Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

falling on her face, even while she held fast to the thread of sensation that was all she had to guide her.

Another presence slid beneath her, lifted her up and held her steady. It was Coryn, and he neither asked nor expected permission.

The simple arrogance of it made her breath catch. But she was not a complete idiot—she needed all the help she could get.

Then something else came into focus in and through him, something clear and bright and clean that sharpened all her senses and made her immeasurably stronger. It was as if she had lived in a fog all her life and now, suddenly, she could see the sun.

She could not afford to go all giddy—or to realize what and who must be doing this. Willa was trapped in a slant of sunlight, in a bend of the path that did not exist in the world she had thought she knew. The key was in Nerys’ hand and heart, but the way was only open while the sun was in the sky.

Among these tumbled ridges and sudden cliffs, night came fast and early. It had been after noon when Nerys left the pasture; the sun had sunk visibly since. She had to hurry, which on that track was no easy thing.

She found the place where the trap had closed. It looked like nothing: a sharp bend among many on the steep path and a sudden drop where the track had washed away. A trickle of water seemed to run there, out of nowhere and into nowhere. The sun sparkled on it.

:Steady,: Coryn said, with that echo behind him. :Hold fast to me. Don’t let go.:

She knew he was not physically there, but he was present in every way that mattered. The other beyond him made a chain, and that chain bound her to the world.

She stepped through the sun’s door into madness.

Egil’s guide left him as instructed, with a clear track ahead of him and Alis’ admonitions still ringing in his ears. A small needling voice kept insisting that he had followed the wrong one, but Bronwen was well capable of handling whatever she found in the sheep pasture. Egil needed to be here.

The path was well traveled. Egil occupied himself and entertained Cynara by inviting her to dance down it. She did love the dance of horse and rider, and under the trees, in and out of sun and dappled shade, it was a wonderfully pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

It cleared his head splendidly. When the sunlight spread wide over the hill with its crown of stones, he was calm and focused and ready for whatever he might find.

It seemed at first to be nothing remarkable. A slim, dark-haired girl sat on a white pony inside the circle. The pony grazed peacefully. The girl’s eyes were closed, and her face was turned to the sky.

She looked like her mother. Even at rest she had a hint of Alis’ fierce edge.

As Cynara halted in front of the pony, Kelyn’s eyes snapped open. Her Companion—for he was that, Egil could not mistake it—stepped delicately past Egil and presented himself for mounting.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want you.”

He tossed his splendid white head and stamped. Kelyn’s face set in adamant refusal.

The pony bucked her off. On that thick turf, the damage must have been more to her pride than her backside. She stared up at the traitor in utter disbelief.

“They always side with Companions,” Egil said in wry sympathy. “Get up now and do as he tells you.”

“Do you know what he’s asking?” she demanded.

“Not specifically,” he said. “Will you enlighten me?”

“Ask her,” the girl snapped, jutting her chin at Cynara.

Egil had to admit that her complete lack of awe was refreshing. It was also not unheard of in the newly Chosen. In those first heady days, it was hard to see or hear or think about anyone but the magical white being who had come only and purely for them.

In this case, of course, that was not true. Egil did not need to ask Cynara; it was in every line of the girl’s body. “Nerys is in trouble. He wants you to help.”

“Worse,” said Kelyn. She looked ready to spit. “He wants me to stop hating her and start facing the reason why.”

“Because you’re exactly alike,” Egil said. “Everything you hate in her is everything you hate in yourself. Everything you love about yourself—in someone else, it grates horribly. That makes you wonder, and then it makes you twitch. It’s enough to drive a person out of her mind. Is that where she is? Gone mad?”

“Not yet,” she said. “He says there’s a rift in the fabric of the world, another of those plague-begotten Storm remnants, and she’s gone through it to save a life. Or maybe a mind. He’s not exactly clear.”

Egil’s lightness of mood, such as it was, evaporated. He held on to his calm, because he was going to need it. “Ah,” he said. “I see.” He bent his gaze on the girl’s Companion.

:Coryn,: Cynara said.

“Coryn,” said Egil with an inclination of the head, which the Companion returned. “If you will, take us to her.”

“No time,” said Kelyn. “It’s leagues away and the sun is going down. The sun keeps it open. Once it’s gone . . .”

Egil eyed her narrowly. “Cynara,” he said aloud with the courtesy of Heralds, “is that true?”

:It is true,: Cynara said.

Egil nodded, oblivious to Kelyn’s glare. “I did wonder. If my worst enemy were about to wink into nothingness, I might not be terribly inclined to do something about it.”

“She is not my enemy!” Kelyn burst out. “I just can’t stand her. I don’t want her dead, either.” She turned on Coryn. “I get your point—all of you. I’ll help get her out of there. But I’m not your Chosen. I won’t be anybody’s second best.”

:She is not,: Cynara said. From Kelyn’s expression, Coryn had said the same.

Kelyn did not look ready to believe it. But she pulled herself from her pony’s back to Coryn’s, and for all her resistance, she could not keep herself from running her hand down his neck.

She drew herself up with a visible effort. “He needs you to help,” she said to Egil. “She’s on the other side of the—wall, I think he means. Rift. Something. He can guide her out, but he wants to open the rift here in order to do it. It’s a stronger place, he says, and safer to stand on. With you and the other Herald and your Companions, he thinks he’ll almost have enough strength.”

Egil opened his mouth to point out that Bronwen and Rohanan had gone the other way, but before he could speak, they cantered into the circle. Bronwen looked ruffled and out of sorts, the way she always did after she had lost an argument. “Rohanan says we need to be here,” she said.

“You do,” said Egil. “He’s told you what happened?”

She nodded. “Are we doing another dance?”

They had helped a quadrille of riders to close a much larger rift, not so long ago, by performing a spell that was framed in the movements of the equestrian art. But this was different. “We’ll follow his lead,” Egil said, tilting his head toward Coryn.

Bronwen sighed faintly, as if she would have preferred the quadrille. Egil most certainly would. Her Companion came to stand on the other side of Coryn, gently nudging the pony out of the way.

Coryn raised his head. On his back, Kelyn had closed her eyes again. She held out her hands.

Bronwen took one. Egil took the other. It was thin but strong, and it trembled slightly.

The child was either furious or terrified. Egil would have wagered on both. “We’re ready,” he said.

:They’re ready,: said Coryn in the midst of howling nothingness.

The only solid thing in all that incomprehensible place was an honest miracle. Nerys had fallen on top of a warm and yielding object that protested in Willa’s voice.

The shepherd was alive, apparently sane, and profanely glad to be found. Nerys wrapped her arms around the tall and substantial body. Willa stiffened, then closed the embrace.

If Nerys closed her eyes, she could almost stand to be here. The screaming that was not wind and not voices— at least, not human or animal or anything of earth—still battered at her, but she could focus on the soft voice in her mind and almost, after a fashion, shut out the ungodly clamor.

Coryn’s voice led to something else. It was like an image in a mirror, or another part of herself.

She and Kelyn were cousins. People said they could be sisters—twins, even, what with having been born on