That night, Estral did sing, backing herself with a small traveling lute, her voice clear and unwavering. She sang songs that were soothing and did not bring great sorrow upon the encampment’s inhabitants. She also sang songs of strength, recalling heroic deeds and great warriors of eons past.

Alton found her singing and playing was heartening and realized he’d gone far too long without hearing such quality music. He also had to admit it was intriguing to meet someone from Karigan’s “other life,” someone she had known well before becoming a Green Rider. What had she been like in those days? Oh, he’d gotten the hint she wasn’t the best or most compliant of students while at Selium, but what details might Estral Andovian reveal if asked? What details that only a best friend could know?

It was tempting to allow Estral to remain. The gods knew they could all use the musical entertainment she would provide and the tales she could tell, but he could not allow these desires to cloud his judgment. No, Estral must leave. The wall was no place for civilians, musical or otherwise.

In the middle of her performance, Alton retrieved his horse, Night Hawk, for the ride to the secondary encampment at Tower of the Heavens. When he mounted, he could not say what ballad Estral sang, but the tone of the lute blending with her voice stirred something in him. Resonated. Not only that, but it was almost as if the voices in the wall hummed with it.

He shook the sensation off and reined Night Hawk away, the music fading behind him.

KARIGAN SAID

The next morning after a private breakfast in his tent, Alton stepped outside, stretching his back and shoulders. The weather was fine, and if it kept up, there would soon be no snow left at all. The late winter chill freshened the air and he breathed deeply. Most inhabitants of the encampment were up and about attending to their various duties which brought to Alton the sound of an ax splitting wood for cook fires and the clink-clink-clink of a farrier working a horse shoe over by the pickets. He caught snatches of conversation from guards on duty by the wall and heard the sloshing of a bucket being emptied somewhere behind the row of tents.

He decided the plan for this morning would be to enter Tower of the Heavens and comb once again through the book of Theanduris Silverwood. He feared missing something vital, some clue that could help him repair the wall.

On the edge of his vision he caught someone strolling toward him. He’d almost forgotten about Estral Andovian.

“Good morning,” she said in her pleasant voice.

“Morning,” Alton replied. When she halted before him, he noted daylight deepened the green of her eyes.

“It’s very impressive,” she said, gazing toward the wall. “You hear about the wall, but it really takes seeing it to get the full effect. Words just don’t do it justice.”

It was true. It dominated all else, soaring skyward and vanishing into the clouds as though raised from the Earth by the gods, stark, monumental, forbidding. The Tower of the Heavens shot upward like a spear shaft to infinite heights. The wall and tower, however, were not a creation of the gods, but the handiwork of Alton’s own very human ancestors. He wondered how many of them were among the sacrificed whose souls still inhabited stone. He would never know, for those souls were no longer individuals. They had become one, united in song to keep the wall strong.

“I chose right to come here,” Estral murmured.

That may be, Alton thought, but she must shortly be on her way. This was no tourist spot like the hot springs in her home city of Selium. He thought back to how several of his fellow citizens had treated the wall as just that, like a holiday in the country, until an avian creature out of nightmare had flown over the breach and killed one of them. An innocent. A young lady. After that, the holiday revelers had dispersed and the rule forbidding civilians at the wall came into existence. Alton was relieved by the ruling, for it did not take much to remember the tortured screams of that young woman. He closed his eyes, hearing them now, until he felt Estral Andovian’s gaze upon him. He frowned when he realized she must have been gazing at him for some time.

“I don’t recall Karigan describing you as the brooding, silent type,” she said.

Just what had Karigan told her? And what could he say in response that didn’t sound defensive? He decided the safest course was to ignore her comment.

“I trust you had a satisfactory breakfast?” he asked instead.

“Very nice. And Dale was the perfect hostess.”

“Good. Well, it was very nice to meet you, but I’m sure you are ready to be on your way to make the best use of daylight.”

She stared blankly at him, as if surprised by the suggestion she leave, despite his adamance of the previous night.

“I’d like to stay,” she said.

“That is impossible, as we discussed. You saw the danger. This is no place for a civilian.”

“But I’m not exactly a civilian.”

“Are you a member of the D’Yer militia?” he asked.

“No.”

“Are you a Sacoridian regular?”

“Well, no.” Then she smiled. Alton was suspicious of that smile—it looked like trouble. “The Golden Guardian supports the king’s forces with trained musicians who entertain, parade, and play drum and pipe during battle. So technically we are attached to the military.”

She was creative, he had to give her that much. “There are no musicians assigned to either encampment. I am sorry, my lady, but I am in command here on behalf of my father and I must insist you leave.”