Northlight Read Free Page B

steppe, vast and flat and white with the bitter dust that nothing escaped.
    Terrible things happened in places like this. Lives were taken and then given back again.
    I’d been inside the Starhall before, seen in its ancient heart, the chamber lined in faded tapestries and wood carved with symbols no one knew any more. Here Pateros took my hands in his, according to ancient custom, and here I repeated the oath after him. Each word I said burned through me, over and over, until I was sure nothing remained of who I once was.
    I was wrong about that, but for all those years when I was a Ranger first and only, I had no idea how wrong I was.
    The Senate building faced the Starhall across the plaza as if they were born enemies. It was big — three stories — and flat-sided except for the balconies and columns along the front, all glittery pink stone. The Senate met in the Great Hall and important people had offices inside. No one lived there.
    The military wing stretched from the Senate building along the north edge of the plaza, two stories with a thin band of carved letters between them. I couldn’t read them the first time I was here; Avi told me later what they said.
    â€œIt is better to plant a single seed than conquer a world.”
    And if Montborne believed that, then I was a flame-addled twitterbat.
    Inside the wide wooden doors was a foyer of sorts, a desk with an alert-looking officer. When I was last in Laureal City, the Rangers answered directly to the Guardian. Since the raids — the Brassa War they called it — Montborne commanded. I’d never been inside this building before and these people didn’t know me.
    To his credit, Captain Derron had prepared me well — what I was to do, the passes and how to use them.
    â€œPromise me, Kardith,” he’d said. It was the night before I left and we were sitting together in his office at the fort, drinking the last of his excellent barley-ale. The weather was cold, as nights are on the Ridge. “Promise me you won’t go off on any expeditions of your own and I’ll believe you.”
    I clamped my mouth shut. Anything I said, I said as a Ranger. “I’ll go right to Laureal City.”
    â€œAnd give the papers to Montborne.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThere may be a reply or orders to bring back. If not, take a few days, rest, enjoy the city. Cool off.” He paused. “Let go.”
    â€œ Let go? Avi saved my life at Brassaford! Shit, she saved yours a dozen times over. She could be hurt out there, dying, taken by the northers, I don’t know! How can you tell me to let go?”
    â€œDon’t fool yourself, Kardith,” he said. “Since when do northers take prisoners? I’ve lost one of my best people out there. And one is enough. ”
    I downed the rest of my cup. If I tried to answer, I might say anything, do anything.
    â€œIf you do go messing around out there,” he went on, “if you disobey Montborne’s orders, then I must enforce them.”
    Only if you catch me first.
    What was the use? With my right hand or without it, I’d no longer be a Ranger.
    But here I was, having come straight to Laureal City, just like Derron said and at a pace fit to kill my good gray mare, repeating to the officer that I’d deliver the packet to General Montborne and no one else.
    â€œThe General’s in meeting with Pateros and the Inner Council,” he said, as if everybody knew that. “You want to wait here — ” a bench against the painted stone wall that made my rump ache just looking at it, “ — or outside? Maybe catch a sight of them as they come out?”
    A thrill for a know-nothing country girl, you mean, you with your fancy uniform and your little bat-sticker knife. Out on the Ridge it’s you who’d be a sniveling worm in less than a week.
    All those tough words to cover how scared I was. Mother-of-us-all, did I imagine this would