He had pried into the mind of this young innocent, a mind curiously unblocked and unprotected. He learned her loves and loathings, followed her memories. He saw much of Hadriax in her, his courage and sense of loyalty.

Betrayer.

Mornhavon fought to contain himself, to remind himself that Hadriax was long gone. This young woman, this Karigan, he could mold her and twist her mind, make her his, as Varadgrim was his. He could bind her to him, and end his loneliness. He would have her at his side when the wall failed.

The wild magic was within her, and all he’d have to do is control it. She would shed all notions of being a Green Rider. She would be his.

Wouldn’t this be his ultimate revenge against Hadriax? To pervert one of his own blood?

You will come, he whispered to her.

There was no sense of time within the wall. A day might have passed, or a million. The granite tried to coax Alton away from his work with its memories.

He barely remembered what it was like to live within a body of flesh, blood, sinew. He hardly remembered his name.

He did know that he must sing, that he must make the others sing with him. His voice resonated among the crystalline structures and carried through the entirety of the wall. He modulated his voice so it might overcome the others.

Sometimes when he paused, he heard their whispers around him: anxiety, suspicion, hatred. Why should they feel such for him when he was only trying to help?

Sometimes he pondered over the incongruity, but then an image of Karigan would come to him, and he knew he must continue his work for her. He could not disappoint her.

THROUGH THE BREACH

Laren couldn’t believe the devastation as they rode into the encampment at the D’Yer wall. Entire stands of forest had been toppled as if a giant’s hand had swept through it. Whole trees had been uprooted, some splintered to the size of tinder. Boulders, unmoved since the days of the great ice, had been rolled aside leaving gaping craters where they once rested.

When the wind turned toward them, they gagged on the stench of carrion. Even the wildlife had been unable to escape the catastrophe. Vultures circled overhead.

The downed forest opened up views of the wall, and her Riders were silent as they took it in. Laren hadn’t looked upon it in many a year, and even then, only at a distance. The sun glowed warmly on it, making it at once innocuous and magnificent.

Spoiling the effect was the breach, an imperfection that looked as if a god had reached down and ripped out a chunk of wall. Gray mist billowed through the wound over smashed rock and debris. The repaired section had not held during the destruction.

From the look of things, the power must have funneled right through it. She dared not think what would have happened if the rest of the wall hadn’t been standing to shield the countryside.

At the encampment itself, they were greeted by a fresh row of graves. Too many graves. Laren nudged Bluebird toward the wall, where soldiers stood guard. One broke off a conversation and started toward her. She met him halfway.

The soldier saluted. “Captain.”

“Corporal.”

“Corporal Hanson, ma’am.”

Laren nodded her acknowledgment.

“We are glad to see you,” Hanson said, “but we were hoping for a larger force. The soldiers here, they need relief.”

“We are here on reconnaissance, Corporal. We’ve had no word from the wall in quite a while.”

“Oh.” The corporal looked disappointed. “We sent a man up some time ago, first to Lord D’Yer, then to the king.” He did not speculate over what might have become of the messenger.

Laren swung off Bluebird, her Riders following her lead. “Tell me, Corporal, what is your situation? Who’s in command?”

“Captain Reems, ma’am. He was injured. I’ll see that he’s awakened and—”

“No, no. Don’t wake him. Surely you can brief me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Hanson spoke of great whirlwinds crashing through the breach, slashing through the encampment and forest. It was miraculous, he said, that anyone survived. Those who stood directly in the path of the fury had been stripped of their flesh.

They had spent most of their time since then trying to take account of the living and dead. One soldier emerged alive from beneath the rubble of the wall’s repaired section, while others had been impaled by splinters that had once been trees.

“We’ve also doubled our watch on the breach,” the corporal explained. “The creatures within, they want out. We killed some half a dozen ’mites. They know the wall has weakened, and that we have, too.”

“My Riders and I will help as we can,” Laren said, “and I’ll send one directly to the king with the news.”

Laren was about to pass on the assignment to Dale when a shout went up near the breach. The guards stood with crossbows cocked and aimed at a figure that stepped through it and over the rubble. Mist curled around him, veiling his features at first, then ebbing away. She froze, startled to the bone.

“Lord Alton!” Corporal Hanson cried. “It’s Lord Alton!”

Karigan experienced few moments of clarity. She had ridden much of the day in the dimness of his touch and call. Though she rode beside her fellow Riders, they could have been a million miles away. She was an island amid an expansive ocean. Isolated, except for him.

He must have been distracted by other things during those rare moments of clarity. She knew his mind was churning with plans. Plans to carry out when the wall was felled. Plans to make the world his. Churning, churning, churning like a wagon wheel, he made plans, and discarded them, or stored them away for later use. He planned that she be one of his tools, but she never figured out why he chose her.