In Camelot’s Shadow: Book One of The Paths to Camelot Series (Prologue Fantasy) by Sarah Zettel

heart twinged at the thought. Odd — it was a small thing compared to leaving her parents. She rubbed her forehead. She must not distract herself with such thoughts. She must keep her wits about her, or she was lost.
    A soft knock sounded on the door.
    “Come,” she called.
    The door opened. In the threshold stood old Whitcomb. He was had been her father’s right hand for longer than Risa had been alive. His hair and long beard were iron grey turning to white, but he was still a bluff man with hard hands and eyes that could see a lazing stable hand through a stone fence.
    Those eyes took in the bulging leather satchel as she beckoned him inside, and they surely saw how white her face had gone.
    “So,” he said with a sigh as he closed the door. “It’s come home at last, has it?”
    Risa started. “What do you know of this?”
    The lines on Whitcomb’s kind face deepened until he looked as old as Methuselah. “I was there, my lady. I heard your father speak his bargain with that black sorcerer. I knew one day there would be a reckoning.” His gaze hardened. “I have searched the land whenever I had leave, hoping I might find him and put an end to this thing one way or another before …” It seemed he could not make himself finish.
    Risa felt her hands begin to shake once more. “I thank you for all you have done for me, though I knew of none of it. Now I must ask for your help again.” She took a deep breath. “I mean to leave tonight to seek sanctuary with the holy sisters at the monastery of St. Anne. I will take holy orders if I must.” She laid her satchel down beside the empty jewelry box. Surely there was enough inside to dower herself to Christ, if that was the only way the Mother Superior would shelter her. “I need you to go down and saddle a horse for me. Not Agamemnon,” she said, with another pang of regret at leaving behind her favorite steed. “That would cause too many questions.” Whitcomb could make a hundred excuses to ride out at any hour. She could not. It would be hard enough for her to sneak out into the yard without being seen. To ready a horse in the stables with the hands sleeping in the loft, or playing bones in the stalls would be impossible.
    If she was seen, she would be stopped, she was certain of that. Whitcomb was her one chance.
    “I will see to it, my lady,” said Whitcomb gravely.
    “Thank you.” She grasped both his hands and kissed him swiftly on his rough cheek. “I will be behind the brewing shed as soon as I may after the household goes to sleep.”
    “I will not fail,” he said, squeezing her hands.
    With that, he turned and opened the door. He looked sharply left, then right before he stepped into the corridor, leaving Risa alone once more.
    Risa swallowed. All her limbs felt suddenly heavy as lead.
Are these my choices? To be taken away by a black sorcerer to live or die at his whim, and who knows which would be worse? Or to live in silence behind stone walls swaddled in black and grey and to know only work and prayer?
    She squeezed her eyes shut, to stop the tears that threatened to flow freely.
Mother Mary, there must be another way. I beg you, send me a sign, some messenger that I may know what to do
.
    But if the Holy Virgin had an answer for her, Risa could not hear it.
    Harrik opened his eyes. Light flickered against pale canvas. Outside the wind whistled through the branches of winter trees, rattling their twigs. He lay on a bed of furs. A good fire burned in the center of the pavilion, scenting the enclosure with smoke … and something else. Something rare and unfamiliar that at once disturbed his mind and made him feel profoundly awake.
    Harrik sat up. His hands were not bound, which he would have expected, for surely he was a prisoner. He had no memory of how he had got here. He remembered finding the stone, and seeing the raven, but then all was darkness.
    The unfamiliar scent reached him again and he breathed it in. It was like cloves, and