“Because you are in the Wood Between. Spoken language matters here as little as time, or size, or any other of the restrictions to which you mortals are so well adjusted.”
“Oh.” Alistair rubbed his sore forehead again, wishing he could rub some sense back into life. He felt numb all over. What else, he wondered, had he always taken for granted that would, at any moment, be flipped upside down and proven complete twaddle?
“Well, now we’ve got the Chronicler,” he said, “what’s next?”
“We must hasten to my country,” said Mouse, her voice still low and embarrassed but determined. “We must hasten there at once before it’s too late!”
“What? Why?” demanded the Chronicler, stepping forward, his voice fierce. “Even now, the house of Earl Ferox is overrun. My people and many earls of the North Country are held captive. All because that creature wants the House of Lights. The House of Lights! As though we can pull nursery rhymes made real from our hats and present them to him on a silver platter! It’s madness; it’s insanity!”
“It’s Faerie,” said Eanrin, his voice a little gentler than before. He sighed and addressed Mouse. “They need to know,” he said. “Tell them. Tell them everything you told me, and we’ll see if we can’t get a little prophecy fulfillment underway, shall we?”
Mouse hesitated but nodded. She felt as though choking hands gripped her by the throat. Yet she must speak. She must tell her tale, and she must get it right.
Fire burn! Fire purify! she prayed desperately.
Then she caught Alistair’s eye. And she saw there . . . what? Encouragement? He was not her enemy at least, this man whom she had saved and who had saved her.
Don’t think, she told herself. If you begin to think, you’ll never go through with it! Do as the Flame demands.
“Well, girl?” said Eanrin. “In your own good time.”
1
HOW MANY AGES WOULD MORTAL MEN count my rule of Etalpalli? I do not know, but I know it was long. Longer after that final departure of Etanun. For he never returned. I heard rumor of his deeds from those who traveled to and from my court, and I shuddered each time I heard his name. Yet I drank in every word, for I thirsted for news of him. I thought then that the pain I felt was the sharpest I would ever know.
But it was only the pain of embarrassment. I had not yet felt the fire of jealousy.
Then one day as I sat with my counselors discussing some treaty or policy, I heard a whisper among my ladies behind me. I would have disregarded them, save that I heard his name.
“They say Sir Etanun has fallen in love at last.”
“No! I don’t believe it possible. Not a Knight of the Farthest Shore!”
“Indeed, I heard it too. And with a mortal maid, no less! One of the frail beings he was sent to guard and protect.”
“Impossible. How could anyone fall for such a creature?”
“I thought if he were to ever love anyone, it would have been our own fair queen.”
I heard no more. Neither their babble nor the words of my counselors. I sat as one frozen, but my insides were turned to molten lava. I knew then what jealousy was. And once more, in desperation, my mind fed me false hopes.
It couldn’t be true! No more than idle gossip!
They stank. That was the worst part about them.
Mouse, alone in her small chamber beside a blazing brazier, stared at the clothes. Boys’ clothes. Slaves’ clothes. And not the clothing of slaves that would dwell within the confines of the Citadel. These were far too poor, too ragged to grace the halls of the Living Flame.
They must have belonged to one of the Diggers.
Mouse shuddered, but the stars were already shining above; she must hurry. So she removed her outer garment, the rough-woven robe of black edged in red beadwork. Then she took long strips of cloth and wrapped them around her body, pulling the fabric as tight as she could to disguise all trace of feminine softness. With another grimace, she took up the tunic and pulled it over her head, feeling as though she clothed herself in rags of shame.
What would Granna say if she knew?
Granna had always encouraged her great-granddaughter to look away from the Citadel light. Back home on the mountain, high on the rocky goat paths that Mouse and her ancient great-grandmother had climbed every day, they had commanded a sweeping view of the land crossed by mighty rivers flowing from some unknown source.
The low country held such allure for Mouse, who disliked mountain life, with its cold winds blowing straight through her ragged gowns and its stink of goats. From her view above, the low country looked warm and the rivers so clean.
And from the low country rose the Citadel, with its ever-burning light at the topmost spire. As twilight fell on the mountains, that light became more vivid, beckoning to Mouse across the leagues. A speck no bigger than a star, but red and low to the earth.
“Stop looking at it,” Granna would say sharply every time she saw Mouse’s gaze wander that way.