TO MIRWELLTON

It hadn’t been easy saying farewell to Damian and Lady as they stood arm and arm on the front porch of their house, Ero sitting beside them. Fergal especially looked melancholy as he and Karigan set off, their saddlebags bursting with food from Lady’s kitchen.

Gus and Jericho guided them on the confusing network of trails to the main road that led to Mirwellton, and there they waved good-bye, leaving the Riders on their own. If Fergal was sad to leave the Frosts, Karigan dreaded this leg of the journey, at the end of which she would find her old school nemesis, Timas Mirwell, now lord-governor of Mirwell Province. He’d been spoiled and mean-spirited back in school, and she hated to think what a little power had done to him now. And here she was, more the commoner than ever in her Rider uniform.

It seemed appropriate that on the morning of their departure, a dusting of snow covered the hardening ground.

A week after leaving the Frosts, Karigan and Fergal arrived on the outskirts of Mirwellton beneath a sun that shed only cold light. The streets were churned and muddy and the buildings that lined it had a tired look, settled and sagging on their foundations, in need of a good whitewashing or fresh coat of paint. Above the roofs rose the blocky keep, which was the seat of power for the province’s lord-governor, scarlet pennants streaming from the towers.

Though it was Karigan’s right as a king’s messenger to request lodging there, she had no interest in sharing the same roof as Timas Mirwell. She’d seek rooms at an inn for her and Fergal.

As they rode toward the center of town, Karigan knew she was being childish to worry about Timas in this way, but she’d never really gotten over his mockery of her and his bullying ways. She almost laughed out loud at herself. She’d faced down warriors and thugs, even battled groundmites, not to mention dealt with spirits of the dead, and yet Timas Mirwell still held this power over her, to heighten her anxiety and fill her with loathing. She could not let on about her feelings, however, especially to Timas. She would embody the professional demeanor of a Green Rider to shield herself against anything he might say or do to ridicule her. Her uniform would be her strength, not a symbol of servitude.

They entered the town’s main square, which was paved and busy with shoppers. It was market day and the merchants hawked their wares in booths and beside carts. Dead chickens hung from one, while a nearby merchant haggled over sheep skins. Carcasses of pigs and cows were for sale, as well as tools and blankets and leather goods. Some dispirited looking farmers attended their carts of squashes, turnips, parsnips, and potatoes. Their supply was meager, and Karigan remembered Mirwell had had a poor season.

Nothing good ever comes out of Mirwell, was a common saying outside the province, and Karigan heard it most often uttered by her father. But it wasn’t the fault of the common people, and she felt sorry for the farmers.

Looming over the market was an immense fountain with a statue in its midst, of a heroic mounted figure of some Mirwell or other in full armor bearing a war hammer. The statue might have inspired more awe in Karigan if pigeons weren’t lined up on the war hammer and hadn’t left white splotches all over the warrior’s stern face. One pigeon roosted on the statue’s helm like a living plume.

Karigan and Fergal dismounted in front of a likely looking inn on the town square called The Fountain. She secured Condor to the hitching post and stretched her back, watching shoppers moving from stall to stall. She wouldn’t mind taking a look around herself. She could bring back some trinkets to amuse Mara.

She was thinking about how much currency she had left when Fergal gasped behind her. The next thing she knew, he was grabbing her arm and dragging her around the corner of the inn into a shadowed close.

“Fergal, what the—”

“Shhh!” he admonished her. “Did you see it?” His eyes were wide and he was visibly shaking.

“See what?” Karigan asked.

“Her.”

“Her who?”

“Out there,” he said, pointing toward the square.

Karigan went to the close entrance to look, but Fergal grabbed her again and yanked her back. “Careful,” he whispered.

What had gotten into him? Karigan pressed against the side of the inn and peered into the square. All was as it had been before—shoppers visiting vendors and pigeons sitting on the statue. A man bargained for a leather pouch at a nearby stall, and another purchased a pumpkin from a farmer. The scene was perfectly normal and could have been drawn in any Sacoridian town on market day.

“Fergal, I don’t see anything.”

He pointed a trembling finger toward the square, his face gone pale and perspiration beading on his temple. “There.”

She saw a cluster of people, a man balancing a towering stack of hats for sale on his head, and a woman paying for a new stoneware pitcher. A little girl walked hand-in-hand with an elderly woman, her grandmother perhaps, as they browsed beautifully dyed yarns.

