“Yes, I suppose I have. It’s an honor to serve the king.”

“And not just because you’re in love with him?”

“WHAT?” Karigan rocked backward as if struck.

“As I thought,” Estral murmured.

Karigan placed her hand on a shelf to steady herself. “Five hells! How can you—”

“Something in your face, your eyes, changes when he is mentioned, and your reaction confirms for me how you feel about him; that it goes beyond duty and respect for your monarch.”

Karigan sagged. “Do you have some time?”

“I’ve no classes today,” Estral said, “and we’d better sit. I’m tired of holding this lamp.”

They returned to the chamber with the alcove and sat on stools at the worktable. “This is not song fodder for your minstrels,” Karigan said. “It is between you and me.”

“You have my promise I’ll keep it to myself,” Estral replied.

Karigan let flow all the feelings she had kept inside, her blossoming realization of her feelings for the king; his expression of love for her one night on the castle rooftop. She told Estral how he had attempted to present to her an all-too intimate gift even as his signature was drying on the marriage contract with Clan Coutre. She railed against the divisions between nobility and common blood.

“I’m so stupid,” she said. “To even think—to even hope.”

Estral, who remained silent through the entire thing, said, “Love is not stupid. It’s just difficult when it happens this way. I think you’re doing the right thing, trying to get on with life and beyond something that can’t happen. I’ve no wisdom to offer, I’m afraid, just sympathy for my dear friend. It is hard that the matter of birth to one bloodline or another determines our path in society, but we have no say in to whom we are born, just as we have no say in who our distant ancestors are.”

Estral may claim to lack wisdom, but her words quieted the conflict inside Karigan. Estral was right: one did not have control over the matter of one’s birth, and to be angry and frustrated about it was futile. It would change nothing. Maybe if she were more accepting of life as it was, as she now accepted being a Green Rider, it would ease her heart.

Telling someone about it all also relieved her. She had not realized the weight she had carried by keeping it all inside her, how miserable these feelings for King Zachary had made her. Telling Estral freed her as telling another Rider friend could not. The Riders were bound to the king’s service, too close to him, and revealing her secret to them would be humiliating.

“Well, Old Mother,” Karigan said, her spirits lighter, “it’s chilly down here. Shouldn’t we go into town for some tea and sweets?”

Estral slowly smiled. “My inner wisdom tells me this is a very good idea.”

And laughing, they left behind the darkness of the archives.

Before the pair headed into town, Estral needed to speak with one of the assistant curators on some business for her father. She promised she’d be quick.

Karigan waited for her in the corridor outside the curatorial office, not exactly pacing, but strolling its length with her hands clasped behind her back. Portraits lined the walls—portraits of old school masters, she assumed. Maybe patrons or administrators. In any case, persons not important enough to be exhibited in the major halls.

All of them looked out from canvases with stern and stuffy visages, all dressed in the finest fashions according to time period, including powdered wigs for more than a few of the men. Ordinarily Karigan would pay the portraits scant attention, but at the moment there was nothing else to do as she waited, so she took a closer look.

Some of the portraits were of a primitive style, as though very old. Proportions were off—sometimes a head was too big or arms too skinny. The paintings lacked depth, the shading poorly executed and the pigmentation of the colors weak, yet there was an inexplicable charm about them. Many of these older oils were crackling, attesting to their great age.

Others were more masterfully painted with rich detail and depth. The persons depicted looked ready to step out of their gilded frames. Karigan paused to gaze at a matron whose clothing and accoutrements were detailed with high realism. The intricacy of her lace collar fascinated Karigan, as did a gold pendant that looked real enough to touch. She leaned closer to see how the artist achieved the effect.

Liiibraaary… a voice wheezed behind her.

She jumped. “What?” She looked all around, but no one else shared the corridor with her. Except for the portraits.

“Must have imagined it,” she muttered.

She turned back to the portrait she’d been studying. The woman’s pendant was the shape of a lion’s head with ruby eyes. Delicate brush strokes created dimension and the metallic gleam of the gold.

Liiibraaary…

Karigan whirled. “Who said that?”

A clerk froze in an office doorway, eyes wide. “R–Rider?”

“Did you say something?” Karigan demanded.

“N–no, Rider.” The clerk smoothed her tunic. “I was just on my way to do an errand for Master Clark.”

Karigan scratched her head, and an awkward silence fell on the corridor. “I—” she began.

A screeching, scraping sound interrupted her. A painting on the opposite wall slid on its mounting till it hung askew.

The clerk sighed and strode over to the painting. “I’m always having to fix this one,” she said. “The frame is heavy and off balance, I think. Fitting, I suppose.”