breached, no longer characters in fairy tales and songs, but very alive, and very real.