Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(82)

“Dancing,” said the wolf. And she sighed. “I used to love dancing.”

Two figures stepped out from among the rest until they may have been the only two. And these, as they danced, became more vivid. A prince in white with a fibula of a seated panther on his shoulder; a lady in a flowing headdress, furs draped across her smooth shoulders. They danced and they smiled into each other’s eyes.

The wolf shook her head. “They never looked at each other like that. Only here in her mind. It was never so beautiful.”

The figure that was Daylily sneered but watched curiously even so.

The music changed. The tune became lighter, merrier, but despite this alteration, the mood of the scene suddenly darkened. The smiles fell from the faces of both dancers.

“Don’t leave me, Lionheart,” said the lady. “Don’t leave me standing here.”

But the prince stepped back, his face a stern mask. He let go her hand, and as he backed away, he disappeared into the surrounding shadows. And the lady stood alone, the merry music falling like sharp glass shards around her.

The she-wolf growled. “I will kill him one day,” she said.

Wait, said the figure of Daylily, frowning. Does he return?

For a moment it looked as though he did. A man of much his build and coloring, also dressed in white, stepped out of the shadows, his arms extended to the lady. She turned to him, her smile momentarily flashing again.

But the man changed. His shoulders bowed, and his stance became awkward. His eyes, large and dark, squinted, either with nerves or nearsightedness. Rather than a fibula on his shoulder, he wore a crown upon his head.

“Let me dance with you, Daylily,” he said earnestly. “Let me take Lionheart’s place.”

And the lady, her face colder than ice, took his hand and allowed him to dance her away, spinning into shadows. The music fell into dissonance and then a silence darker than the blackness of the sky.

“All is lost,” said the she-wolf.

All is mine, said the mouth of Daylily.



“My da will kill me.”

“I doubt that very much,” said Foxbrush with a weak laugh that earned him a scowl from Lark. The little girl knelt on the floor beside Foxbrush’s own pile of animals skins (which he still resisted calling a bed). Daylily lay upon them, lost in some fevered dream that left her moaning.

Foxbrush had managed with some difficulty to carry Daylily most of the way up to the Eldest’s House before he realized that the people of the village would not take kindly to the presence of the “red lady” of whom they’d been hearing. Did they believe in fair trials in this age? He could not count on it.

So he’d left Daylily in the shadows near the jungle and, praying she would still be there when he returned, went to find the only person he felt he could trust.

Lark asked no questions, but after one look at Foxbrush’s face, left her sisters and brother in their small chamber and followed him out into the darkening night. The Eldest, her husband, and most of the villagers were gathered in the big stone central chamber of the Eldest’s House. But there were back ways into the humbler portions of that House. Lark showed Foxbrush and helped him smuggle Daylily in and hide her in his chambers.

“Out,” Lark had said then.

Foxbrush had started to protest. Then he saw Lark begin to peel back the last shreds of Daylily’s ruined underdress and made a swift exit. He stood outside the door (or crouched, rather, for the ceiling was very low) and waited, counting the seconds that felt like years.

But at last Lark called him back in, and he found Daylily clad in the Eldest’s old clothes, lying facedown with her shoulder exposed but dressed and well tended by Lark’s expert hands.

“It wasn’t deep,” Lark said to Foxbrush’s great relief. “Just a scratch. But I think she might be in shock. And she won’t let go of that.” She pointed to Daylily’s fist, which clutched the bronze stone.

Lark looked up at Foxbrush with sharp, questioning eyes. “She’s the lady they’re talking about, isn’t she. The one who killed Mama Greenteeth.”

Foxbrush shook his head. “Daylily couldn’t kill anyone.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew them for the lie they were. Still, he refused to admit it. For a moment he closed his eyes and tried, however desperately, to reclaim a fair image of her, an image he could bear: such as the time she visited his mother’s estate at Hill House for the summer, the first time he had seen her since they were children. She’d been a lovely girl of sixteen then, her hair piled high in shining curls tucked under a wide-brimmed hat to shade her fair complexion. Her hands had been gloved when she shook his in greeting, soft gloves of deerskin with jeweled bracelets at the wrists.

She’d scarcely looked at him then. She’d fixed her attention solely upon Leo. But it didn’t matter. Not then. Not ever.

Foxbrush drew a long breath. When he opened his eyes again, he found Lark studying him, her little mouth pressed into a line as stern as any scolding mother’s. “She’s from your time, isn’t she,” she said. “Is she your woman?”

“Not really,” Foxbrush admitted.

“But you’d like her to be?”

He shrugged, embarrassed at this bluntness from the child. “She’ll never be anybody’s.”

Lark nodded at this and looked down at the young woman under her care. In that moment, despite the childish roundness of her face and the older bitterness of Daylily’s, they looked very alike. Perhaps Lark felt some kindred link across the centuries. Perhaps she was simply too much a child to care about rumors. However it was, she bent suddenly, compulsively, and kissed Daylily’s cheek.