“Then what do you call this?” Mara rested her hand on the staff. “Made by Weapons with their shield on it.”

“I’m not leaving the Riders if that’s what you’re worried about. My brooch hasn’t abandoned me.”

“I know, I know. I just worry about you as a Rider and a friend. You’ve been put into such a strange position with the knighthood. And then there’s the Weapons. It just seems like they’re trying to turn you into someone else.”

Karigan set the bucket of melting snow out of the way and glanced at the bean soup. A layer of fat had congealed on its surface as it cooled and she pushed the bowl aside.

“I don’t feel different,” Karigan said. “At least inside. My outside hurts, though.” When Mara did not laugh or even smile at the joke, she added, “The knighthood is just a title, and as you saw tonight, no one treats me any differently. In fact Yates seems to be working hard to keep me humble. In any case, I’m still pretty much the same old me.”

“Yes and no.”

“Yes and no?”

“The same but not unchanged.”

“I think that’s true for any of us who have been through some of the things we have,” Karigan said. She watched as Mara’s hand went to the burn scars on her face. The fire that leveled the old Rider barracks had changed her, and not just outwardly. How could it not?

“It’s not just you as you,” Mara said after some thought. “It’s ... Five hells. I just don’t want to lose my friend.”

Karigan was taken aback. She was surprised, surprised and touched to hear the words spoken aloud, that someone actually cared. She had come to the common room hoping for a little sympathy for her bruises and found instead something even more precious: a reaffirmation of friendship and knowledge that someone gave a damn.

Not that she ever doubted the Riders cared about her, despite the fact they often worked alone on far flung errands. She might go months without seeing Tegan or Garth, or even Mara who kept close to the castle, but there was always that sense of family, of inclusion, and the knowledge the Riders would watch her back.

Still, it made all the difference in the world just to hear it spoken aloud.

“Mara,” she said, rubbing a stray tear from her cheek, “no title or gift is going to change our friendship. You won’t lose mine. Ever.”

“I guess I know that,” Mara replied. “But Osric’s death is still fresh in my mind, and now you’re being sent into Blackveil.”

“Lynx and Yates, too,” Karigan murmured.

“I understand the reasons for the expedition, but I wish none of our people had to go.”

“I know. But it’s what we do. What we all do.”

After that they spoke quietly for a while of Karigan’s preparations, then each went to her separate chamber. Karigan lit a lamp and found Ghost Kitty nestled on her pillow. She stroked his head for a while reflecting on her day, the gift from the Weapons, and her conversation with Mara.

It was true she might not return from Blackveil; but there had been other occasions when she might not have returned from other adventures. Danger was part of the job. Knowing people cared—friends and family both—buoyed her, made it worth coming back alive.

It occurred to her that in the event she did not return, her loved ones might appreciate some final word from her. She would write letters—one to her father and aunts, and one to the Riders. She searched through the drawer of her desk for pen, ink, and paper, and using a book as a hard surface to write on, she sat on her bed and set to work, Ghost Kitty purring beside her.

Mainly she told them how much she loved and admired them. She needed them to know it. As she had just experienced with Mara, love and friendship was so often taken for granted that one could forget, or begin to believe otherwise.

In addition, her father would be angry, so she wanted to ensure he knew she’d gone into Blackveil willingly and believed in the mission. She could never tell him about it beforehand—he’d be an absolute wreck and she could easily imagine him coming to Sacor City to berate both Captain Mapstone and King Zachary for sending her, something to be avoided at all costs.

When she was done, she folded the letters into envelopes and sealed them with green wax. She tucked them into the drawer and was about to put away her writing supplies when she paused and decided to write a third.

This one was to King Zachary.

She was not sure what he thought of her, or whether or not he thought of her at all anymore. He had once told her he loved her, but then agreed to the contract to marry Lady Estora, and since then she’d seen little of him. It was for the best, she knew, but it did nothing to squelch the ache she felt for something, someone, she could never have. Much of the time she could put her sense of loss to the back of her mind by keeping busy, but it never totally went away, like the undercurrent of a fast moving stream.

She felt she must put it all down in writing for him. For herself. If something should happen to her, she would know at least this one thing was not left undone; that words that should be said were not left unspoken.

She poured into the letter her dreams, her desires, and her regrets. So many regrets. She expressed how she felt for him—had felt for him for so long now—and how she wished things could have been different if only he’d not been a king or she not a commoner. She did not forgive him for suggesting that one moonlit night on the castle roof that she become his mistress, but she expressed understanding for how their births to one class or another put them in difficult positions.