Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(22)

He crouched before her like a panther prepared to spring, his eyes intent. His clothing was savage: skins and coarse cloth forming a loose garment with a sheathed knife hung on its leather belt. He was a figure out of primitive legends, cruder by far than any artist might have painted him, for how could an artist imagine such utter dirt and blood and roughhewn living?

But when the young man stood, he moved like the son of a king or lord, more dignified than a dandy such as Foxbrush could ever dream of being. He was no taller than Daylily herself, yet it did not matter. He was master here.

Daylily’s legs felt weak, and she feared if she tried to stand she might fall over. So she remained seated where she was but lifted her chin with a calm hauteur that would have struck Prince Foxbrush down in his tracks. “I am Lady Daylily, daughter of the Baron of Middlecrescent,” she said, her voice cold as a winter morning. “Who are you?”

“Sun Eagle,” said the warrior, and something that might have been a smile flashed briefly across his stern face. His nose wrinkled as he drew a deep breath of her scent. Many scars marked his dark skin in cruel, pale lines, and his cheeks and neck were stained with dried blood.

“Do I owe you thanks?” Daylily asked, willing her voice not to tremble. “Was it you who called off those . . . things?”

He said nothing. Daylily wondered if perhaps he did not understand her. He circled her where she sat, studying her intently and sniffing again. She forced herself not to turn and follow his movements, to sit quite still, like a rabbit in the field, hoping the hawk will pass on overhead.

He came around in front of her, and once more she glimpsed a flicker of a smile.

“Crescent Woman,” he said.

His accent was almost too strong to understand. But somehow the words shifted around in her mind, becoming comprehensible as by magic.

“Crescent Woman,” he repeated. “But your hair is like fire.”

By this time Daylily was fairly certain she could control her limbs, so she stood slowly, arranging her skirts. The hem was ripped into ribbons; the sleeves hung in rags from her elbows; and with every move she made, more pearls fell from the trimming.

The warrior looked her over, his gaze curious, as though he saw things that he knew could not be and yet could not deny. He frowned, a fierce expression when coupled with all that dried blood. “You speak with the voice of a man or a boy child,” he said. “It is strange to hear in a Crescent Woman’s mouth. Yet you have the smell of my people, my land. Were you sent by my father to find me? Are you some diviner or witch?”

“Certainly not,” Daylily replied. “I told you, I am Baron Middlecrescent’s daughter.”

“Elder Middlecrescent?” the warrior suggested.

She did not respond. But a suspicion bloomed suddenly in her mind, a suspicion so strong, it was nearly a certainty. She did not want to accept it. Yes, she’d entered the Wilderlands. Yes, she expected the unexpected. Only, not this. This was impossible.

They studied each other, each slowly peeling back layers of unbelief at what this study revealed. Daylily was a private young woman. She was so private, in fact, that she had long since become unused to anyone noticing anything beyond the surface version of herself she permitted to be seen. At times even she began to believe that the surface Daylily was the only Daylily in existence.

So when the warrior suddenly narrowed his eyes and said, “What is that inside you?” she nearly collapsed again upon the spot.

“Stop looking at me!” she gasped, though she could not tear her own gaze away from his.

“Why?” asked the warrior, his voice soft. “What is that? What don’t you want me to see?”

“Nothing!” she replied. “Leave me alone.”

She wanted to run, to flee deeper into the Wilderlands. Even to be swallowed into the vortex of the sylphs’ dance would be preferable to this! But the warrior’s eyes held her rooted. And then she glimpsed something else, something moving behind his black pupils.

“What is that inside you?” she asked.

Let us show you.

“Let me show you,” said the warrior. He took her face between his hands.

———

The passage between minds is not so great as one might expect. Indeed, for incorporeal beings it is but a step once the gate is open.

The gates of Daylily’s mind, which she had thought so heavily fortified, opened easily to the one who now sought entrance.

It found itself on a wide, blank plateau. The sky was dark as a moonless midnight, but the ground shone as though illuminated by a pale sun, though there was no sun to be seen. Desolation spread in vast, lonely sweeps, but here and there green places could yet be seen.

Searching, searching, searching for the lost . . . But the search is easier with eyes, with a body, even here in the landscape of a poisoned mind. So assume a body, assume a shape, assume . . .

Sun Eagle stood on the plateau. Or, if not Sun Eagle, then Sun Eagle’s form. A fine, strong, stolid form; a worthy host. And the thing inside Sun Eagle turned him to survey the world of Daylily’s mind. In the distance, it could still discern some places of growth where her memories remained unsoiled. It saw a field of rolling grass across which two mounted horses raced, their riders laughing in wild joy, urging, “Faster! Faster!”

But the green faded away into the desolation. The riders, flying so swiftly on their steeds, vanished the moment they left the lawn and stepped upon the wasteland. When they were gone, the green died and became part of the sorry whole.