there.” She gestured vaguely to indicate the countryside. “Ever since the trouble at the D’Yer Wall, you do hear about more sightings of the Elt. Even near Corsa. But maybe they’ve always been out there and just didn’t show themselves. Maybe they befriended your mother and that’s how she came to possess the crystal.”
It was as good an explanation as any, Karigan thought. Eletians did wander, and had, as her aunt suggested, always been “out there,” even though for most Sacoridians, they inhabited only legends. They’d become more apparent after the D’Yer Wall was breached, no longer characters in fairy tales and songs, but very alive, and very real.
She tightened her fingers around the moonstone and rays of light thrust out like blades between them. Her mother wanted it to come to her. Her mother had called it by the Eletian name, muna’riel.
And Karigan had thought her father kept secrets.
CURSED
A t Aunt Stace’s encouragement, Karigan went downstairs to have some breakfast. Food did much to restore her spirits. While she ate, Aunt Stace insisted she show the moonstone to her other aunts. The moment it left her hands and passed into theirs, its light extinguished and it became nothing more than an exquisite lump of crystal.
She did not know what to make of it. Why, she wondered yet again, did moonstones light up for her when they would not for others?
Laurelyn-touched, Somial had said.
It filled her with a sense of something larger going on, something beyond her own ken. She felt caught in a story not of her own making, powerless to direct her own destiny. She shuddered. She did not like it when outside forces intervened in her life, like the Rider call.
“Ugh,” she said. Maybe she was reading too much into it, but so much had happened in her life in recent years that the feeling wasn’t easy to dismiss.
After breakfast, she wandered from the kitchen into the main hall, fiddling with the moonstone in her pocket, and soon found herself standing in the doorway of her father’s office. Since she had no ready answers for the mysteries surrounding the moonstone, and little else to do with her idle time, she decided to at least try to distract herself by looking through the family collection of books.
Her father was still out and about and so she had no compunction about entering his domain. She strode in and over to the shelves, and as her gaze slipped across the spines of numerous leatherbound volumes, she was conscious of the portrait of her mother behind her father’s desk. She almost felt a sensation of being watched, of someone peering over her shoulder. Maybe it was having handled her mother’s gown earlier and talking about her that made her feel so present. Karigan tried to shake off the feeling, but couldn’t quite, so she focused her attention as best she could on the books.
The G’ladheon library held numerous old ledgers and her father’s copy of Wagner’s Navigation. Karigan used to love leafing through it to look at the charts bound within, with their vibrant colors and drawings of fantastical sea creatures. There were also some histories and books on commerce on the shelves, and another favorite, Amry’s Book of Leviathans, which contained intricate prints of all the porpoises and whales that inhabited the deeps. It was a venerable guidebook found on many a whaling ship.
There were few novels, but Karigan’s gaze was drawn to her favorite, The Adventures of Gilan Wylloland. She pulled it off the shelf; the leather cover was dyed a deep green, and the pages were edged with gold.
She sat with the book in her father’s armchair, flipping through pages worn by her own numerous readings. The book told of the unlikely exploits of Gilan and his sidekick, Blaine, as they traveled around the imaginary land of Arondel slaying dragons, rescuing princes and princesses, running off outlaws, and the like.
It occurred to Karigan that Gilan and Blaine did not seem to have any
It was as good an explanation as any, Karigan thought. Eletians did wander, and had, as her aunt suggested, always been “out there,” even though for most Sacoridians, they inhabited only legends. They’d become more apparent after the D’Yer Wall was breached, no longer characters in fairy tales and songs, but very alive, and very real.
She tightened her fingers around the moonstone and rays of light thrust out like blades between them. Her mother wanted it to come to her. Her mother had called it by the Eletian name, muna’riel.
And Karigan had thought her father kept secrets.
CURSED
A t Aunt Stace’s encouragement, Karigan went downstairs to have some breakfast. Food did much to restore her spirits. While she ate, Aunt Stace insisted she show the moonstone to her other aunts. The moment it left her hands and passed into theirs, its light extinguished and it became nothing more than an exquisite lump of crystal.
She did not know what to make of it. Why, she wondered yet again, did moonstones light up for her when they would not for others?
Laurelyn-touched, Somial had said.
It filled her with a sense of something larger going on, something beyond her own ken. She felt caught in a story not of her own making, powerless to direct her own destiny. She shuddered. She did not like it when outside forces intervened in her life, like the Rider call.
“Ugh,” she said. Maybe she was reading too much into it, but so much had happened in her life in recent years that the feeling wasn’t easy to dismiss.
After breakfast, she wandered from the kitchen into the main hall, fiddling with the moonstone in her pocket, and soon found herself standing in the doorway of her father’s office. Since she had no ready answers for the mysteries surrounding the moonstone, and little else to do with her idle time, she decided to at least try to distract herself by looking through the family collection of books.
Her father was still out and about and so she had no compunction about entering his domain. She strode in and over to the shelves, and as her gaze slipped across the spines of numerous leatherbound volumes, she was conscious of the portrait of her mother behind her father’s desk. She almost felt a sensation of being watched, of someone peering over her shoulder. Maybe it was having handled her mother’s gown earlier and talking about her that made her feel so present. Karigan tried to shake off the feeling, but couldn’t quite, so she focused her attention as best she could on the books.
The G’ladheon library held numerous old ledgers and her father’s copy of Wagner’s Navigation. Karigan used to love leafing through it to look at the charts bound within, with their vibrant colors and drawings of fantastical sea creatures. There were also some histories and books on commerce on the shelves, and another favorite, Amry’s Book of Leviathans, which contained intricate prints of all the porpoises and whales that inhabited the deeps. It was a venerable guidebook found on many a whaling ship.
There were few novels, but Karigan’s gaze was drawn to her favorite, The Adventures of Gilan Wylloland. She pulled it off the shelf; the leather cover was dyed a deep green, and the pages were edged with gold.
She sat with the book in her father’s armchair, flipping through pages worn by her own numerous readings. The book told of the unlikely exploits of Gilan and his sidekick, Blaine, as they traveled around the imaginary land of Arondel slaying dragons, rescuing princes and princesses, running off outlaws, and the like.
It occurred to Karigan that Gilan and Blaine did not seem to have any
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