“Fergal—” When she turned to speak to him, he staggered against the wall.

“I–I don’t feel so good,” he said, and he fell to his knees and retched up his midday meal, and maybe breakfast, too. He hadn’t complained of feeling sick before, and she was pretty sure he would have.

She steeled herself against the sour stench of vomit and knelt beside him, putting her hand on his shoulder. “You all right?”

He heaved once more, but nothing came up. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and when he looked at her, it was with an expression of horror that she’d never forget. He lurched away from her touch and scrabbled along on the cobbles, and collapsed in a heap.

Stunned, she followed after him. “What’s wrong?”

He glanced over his shoulder at her, his eyes haunted. “Darkness. You sink into it—all dark.” He hid his eyes from her.

What madness had come over him? Could a fever take hold and grip one in delirium so quickly? She grabbed a handful of his greatcoat and forced him to turn toward her, but he kept his gaze averted.

“Fergal!” she said, giving him a shake. Then she put her hand against his forehead and cheek, but he was not hot with fever. “Look at me, will you?”

He did not. She shook him again and he raised a hand as if to block a blow. Remembering his father the knacker, she released him and knelt before him. She gently put her hands on either side of his face to direct his gaze at her.

“Fergal, it’s me, Karigan. Look at me.”

He shut his eyes.

“It’s just me,” she said. “Look. The same Karigan you’ve been traveling with.”

He blinked and cringed. “Dark wings,” he whispered. A tear trailed down his cheek.

His words rattled her. What was he seeing? And why? “Whatever it is you see,” she said, “push it away, block it out. See me—Karigan, in green.”

Fergal tensed and squeezed his eyes shut, then with a shudder, looked at her again. He was about to speak when another’s presence entered the close.

Karigan whipped around with her sword half drawn, but she found only a man in an apron with an ale cask on his shoulder.

“There a problem?” he asked.

“My friend here is sick,” she said. It was true enough. “Do you work at the Fountain Inn?”

“I’m the proprietor,” he said.

“Then we’ll be wanting a couple rooms if they’re available.”

The rooms were cramped and the mattresses stale, but Karigan didn’t care. She made Fergal get into bed and brought up some broth for him. He wouldn’t look at her directly.

She sat in a chair, arms crossed.

“S–sorry about this,” he said, gripping his mug as if it were an anchor to reality.

“Do you still see—?”

He nodded. “Darkness. Around you.”

“Around anyone else?”

“No. Well, except the old lady.”

“What old lady?”

“The one in the square. I pointed her out to you.”

Karigan drummed her fingers on the armrest. There’d been numerous old ladies in the square shopping. “And you saw darkness around her, too?”

“Aye. No.” He started gagging again. Karigan rescued the mug from his hands before broth sloshed over the brim and scalded him. He curled his hands into fists and regained control. “I saw…all the worst things, vile things that crawl and slither. Dead things, dying things. The vermin that live on corpses.” He shuddered.

When it seemed he wouldn’t have another reaction, she returned his broth and dropped into her chair again.

“What’s wrong with me?” Fergal asked in a plaintive voice.

“Would you like to hear the whole list?”

It took him a few moments to realize she was joking, and he relaxed. “Guess I deserve that.”

She shrugged. “You haven’t been the easiest of traveling companions at times.”

“I know.” He looked into his broth.

“What I think your current problem is,” she said, “is that your special ability has emerged.”

“What? This? Making me sick?”

“Well, I don’t know what this is. I mean, I don’t know what the nature of your ability is, but it’s the only answer I can think of. The sickness, I think, is a reaction to your ability coming out. We talked about this, remember? My headaches?”

Fergal frowned.

“Hopefully your reaction,” she said, “won’t always be so severe.” On impulse she asked, “The darkness still there?”

“Fading,” he said. “I keep trying to push it to the back of my mind.”

“Is it…is it like what you saw around the old woman?”

Fergal shook his head. “Different. Like night. Endless. And there were the wings…”

Karigan shuddered as his voice trailed off. She had not realized how taut she’d been. “I guess we’ll learn more if anyone else makes you sick.”

She tried to make her words light, but as she left his room for her own, she knew that when one’s special ability emerged, it was often in response to a life-threatening situation. Not always, but often. She wondered what Fergal’s reaction saved them from this afternoon, and what his vision of darkness around her meant.