"He means-and is too polite to say it-gossip."
But Kayla felt the twinge of guilt that hid beneath the surface of those cheerful words, and her eyes fell to the saddlebags that his Companion bore without complaint. It occurred to her that the Companions and their Heralds seldom carried much food with them, for the villages who fed and housed them were reimbursed for their troubles, and at a rate that made it especially appealing for the poorer towns.
But when the man dismounted and unstrapped the bags from the side of his Companion, she knew, she just knew that they had been brought solely to be offered to Riverend. And she didn't like it, although she couldn't say why.
"Your pardon," he said, dipping his head slightly, "for my manners. My name is Carris."
"And her name?" She asked, staring at his Companion.
The Herald smiled. "Her name is Arana. She is a queen among Companions. And knows it," he added ruefully.
Kayla nodded quietly and turned away. "The hold is dark, even at this time of day; there is only one room with good windows. Shall I send for the mayor?"
"No. No, that isn't necessary. It's really an informal visit." Anne frowned. "And yes, I did know your mother. She was a very, very stubborn woman."
"You know that she died."
Anne nodded, and there was a very real weariness in the movement. "Aye, I know it."
But she added no more. Instead, she turned to her Companion and began to unstrap her saddlebags as well. They were equally heavy.
* * *
"I won't lie to you, Kayla," Anne said, as she took a seat while Kayla set to boiling water for the tea and herbal infusions that the Southerners often found too thin or too bitter. "I did not know your mother well. This has been my circuit for a number of years, and although we're often sent out on different routes, we become familiar with the villages along the King's roads.
"Your mother wasn't the mayor, but she was the center of Riverend. I never met a woman with a cannier sense of the dangers of living in such an isolated place-and I grew up a few towns off the Holderkin, so I'm aware of just how dangerous those fringes can be.
"But your mother had a great love for your father, and for the lands that produced him.
And she had a gift, as well, a...clear understanding of people." She hesitated, and Kayla felt it again, that low current beneath the words that seemed to move in a different direction from their surface. "A clearer understanding than perhaps most of us have." She waited.
Carris said nothing, but he did clear his throat.
"We've brought a few things that the village will find useful," he said at last, looking to just one side of her face, as if his dark and graceful gaze had become suddenly awkward.
"Magda often asked for aid for the rough times, and-and-she made it clear what was needed. There are medical herbs and unguents here, there are potions as well; there are bandages and cleansing herbs, as well as honest tea. There's salted, dried meat in the second bag; a lot of it, which might help. The harvest in the mainland has been...poor this year. There's also some money in the last bag."
"You shouldn't be telling me this," Kayla said quietly. "You should talk to Widow Davis; she's the mayor hereabouts, or what passes for one. She'll know what to do, and she'll be very grateful to you both."
They exchanged another glance.
"Well, then, maybe you'd better call for the Widow Davis after all."
Kayla smiled politely. "If you think she isn't already on her way, you don't know Riverend all that well."
* * *
But Kayla knew something was wrong.
The Widow Davis did, indeed, arrive; she scattered the children with a sharp inquiry about the current state of their chores, and an even sharper glance at the children who had the temerity to tell her they wanted to stay with the Companions, and then eyed the saddlebags the Heralds carried with an obvious, and deep, suspicion.
"Kayla, go mind the children. If you can't teach them to heed their duties, no one can. I'll deal with the strangers."
Kayla felt her jaw go slack, but she hid the surprise that had caused it as she nodded to the widow and retreated. These were Heralds, not medicants, and she had never heard the Widow Davis be rude to a Herald before. She was glad that the children had been sent back to their work.
She did not see the Heralds leave, but when she had time to glance outside again, they were gone, the white of their uniforms, and the white of Companion coats, little glimpses into the heart of winter, a hint of the future.
And when she at last tucked in for bed, she fought sleep with a kind of dread that she hadn't felt since she had slept in the arms of her own mother, at a time of life so far removed it seemed centuries must have passed. The nightmares had been strong then; they were strong now.
Many of the village children dreamed. They found a place in her lap when they wished to make sense of all the things that occurred only after they closed their eyes, and she had spent years listening, with both wonder and envy, to the hundreds of broken stories that occupied their dreamscapes.
Not so her own.
* * *
She had two dreams.
There was a black dream and a white dream, set against the mountain's winter.
As a child, the black dreams were frightening, bewildering; she would wake from sleep to search for her mother; it never took long. Her mother would come, precious candle burning, and sit by the side of her bed.
"What did you dream of, Kayla?"
"The dragon."
She had never seen a dragon; the stories that the old wives told described them as terrible, ancient beasts who had long since vanished from the face of the free lands. Books in the hold were so rare they were seldom seen, and books with pictures tipped in were rarer still.
But there was something in the shape of shadow that reminded her of those pictures.
"What was he doing?"
"Crying."
"Ah. Try not to listen too carefully, Kayla. Dragon tears are a terrible thing."
"I think...he's lonely."
