The Mirror Prince (30 page)

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Authors: Violette Malan

BOOK: The Mirror Prince
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“I don’t know that I’ve been to all of them, but many do,” Cassandra said. “Before the Great War—”
 
“Go back before that,” Lightborn suggested. “Back not to your youth, but to mine. Do you know how we traveled then?” His eyes looking at a distant image, Lightborn looked relaxed for the first time since they’d left Griffinhome. “On foot, sometimes,” he said, smiling, “or by coach or horseback; each journey would have its particular delights, sometimes by day, sometimes by night, depending upon which would best bring out the special beauties of the places in which we Rode, whether soft meadow, roaring waterfall, or silent and forbidding crags. My favorite places were those that brought the lightening of the spirit that comes when you round the shoulder of a hill, expecting only another hill, and instead you find the world spread out before you.”
 
“I know what you mean,” Max said. “There’s a place I used to go to in Scotland, and I’d get up early every day I was there, just to watch the sun come up. No matter how often I was there, it was like seeing the whole world laid out in front of you for the first time. There was nowhere else like it.” He looked at Cassandra. “At least, I think I was there.”
 
“Many times,” she said.
 
“As a rule,” Lightborn continued, when the silence grew strained, “we would not carry provisions with us, unless for a light meal on the grass. When we would rest, or feast, we simply Moved to some convenient and comfortable spot, some favored haven such as the inn we head toward now, and resumed our journeying the following day.”
 
“I have heard my father tell of these journeys,” Moon said, her voice a mild reproach. “But no one has done this for some time.”
 
“Why’s that?” Max wouldn’t have thought that the economy or social structure of a place where magic was the rule would have been affected so much by a civil war.
 
“There is not
dra’aj
enough now.”
 
“But
dra’aj
has been Fading since even before the Great War,” Cassandra protested. “Certainly there were no Guidebeasts, even then.”
 
Moon shrugged. “There are no Guidebeasts except in the Songs.”
 
“Not so,” said Lightborn. “When I was a child, there was a Wild Rider—one of those who came on occasion with your father,” he said, turning to Max, “who had seen Guidebeasts when
he
was young.”
 
Moon shrugged again. Cassandra smiled, remembering that shrug from when they were younger. Moon wasn’t going to argue, but she wasn’t convinced. “There is always some elder to tell you how the Lands were better in his youth,” Moon said.
 
“And that’s put you in your place,” Max said, laughing.
 
“It is said that the Basilisk has
dra’aj
enough to manifest his Beast,” Lightborn said, the ease dying out of his voice. “It is said that some have seen it.”
 
“
Dra’aj
Fades for all except the Basilisk,” Moon said in a voice that answered all questions.
 
They continued in silence, Cassandra concentrating on the birdsong, seeing if she could identify it after all this time, until Moon drew rein sharply at the summit of a hill thick with rocks. She looked downslope with a worried face, a crease forming between her perfect brows.
 
“Look,” she said, as Max and Cassandra drew up next to her.
 
At first, Cassandra saw nothing amiss, but Lightborn’s quick intake of breath made her look more carefully. At the bottom of a gentle slope, she saw a good-sized plain, long grass feathering back and forth as the wind played. In the middle distance, the dark dolmans of the Jade Ring stood out clearly.
 
“Well?” she said.
 
“Where is the forest?” Moon said. “The lake? The inn? We should not be able to see the Ring from this ridge.”
 
“What color is that grass?” Lightborn said, leaning forward.
 
Cassandra narrowed her eyes. She couldn’t be sure, given the uncertain light, but there was something besides the color that seemed odd. . . .
 
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she said. “Isn’t the Jade Ring surrounded by the
Mara’id?
It’s not impossible for Naturals to shift, over time, but . . .” She shook her head.
 
“Are you sure that’s the Jade Ring?” Max said. “I mean, we’re not, ah . . .”
 
“No need to be tactful, Max,” Lightborn said. “We are not lost and that
is
the Jade Ring.”
 
“I guess this means no beds to sleep in?” Max said.
 
“And no lake trout for breakfast,” Lightborn added.
 
“Let us go through the Ring,” Moon said. “We will be too late in the day to approach the Tarn of Souls—the Songs tell it can only be found at dawn—but we can camp on the other side.”
 
“What are we waiting for?” Max urged his horse down the slope. Cassandra followed more slowly. For some reason she couldn’t take this as easily as Lightborn and Moon did. Perhaps, living here, they were used to finding this kind of change. It was different for Max; everything here was strange to him, what was one more thing? She found it profoundly disturbing that a piece of the Lands she remembered so distinctly should change so much. It was one thing to hear about shiftings and distortions, it was quite another to see a familiar place so completely unfamiliar. Would she know her own home, she wondered, or would Lightstead, too, be changed beyond all recognition?
 
Max, clearly impatient, was out in front by several lengths by the time Cassandra reached the bottom of the slope. The grass did not grow up the hillside, she noticed, but stopped in a well-delineated edge, as if planted deliberately. It was not as long as she thought either, certainly not as tall as hay, though it did resemble it, rustling in the breeze—
 
“Max! Stop!”
 
Max’s horse had stepped into the grass by the time he reined it in. He wheeled it smoothly, though the stiffness of his shoulders showed his impatience at being stopped. Before the turn was complete, the horse whinnied, lifting its feet sharply, almost dancing in its efforts, as if it wanted to lift all four feet off the ground at once. It screamed as first one, then two, then all four hooves became fixed to the ground. Cassandra came close enough to see the sweat break out on the horse’s skin, then the screams rang through her head, as if they were more than sound. She smelled blood. She swung her leg over and leaped from her horse, running to the grass’s edge, drawing her long sword from her back as she ran.
 
