They had a foreign look, as though brought from across the sea. The furnishings were deeply burnished and inlaid with ivory wrought with intricate ornamentation. Thankfully most Riders weren't this difficult.Īnd even while she thought this, she observed that the floor beneath her feet was covered by a rare Durnesian carpet, and that the carved beams overhead brought to mind the mastery of shipwrights.

If she could manage it, she would've hauled her right out of bed. She cursed in frustration at the limitations of her current form, and glowered at the sleeping girl who made all this necessary. By all the hells! She tried to focus on the floor so she might at least achieve the illusion of standing on it, but the effort bled too much energy from her. Lil paced until she realized her feet no longer touched the floor, but hovered above it. She defied the call and went home to Corsa instead, and for what? To count bolts of wool on one of her father's wretched wagon trains? To balance ledgers? What was alluring about that? Why did she resist? Lil had, in her own opinion, exercised a great deal of patience, actually biding her time during the year the girl took to finish her schooling, thinking it couldn't hurt, and that afterward she would finally heed the call and return to Sacor City to take her oath before the king as a Green Rider. The girl had become very disciplined at ignoring the call, and if there was one thing that annoyed Lil Ambriodhe most, it was being ignored. The apparition nudged at the girl's shoulder as if to awaken her, but her hand simply slid through it.Ĭannot feel me. You can hear me, but you won't listen, hey? She slept unaware of her ghostly visitor, an expression of utter tranquility on her face.ĭispleasure flickered across the apparition's smoky features.

Her long brown hair was splayed across her pillow, and her chest rose and fell in slow, even breaths. Sultry night air tinged with sea brine flowed through the wide-open window, stirring the sheet that covered the girl. The apparition's soft, otherworldly glow fell across the sleeping form on the canopy bed.

First Rider's Call by Kristen Britain