He easily jumped up on the horse’s bare back and they crossed the clearing, entering the woods at the same spot from which they had come out. He would have to go back down to the lower glade to gather his saddle and gear. Looking down at himself, he realized that his trousers were stained red where he had wiped the strange water from his hands. He wondered if the stains would ever come out. Glumly, he reminded himself that everyone would be furious with him back at the palace. He had not planned to be gone this long. But he decided to tell no one what he had found, not even Wigg.
He would come back here before his coronation. Something in his heart and mind told him that he must—and soon. There was so much he wished to know about this place. And until he learned more, he would tell no one what he had seen.
A bastard quotation from somewhere in his past suddenly came to mind: Leave only footprints. Take only memories.
Pilgrim began to carry him back down the mountain.
Wigg sat thinking, cross-legged on the soft grass of the upper forest glade, his eyes closed and the basket of food next to him. He was not pleased with the conclusions that flowed through his mind. Far too much had already happened, including the appearance of the blood stalker. Certain circumstances already seemed out of his control, and therefore out of the control of King Nicholas and even of the entire Directorate.
When he searched his mind for Tristan’s presence—and the prince was clearly closer now—the texture of what he was sensing had been altered. Irrevocably. Which meant that something major had happened to Tristan that had changed him in a profound way.
Given the wizard’s knowledge of the Hartwick Woods, there was one particularly unsettling answer. But the old one’s mind sheered away from that possibility. Partly because it was so complicated and would produce so many problems. And partly because, for Tristan’s sake, he simply did not want to believe it.
We’re so close now, Wigg reflected. Only thirty days to the coronation. I beg the Afterlife, please let me find him unchanged.
When Wigg and the princess had entered the glade in search of Tristan, they had immediately seen the prince’s saddle and blanket on the ground. Sensing Tristan’s presence coming steadily closer, Wigg had decided to wait here for him. Shailiha, still shaken and exhausted, had immediately gone to sleep under a tree with Tristan’s saddle as her pillow. Wigg had gone to the opposite edge of the cliff to think, and to wait.
His very old but sharp eyes had missed nothing. He had discovered the damaged oak that had served as Tristan’s throwing target, the twisted branch that had obviously been torn from the same tree, and the matted and disturbed grass just a few feet from the precipice of the cliff. They all gave him pause. It was the cliff’s edge upon which he had chosen to sit and think.
He turned to check on Shailiha as she lay sleeping. Her impending pregnancy did little to disturb her great beauty. Her long, golden blond hair and her tall, exquisite form had come directly from her mother, Queen Morganna. But her hazel eyes, sensuous mouth, and happy, compassionate nature were all her own. He shook his head sadly, thinking of how little Shailiha and her twin brother Tristan knew of their ultimate potential. How much had been kept from them both, and how it had broken his heart every day to have to keep such secrets from them. He cast his eyes to the valley far below, and farther out to the capital city of Tammerland, which had been his home for over three hundred years. The view was spectacular. If this was where Tristan always came to be alone, the old one could understand why.
An odd analogy came to his mind and he smiled, shaking his head slowly. He and the country that he loved so much were in many ways so alike. Both so old. Both so full of secrets. And both so isolated. Eutracia was bordered on the east by the Sea of Whispers—the sea that had never been crossed. Hundreds had tried to traverse it, but no one had ever sailed farther than fifteen days and returned, not one. All were assumed lost. The same fate had befallen all of the sea voyages that had attempted to head too far north and south. And although the Sea of Whispers was bountiful in her goodness to Eutracian fisherman living in the ports that dotted the coastline, no one ever tried anymore to sail completely across it. No one even knew why it was called the Sea of Whispers. It just was. Wigg, haunted by memories of his own fateful time upon that mysterious sea, turned his thoughts inland.
The northern, western, and the southern borders provided equally frustrating obstacles. The ominous Tolenka Mountains formed a continuous, semicircular boundary from the north coast to the west down to the south coast and once again back to the sea that had never been crossed. Iron gray and snowcapped, their jagged outline scratched the sky in every direction save east to the sea. They were so high, in fact, that every expedition had been forced to turn back when the air became too thin to breathe, even for wizards. And no pass had ever been found. The Tolenkas, like the Sea of Whispers, had also proven to be uncrossable. And so Eutracia had always existed on her own.
Sadly, he reminded himself, there was no written history before their victory in the Sorceresses’ War. So little was known about those times. It was only upon the wizards’ triumph in that awful conflict that scribes had been ordered to begin to record public events. The Eutracian citizens believed that the members of the Directorate, protected by time enchantments, were the only remaining link to the prewar past. This was untrue. And there were still more secrets that must be kept, adding to his burden. Slowly, as was his habit, he picked a blade of grass and began to shred it between his long fingers.
Hundreds of thousands of people had lived peacefully in Eutracia for over three centuries. The kingdom contained seven duchies, each overseen by its own duly elected duke, and each with its own capital city. The king in Tammerland reigned over all of them, and over the years, each king, with the aid of the Directorate, had ruled with compassion and grace. In only a matter of weeks, Tristan would take the throne. And in only a matter of seconds now, the old wizard sensed, Tristan would enter the glade, and his questions would be answered.
As if the prince’s arrival had been prearranged, Wigg turned around calmly to watch Tristan ride bareback into the clearing, and the old one’s heart felt as if someone had suddenly shattered it to pieces, his worst possible fears realized.
He has discovered the Caves of the Paragon, the old wizard thought, horrified.
There could be no question. The azure aura that could be seen only by a wizard as highly trained as Wigg was radiating outward from all around the prince’s body. Wigg shuddered and went cold inside. The prince’s trousers showed long, red stains down each side. A very distinctive red. And the stains could have only come from one place: the water of the Caves.
I have not seen this aura surround anyone or anything since the twin births of Tristan and his sister, Wigg ruminated. And then an ancient quote from the past slipped gently into his mind. “The azure light that accompanies the births of the Chosen Ones shall be the proof of the quality of their blood …”
Upon seeing Wigg, Tristan stopped short. Looking around, he saw Shailiha sleeping peacefully. He walked Pilgrim to edge of the clearing and tied him, and then sat down next to the wizard. They sat for what seemed to be a long time, each of them staring out over Tammerland while the sun slowly set, neither one knowing what to say. It was Tristan who finally broke the silence. He pointed to the basket.