The Icon Unbound

Chapter Fourteen, Part B - Rigel

Herein is a secret I've been keeping! I wonder if any of you will have guessed this by now? Enjoy my lovelies, and tell me what you think below. Only a few, minor changes here. Let's see what happens when two worlds collide! Give me a like or a vote if you enjoy this. --Elizabeth, UPDATED 06/04/2017

Her life, Her life, her living heart, cut from her body with her own hands when she was a child to fuel the power that he had seen today. Was it possible that her heart was inferior, or taken too young...was that why she couldn't maintain the shield? Rigel swallowed past his dry throat and considered the possibility. Without the veils, she really did look like any third girl from the village, instead of their leader of almost a decade. What if she had never been a proper Icon? What if they had been vulnerable all this time?

He watched her curiously as she gathered finished speaking and turned to them, if he hadn't been staring at her he would have missed the sudden flash of anger in her eyes.

"Chosen, what are you doing?"

Corwin blinked and steeped back. "I healed the..."

The Icon spun around. "No! The winds are bringing someone."

Corwin paused, his hand on his knife again. "Yes. Just like this morning. Is it possible we're being followed?"

"More than possible," The Icon muttered as she put her tiny hands on her hips. "By every broken oath, she will pay for this."

"She?"

The Icon cast Saiph a glance and motioned for him to come beside her. "This will settle things once and for all, at least. Chosen are always knocking at our door, and I was not the first Icon to let one in. This had better be good."

Wait, Rigel thought. Wait wait wait...

"Icon! Icon!" Honor's voice cut across the small canyon.

His mother. His mother was here.

Rigel breathed a word that would have had him in trouble, even at his age and turned to look for her.

In Rigel's memory, he had never seen his mother run anywhere, for anything. She flitted from chore to chore, from emergency to disaster with unshakable equilibrium. Even when Meissa had been born a month early, she had given orders to fetch the Icon and finished sewing on a button, before moving to the bedroom. When their father had died, she had made all the arrangements for his cremation without so much as a tear on her cheek. Now she leapt from a little wooden raft onto the shore. Her red hair frayed in all directions.

The Icon, clutching her box tight, looked ready to abandon all dignity and start pulling someone's hair. "Woman, you were told to remain--"

"Meissa is gone! No one can find her!"

"We are aware." The Icon shook a finger under Honor's nose. The tableau was ridiculous. Without her veils, the Icon looked like a spoiled young woman sassing her elders. "You can't be here. You remember your vows?"

"But Meissa..."

"Don't worry, we know where she is. You have to get out of here now, before..."

"It's not possible."

Corwin's voice sounded as though he had swallowed a porcupine. His face looked more shocked now, than during the battle with monstrous remnants of ordinary creatures. "So this is where you've been hiding yourself?"