Blackveil by Kristen Britain Page A

winter’s rest.
    They entered a clearing and the full expanse of the heavens opened overhead. Her father halted Roy and Birdy to gaze at the stars and Karigan imagined her parents young and in love coming to this spot.
    “Now that you know I am quite imperfect,” he said, “can you accept that I misspoke earlier? I can’t say I like magic, or the fact it puts you in harm’s way, but I would never view my daughter as cursed.”
    “You never told me about mother’s bloodline,” Karigan said.
    “Stories. Stories told by superstitious islanders.” He paused, then said, “Tell me, where did you find the muna’riel?”
    “You knew of it then?”
    She perceived, more than saw, him nodding.
    “I found it in mother’s chest among her things.”
    “How did it ... ? I had it locked in my sea chest, down in the study.” He shuddered beside her. “Magic. I guess it wanted to be found.”
    It was, Karigan thought, a perceptive statement from one with an aversion to magic. “You didn’t give it to me as mother wanted.”
    Silence followed her words, then he said, “I desired to protect you from the magic. Or, at least not encourage it. I even let your aunts believe your mother was speaking nonsense in the end.”
    Karigan wished she could see his features better in the dark, but she imagined his expression downcast to match his voice.
    “I see I was wrong,” he continued. “Magic found you anyway. Do you have the muna’riel with you? May I see it?”
    Karigan dug beneath her coat and into her pocket to retrieve the moonstone. She held it aloft on her mittened hand, the shock of light making the horses snort and bob their heads. The brilliance of the stone chased shadows deep into the woods, and the snow in the clearing intensified the silver-white light almost to blinding.
    Karigan’s father shielded his eyes until the light ebbed to a more gentle glow. The snow on the trees that ringed them glittered as if strewn with diamonds.
    “I forgot how bright it was,” he murmured. “I can’t remember when your mother first showed it to me. After we were married, of course, but before you were even conceived, I think. She never explained how she had acquired it, but she said it was Eletian. When I pressed her about it, she’d only laugh and find ways to distract me.”
    “She knew how you felt about magic,” Karigan said.
    “Yes, I suppose she did. And I suppose I chose not to see it in her, even though the muna’riel would light only for her and not me.”
    “I wish I could help you understand,” Karigan said, “that it’s not the magic itself that is evil or good, but the user who makes it so.”
    But he did not reply. He sat there, his eyelids drooping and head nodding until his chin rested on his chest. He breathed deeply as though asleep.
    “Father?” Karigan asked. She nudged him, but he did not stir. She jabbed him harder, and still no response. He seemed only to sleep, but ...
    She glanced at the horses, and they stood with heads lowered as if also slumbering.
    A light blossomed in the center of the clearing. A silvery, fluid flame that flickered and grew into a column the height of a person.
    “Five hells,” she murmured.
    The light of Karigan’s moonstone spread toward the flame, surrounding it as if to embrace it.
    Finally, a voice said, you have come.

MOON DREAMS

    T ransfixed, Karigan stepped off the sleigh, her feet sinking deeply into the snow. A figure rippled within the column of flame.
    “What are you?” she whispered.
    The figure did not answer, but its radiance grew, spread outward, and though Karigan backed away, it overtook her until there was only the light. Everything else, her father, the sleigh and horses, and the surrounding forest, vanished into shadow. She could not say for sure she was still in the clearing, or even in Sacoridia for that matter, though the snow still glared with its reflected light.
    I am weakening, said the figure in the flame; a woman’s voice, distant,