“There have been other encounters with Eletians, General,” Laren said, “including the aid they rendered to the remnants of Lady Penburn’s delegation this past summer. I do not think we can judge all Eletians by the actions of just one.” Laren could not say that she totally trusted them herself, recalling some of the interactions Karigan had with them.

“They were our allies of old,” Zachary said. “It was their king, Santanara, who united the defenders of the free lands against the might of Mornhavon and his empire. Without them, we’d be enslaved to the will of Arcosia.”

The general crossed his arms. “That was still a thousand years ago.”

“Which they remember as yesterday.”

“It seems,” Colin Dovekey said, “we finally have the opportunity we sought with Lady Penburn’s delegation: to speak with the Eletians and learn their intentions; to find out what has stirred them from the Elt Wood.”

“Skulking about our country as though they have every right,” the general grumbled.

“Our borders are guarded,” said crusty old Sperren, “but not closed.”

“Still, it does not give them leave to—”

The king raised his hand for silence. “I appreciate your words of caution, General, but they have come to parley. If they intended harm, I suspect we’d have known it by now. I have every intention of speaking with them.”

The only one who protested was the general, but the king was adamant. “Laren,” he said, “you may tell them that I accept their invitation, that I will visit with them on the appointed day, but the time will be of my choosing.”

Laren smiled. The Eletian she had spoken with had specified the day after tomorrow, but the king was showing he would not dance according to their whims by choosing the time. “Very well, sire.”

“You will not go without your guards,” the general said.

“Never fear,” Zachary replied, “I will come to no harm.”

The appointed day came with a cold misting rain that made Laren’s joints ache. Dressed in her formal uniform, she passed the morning in her office shuffling reports, awaiting the king’s word that the time had come to descend the Winding Way. But the day wore on, the bell down in the city tolling away the hours, and still the king’s word did not come. She loosened her stock and collar.

Eventually she gave up on trying to accomplish any work, and unwound her waist sash and took off her longcoat, and propped her feet on her bed and tilted her chair back, a cup of tea warming her achy hands. The pains came on her more fiercely than ever since the summer when the awakening of Mornhavon wreaked havoc with her special ability, its voice clamoring in her head, constant and unrelenting, which drove her to the brink of madness and suicide.

In the end, one who possessed her brooch two hundred years before her came to her in spirit form and helped her regain control. And after Mornhavon had been banished to the future, thanks to Karigan, the chaos his awakening caused settled down. No longer were there reports of villages vanishing or people turning to stone, and those that had were restored. All her Riders agreed their special abilities were functioning properly, as was her own.

Still, the pain in her joints hurt more than ever when she used her special ability in service to Zachary, but she spoke to no one about it, and swore Master Mender Destarion to secrecy about her need for willowbark tea. He wasn’t happy, but he provided her with what she wanted, and it gave her some measure of relief.

She supposed a lifetime of accidents and abuses to her body, and the fact she was entering her middling years, contributed to the pain. She just wasn’t able to recover from injuries as she had in her younger days. It was rare for one to remain a Green Rider as long as she had. Most either died in the course of their duties or their brooches abandoned them, releasing them from the call. The gods must have some purpose in mind for her, keeping her bound to the messenger service for so long. Even so, she tried as best as she could to prepare her Riders for the eventuality when she would not be there for them, a day when someone else must assume the role of Rider captain.

The bell tolled two hour and the light and shadows of her quarters shifted with the movement of the cloud-shrouded sun. If the king did not proceed soon to meet the Eletians, they’d be going in the dark, and she did not think that for the best.

She had not seen much beyond those tent flaps when beckoned forth to receive the word of the Eletians, nor when she delivered to them the king’s reply. A woman stood there in the shadows of the tent flaps, nothing to be revealed in the darkness beyond, and yet…

There was the sense of vast space and movement, like trees in a wood, the rustling she heard not the tent walls only, but a breeze through the boughs of limbs and leaves. She had an inexplicable feeling of an entire world beyond her sight, or maybe of a dream just on the rim of memory.

As she sat there considering it all, a knock came on the door. Laren rose and opened the door to find a Green Foot runner there, his hands clasped behind his back.

“The king says it is time to make ready, ma’am,” he said. “He plans to leave castle grounds in half an hour.”

“Please inform Lieutenant Connly as well.” Laren thanked the boy and hastened to tighten her stock. It was of the blue-green plaid like that worn by the First Rider so long ago, and so was her waistcoat. The present day Riders had adopted the colors into their uniforms to connect them to their heritage. She knotted her gold sash back into place and buckled on her swordbelt. Over her shoulder she slung the horn of the First Rider.