“That’ll take too long,” Karigan replied.

“I know, and my father is so close. I don’t want to go.”

An image came unsummoned to Karigan of a pale cat sitting beside her with a message tube attached to its collar. Was this some fancy, some whimsical detail out of one of the novels she liked to read? Or, was it memory?

“Send a cat,” she told Estral, and finally she let go, slipping into a deep slumber.

DETERMINATION

During one of Karigan’s awakenings, she heard Enver humming softly. When she looked, he was seated beside her, his back erect, and his eyes closed. The quiet glow of the moonstone revealed his peaceful expression. For all that they had traveled so far together, she really hadn’t learned a whole lot about him, his history. He liked to sing, he was keen on spiritual matters, he was as good an archer as any Eletian she’d ever met, and he’d always seemed interested in the ways of Sacoridians, which she had found at once annoying and endearing. All of that was on the surface, but there had to be more depth than his seemingly simple nature revealed.

“Galadheon,” he said without opening his eyes, “how is your pain?”

For how long had he perceived her studying him? “It hurts.”

Now he opened his eyes and looked down at her. “More, or less than before?”

“I don’t know. More bearable, I guess. Could be getting used to it.”

He checked her for fever. “Ah, not as fierce. That is an improvement. Here is some water to drink.”

She accepted the skin he passed her and drank without complaint.

“We sent Mister Whiskers to Captain Treman,” Enver told her, “thanks to your suggestion.”

“Why? What suggestion?”

“I was going to send Lady Estral to inform him of the situation here, which, of course, would take time. When Lady Estral told you this earlier, you suggested we send the cat.”

She had? It sounded familiar . . .

“It will take much less time for a gryphon to fly there, though we instructed Mister Whiskers to approach the encampment in his small cat form. Should he arrive as a gryphon, well, there is no telling how the soldiers might receive him.”

They’d find a house cat strange enough, she thought, but whether or not she remembered making the suggestion, she was glad she had. It would cut down on the time getting word to Captain Treman.

“Lady Estral, of course, wrote the missive. She borrowed your sealing wax and pressed it with her father’s signet ring.”

That would be another surprise for Captain Treman—the Golden Guardian’s sigil in messenger green wax. She was sure Estral explained all in her message to him.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“An hour after midnight.”

She felt oddly restless, but perhaps it was because her head was clearer. “Enver, this Eletian woman who is here . . . Nari? How did you come upon her? I seem to have missed a few things since the Lone Forest.”

“I was searching for the way to the p’ehdrose when I spotted her from afar, walking across the rocky plain. When I investigated, I found it was Nari of Argenthyne.”

“Argenthyne,” Karigan murmured. “But Argenthyne is gone.”

“Yes,” Enver said. “She was abducted by the aureas slee well before the fall of Argenthyne and held captive all this time. I sang to you of her back when we were at Eli Creek waystation.”

“Wait . . . Narivanine?”

“Yes, but she prefers Nari now, for it represents that she has lost much.”

“Hadwyr,” Karigan said.

“She tells me she knew in her heart he was gone. Eletians have a way of knowing such things, and perhaps she is more perceptive than most, for she was an attendant of the Sleeper’s Grove by Castle Argenthyne. But, it was still grievous for her to hear it confirmed. Now she hunts the aureas slee in vengeance, though she has paused her search to help us and, I think, to speak with me, an Eletian. She has not seen another of our kind in many a year. Not only that, but she feels indebted to you for helping the Sleepers who were trapped in Blackveil.”

“She knows about that?”

He recounted to her the conditions of Nari’s captivity and how King Zachary had also been imprisoned by the aureas slee. “He told her of what you had done.” He went on to explain that somehow, following the aureas slee’s battle with the gryphons, King Zachary ended up in the Lone Forest among Grandmother’s people. Karigan couldn’t wait to find out how that happened.

“We must get him out,” Karigan said with determination.

“Then you must regain your strength. You must eat even if you do not wish to, and rest; then as time passes—”

“Enver, we can’t let time pass. Every moment the king is there in the Lone Forest?” She bit her bottom lip.

To her surprise, he did not argue. “Then rest, Galadheon. We will see what daytime brings.”

Karigan exhaled a long breath, and as she drifted off once more, she thought of Nari and her lost love, Hadwyr. She thought she could understand how that felt, but to carry it for centuries? That, she thought, would be worse punishment than bearing the lash of any whip.

• • •

She awoke at mid-morning, determined to get up, and demanded her clothes. Enver lent her one of his shirts, telling her it would be less abrasive to her back than her own. It was lighter and smoother than silk, and she thought her father could make an entirely new fortune if he could get his hands on the fabric. It was a blue as pale as the winter sky, and the motion of putting it on hurt more than to have it touching her back. It was a little large, but she rolled up the sleeves and pinned her brooch to it.