With another glance she saw that Lynx’s name remained with no additional statement. Lynx must have made it—made it home—and reported Yates’ death.
Oh, Yates . . . She had feared it was so, that he’d died in the nexus of Castle Argenthyne, deep in the heart of Blackveil. How could he have survived the presence of Mornhavon in his body, burning him from the inside out? And when she had smashed the looking mask at his feet, she thought she might have destroyed all her companions, including the Eletians. Their names threaded through her mind in a subconscious whisper: Ealdaen, Telagioth, Lhean.
Despite her fears, she’d held out hope; hope for dear, funny Yates. Yates, who’d had so much of a future ahead of him. Yates, her friend. He’d kept her going when the two of them had become separated from the others in Blackveil, had helped each other survive.
She did not notice when the professor stood and crossed over to her chair, but there he was at her elbow proffering a handkerchief. She took it gratefully, dried her eyes and blew her nose.
He must have seen how her fingers rested on Yates’ name because he said, “One of your companions who went into Blackveil with you. A good friend?”
“Yes,” she replied. “They all were.”
She found her own name several lines beneath Yates’. She was listed as Missing.
Missing, not deceased.
“Is this what you wanted me to see?” she asked the professor, pointing at the entry.
“Er, keep looking.”
She did. Over the weeks of entries that followed, Daro continued to list her as Missing. Pay was set aside for her. Weeks turned into months when finally she came to the entry, G’ladheon, Sir Karigan, presumed dead. Accrued pay and benefits to father in Corsa, L’Petrie Province.
She glanced through the last few pages of the ledger, but did not see her name again. “They thought I died in Blackveil.”
“It is the only evidence of your fate we possess,” the professor said, “other than your sitting here at this moment in this very chair.”
“I never returned.”
“Who is to say? They presumed you dead, but you are not. You got here somehow so who is to say it’s impossible for you to return? But that said, I’m afraid we’ve never found anything to suggest that you made it back.”
Karigan reread the simple words in Daro’s neat script, so toneless and without emotion. How had her father taken the news? Her aunts? How long did it take her friends to forget about her and move on with their lives? Not very long, she figured. Green Riders were always kept busy with duties to fulfill, more dangers to face. They could not afford to dwell on the death of any single Rider.
Her beloved Condor would have been partnered with another Rider. They’d been in need of many more horses. Who was chosen? Karigan had not been his first Rider. He, too, would move on.
And King Zachary? What would he feel? He was to be married on the summer solstice—Day of Aeryon—of that year. He, too, would have his attention drawn elsewhere.
As it should be.
She closed the ledger with a thump, this familiar, yet at the same time strange, book, this artifact that tied her to her home. She handed it back to the professor, who reverently laid it on his desk.
“I can’t imagine how odd it must be to see that.” He shook his head. “No, I cannot. Makes me shiver to think of it. Makes me shiver to see you sitting here before me, a living artifact.”
Karigan bristled with anger. “Should I place myself on one of your shelves then?”
The professor winced. “Sorry, my dear. Forgive me. It was my archeological bent speaking. Here you are, torn from your own time and home, and I spoke without thinking.”
“Don’t mind the professor.” Cade Harlowe’s voice was so unexpected that it startled Karigan. His expression had lost its intensity and had softened into compassion. “The professor,” Cade continued with a bit of a drawl, “sometimes forgets we’re not all artifacts.”
“I’m not that bad, Old Button,” the professor said.
Old Button? she wondered. The two men laughed as at a familiar joke, and Karigan’s anger bled away.
“Do I have your forgiveness?” the professor asked.
Karigan nodded and he responded with a courtly bow.
“Good, because I have more to show you and the night grows short.”
SHARDS
“I would like to have my things back,” Karigan said. “The things I had with me, on me, when I arrived.”
“I shall show them to you,” the professor said, “and you will see that I’ve kept them safe.”
Cade excused himself to resume his training. The professor led Karigan toward the nearest end of the room, where another stairway corkscrewed up its shaft into the dark. By the time the professor found and lit a taper, Karigan saw with a glance over her shoulder that Cade had picked up a practice sword and was moving through a series of forms.
He does all right, she thought, but found herself critical of how he seemed to focus more on correct posture than execution. His posture did look good, very good—picturesque, even, but picturesque would not help him dispatch an opponent. His balance, though, was solid and would hold him in good stead. Though she studied Cade from a professional point of view, all her seasons of sparring with swordmaster trainees in various states of undress and at the peak of their physical form did not leave her immune from appreciating the aesthetic charms of a pleasing figure of manhood in action.