Free Winter Moon by Mercedes Lackey Page A

here. No matter how terrible the storm, she should be seeing the beacon! Nothing could blow it out, and never, in all the history of the sea-keep, had anyone failed to light it in darkness or storm and keep it lit. This was no tiny lantern flame to be blown out—it was a great, roaring, oil-fed conflagration, shielded in a large bubble of greenish glass as thick as a thumb and surrounded by polished brass mirrors that reflected all the landward light out to sea.
    Then, turning her head a little, she saw it, breathed a sigh of relief—then frowned more deeply.
    It wasn’t where it should be. It should be much farther away, along the cliff face. It wasn’t where she remembered, and she had very vivid physical memories of planting both elbows on this windowsill, in little depressions that countless other elbows had worn into the wood, and looking straight out through the center pane to see it. Not through the pane that was left of center.
    But I’m older and much taller —
    No, that wasn’t the problem. It couldn’t be the problem. Taller would make no difference in where the beacon appeared to be from the view through this window—
    But I can’t be sure….
    She stared at the warm, yellow light; it was, of course, much dimmer from the land side. The reflectors that sent as much light out to sea as possible saw to that. But the more she stared, and the more she positioned herself within the window frame, the more certain she was that it was not her memory that was at fault here.
    But there was a way to be absolutely certain, and as she sucked on her lower lip anxiously, she decided she was going to make that test for herself. Because if something was wrong, she wanted to know, and she wasn’t going to go to her father to try to find out. He had, after all, brought the Prince of Jendara here, and she was certain that it was without the King’s knowledge or permission.
    Quietly—in fact, on tiptoe, though she could not have said why she felt the need for stealth—she slipped back to her rooms. Anatha was not there. She was probably still enjoying her own dinner with the rest of the servants, for Moira had made it quite clear that she did not require her maid to dance attendance on her at every waking hour. There was no reason to leave the hall; the banks of hot stones that kept the food warm more than made up for the winds whistling in the rafters and stealing the warmth of the fires up the chimneys. And if she was in particularly good graces with the cook and the housekeeper, Anatha would be invited afterward to the warm room backing onto the baking oven, which the superior servants used as a parlor in winter.
    Thank heavens. Anatha’s absence made this much easier—no need to conjure up excuses for going back to the nursery.
    She opened her jewelry casket underneath thelamp and found the ring she was looking for. Slipping it onto her middle finger, she stole back down the hall to the nursery, carefully closing the door behind her this time.
    She positioned herself at the window with her eyes mere inches from the center pane, and making a fist, rubbed a little scratch in the glass right where the beacon shone through the storm with the diamond in the ring.
    There . When the storm broke, she could come back here in daylight and see if the scratch lined up with the beacon. If it did, she had been anxious over nothing.
    If it didn’t—
    If it didn’t, there was something very, very strange going on at Highclere Sea-Keep. And she would have to find out what it was—and more important, why it was happening.
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    When Anatha returned to Moira’s rooms, she found her mistress with her feet resting on a stone warmed on the hearth with a fur rug covering her lap, sitting beside the fire, knitting. Knitting was a very plebian pastime, and most ladies didn’t even bother to learn, but Moira found it soothing. It was one of the few tasks that could be