Next she followed the path to Dale’s tent, which the Rider shared with Estral. She found Dale and Captain Wallace just outside, giggling, leaning against one another.
Oh! Karigan thought. No one had mentioned the two were paired up.
“Uh, hello,” she said. “I was looking for Estral. Is she here?”
“Nope,” Dale said. “Tent’s empty, but it won’t be for long.” The two started giggling again. “Try Alton’s tent,” she suggested.
Karigan hastened off, certain she was blushing, then slowed to make sure she chose the right tent. Alton’s was slightly larger and set off from the others due to his rank as Lord-Governor D’Yer’s heir, so it was not difficult to pick it out. As she approached it, she found the walls aglow, and it occurred to her to wonder why Dale thought Estral would be there, then she wondered, why not? They seemed to get on in a friendly manner.
But as she neared the tent, she began to hear the two in conversation, and the silhouette against the tent walls began to tell the story.
The two stood together merged, as if in an embrace.
“We have to tell her,” Estral was saying. “Tonight.”
“Can’t you . . . can’t you just tell her? You’re her best friend.”
“Coward. It needs to come from both of us.”
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea on the eve of her departure ...”
“It’s better she knows the truth,” Estral said, “about how we feel about each other.”
It felt as if the earth collapsed beneath Karigan’s feet and the sky and woods fell in on her. Estral and Alton together? But she’d wanted . . . she had hoped . . .
“We’ve got to tell her now,” Estral added.
“No need,” Karigan blurted, and she ran, ran for the woods. She thought she heard them calling after her, but she kept on running, swatting branches out of her face, tripping on roots, the underbrush snagging her trousers. When she could no longer see the lights of the encampment, she stopped, breathing hard.
How could she not have seen it? Was she blind? She’d noticed how Alton’s gaze had strayed to Estral the other night while Estral performed, but she’d thought he was just enjoying the music.
“Damnation,” she muttered, and she wilted onto a rock and sat with her head in her hands.
What had she expected? Alton to come hither at her least desire? But the letters . . . It was her own fault. She’d been disturbed by how much he’d seemed to want her, but now that he was taken? And by her best friend, no less?
She had little right to be angry, she realized, because she had put Alton off time and again, kept him at arm’s-length, told him she just wanted to be friends, but now she was stunned by the hurt of it, the betrayal. Not just Alton’s betrayal, but Estral’s.
She laughed. It was a hard sound. Trace had Connly, Yates had his cook, Dale had her captain, and now Alton had her friend. Who did that leave for her?
Who would care if she never returned from Blackveil? Her father and aunts would, but it wasn’t the same. What of King Zachary? He’d probably be relieved. He’d be able to move freely into the life he must begin with Estora without lingering thoughts of Karigan distracting him.
Karigan wouldn’t even have her horse soon.
She squeezed her eyes shut, now angry at herself for her self-pity, but she’d never felt more alone. The king could never be hers, and now Alton was out of reach. It was times like this she wished for her mother’s understanding and embrace.
She did not have her mother, but she had her mother’s moonstone. She removed it from her pocket and it suffused the space around her with the essence of a silver moon come to rest on Earth.
As if in answer, others blinked into bright life around her.
A glaring form of white stepped from the trees to stand before her. When Karigan’s eyes adjusted to the intensity, the form resolved into that of an Eletian clad in white armor.
ESTRAL AND ALTON
“ Grae,” Karigan murmured.
“ Galadheon,” the Eletian responded.
She was as Karigan remembered, flaxen hair bound in looping braids, snowy white feathers woven into them. Karigan became conscious of others closing around her. She stood slowly, guardedly, all too aware she carried no weapons. There had been those among the Eletians who wanted her dead. Were they here now?
Another Eletian she recognized, Telagioth, stepped up beside Grae. “You may call her Graelalea now,” he said.
“I have earned the passage,” Graelalea said.
Karigan must have looked so blank that the Eletian smiled. “Even among your people your names are altered through rites, are they not? Such as when a man and woman are partnered?”
“Yes,” Karigan said. However, at the moment she did not care what Grae or Graelalea called herself or why. “You’ve come . . . you’ve come to go into Blackveil tomorrow.”
Graelalea nodded, and to Karigan, the prospect of that journey was now made very real.
“We saw the light of the muna’riel,” Telagioth said. “We came to investigate what another Eletian might be doing here, only to find you.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“We are not disappointed,” Graelalea said,“but surprised.”
“You should not have it,” a new Eletian said in an accusing tone.
Karigan glanced at him. His hair was like fine strands of gold, and in some way he seemed younger to her, less wise in years than other Eletians she had met.