Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(96)

A roar shattered the stillness of the Wood, echoing on into worlds and demesnes beyond. And Daylily, clutching the stone that dragged her forward against all her will or strength, looked up into the descending doom of the lion and screeching Faerie queen.



“What was that?”

Imraldera paused midstride and turned to the sound of that echoing rumble. The blur of trees sliding past hardened into the solid growth of the Wood around them as she and her companions stopped.

“The white lion,” Sun Eagle said. His voice was thin, for though he had recovered much from his wounds under Imraldera’s care and the influence of the Haven, he was still weak from blood loss. But his head came up and his eyes were bright as he stared off in the direction from which the roar had come. “She is near. But not so near as I thought.”

“No, indeed. I thought she was right on our tail a moment ago,” Eanrin agreed, craning his neck as though to somehow see through the trees themselves. “Sounds like she’s on the hunt, all right. But if we’re not her prey, than who is?”

“We should go after. We should find out,” said Imraldera, but there was a question in her voice. After all, Sun Eagle was not strong, and the idea of walking into the waiting jaws of the lioness and her wild companion was unappealing from any perspective.

“I think . . . not,” Eanrin said, though he hesitated. “We’d do best to put some distance between ourselves and those two mad girls, if you know what I mean.”

Imraldera agreed but Sun Eagle said nothing. He continued looking after the sound, which by now had died away into nothing. He sniffed the air and bowed his head. Then without a word, he continued on his way, passing up even Imraldera and storming on at a tremendous speed despite the pain that must even now be shooting through his leg. It was as though some force other than himself moved his body and his limbs.

Where he walked, a Path opened up. But it was not the Path they had been following a moment before.

Imraldera saw this and frowned. It seemed a safe enough way, however, and it led the direction they had been following all along. With a whispered curse, she took a step after.

Eanrin caught her arm.

“Oh, is that how we do things now?” he said. “Our Lord’s Path disappears, and we just pick up the next one that comes along?”

“Don’t lecture me, Eanrin,” she said without a great deal of vim. She was tired, and she hated to admit that she was beginning to think the cat-man might be right. It irritated her, and she tried to shrug his hand off but failed. “You know as well as I that there are many safe Paths in the Wood. It doesn’t have to be one we know to be good.”

“And you’re just going to assume that any Path this Sun Eagle of yours follows is good, is that right?”

“Stop calling him ‘mine,’” she growled. “It’s beneath you to be so spiteful.”


“Spiteful? When was I ever spiteful?” said he. But his voice was no longer the cheerful tease Imraldera had come to know so well. It was more like a cat’s than ever, but like a wild cat’s, full of suspicion. “Look, I haven’t felt right about this all along. Not since I first found him and carried him back. I don’t deny that part was right, but the rest of this? Tell me, have you heard even a whisper of leading from the Lumil Eliasul?”

Imraldera stared hard at his hand holding her arm, as though to burn his fingers with her gaze. She drew a deep breath and scowled up at him. “No. I haven’t. But that does not mean we are doing wrong. We’ve been given our mission: to protect, to guard. And we’ve our own good sense and experience from which to draw, as well as what we know of our Lord’s will. I believe this is the right course.”

He let her go and she turned to face him, crossing her arms over her chest in a mirror image of the stance he also assumed. Sun Eagle marched on ahead as they glared at each other, and the Wood watched, both frightened and amused.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Eanrin said.

“Not especially, no.”

“Isn’t that a shame, then? Because I’m going to tell you what I think, and you’re going to listen, and if you can’t give me a fair answer, it’ll be dragon fire to pay, you mark my words.”

“We don’t have time for this.”

“We always have time. We’re in the Between. And it’s about time someone took time to stop and think before rushing off into the unknown at a word from some savage mortal!”

“Savage?” Imraldera snarled out the word. Her face was flushed and she felt the heat of mounting battle inside her. Reasonably, she knew she should back down and step away from this fight that could accomplish nothing. Yet there she stood, rising to the bait, her mouth filling with words like weapons to hurl at her companion’s head. “You keep saying savage, Eanrin. Is this what you think of me, then? Am I nothing more than a savage to you? Because I am what he is.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I am! I am of the Hidden Land Behind the Mountains! I was born of mortal earth and mortal blood! I was raised by mortal hands the same as he, breathing the air he breathed, living the life he lived.”

“The life he lived, eh?” The cat-man’s voice was smooth as butter. “If my memory serves, you were poisoned and cursed to lose your voice, while he and all the menfolk of your precious Hidden Land beat you down at their convenience—when they could be bothered to acknowledge your existence at all.”