Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(125)
Nidawi was dancing once more, dancing with a trail of sparkling lights following her wherever she went, and Eanrin’s immortal ears could just discern faint traces of laughter. The children of Nidawi had been lost in the Mound too long to retain their bodily form. But their spirits, their essences, the individuality of each and every one remained alive and thriving and full of bright light. Eanrin smiled a little despite the heaviness in his heart and the smarting of his blistered fingers and palms. Ultimately, what did physical bodies matter? It was the truth of the thing that counted.
There flashed through his mind the image of Sun Eagle disintegrating, turning to smoke. He cursed and clenched his fists, bowing his head.
When he looked up, he saw the Prince of Farthestshore approaching.
“My Lord!” he exclaimed, and his exclamation brought Nidawi to a pause in the midst of her dance. She turned about, saw the Prince, and cried, “Lumil Eliasul!” Then she ran to him, trailing the flickering lights of her people behind her and shedding her motherly form, becoming the child yet again as she fell at his feet. The Prince picked her up, and she wriggled in his arms like a puppy. “It came true! Your promise! My children are rescued!” she exclaimed and kept lunging at his face, trying to kiss him.
He laughed and restrained her gently, his wild, fey child. “Of course it came true. When will you learn to trust me as you should, Nidawi Everblooming?” His words were a chastisement, but his voice was kind, and she squirmed with pleasure at his attention.
Another child, a mortal with a crop of red hair, watched Nidawi from behind the Prince’s back, her expression both a little jealous and a little frightened. She turned large black eyes up to Eanrin and offered him a shy smile.
Then she saw Foxbrush lying behind him, and a small “Oh!” escaped her lips. She let go her hold on the Prince’s coattails and ran through the spreading starflowers, past Eanrin, and fell on her knees beside him, across from Daylily. “What’s happened to him?” she demanded. In this magical place, her rough and ancient tongue shifted so that Daylily could understand it.
And Daylily, her face quite red, her eyes swollen, shook her head, allowing her thick hair to cover her for a moment. Then she said from behind this veil, “He saved me. He saved us all.”
“Will he wake up?” Lark asked, her gaze fixing on Foxbrush’s destroyed hands, unable to look away.
“I hope so,” Daylily replied softly.
“You hope so?” Lark sat up straight, pushing the tangles of hair out of her face. “Why don’t you stop hoping and do something? Don’t you know anything?”
“Know what, child?” Daylily asked, confused and a little intimidated in the face of such passion. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll show you!”
With that, Lark put out her small hands and grabbed Foxbrush by the ears, lifting his head off the ground. She planted a kiss right on his mouth—a childish, sweet, innocent kiss, but no less full of love for that.
Foxbrush blinked, once, twice, unseeing. The third blink, and his vision cleared. He looked up into Lark’s small face so close to his own. She smiled and let go of his ears so that he hit his head hard on the ground. “Ouch!” he said even as Lark turned to Daylily.
“Kisses work every time,” said the girl triumphantly. “And I am the Eldest’s daughter.”
16
ELDEST SIGHT-OF-DAY and her husband stood with their younger children around them at the top of the hill. From this vantage, they saw their daughter approaching from a great way off, and it took Redman’s restraining hand on Sight-of-Day’s arm to keep the Eldest from running to her. “No, no,” he said gently. “Let her return to us.”
So Lark raced up the hill, and Foxbrush followed more slowly behind. The child flung herself into her parents’ arms, and her sisters and brother pulled at her clothes and hair, asking many questions, while Redman and the Eldest were silent in their joy.
Foxbrush hung back, hiding his hands behind his back, trying not to stare at that scene of happy reunion. But at length, Lark turned and pointed to him, saying, “Ma! Da! Foxbrush came to save me! He entered the darkness, and he found me!”
“Don’t speak of that darkness, child,” Sight-of-Day said quickly. Then she turned to Foxbrush, and her face, lined with many cares, was as lovely then as it must have been when she was a young and fresh maiden. “We owe you a great debt,” she said.
Foxbrush shook his head. “No, I did nothing. Lark is more the hero than I.”
“That isn’t so,” Lark protested, leaving the shelter of her mother’s embrace and hurrying to Foxbrush’s side. She reached out and took one of his hands, and the Eldest and Redman saw for the first time the ugly crippling. “He rescued me,” Lark said, holding that hand in both of hers, her eyes shining up at his face. “He entered the darkness, and he saved me.”
Redman looked down at Foxbrush’s feet. And he saw the Path as he had always seen it. And he saw, if only briefly, where it had led.
He met Foxbrush’s gaze and saw there suffering, but also hope and a budding, growing courage. Foxbrush, looking into that twisted, disfigured face, raised one of his twisted, disfigured hands in salute. He even smiled, though there was pain in the smile as he said, “It’s all about blood and love, Redman.”