Her father had looked at her in astonishment, as if some stranger stood before him. “I thought you wanted to learn more about the business. It isn’t all traveling from town to town, or overseeing wares on fair days.”

The portrait of Karigan’s mother loomed large on the wall behind her father. She knew he would never forgive himself for Kariny’s death, or for that of the unborn child she had been carrying at the time. It was he who had scheduled her to lead a wagon train to a fair that, unknown to him, was rife with fever.

No, no matter Stevic G’ladheon’s innocence, he would never forgive himself.

“You’re being overprotective,” Karigan said. She had not shouted, but she might as well have.

Her father had followed her gaze to the portrait, then slowly turned his eyes back upon her. “You are my only child,” he said, “and I love you.”

Karigan swallowed hard, remembering the hurt and grief in his eyes, but as if thrusting a sword into his heart had not been enough, she had twisted the blade by telling him he didn’t understand anything. Then she had stomped out of his office and slammed the door behind her for good measure. The memory of it still left an ache of guilt within her.

Did she regret the Rider life? Over the past year she had come to accept it to a degree, and she even liked it well enough in some ways, but she believed she would always resent how it had utterly wrenched her out of the life she knew. And she would never forgive the call for the gulf it had opened between her and her father.

“It’s not a call,” she murmured. “It’s a command.”

At her quiet words, a devilish smile played on Bard’s lips.

“Oh, please,” Karigan began, knowing exactly what he was thinking. “Please don’t bring up—”

“Halfway to Sacor City in your nightgown!”

“I was not! I only got as far as Darden!”

“Two towns over. Gave the marketplace something to jabber about for weeks.”

Karigan’s face heated, and it wasn’t because of the crackling fire before her. The night she had finally succumbed to the call, it had crashed over her like a storm wave that washed her away in a dreamlike undertow from which she was unable to awaken. She only snapped out of it the next morning when she reached Darden. In the middle of the market. In her nightgown. She groaned at the memory.

“I can only use my imagination.” Bard shook with laughter. “My, but it makes an amusing picture—and tale.”

“Don’t you dare!” She wouldn’t put it past Bard to make some outrageous ditty of it. His talent for fashioning absurd lyrics was going to drive the more conventional masters at Selium out of their minds.

“There once was a girl from Corsa,” he began, “who rode a big red horsa—”

“Ugh!” Karigan scooped up handfuls of pine needles from the ground and tossed them at him. Most fell into the fire, giving off a sweet balsam scent as they burned.

The whole incident was funny now, she had to admit, but at the time it had been humiliating. The market had grown unnaturally quiet as everyone pointed and stared at her sitting on Condor, in nothing more than her light linen nightgown. Fortunately the matron of a prominent merchant clan had recognized her and supplied her with clothing for her return ride to Corsa.

The story of Stevic G’ladheon’s daughter managed to spread outward as the merchants traveled on to other towns and villages. Karigan’s aunts had been terrible to behold upon learning she had embarrassed her clan so extravagantly.

The incident had finally broken Karigan’s resolve to fight the call, and upon her return to Corsa, she had informed her father of her intention to be a Green Rider. She just didn’t have it in her to fight it anymore.

Bard couldn’t contain his laughter. Karigan glowered at him which seemed to incapacitate him further.

At that moment, Ty and Ereal wandered over, burdened with their gear.

“What’s so funny?” Ereal asked.

Bard wiped tears from his eyes. “Darden.” It was all he had to say, for all the Riders had heard of Karigan’s unusual and long overdue response to the call, and regarded it as a curiosity. Apparently everyone else had acceded to the call without a fight. Ereal chuckled and Ty smiled. Both Riders sat and made themselves comfortable by the fire.

Bard took up his sewing again. “I think Karigan’s ride to Darden makes a good story. There is, after all, a dearth of Rider stories told by the minstrels.”

“You would think your grandmother’s chin hairs an interesting story,” Ereal said.

“Hah!” Bard rose to his knees—and the challenge—and made up a clever rendition of “Grandmother’s Whiskers” on the spot. It left the others clutching aching bellies, they were laughing so hard. Soldiers passing by eyed the Riders curiously.

“I do not think,” Ty said, after things quieted, “that Karigan in her nightgown is the image of Green Riders we wish to project.”

Not an appropriate image of a Green Rider, was she? Karigan held her tongue, but Bard, the big tease, winked at her. He was having too much fun.

“It’s certainly not on the same level,” Ty continued, “as the heroic tales of Lil Ambrioth, Gwyer Warhein, or any of the others.”

Ereal leaned back against her saddlebags. “I don’t know. Look at the stories we’re missing precisely because of that reason. No one has ever written a history of the Riders and as a consequence we know so very little of our own heritage. The stories we do know are so embellished that the First Rider in particular is larger than life—hardly human—and there is scant mention of other Riders and their deeds in any of the histories.”