“Then they’d be more than wrong.” Laren feared, however, they’d have much the same opinion of her, no matter her rank.

“Yes, well, they would not willingly admit they were wrong.”

No, they wouldn’t, Laren thought. “I will be sure that they do not make that mistake.”

“I am depending on you, Colonel.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Laren bowed once more and left Estora gazing out her window. She paused outside the queen’s bed chamber, wondering just what in the name of the gods she was in for.

SPIRIT

Karigan parted the branches of evergreens, and driven by a curiosity that had built during all their days of travel to follow Enver from their campsite and into the woods, she peered into the clearing. The light of the waxing moon puddled on a ledge of smooth granite softened by clumps of snowy deer moss. Enver stood in the center of the clearing, his back to her, the moonlight gilding his hair. He gazed into the sky, his muna’riel cupped in his hands.

She shouldn’t be watching, she thought, this thing that Enver was doing. It was private, but she couldn’t help herself. Was he praying? To whom would an Eletian pray? They did not worship her gods, though she could not say she actively worshipped her own gods, either. Feeling guilty for spying, she decided she ought to return to their campsite. She’d left Estral there writing in her journal. She turned to leave.

“Galadheon,” Enver said, “will you not join me?”

She froze and squeezed her eyes shut in even greater shame that she had been caught. She turned around and stepped hesitantly into the clearing to stand with him in the moonlight. The way the moon’s glow lit his face, he looked a mystic.

“I’m—I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have followed you, spied on you, but I was curious.”

“I am pleased,” he said to her surprise, “by your curiosity.”

“You are?”

He nodded. “I have long hoped that you might take an interest.”

“In listening to the voice of the world? It’s what you’re doing right now, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he replied. “It is always there as an undercurrent singing in every living thing like water that travels from the roots of a tree all the way to its leaves.” He made a graceful gesture toward the night sky with its expanse of stars. “But when I still myself, that is when I hear it ever clearer.”

“Sounds peaceful,” Karigan said.

“It is. Listening helps me maintain balance in a time of unfolding. It promotes discipline over other more primal instincts.”

A time of unfolding? she wondered. Primal instincts? What sort of primal instincts? But before she could ask, he continued, “Sometimes I receive insight to a problem when I listen, or my aithen, which resides within the aithen’a, will offer me wisdom or counsel in some way.” Her expression must have looked perplexed, because he added, “The aithen is a guide and usually appears as an animal, or in an animal-like guise. The aithen’a is the realm of spirit.”

“You get advice from an . . . animal, in the realm of spirit?”

There was laughter in Enver’s eyes. “It is perhaps more involved than that, but on an elemental level, yes.”

She shifted her stance, her feet sinking into soft moss. “Dare I ask what animal guides you?”

“Most Eletians’ guides are magnificent creatures—bears, lions, porpoises, even dragons and gryphons. You will recall Graelelea? She had an affinity for the winter owl that transcended the aithen’a into our world.”

Karigan remembered Graelelea very well. She had led the Blackveil expedition with skill, but had not survived, her body left to rest within the tarnished walls of Castle Argenthyne, the snowy feathers of the winter owl braided into her hair.

“My aithan is humble by comparison.” He looked very proud. “It is a turtle.”

Intrigued though she was by this rare insight into Eletian spirituality, she was also skeptical. And yet, she wondered, who was she to judge when she had come face-to-face with the steed of the god of death? She suspected, however, this was not in any way similar. There was no equivalent to an aithen that she knew of in the religion or philosophies of her people.

“The wise find many meanings for the turtle, but for me, it is its dual nature, its ability to live in water and on land, that resonates with me. I am half-Eletian, half your kind. I may exist in either realm.”

An owl hooted, and in the distance came an answering call.

“Would you like to try?” he asked her.

“Er, try? Try what?”

“Listening to the voice of the world. Perhaps you would find your aithen.”

“I’m sorry, Enver. I do not think it’s for me. I’ve never been religious, anyway. I don’t leave offerings for the gods, pray, or go to chapel, or anything like that.”

“It is not about rituals or worship or gods, though your gods could be perceived as part of the energy in nature, the world.”

“The priests,” she said, “would maintain that the gods created nature and the world.”

“Perhaps it is so, I do not know, but this hearing the voice of the world is more about finding accord with the universe. Harmony.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she turned to leave.

He placed his hand on her arm. “I am making this too complicated. Think of it as feeling the sun on your shoulders and being fully conscious of it.”