Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(83)

Then she faced Foxbrush. “I won’t tell my da. But if something bad comes of this, be it on your head.”

Foxbrush nodded solemnly and stepped back to let Lark exit. “She’ll not wake for an hour or so,” the girl said over her shoulder. “When she does, she’ll be in pain, so find me.” With that, she was gone.

Foxbrush sat beside Daylily, pulled his knees up to his chest, and waited. As he waited, he frowned and pulled the scroll Leo had given him out of his shirtfront. By this time, it should have been mashed and unreadable. But as though by magic, it remained whole and legible. Foxbrush unrolled it and read:

Oh, Shadow Hand of Here and There,

Heal now the ills

Of your weak and weary Fair,

Lost among the hills.

You would give your own two hands

To save your ancient, sorrowing lands.

“Ancient, sorrowing lands,” Foxbrush murmured, not realizing that he had begun to read the poem out loud or for how long. He stopped when he heard the sound of his own voice, embarrassed but thoughtful.

He put a hand to his shirt where the tears of the Everblooming had dampened it. And he shuddered suddenly at the closeness of everything, the nearness of the strange and fantastical pressing in upon his life.

When he looked up, he found Daylily watching him.

“Dragon’s teeth!” he exclaimed, dropping the scroll in his surprise. “You’re awake! She said . . . she told me you would sleep for an hour or more.”

“I never sleep long, no matter the drugs.”

Her voice was dark and low, quite unlike the bright, crisp voice Foxbrush had only ever heard her use before. He wondered if this was her real voice and the other was fake, another mask.

Daylily tried to turn and groaned, her brow wrinkling at the pain in her shoulder. But she ground her teeth and drew a long breath, then made her face go smooth.

“Shall I get help?” Foxbrush asked, half rising.

“No,” she said quickly. “No one. I—” She compressed her pale lips. Then she whispered, “I must go.”

“You can’t. You were . . . well, you were mauled by a lion.”

Her eyes flicked up to meet his again, and her eyebrows lowered, then rose. “What are you doing here, Foxbrush? What are you doing in this place?” Her hands gripped the animal skins beneath her, and she glanced about at the small, dark room lit by a tiny fire in the corner, smoky and dank and smelling of mold and animal droppings. It was the most unlikely setting in which to find the fastidious crown prince. And he the most unlikely figure of all! He wore skins like a native, and his skinny arms were bare and darker than she remembered. His hair, which she’d only ever seen flattened down with oil, stood up in wild, wooly tufts and sported more than a few leaves and sticks.

Most altered was his face. A growth of scraggly beard outlined his jaw and chin, making him look older than he was. Lines deepened around his eyes and mouth in the firelight, lines of worry and of fear, but also lines of—what was it? She could not say and did not like to guess.

“You are,” said Daylily, pushing her hair back from her face, “possibly the last person I expected to meet in this place.”

“I followed you.”

It was like an admission of guilt. He bowed his head and could not look her in the eye. A long silence stretched between, each considering the words that hung still in the air.

Then Daylily said, “That was foolish. I did not wish to be followed.”

She sat up then, wincing at the pain, and tried to move her left arm. Her shoulder protested, but she could feel for herself that the wound was not deep. She slipped the shoulder of the old, brown-woven shirt into place, and it scratched the wound and stuck to the dressing. “Now,” she said, “I will be going.” She looked down at the Bronze, still fast in her fist. “I . . . I must . . .”

We must find him.

“What was that?” Foxbrush asked, looking around, startled. He could have sworn he’d heard a whisper of many voices shivering about the room, darting round the walls and vanishing into the fire.

“I heard nothing,” said Daylily. She started to rise, but Foxbrush reached out and caught her wrist. She frowned but did not struggle. There was no need. One glance and he would wither and back down.

But this time he didn’t. He met her gaze, and though sweat beaded his forehead, he did not break it. “Daylily,” he said, “I came to . . . to tell you something. I had to follow because you must hear this. I . . . I won’t marry you.”

She blinked slowly and said nothing.

“Yes,” Foxbrush continued, still holding her arm. She felt his thumb moving nervously up and down over her skin. “Yes, I thought perhaps . . . They found my letter to you, you see, and I thought—”

“Oh,” said Daylily, shaking her head and nearly laughing. “Is that all? Did you think it was you who drove me to the Wilderlands?”

Foxbrush opened his mouth but settled for a swift nod.

Daylily laughed again, and it was very like the cold, bright laughs he’d known back when she was the darling of the Eldest’s court. Foxbrush, flushing so hot he thought his face would melt, hurried on.

“I won’t marry you, Daylily. I’ve made up my mind, and nothing can change it.”

“Is that so?”

“Not even your father. I don’t want you for my wife. So, you see, you’re free now. You can come home and . . . and . . .” He almost could not speak the words but forced them out. “And Lionheart has returned. If you want to, you can marry him instead, and I’ll see that it’s all right. I’ll still be Eldest, I suppose, and I’ll have some power.” The look on her face frightened him, so he rushed on at full speed. “And I’ve found a way to save Southlands! They grow elder figs here, and they showed me how to pollinate them, and there’s no other market in the Continent that can offer them. Our trade will reestablish, and everything will return to the way it was. We’ve . . . we’ve only got to find our way back to our own time.”