Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(2)

“Oh, Shadow Hand of Here and There

The stone of ancients kills

To free his fiery, fickle Fair

From death beneath the hills!”

She finished and shut the book with a bang that made Foxbrush startle. “We need a fickle Fair for me to rescue from you.”

Leo rolled his eyes, then turned to those gathered round. “So who wants to be the damsel in distress?” he asked.

The children exchanged glances. A demotion from warrior to damsel was none too keenly desired. Even the little girls, their braided hair coming all undone, shook their heads.

“There you have it,” said Leo, smugly lifting his curtain rod. “No one wants to be her, so we’ll play without her.”

“No we won’t,” said the girl-king, her voice so final that even the intrepid Leo blinked and lost some of his smug. She turned and surveyed the room like a hawk selecting which hopping young rabbit she might wish to snatch. Her gaze fell at last upon Foxbrush by the door.

“Who are you?” she said.

“Um,” said Foxbrush. That strange stare of hers pinned him to the wall. He’d never seen blue eyes before. He was not naturally a superstitious child. Nevertheless, as the girl-king descended upon him, her eyes full of ruling intensity . . . well, even Foxbrush wondered if, in that moment, he had fallen under a bewitchment.

“Do you want to be the fickle Fair?” she said, drawing near to him.

Foxbrush shook his head. “I . . . I’d rather not,” he said.

She looked him up and down, appraising his worth. “Why not?” she demanded. “You’d be good at it.”

Foxbrush couldn’t break her fearful gaze. Shrinking into himself, he said, “I might tear my shirt.”

The flame-headed girl narrowed her eyes. Then she reached out, grabbed hold of the button at his collar, and yanked. It took a couple of hard pulls, but it came away in her hand at last with a satisfying rip.

Foxbrush gasped.

“There,” said the girl-king. “It’s torn already. Come play with us.”

In that moment, realization washed over young Foxbrush; realization that this girl could make him do whatever she wanted him to. And, more horribly still, he wouldn’t entirely mind doing it.

He loved her at once for reasons he could not then understand.



So you see? Blood and love—the ingredients of every true story.

“All right,” you say, “I see the love. But where’s the blood? Give us blood!”

Don’t worry, dear reader. We’ll come to the blood soon enough.





1


ONCE MORE, FAILURE.

Once more, new life did not spring from blood, no matter how much blood flowed. New growth did not flourish from desolation, new breath did not stir the still air. When the dying stopped dying, there was an end of it. No more dying. No new living.

Once more, rootless, drifting, searching.

But it could not make mistakes. How could it? It did not think; it merely acted, instinct driving every deed. Therefore, it could not learn. Therefore, it would try again. And again. And again.

Once more, searching, searching, searching . . .

. . . for one as lost as itself.



The Eldest’s groundskeepers were not folks to judge. The rest of the kingdom could turn up its collective nose or raise condemnatory eyebrows as it willed. As far as the groundskeepers were concerned, a week of relaxed duties and a full day off with free cake and mango cider sent from the Big House itself was reason to celebrate.

Let princes marry whom they will. Let councils depose whom they will. Let the worlds gossip and the courtiers go about their intrigues; only let there be cider, and the sun may still shine!

So the groundskeepers gathered, on the day of the crown prince’s wedding, beneath the shade of a mango grove. It wasn’t much shade, for these were young mangoes, newly planted the year before. The old, stately grove that had once stood on this site had been destroyed during the Occupation. . . .

But there. They would not think of that. Not on such a fine, lazy morning. The new trees cast shade enough, the cider slid nice and cool down the throat, and the crown prince would wed his lady in the Great Hall of the Eldest.

“Lord Lumé, I hope he’ll pull it off this year!” said Graybeak, Stoneblossom’s husband, around a mouthful of crumb cake.

“Pull what off?” asked Tippertail, who was Graybeak’s best mate in the fields.

“This marriage, of course,” Graybeak replied. “I hope the crown prince manages to get it done. The last one didn’t, did he, now? And they made as much fuss or more over his wedding week.”

“Only we didn’t get crumb cake,” said Flitmouse solemnly. And this was acknowledged with grave nods. No crumb cake; how could that marriage possibly have gone over well?

“Good thing, if you ask me,” said Stoneblossom, who never needed to be asked before stating an opinion, “that they went and got rid o’ that one, that Prince Lionheart. And lucky for Lady Daylily that she didn’t marry him first!”

“Hear, hear!” the groundskeepers agreed, clunking their mugs together as a toast.

“But surely Prince Lionheart couldn’t have been all bad.”

This was spoken by a newcomer, another groundskeeper from a different quarter of the Eldest’s estate, judging by the color of his hood. What he was doing here in South Stretch was something of a conundrum to the gathered crew, and they glanced at him sideways, not exactly unfriendly, nor exactly welcoming. Stoneblossom had given him a smaller slice of crumb cake than the rest.