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“This is not real,” she whispered “Not real, not real…”

It was the sort of trick the white world liked to play, to send such i interpretation

She steeled herself, continuing to tell herself over and over that it was not real, and set off after the stallion A the uniforms of the dead she noticed provincial colors—the cobalt of Coutre, the blue and gold of D’Yer Solid black caught her eye—a Weapon And there was green She refused to look at faces, to even look at the horses, but her gaze drifted and before she could stop herself, she saw Ty beneath Crane, his eyes open but dull, a wound deep in his gut crawling with ots

“Not real,” Karigan chanted “Not real”

She hurried the best she could In places the bodies were so thick and intertwined she had to take a circuitous route, and during one of these her gaze was stolen again by faed horse rising, the ancient banner of the Green Riders woven and embroidered by Eletian hands, now bloodstained and torn, and lying across the body of Captain Mapstone like a shroud

“N–no!” Karigan cried, but her eyes were drawn just beyond to aone reater than the Zachary, splendid in his silver and black armor, his a froe of his mouth into his beard His body bristled with arrows

“No!” Karigan cried again Her voice echoed across the silent landscape and raisedbeaks seeking flesh

Overhead aits shadow across the battlefield and Karigan The creature shrieked and dropped to the ground, then hopped over the corpses ings spread until it stood upon King Zachary’s chest Its head swiveled frolance at her, plunged its beak into King Zachary’s throat

She screae and was about to throw herself at the avian when she heard the un of an arrow and the thud of i a discarded shield with a definitive clunk The arroith its green fletching, jutted from its neck

She turned and there was the watcher again, holding a short, stout bow She caught the glint of a golden brooch, and this tiarbed in a Rider unifore, with reen plaid across his chest The horn of the First Rider rested against his hip He nodded to her and mounted a white horse, and when he cantered off into the plains, he seemed to ride a cloud

She squinted after him as he vanished into the distance His appearance sparked a vague ht He had come to her in a dream But all she could remember about it, besides the Rider hiled the back of her mind like an itch, a question she could not answer because it was lost to her; she could not recall it

“Not real,” she ore, this world; but she was thankful for the intervention of the watcher, even if he wasn’t real either Or was he hed Maybe some questions were better left unanswered All she kneas that the white world was full of deceptions; that it drew ies fro she saw there