She found the Rider wing quiet. Many of her Riders were out on errands, several paired with new Riders-in-training. The empty corridor and closed doors left her feeling desolate, but she walked on.

A blur of white fur streaked past her feet. She jumped aside, her heart clamoring in her chest. The creature—a cat?—darted through a doorway standing ajar and into the room beyond. Laren peered in, and realized the room was Karigan’s. Two globes of gold-blue gazed back at her. She opened the door all the way and the corridor’s lamplight revealed the cat nestled in a clump on Karigan’s bed. It watched her every move, tensed to leap away if she came too close.

“Huh.” Laren left the door cracked open, and headed on to the common room where she found Connly, his heels upon the hearth and a mug of tea cupped in his hands.

“Captain!” He stood in surprise and she gestured he should sit. She pulled up a rocking chair to sit next to him.

“Since when did Karigan take in a cat?” she asked him.

Connly snorted. “I don’t think she knows she has. It sleeps there on her bed most every day. Sometimes we find it here at the hearth. We leave it scraps and water. We think it lives in the abandoned corridors. It’s not bothering anyone.”

“I suppose.” Laren’s thoughts were already plunging back into the realm’s troubles. She rocked absently, only half listening as Connly updated her on the doings of the Riders.

She had approved of Lady Estora confronting Zachary yesterday. She had approved of her spirit, and had thought Zachary was being overprotective. It surprised her, really, for he had done little else to recognize her status. Giving over his study to her had been a compassionate move, which Laren had applauded, and there had been the obligatory appearances at state and social events, but otherwise he had reached out very little to her.

Should this crisis pass and Lady Estora return unharmed, she planned to have a long talk with him no matter how unhappy it made him. If Lady Estora was to share power with him, he must bring her in on meetings, have her sit beside him during public audiences. She needed to hear the voices of the common folk and their troubles, to see the mechanics of her country at work.

Then there was the conversation Laren intended to have with Lady Estora herself, the one about revealing the secret. She had not yet approached the young noblewoman, thinking there was plenty of time, and she’d had so many other immediate concerns—duties to attend to, meetings to sit through, problems to be solved. Now she was sorry she’d never gotten a chance to speak with her.

Until Lady Estora returned to them healthy and unharmed, it was all moot anyway.

“—and I don’t see us making any progress with Ben and the horses,” Connly said.

She shifted in her chair becoming aware of where she was again. “Ben,” she said.

Connly glanced sideways at her. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

“You were talking about Ben and horses.”

Connly laughed. “Yes, at the very end. Don’t worry, there wasn’t anything terribly important. Not like the other news of the day.”

“Could you tell me again? Tell me what my Riders have been up to?”

Connly started over and this time she listened, and listened closely and engaged herself in the routine and the mundane. It was a relief from the day’s greater, more threatening events.

AUBRY CROSSING

The Green Cloak’s sheltering growth was a distant memory for Karigan and Fergal as they forged ahead into stiff winds that swept out of the arctic lands in the far north and cut through the Wanda Plains and into western Sacoridia like a scythe of ice. Only patches of trees, stripped of their leaves, lent some protection, but the farther north and west they traveled, the more the land opened up, and the more fierce the wind became.

The horses didn’t seem to mind the cold in the least. Their coats had fluffed up almost overnight. Both Riders, had donned their fur-lined greatcoats against the chill and wrapped scarves around their faces. There were, fortunately, adequate inns along the way to provide them shelter from the cutting wind and a chance to warm up.

Karigan halted Condor beside a signpost, its arms pointing east and west along the road, a third arrow pointing northwest toward a narrower dirt track. The sign boards creaked in the wind.

“Ten miles to Aubry Crossing,” Karigan told Fergal.

“What?” he shouted.

Karigan fought to not roll her eyes. She pointed to her ear.

“Oops, sorry,” Fergal said, and he pulled tiny wads of linen he used to block the wind from his ears, which he said made his ears ache.

“I said,” and Karigan pointed at the signpost, “ten miles to Aubry Crossing.”

“Oh.” He appeared unaffected by the news and stuffed his ears again.

Now Karigan did roll her eyes. She for one was relieved to be closing in on their next destination. She’d be glad to get out of this wind for a while. She reined Condor onto the spur leading northwest and nudged him into a leisurely jog, Fergal and Sunny following close behind.

Aubry Crossing was a minor border town between Sacoridia and Rhovanny. To the south was Lecia, the primary border crossing between the two countries.

Aubry Crossing was, as Captain Mapstone described, a small town with a few inns and outfitters. There were some rough houses on either side of the road, and that was about it, except for the barracks at the boundary gate.

Karigan stopped at an outfitter’s and asked for directions to Damian Frost’s place. When she rejoined Fergal outside, she patted Condor’s neck and said, “Well, that was a bit convoluted.”