Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(30)

Then she stood at the top, exhausted, sweat drenched, her feet bleeding. But she noticed none of this.

“Gone,” she whispered. “Everything is gone.”

The warrior, come up beside her, turned slowly in place.

All was wild, untamed, vine-draped jungle. A thickness and greenness and dreadfulness that Daylily had never before seen or imagined, full of the buzzing of insects, the not-too-distant screams of monkeys, and the caws of ground-dwelling fowl. Mango trees, untended, bore bounteous burdens of fly-eaten fruit. The air teemed with life and death and moisture.

Through the thick tangle of vines a narrow trail was cut, leading to the gorge, beaten down by many generations of feet. This alone gave sign of human life in this young, feral land.

And Daylily felt . . .

. . . the surge of ravening desire. The taste of blood on the air.

This is good country.

“My world,” said the warrior. Suddenly his face broke as something between a laugh and a sob escaped from his heart. “This is the Land !”

“This is Southlands,” said Daylily.

She knew this landscape, or a ghostly image of it. But the jungle she knew had been cut back, tamed, fit into a mold of elegance and refinement. There might be the chatter of monkeys, but they were pet monkeys who lived fat lives in the queen’s garden or perched on the shoulders of their caretakers. There may be ground fowl, but they were stately, spoiled birds, trailing their long plumes of tails behind them across sprawling green lawns.

There should be a path, yes, but not a narrow dirt trail. Where was the paved carriage road from the Eldest’s City across the grounds to Evenwell? And Evenwell, across the gorge, where was it? Lost in that thick, wild growth? Where was the gatehouse where the bridge keeper lived?

Where was Swan Bridge?

Sun Eagle turned when the moan escaped Daylily’s lips. He caught her as she sagged, all but fainting. Supporting her, he lowered her to the ground and held her while she relearned to breathe.

“You are out of your time,” he told her, his voice oddly gentle from behind those bloodstains. “Sylphs care nothing for Time themselves and do not understand how mortals may value it.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder, staring at nothing. Stroking her hair, Sun Eagle looked around again, and his black eyes swam. “This is not my time either,” he said. “The Gray Wood had not grown up unchecked in the gorges back in my day but was held in place by rivers. The rivers are gone now. The mighty rivers . . .”

His stern face could not be softened by tears but rather was made to seem sterner still, even as he wept. Then it was done. All mourning or celebration passed from him, and he stood, helping Daylily to her feet once more. She clung to him unconsciously, her eyes darting this way and that, frightened as a doe who smells but does not see the panther near.

“There is no bridge for you,” said the warrior, “as there is no river for me. But the Land . . . the Land is ours!”

The Land is mine.

“Come, Crescent Woman.” Sun Eagle turned to Daylily with a look in his eye that may have been a smile. “Let us see what we may find.”

It’s mine.

He led her by the hand away from the gorge. He did not take the beaten trail but instead plunged into the jungle itself, always finding just room enough to pass even where Daylily thought the vines grew as thick as a wall. The air breathed with wildness and youth and heat, baffling Daylily’s senses. Birds she did not recognize flitted after insects and sang their territorial warnings. Snakes twined through the vines, hidden and hood-eyed, watching the strangers pass. Once a monkey swung down to chatter vicious teeth at them, but it fled at one glance from Sun Eagle.

And it was all real. Daylily, who had seen Death’s realm, found herself oddly able to accept it, and her racing heart calmed a little. This countryside was known to her, deep in her heart of hearts. It was like when she was a little girl, and her grandmother had shown her a lovely portrait hanging in the long gallery of Baron Middlecrescent’s home.


“Do you know who that is, child?”

“No, Grandmother.”

“That was me as a young maid. Was I not beautiful then? I was a free-spirited creature, full of life, full of hope, full of passion. But alas!” and the old woman’s voice had become heavy as old sin. “They always break us in the end.”

Remembering, Daylily gazed upon the untamed landscape around her. “They haven’t broken us,” she whispered. “Not yet!”

Sun Eagle stopped suddenly, poised for either fight or flight. Daylily watched him test the air, and then he turned to her with a terrible smile.

“I knew it,” he said. “I knew we must have returned for a reason! After all my searching, the Land has called me home.” His eyes flashed with something Daylily could not understand. “It needs us.”

It needs me!

Sun Eagle took her hand again and led her on through the jungle. “Come, Crescent Woman. Walk cautiously and take care not to be seen. You will prove yourself.”

“Prove myself?” Daylily did not try to free her hand, though part of her wished to. She followed Sun Eagle with the trusting simplicity of a child. “What do you mean?”

“You will fight,” said Sun Eagle without loosening his hold or slackening his pace. “You will fight.”

The countryside grew steadily more tame. She saw signs of cultivation, of furrowed fields. Sun Eagle continued sniffing the air, and whatever he smelled excited him. Then Daylily caught a scent for herself, a strong odor of smoke.