Sorrow and loneliness turned to surprise and hope, and led to more probing.

She staggered when it finally released her. A residue of that touch clung to her like moist, black roots. A residue of dark intelligence.

Karigan tried to shudder it off, but could not. Her left arm prickled insistently.

She pushed on toward Rider barracks along the well worn path, caught in a fog. When she entered, she found Yates and Justin in the common room playing Intrigue. As she gazed at their pieces arrayed on the board, she suddenly saw patterns and strategies as she never had before. On impulse she pulled up a chair and started setting up the third set of pieces—the red—while Yates and Justin gaped at her in surprise.

“I thought—” Yates began. He and Justin passed a look between them, shrugged, and started repositioning their own pieces to start anew.

The game ran fairly swiftly in terms of Intrigue. Some matches were known to last for months and even years. Karigan dominated the entire game, first attacking Yates, the stronger player, and lulling Justin into thinking she had formed an alliance with him. With the two-pronged attack against Yates, he was quickly weakened, and though Karigan sacrificed some of her own pieces, she set up the attacks so Justin sacrificed more than she.

It was almost a miracle how she could formulate strategy, as though she’d suddenly been endowed with the ability. Instead of seeing disparate, individual pieces, she saw patterns drawn on the gameboard like the lines of a map she could follow. It was so clear to her now—why hadn’t she seen it all before? How could she have missed it? How easy it was to annihilate Yates’ knights, assassins, infantry, courtiers, and archers, and how easy it would be to do the same to Justin.

When Yates finally surrendered, she turned on Justin, pulling him into an intricate trap that killed off more than half his pieces. He gazed at her slack-jawed, even as she moved in to take his king.

Afterward, she slumped in her chair exhausted.

“You’re the most merciless Triad I’ve ever played with,” Yates told her in awe.

“She’s not the Triad,” Justin said, “she’s an empress.” He looked up at her. “I thought you didn’t like this game.”

Karigan gazed at the game board as if seeing it for the first time and could not believe the carnage. She had led a conquest, taking over all of Yates’ and Justin’s countries. She had done it with trickery and cunning, and excellent strategy. She had been cold and calculating.

A part of her congratulated herself on doing what was necessary to expand her holdings and win domination. There had been major casualties, but that was the price of power.

Another part of her was so appalled her stomach lurched.

Abruptly she pushed away from the table and sprinted from the common room, leaving behind two baffled Riders.

She ran into her room and slammed the door shut behind her. She felt so—so unclean—tainted even. That hadn’t been her who played so ruthlessly, had it? She hated the game, and whenever she was coaxed into playing it, she always lost. Except this one time.

“Madness,” she said.

She went to her table and grabbed her mirror to see if she had sprouted horns since the last time she looked.

The mirror had once belonged to her mother, a wedding gift from her father, part of a beautiful silver dressing set, etched with wildflowers. Karigan remembered, as a little girl, slipping out of bed and peering into her parents’ room. There in the candlelight sat her mother on the corner of the bed in a white shift, looking into the mirror and giggling while her father tenderly brushed her long, brown hair. Karigan had watched, enraptured, until one of her aunts found her and sent her back to bed with a pat on her bottom.

Karigan smiled at the memory. It lent her balance. But when she looked into the silvered glass of the mirror, it was not her own face she saw.

The power of Blackveil is rising, said the face in the mirror.

Karigan squawked and flung the mirror across the room. It stopped a hair’s breadth from smashing against the wall. It hung there, floating in the air.

Madness, madness, madness, she thought.

It got worse. The mirror floated straight toward her as though carried by a phantom’s hand. Karigan raced for the door, but the mirror flew there before her, and advanced on her again. She backed away, until she got wedged between her wardrobe and the wall.

The mirror “faced” her. Blue-green eyes peered out at her, from leonine features framed by tawny hair. A face Karigan had seen a thousand years in the past.

Time is short, Lil Ambrioth said, before the door closes again, so listen to me for once, hey?

Inanely Karigan wanted to know what door.

You’ve been touched by the influence of Blackveil—resist it! I will help as I can, but it is up to you to resist—

Lil’s face vanished and the mirror plummeted toward the floor. Karigan snatched it from mid-air. She pressed it to her chest, and slid down the wall to sit dazed on the floor.

Barston Grough puffed on his pipe as he took in the dimming light of day over the rolling grasslands of Mirwell Province. The stem of his pipe fit comfortably between a gap in his teeth, and white smoke twisted up into the air.

Polly and Bill watched over the flock, tongues lolling, alert for wanderers or predators. Sheep bleated and munched on the grass with great contentment. Their woolly backs sheened against the lush grasses in the waning light.

Barston was as content as a ram this fine summer evening. In a couple of days he and the collies would bring his fat, woolly flock to market in Dorvale, and he’d get himself a bulging purse in return.