Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(38)

Nidawi put the paper to her mouth once more and licked it. Another unhappy face, and she tossed it over her shoulder, where it curled up on itself like a frightened hedgehog. Nidawi smiled at Foxbrush.

“I like presents,” she said. “And I like you. When shall we wed?”

With that, the Everblooming stepped toward him, her eyes so full of otherworldly feelings that she was quite a terror to behold. She placed her hands on Foxbrush’s chest and would have kissed him had he not, in that moment, sneezed. This startled her into stepping back, and he took the opportunity to drop to his knees and crawl rather desperately away. He was just putting out a long arm, trying to reach his scroll, when he felt her hands on his shirt and belt, hauling him back.

“Come here, king!” the Faerie woman demanded, and with amazing strength set him on his feet, spun him around, and looked at him with the most brilliant set of eyes. The colors of them swirled from violet to gold with flecks of green and deeps of blue. They were the eyes of a whole forest, all rolled into tiny points of light. And they were irked.

“Don’t you like me?” Nidawi asked.

“Oh no! I mean . . .” Foxbrush’s head was light and whirling, for the nearness of her was a bath of summer wine, intoxicating, thrilling, and a little messy. It would be too easy for an ordinary man to forget himself, to forgo his responsibilities and commitments, to become lost in the smell of flowers in her hair and never be heard from again.

“I’m engaged!” he cried in a last desperate defense, grabbing her hands and pushing them away as gently as he could. One might just as easily dislodge mountain roots.

Nidawi’s eyes narrowed, and her perfect posy of a mouth bloomed into a full pout. “Engaged?” she said, taking a step back. The lioness muttered behind her. “Engaged to whom, may I ask?”

Her fingers loosened, and Foxbrush took advantage of the moment to back away into the shushing ferns. The lioness and Nidawi watched him, and he knew it would be foolish to try running, so he swallowed, his throat constricting painfully, and tried to straighten his hopelessly bedraggled shirt. “To Daylily, Lady Daylily, the woman I mentioned before.”

“You never mentioned a woman,” said Nidawi, who was not the sort to remember any woman besides herself. Tears brimmed yet again. “Faithless, heartless, cruel man—” she began.

“No, no!” Foxbrush put out both hands. “Please don’t cry! It’s . . . it’s nothing against you, I assure you. You are by far the loveliest woman I’ve ever clapped eyes upon—”

“Oh, well, that’s settled, then,” said Nidawi, and her tears vanished at once behind a satisfied smile. “If I’m lovelier than this Daylily creature, then who cares if you break off with her to marry me as you should?”

Foxbrush rubbed his nose and took another tentative step back. Though not the most insightful man in the worlds, even he could conclude that now was not the time to mention his intention of ending his betrothal to Daylily. The lioness flicked an ear his way, and he froze once more. “It’s a, um, a matter of honor. I must honor my promise to her. And I must find her as well. So you see, I don’t have time to marry anyone else.”

“Find her?” said Nidawi, her pout returning. “Find her, why?”

Foxbrush breathed a heavy sigh and dropped his gaze. He saw the scroll lying near, a little mangled by Nidawi’s pearly teeth. “She ran away into the Wilderlands. I’m not sure what became of her, but I must—”

“If she ran away,” the Everblooming said, settling down to the ground as elegantly as though she sank into the cushions of a fine couch, “she can’t like you very much, so I don’t see why you make these protests. Come. Sit by me.” She patted the ferns beside her, smiling invitingly and making Foxbrush’s stomach drop. “I like you well, and besides, I need you to kill someone for me. She can’t say that much, now, can she?”

For a brief, thrilling moment, Foxbrush almost took one step, then another, then sank into those alluring immortal arms. All thoughts of his life and his mission and his world could so swiftly be forgotten.

But a timely sneeze returned enough of his sense that her words sank even to the dullest places of his mind. “I’m not killing anyone,” he said, rubbing his nose.

“Not yet.” Nidawi ran long fingers through her own hair and shrugged prettily. “But you will. Which means you have, which means . . . Oh! So much! Now come here, mortal king, and let me kiss you.”

Foxbrush fled.

He did not run, for he knew that it would do no good, but he turned on heel and walked very fast, stopping only long enough to grab up the scroll as he went. His face flushed deeply with something between panic and dread, and his heart thudded madly in his breast. He could easily imagine the tear of the lioness’s claws in his back, the fire, the rip, the end. . . .

His hands in fists, he strode as fast as he could, and the trees parted to make way, though he did not notice this. He knew the name of the Everblooming. What child in Southlands did not? She featured in many rhymes and nursery tales, even in the Ballad of Shadow Hand, if he remembered correctly.

But that was just it. This nursery story wanted to—he nearly choked at the thought—wanted to kiss him! This children’s book character, this figment of some strange man’s even stranger imagination! Real and voluptuous and terrifying and . . .