“Max, jump clear!”
 
Max had already taken his feet out of the stirrups, drawing away from whatever lurked in the grass, and now gathered himself carefully. He jumped for where Cassandra stood on a moss-covered rock, wobbling in the last second as his horse sank horribly beneath him. Cassandra grabbed his arm as it flailed past her and hauled him bodily from the grass, the razorlike blades scratching at his boots.
 
Cassandra leaned forward as far as she could without overbalancing and swung her sword once, twice—and the Cloud Horse stopped screaming. Lightborn had flung himself from the saddle as soon as the horse began to scream, and now ran toward the still-twitching body. Cassandra stepped into his path, throwing her arms around him to hold him back.
 
“I wouldn’t, if I were you.”
 
Lightborn nodded, his face white, tears in his eyes as he looked at what remained of the Cloud Horse that he had raised in his own stables, and fed with his own hands. It seemed the grass wanted only live prey; it had stopped its feeding when the horse died. The silence was heavy with the coppery scent of spilled blood.
 
“What made you stop me?” Max said, wiping his face off on his sleeve. His hands were shaking, and he had to drag his eyes away from swaying grasses. Were they moving closer?
 
“Look,” Cassandra said, pointing. “The breeze blows toward us, but the grass moves right to left.”
 
“I hope we never see what grazes on that.” Max put his arm around Lightborn’s shoulders and drew the Rider away from the edge of the grass.
 
Cassandra did not move. “I know what happened here,” she said.
 
The others turned to look at her.
 
“Didn’t you say the Basilisk Prince was cutting down Woods?” she asked. “And this was
Mara’id
. The Basilisk has been here, and cut it down.”
 
Chapter Twelve
 
BLOOD ON THE SNOW swept into
He’erid
like the biting crystals of the Frozen Desert from which he took his name, leading his Wild Riders on a charge through the Trees. Some few of the Basilisk’s spawn stood their ground, but most fled before the charge, dropping their axes and weapons as they ran. The Trees spread their branches and heaved their roots to better impair the hunted, and aid the hunters.
 
As he rode through a grove of younger Trees, Blood made careful note of the one or two of the Basilisk’s Riders who did not run, but lay themselves prone upon the ground, their faces buried in the sweet grass that grew between the Trees, their hands locked behind their heads in surrender, and in protection against the flying hooves of the Wild Horses. There had always been those among the Basilisk’s Riders—though fewer it seemed, as his grip tightened—who would willingly switch allegiance, for whom these assignments, away from the Basilisk’s court, were opportunities to change their colors without risking either
dra’aj
or throats.
 
Or so they thought. Blood on the Snow was too old, his Guidebeast too wily, to be caught by so simple a stratagem.
 
Blood had seen that for some the defection was genuine, whether it stemmed from a change of heart or simple fear, and these the Natural of the Trees would take, and keep safe. But he had also seen that, for some, the surrender was a pretense. Of these pretenders, there were a few who waited to see if the Wild Riders carried the day; they intended to become traitors and spies for the Basilisk. And if the Wild Riders were driven off, they would betray those of their comrades who had been too quick to lay down their weapons. Blood on the Snow did not concern himself with such as these; he left them to the Wood.
 
Such things were the legacy of the Great War, which, for the Wild Riders, had never ended.
 
As he Rode, as his
gra’if
blade rose and fell, a soft joy hummed in Blood’s heart, a joy quieter and more gentle than that which usually came with battle against the Basilisk. Like all Wild Riders, he rejoiced in the return of the Prince Guardian, to know that once more they would play their part in the turning of the Cycle. But this Prince was of his own blood, second in his
fara’ip
after his lost beloved, and Blood’s whole body sang, muscle and bone, to know that his son was safe. It did not matter that the boy did not know him, Blood told himself; that would come. His Warden took him to meet
Saha’in,
Lady of the Tarn of Souls, and difficult as that meeting might be, all would yet be well.
 
Or they would all be dead and beyond caring.
 
His
dra’aj
felt the loss of the Troll Hearth of the Wind, but his Wild heart beat content. The Troll had died the way Blood himself expected and hoped to die. Fighting the Prince Guardian’s enemies. Truthsheart, she who was Sword of Truth, her message was even now on its way, passing through the network of Wild Riders, Naturals, and Solitaries who opposed the Basilisk, reaching everywhere some member of the Troll’s own
fara’ip
might be.
 
The day’s chase was swift, and once the hunted were slain or captured,
He’erid,
the Natural of the Trees, appeared. She took the form of a Rider woman, tall, pale mottled green, slender and delicate as willow whips. Even seated on his horse, Blood was able to look her directly in the eyes without lowering his own.
 
“I greet you, Brother.” Her voice was the leaves shivering in the wind. “And I thank you for your aid.”
 
“It is nothing, Sister. Can you Walk to safety?”
 
“Alas, no.” The Natural lowered her head like a branch weighed heavy with snow. “I am but young in the ways of my People, and many Cycles must turn before
He’erid
will walk far.”
 
Blood nodded and signaled to one of his men. “Star at Midnight, choose a squad to remain here with
He’erid
.”
 
“And if we are needed?” the young Starward Rider asked, even as he came forward to obey.
 
“The wind will take any message I send,”
He’erid
said. “So long as thou art here, Star at Midnight, the wind will speak for thee as well. Blood on the Snow has only to step into any
fara’ip
of Trees and thou shalt hear his message.”

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