As they approached the Rider wing, Mara said, “Most everyone is at lessons or doing chores.”
It was more likely Captain Mapstone did not wish Karigan to be overwhelmed by curious Riders. She was under the impression she was considered a bit fragile.
MEOW!
Karigan glanced down, and there was Ghost Kitty rubbing against her legs, leaving a trail of white and gray fur on her trousers. She picked him up, and he butted his head against her chin. She laughed.
“The menders had to keep shooing him from the mending wing,” Mara explained. “He knew you were back. Condor has been just as ridiculous, jumping the pasture fence and trying to run into the castle.”
Karigan froze with Ghost Kitty purring in her arms. Condor! But what she saw in her mind was a bay stallion rearing in the palace. Palace? There had been a palace. And a horse. But she could not recall the horse’s name or why she thought of him.
Mara, mistaking her reaction, said, “Don’t worry, we’ll go see Condor next. And all the others.”
“All the others?”
“The horses Damian Frost brought while you were in Blackveil.”
“Oh!” She couldn’t wait to go see them all, especially Condor.
Ghost Kitty leaped out of her arms and trotted ahead of them into the Rider wing. Karigan passed familiar doors, including the one to her old room. She peered into the common room with its big table, which looked just the same as she remembered. That not everything had changed was very comforting.
Mara took her all the way down the corridor and around a corner. This was an ancient section of castle they were re-inhabiting, the ceilings lower and stonework cruder, the air currents smelling of must, and the dark corners full of secrets.
“Sorry to say,” Mara said, “but we ran out of rooms on the main corridor, which is a good thing if you think about it.”
It was. It meant more Riders had answered the call. Riders she had yet to meet. For all that it was good, the old corridors made Karigan uneasy. They were restless with whispers and creaking and shifting shadows.
Mara stopped at the first door. Lamps were lit on either side of it and across the hall to fight off the gloom. Beyond the pool of light lay a wall of dark.
“Anyway,” Mara said, “you are the first to have a room down this way, so the whole corridor is yours until we get more green Greenies.”
“All mine,” Karigan said with trepidation. It was going to be a little too quiet, or perhaps un-quiet?
Ghost Kitty scratched the thick-timbered door.
“Go on in,” Mara said.
Karigan did and found a large chamber—large, anyway, compared to the other rooms of the Rider wing. There were support pillars of carved wood, four arrow slit windows with drapes pulled aside, and an actual hearth.
“Fastion thinks this could have been a meeting room or common room at one time,” Mara said.
Fastion liked investigating the more ancient parts of the castle.
Karigan’s friends had gone to some lengths to make the room comfortable. It was impossible not to miss the large bed with a gaudy gilt headboard elaborately carved with unicorns and a young girl sitting by the bank of a stream. Garth, Mara had told her, had been particularly pleased when he found that piece.
“Ah,” Karigan replied, trying not to burst out laughing.
They’d found her a wardrobe almost as large as her old one. Someone had built bookshelves.
Mara, following Karigan’s gaze, said, “New Rider built those. He was apprenticed to a carpenter when he was called. Your friends chipped in for some books, which I took the liberty of picking out for you.”
Karigan went to the shelves and looked through the books. Some were brand new, novels she hadn’t read. Others were used, including The Journeys of Gilan Wylloland. It was dog-eared but clearly well-loved by its previous owner, and the illustrations were as vibrant as ever.
They’d also found her a plain, but serviceable vanity. Mara had purchased some small necessities for her, like a comb and brush, and a hand mirror.
“Extra uniforms are in the wardrobe,” Mara said, “and the quartermaster said to just ask if you had any needs.”
Karigan took it all in, then flung her arms around Mara. “Thank you.”
“You like it then?” a voice boomed from the doorway. It was Garth.
Karigan hugged him in turn, and he being the bear of a man he was, lifted her off her feet and practically crushed her in his arms.
“I almost wasn’t here to see you,” he said after gently setting her back on the floor. “I was due to leave for the wall on the solstice, but all the snow came. Now when I go to the wall, I can tell them all the good news. Not that Connly hasn’t already done so.”
Garth and other Rider friends of hers, had been assigned to the towers of the D’Yer Wall. Connly could communicate with Trace Burns in Tower of the Ice with his mind. Trace could then convey the news to the others. Distance did not matter with such an ability.
“How do you like the bed?” Garth asked.
“It’s um . . .”
“She’s stunned,” Mara provided.
“Yes, stunned,” Karigan echoed.
Garth beamed.
They talked away, Karigan catching up on the doings of her friends, the romances, the feuds between the tower mages, the parties. Meanwhile, Ghost Kitty watched them with disinterest from the bed, busily licking his paw.
They spent time in lighthearted conversation until Garth said in more sober tones, “In the fall, the reconstruction at the breach was knocked down again. Something came in from Blackveil, and left nothing behind but a bit of grubby yarn.”