Her mother's smile was shallow, even by candlelight. "Dragons are lonely; they sit on their cold, cold gold, their hard jewels, and they never come out to play."
"He would," she would tell her mother, "if he could find us."
"I think it best that he never find us, Kayla. Riverend is no place for such a creature."
* * *
The white dreams were different.
The snows were clearer and cleaner, and the pines that guarded the pass stretched beyond them to cut moonlight and hide it. But the light was strong enough to see by, and she always saw the same thing: the white horse.
He was the color of snow, of light on snow. And in the hold, in this place just one edge of rock and mountain, where spring came and went so quickly and summer's stretch was measured in weeks, snow was the color of death. Even as a child, she had understood that.
He did not speak to her until her father died.
"You can talk?"
Yes. A little. It is difficult now. But... :I heard your voice, little one. I heard your singing.:
"Singing?"
:Aye, song, a dirge, I think, to break the heart for its softness. I heard you sing years ago, and your song was so light and so joyful, I waned all of my compatriots to stand, to listen, to feel. There was such love in that song. And in this one. In this one, too.: She knew what he spoke of, and said nothing, but looked down at the back of her hands. They were child's hands; smooth and unblemished by calluses and dirt. Because it was a dream, she did not ask him how he had come to hear her heart's song.
:If I asked you to come with me, what would you do?:
And because she understood something of the nature of dreaming, she allowed herself to be honest. "If you had asked me as a child, I would have tendered a child's answer. But I have children now, and they need me greatly, and you are not a creature to be confined to a place like Riverend."
He had met her eyes with eyes, she thought, tha
t saw whole lives as if they were the course rivers ran, beginning to end, and he might map them out, might remark on where the rapids lay, and where the oceans, at last, waited, for the movements of rivers to cease. And he said, :Tonight then, dear heart, I will not ask.:
But she knew that the time was coming when he would, and she was afraid of it.
Because Riverend was her home, and she wanted to leave.
* * *
He came to her often in her dreams after that, and she spoke with him, he with her. But his was not the only dream which changed.
For one night, huddled alone in the cold, she dreamed the black dream, and it was different: The dragon took flight. It searched; it searched for her. She could hear it roar when it opened its lips, and its voice was a song of death and desire.
And when it sang, she heard over voices as well, thin and terrible, the wailing of children, of grown men reduced to that earlier state, of women whose losses were so profound that silence-even the silence of the grave- seemed to offer mercy. They were lost, these voices; she knew it. They were lost to the devourer, the shadow, the dragon.
And if she were not careful, if she were not silent as mouse, and hidden in the darkness of a hold's small room, it would find her, it would consume her, and it would add her voice to its song.
She woke, sweating, her voice raw; the walls of the hold were solid, but she could hear footsteps in the halls beyond her room. They paused a moment outside her door, but no one knocked; no one entered. Her mother was gone.
* * *
After that, she dreamed of the darkness often. It grew stronger and stronger, and she, weaker.
On the morning of the worst of these dreams, the Heralds had come with their ominous gifts, and she had left them with Widow Davis.
Tonight, the darkness had not yet fallen across the field of her vision. He was waiting for her, cold beauty.
She felt the howl of winter wind through passes closed by snow and storm; memory of spring and summer faded until only the cold remained, essential and eternal. The ice glittered from the heights of the mountains' peaks; caught light in a skirt around the fringes of the evergreens that stretched a hundred feet in height to the edge of her vision.
The snow did not swallow him; is weight did not bear him down, down through the thin crust of snow. Silent, he waited for her.
As he always waited.
But it was different, tonight, and she knew it.
She said, "You cannot carry an Oathbreaker."
He met her gaze and held it, but she heard no voice, and she found the absence unsettling, for in dreams like these, she had spoken to him for much of her life.
"Did you send the Heralds? Did they bring gifts that were meant to take my place?"
He offered no reply.
And she was afraid. Her arms were cold; the day was fading. Night in the mountains was bright, if not brighter, by moonlight, but the colors-winter colors, to be sure-were leached from the landscape until only shades of gray remained beneath the black and white of sky and star.
"This is no dream," she said quietly, the question a shadow across the words.
He nodded.
She did not know what to feel; the winter had settled deep within her.
* * *
In the morning, he came. He came after breakfast had been prepared, but before the miners had gathered in the hold; the sun cut crisp, long shadows against the sparse growth.
The children carried word of his presence from one end of the village to the other, but they came in numbers to where Kayla cleaned the heavy ceramics that held the morning porridge. Kayla quietly washed and dried her hands, while smaller hands tugged at her apron's hem and strings.
"There's a Companion in Riverend!" Tess said, her dark eyes wide and round.
"I know," Kayla told her softly, bending and gathering her in shaking arms.
"It's got no Herald!" Evan added. "lt's got no rider!"
"I know," Kayla replied. She straightened.
"Everyone wants to see it. Do you think it's come searching?"
"Aye, little, I think it's come searching."
