Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(114)
The center of the land. The heart where the tumor festered.
Twelfth Night. Twelfth Tithe.
The wolf inside her, weakened to the point of death but struggling still, growled. You say I made you cruel. But at least I never made you false!
“You made me betray Rose Red,” Daylily whispered as she stumbled on, her head heavy with the presence of both Cren Cru and the wolf.
I never made you anything. I am you. I am the true you! The one you hide from the world; the one you can’t bear to admit exists. But I am true.
As true as knives to the heart. As true as poison in the blood. As true as love or hatred living buried in a wounded heart.
How long had she known it, this secret truth? Since that summer, long ago, when she had traveled to the mountains to spend her holidays in countrified isolation with Lionheart and Foxbrush. That summer when she had first heard the cry of a wolf, lonely and forlorn in the forests of night. How her heart had responded to that sound!
And in that response, the truth that was the she-wolf inside Daylily had sprung to vicious life. A life that must always be suppressed, always be secreted away to those dark corners of her mind that no one could find. Bound down with chains, deprived of freedom . . . yet it dominated her existence still more in captivity.
“I don’t want any part of you,” Daylily said. “Not anymore.”
Then let me go!
A trill of notes. “Then let it go.”
Daylily closed her eyes, recognizing the voice of the songbird. She should have known he would follow her even here, on this dark Path to her master’s door.
“Let it go, Daylily,” the bird sang in gentle, compelling melody.
But the thunder of Cren Cru’s driving pulse called to her, and she surrendered to it and allowed it to pull her deeper still. Deeper into places of her mind where the wolf could not come.
She came at last to the center where the Mound latched hold and sucked at the lifeblood of the Land. Around the thorn-raised Mound stood the warriors, her brethren. They had all arrived before her, but this did not matter. She felt her heart beating in time with theirs, and she was one of them, and she was one with them. They stood in a great circle, Advocate and Initiate, surrounding the Mound. Their bronze stones glowed brighter and brighter, filling their faces with light even in this dark place. And between each warrior stood the firstborn children brought for the final sacrifice.
Daylily saw Sun Eagle and she took her place on his right. Briefly he looked at her, and she thought perhaps she saw him and not his master looking out of his eyes. What did that expression say?
Forgive me! Forgive me! Forgive—
Then his mouth moved, even as hers did, and they spoke in their unified voice:
Twelfth Night. Twelfth Tithe.
Daylily looked down then at the children standing between her and her Advocate. They were all so young, not yet in adolescence, their bodies unformed, their faces round, and their eyes, which should have been full of life, were full only of the Bronze. They stood unbound, for they needed no bindings, caught as they were in Cren Cru’s spell.
The child beside Daylily had red hair. Daylily gasped and craned her neck to look more closely. She thought she looked upon her own face, empty and horrible, filled with Cren Cru. The child stood like one dead, her lips gently parted, her head a little to one side. She was empty other than that which filled her.
Better to be devoured by wolves than to become one such as that!
Daylily reached up and took hold of the Bronze about her neck. What she intended to do, she could not say. Perhaps drive that sharp end into her own heart. Perhaps drive it into the child. She took hold and pulled it from her neck.
All her brethren did the same. They cried out together, they and Daylily, saying to the night:
“From blood springs life! From life springs blood!”
Then each of the warriors plunged his or her medallion into the turf. And the stones suddenly grew twice—three times—ten times what they had been, great boulders of shining bronze, and the light they reflected off one another made the surrounding area bright as day.
Save for the yawning mouth of Cren Cru’s Mound. No light could penetrate there.
One by one, the warriors stepped forward, leading children behind them. Daylily fell into step behind Sun Eagle, leading the redheaded girl and others as well. She smelled the reeking death in the hole, smelled the breath of her master. The wolf inside her bellowed its revulsion at the stench, but Daylily herself could not resist it.
She watched her Advocate lift the children who followed him. He took them, one at a time, and threw them into that gaping void. And when he had finished and his unresisting captives were sent to their doom and immediately forgotten, he backed away, returned to his stone, and stood with his eyes fixed upon the Mound. And always his mouth moved in chant:
“From blood springs life! From life springs blood!”
Now Daylily herself approached the doorway, and the children paced quietly behind her. Her mouth spoke in chorus with her brethren even as she reached out and chose the nearest child.
Twelfth Night! Twelfth Tithe! her master urged her with frantic eagerness.
But the wolf inside her said, Look at her! Look at what you do!
And Daylily paused. She looked into the face of the child who wore her own features, but younger, unspoiled, and true. For an instant, the bronze light cleared from the girl’s eyes, and they were dark eyes that gazed up at Daylily with momentary recognition.