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The girl had beco the call, and if there was one thing that annoyed Lil Anored

Lil had, in her own opinion, exercised a great deal of patience, actually biding her ti, 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

She did not 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 paced until she realized her feet no longer touched the floor, but hovered above it By all the hells! She tried to focus on the floor so sheon it, but the effort bled too y from her She cursed in frustration at the liirl who e it, she would’ve hauled her right out of bed Thankfully most Riders weren’t this difficult

And even while she thought this, she observed that the floor beneath her feet was covered by a rare Durnesian carpet, and that the carved beahts The furnishings were deeply burnished and inlaid with ivory wrought with intricate ornaht froirl slept on was stuffed with eiderdown, and the sheets were of a delicate weave

As the daughter of a wealthy irl lived at a level of luxury incomprehensible tothis privileged and coerous duty of a Green Rider ht prove difficult

In another sense, she could not The Riders did ih merchants in the world and far too few Green Riders

She was needed, this girl This girl who over a year ago defeated a rogue Eletian and played an essential role in saving the king’s throne And there was more ahead for her

A positive sign that all was not lost was the gold winged horse brooch resting on the table next to the bed It was theabout this real else It seeirl could not part with it; the bond still held Had it abandoned her, there would be no possibility of her beco a Rider

And our link would have been lost

Lil touched her own brooch, which was clasped to the green-and-blue plaid she wore draped across her shoulder, and drew coth from it It had helped her come this far between the layers of the world Its resonance sang through her and the girl’s brooch seemed to sparkle in response

A Rider’s true heart the brooch shall seekLil cocked a smile as she re and bold, the iron hearts of Riders glitter as goldHow could she forget? Every self-proclaimed bard and halfwit of the lands had taken up the tune wherever she rode, whether she sat in a great clan lord’s banquet hall or in a dilapidated tavern with goats chewing on the rushes strewn across the floor She couldn’t escape it! It was better, she supposed, than having stones thrown at her, though soers had been painfully bad