She tightened her fingers around the moonstone and rays of light thrust out like blades between them. Her mother wanted it to come to her. Her mother had called it by the Eletian name, muna’riel.

And Karigan had thought her father kept secrets.

CURSED

At Aunt Stace’s encouragement, Karigan went downstairs to have some breakfast. Food did much to restore her spirits. While she ate, Aunt Stace insisted she show the moonstone to her other aunts. The moment it left her hands and passed into theirs, its light extinguished and it became nothing more than an exquisite lump of crystal.

She did not know what to make of it. Why, she wondered yet again, did moonstones light up for her when they would not for others?

Laurelyn-touched, Somial had said.

It filled her with a sense of something larger going on, something beyond her own ken. She felt caught in a story not of her own making, powerless to direct her own destiny. She shuddered. She did not like it when outside forces intervened in her life, like the Rider call.

“Ugh,” she said. Maybe she was reading too much into it, but so much had happened in her life in recent years that the feeling wasn’t easy to dismiss.

After breakfast, she wandered from the kitchen into the main hall, fiddling with the moonstone in her pocket, and soon found herself standing in the doorway of her father’s office. Since she had no ready answers for the mysteries surrounding the moonstone, and little else to do with her idle time, she decided to at least try to distract herself by looking through the family collection of books.

Her father was still out and about and so she had no compunction about entering his domain. She strode in and over to the shelves, and as her gaze slipped across the spines of numerous leatherbound volumes, she was conscious of the portrait of her mother behind her father’s desk. She almost felt a sensation of being watched, of someone peering over her shoulder. Maybe it was having handled her mother’s gown earlier and talking about her that made her feel so present. Karigan tried to shake off the feeling, but couldn’t quite, so she focused her attention as best she could on the books.

The G’ladheon library held numerous old ledgers and her father’s copy of Wagner’s Navigation. Karigan used to love leafing through it to look at the charts bound within, with their vibrant colors and drawings of fantastical sea creatures. There were also some histories and books on commerce on the shelves, and another favorite, Amry’s Book of Leviathans, which contained intricate prints of all the porpoises and whales that inhabited the deeps. It was a venerable guidebook found on many a whaling ship.

There were few novels, but Karigan’s gaze was drawn to her favorite, The Adventures of Gilan Wylloland. She pulled it off the shelf; the leather cover was dyed a deep green, and the pages were edged with gold.

She sat with the book in her father’s armchair, flipping through pages worn by her own numerous readings. The book told of the unlikely exploits of Gilan and his sidekick, Blaine, as they traveled around the imaginary land of Arondel slaying dragons, rescuing princes and princesses, running off outlaws, and the like.

It occurred to Karigan that Gilan and Blaine did not seem to have any family or home, or any reliable way of supporting themselves, except for the occasional award of gold from a grateful prince or a treasure found in a goblin cave. They escaped every adventure more or less unscathed, more than ready for the next.

There appeared to be few lasting consequences for their actions, even for the blithe killing of villains. And while women continually swooned into Gilan’s arms, poor Blaine was permitted no such romantic attention. The author, however, made sure Blaine was devoted to Gilan and admired him with the whole of her heart, no matter he was, Karigan reflected, a self-absorbed boor.

Funny how her perspective on the book had changed with her own experiences. If she were to write a sequel, she’d have Blaine smarten up, leave Gilan to his own folly, and work for a more noble purpose than simply gadding about the countryside in hopes of encountering adventure. No, she’d have Blaine offer her sword to the good prince who ruled his lands with a fair hand. Blaine’s adventures would have more purpose, be more realistic.

Maybe she should make Blaine a royal messenger? Karigan laughed at herself.

She removed the moonstone from her pocket to better view an illustration of the mighty, impossibly muscled and handsome Gilan clasping a sword in one hand and the bloody head of a monster in the other while Blaine gazed upon him with typical adoration.

The light dazzled, brightened the office as it never had been before. Objects leaped into brilliant relief, and the colors of the illustration jumped off the page. The gold edging sparkled.

On impulse, Karigan craned her neck around to gaze at her mother’s portrait. It was almost as though her mother came to life, the flesh so warm and real looking, her hair shining and eyes alight. There was more of a smile to her lips than Karigan remembered. She glanced away with a shiver and stared into the silvery white luminescence of the moonstone, the book forgotten on her lap.

She could almost hear her mother singing to her, singing to her of Laurelyn:

The Moonman loved Laurelyn, brightest spirit

beneath the stars, and he built her a castle

of silver moonbeams tall,

in sylvan Argenthyne, sweet Silvermind ...

Karigan couldn’t help but glance once more at her mother’s portrait, remembering the warmth of her mother’s arms around her as she sang of Laurelyn.

That, combined with the discovery of the moonstone, was, she thought, a remarkable coincidence. Too remarkable.