"For who?" Tess asked, insistent, and unaware of the stillness of Kayla's expression.
"Do you think he'll take Evan away?"
Evan was her older brother, by about four years. "Not yet."
"Too bad."
She laughed. "I'm sure Evan thinks so, too."
"But do you think he's lost his Herald? Do you think he needs help? Do you think-"
"I think," she said, "that he'll have died of old age before I can see him if I answer all your questions first."
"Just one more?"
"One more."
"Do you think he'll let me ride?"
"No, little, I think you'll fall off his back, and Companions aren't in the business of visiting villages just to injure the dearest of their people." She kissed the girl's forehead, just as she would have once kissed the forehead of her youngest.
Tess wrapped her arms around Kayla's neck. "But what do you think he wants?"
"I think," she said quietly, "that we'll find out soon. Now hush."
* * *
Widow Davis was there, in the clearing by river's side. The river itself, cold and loud, was a thin one, but it was clear and the water, fresh. She looked up when Kayla approached, her eyes narrowed and wrinkled by exposure to wind, to cold, and yes, to the scant sun. "Well, then," she said, "You've heard."
"I've...heard."
"Your mother told me," the widow said, turning back to her bucket.
"Told you?"
"To be careful of the Companions."
"They're not evil, Widow Davis."
"No, I'm certain of it. All of our stories say so, and they've come to the aid of the village at least three times in my living memory." She was silent a moment. "But this will be the first time they take more than they offer."
"Widow Davis-"
The old woman's look stopped her flat. "Come on, then. You're here, and we might as well have it out." She offered Kayla an arm; Kayla shifted Tess to one side and took it.
Together they crossed the uneven ground that led from stream to the shadows cast by the tall, white Companion, caparisoned in livery of blue and sliver, belled so his movements might evoke a sense of music, a sense of play. But his eyes were dark, and large as the palms of a child's hand, and he did not blink when he turned his massive head toward the two women Children dogged their steps, crossed their shadows, whispered eagerly and quickly amongst themselves. Not even the dour expression of the Widow Davis could silence them completely.
The widow's hand tightened; Kayla's arm began to tingle. She did not, however, ask the old woman to let go.
"He's here for you, girl," the woman said, pulling her arm free Kayla looked up at the Companion, and then she reached out with her free hand. Her fingers stopped inches from his nose, and she let that hand fall. She said, quietly, "Do I have to go with you?"
He looked into her eyes and said, in a voice that made all song seem flat and thin,
:The choice is yours.
:I have waited long for this day. I have waited, bright heart, and promised myself that I would let you lead the life the mountain would give you.
:But I have heard your cries from across the continent; I have been with you when you buried your dead, when you cradled the living that you knew you could not hold on to.: She looked up at his eyes; his gaze never wavered. "You know that this choice is no choice."
He was silent a moment; she thought he would offer no answer. And then, quietly, he said, :Better than you would understand.:
"Because the choice has always been yours to make."
:Because the Companions Choose, yes.:
"And the Heralds?"
:They are Chosen. But they feel the bond, and they desire it, and they accept it for all that it is; all that it can be.:
"And my oath?" she asked him, voice steady, arm now drawing on an young child for support.
&nbs
p; :There are oaths that are made that cannot be kept in the manner that their maker envisioned. If a child promises to love you, and only you, for all of forever, could you hold him to that vow? Would you desire it?:
"I was no child when I made that vow."
:Dear heart,: he said gently, :you are barely an adult now, and you made that vow when your older brother moved away, long before you had husband or children.: He stepped forward, and she shied away.
Because she wanted what he offered.
Because she had never wanted anything so badly. :I choose you, Kayla.: She heard the song of his name, although she had never asked it of him, and he had never offered it-as if they both understood, in the dreams of her youth, that his name was a binding they had avoided by careful dance until this moment.
"Darius."
Widow David coughed. The old woman's face was set in its harshest lines. In the distance, children that had been silent until that moment surged forward as Kayla did; they came in a press of small bodies, eager and excited.
But she knew that they would understand it truly later.
For now, all they said was, "You're to be Chosen, Kayla? You're going to be a Herald?
Will you wear white? Will you have a sword? Will you have a bow?"
She answered all questions gravely, until one lone boy spoke. Evan.
"Will you come back?"
"Yes," she said, fiercely. "Often. I will come back with a saddlebag full of Northern toys and treats and books, and I will come at the edge of winter, just before they close the passes, like some foolish, green merchant."
Darius had saddlebags. She knew, without looking, that they were full; full enough for a long journey.
"Widow Davis," she said softly. "Can you do without me?"
The old woman had some mercy. "Aye," she said gruffly. "We did before your mother came. We managed." She started to say something else, and then stopped. "They must need you, Kayla, They must need you even more than we do."
Kayla said nothing.
Because she knew a lie when she heard it. What could they need from her that a hundred other girls. couldn't give them? They had Heralds, full-trained; they had soldiers, they had lords, ladies, Kings. They had so much.
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