On this day, Rachel loses someone. Or rather, by her way of thinking: On this day, Rachel Griffin becomes a murderess.
She and her friends had been warned that loose tongues would lead to a death. Rachel urged them to secrecy. When her friends decided to share the information anyway, she took the burdon on her shoulders and chose to be the one who told. Her reasons for this came from an incident that happened when she was five:
It had been a cold late-November day. The early morning frost had lain across the moors. Rachel, bundled in a thick red wool coat held shut by three toggles, had needed to run to keep up with her grandfather’s long strides. She had been five, and he had been the center of her world.
Ten minutes previously, a servant had come from the stable and informed Grandfather that Warlock was failing. The great charger had served Rachel’s grandfather as his steed for over a century, accompanying him into many battles. Now, however, the beast had grown so feeble that even magical healing could no longer ease its pain. Grandfather had listened to this news with a stony face, nodded, folded his paper, and told Rachel to fetch her coat.
They had walked down to the back paddock, their breath forming foggy puffs before them. Within, Warlock rolled on the cold ground, unable to regain his feet. His pain-filled whinnies had cut through the cold morning like the blare of a trumpet. His eyes had been wide with fear. It had hurt Rachel to see such the noble beast so reduced. She was used to him towering above her, a wall of sleek black and shining white, his nostrils flared, his ears pricked, his fluffy snow-white mane and feet-feathering floating about him like clouds. His forelocks and tail were black, but they, too, seemed airy as cloud-stuff. He had been a gorgeous animal, swift as the wind. And when he galloped across the moors, only Thunderfrost himself—Warlock’s great, great, great grandsire—was more glorious.
At the gate to the paddock, Grandfather had paused and placed his hand on Rachel’s shoulder. He had gazed down at her seriously.
“Your mother will fuss, my child. She will say you are too young, and I should not have brought you. But I say, one is never too young to learn the nature of duty. And there is no greater duty than duty toward those who love us.”
Rachel had gazed up at him, her eyes dark and steady.
Grandfather had squatted down until they stared eye to eye. “Remember this, Lady Rachel Griffin. If the time should ever come when some charge under your care must die, you do it yourself. With your own hand. You owe them that.”
He had risen and walked into the paddock, leaving Rachel at the gate with several of the stable hands. As she had watched, he had paralyzed the pain-crazed horse with a stream of blue sparks from the amethyst on one of his four rings of mastery. Then he had stridden to the barn and came back with a sword and a belt, the buckle of which was made of ivory and shaped like an elephant. He had strapped on the old worn belt, which Rachel knew was enchanted and would give him the strength of many men. Kneeling beside the old horse, he had laid his hand upon the sleek, sweat-soaked coat and leaned over, whispering something into Warlock’s ear.
Then, he had risen to his feet.
With a single overhead blow, her grandfather had sliced through the steed’s neck, cleaving the head from the shoulders. Blood had spouted out like a fountain. Then, a stable hand had covered Rachel’s eyes, and she saw no more.
As they had walked back to the house, his hand again resting on Rachel’s shoulder, Grandfather had said gruffly, “Never kill anything you love with magic, child. That is the beginning of the path that ends in the black arts. Never take a single step down that path.”