“What?” Her eyes widened.
“Yes,” the young lord admitted, looking away bashfully. “Practically from the moment I saw you.”
Mouse made herself blink. She felt a hot flush rising and hoped he wouldn’t be able to see it. “I . . . I don’t understand,” she said. “I cut my hair.”
He grinned again, rubbing the back of his neck. “It is a fine disguise,” he said, and she could hear the lie in his voice despite its kindness. “You did your best, and you certainly are a ragged enough urchin.”
She blushed again and couldn’t look at him.
“But see here,” he continued, “there are many more differences between boys and girls than . . . all that. You move like a girl. And from certain angles, you really are rather attractive.”
She couldn’t look at him. In fact, she wished the ground would open up and swallow her—or him—whole then and there. She could feel him watching her, and she wished he would stop.
“I thank you for your honesty,” she managed. “Next time I’ll be sure to . . . to take care of certain angles.”
With that, she picked up her pace, chasing after the cat and leaving Alistair behind. He could have easily increased his stride and caught her, but his throat had gone strangely tight, and he thought maybe he’d like to be by himself for a while. Then he chuckled quietly, shaking his head. What a funny little creature that girl was!
It was the first time he’d laughed, he realized, in a long time.
This thought brought him up short. What was he doing? What was he becoming? He, the future Earl of Gaheris, destined to wed Aiven’s daughter, bound to unite the earls under Gaheris’s standard.
But really, what did it all matter? He bowed his head, watching his own tramping feet. How long had it been since the line between reality and dreams had blurred? How long since that same nightmare of the black path and the child and the red, gaping jaws had infiltrated his every living moment, both waking and sleeping?
“You’ll never be king,” he whispered.
He blinked.
And he opens his eyes to look upon the realm of his dream. He recognizes it at once, more clearly even than the haunts of his childhood. Every vivid detail: the jagged stone, the ghostly light, and the child ahead of him, turning, eyes wide with terror.
“Watch out!” the child cries, its voice bounding and rebounding in the blackness.
Then, the howling of the dogs.
He blinks again.
Alistair stood surrounded by the Wood. Ahead he saw Mouse behind Eanrin, her ragged, close-cropped head of hair held high. Beyond the cat, he saw the trees that seemed to move themselves out of their way, and he saw the deep green of forest gloom.
“My lord, are you quite well?”
The voice of the Chronicler startled him, and Alistair ground his teeth to keep down a cry as he looked around. His cousin stood behind him, watching him with concern in his eyes. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
“You shouldn’t call me that,” Alistair said wearily. “I’m not your lord anymore, remember?”
The Chronicler bowed his head. “Old habits,” he murmured. Then he shrugged. “Did you see something? I keep glimpsing things in the shadows myself. I don’t think they can get at us as long as we’re on this Path. At least I’ve not seen any try as yet. But we’d best not get too far behind the cat.”
Alistair nodded. “Yes. Fine.” And he set off with long-legged strides, making up the distance. Though his shoulder pained him where the goblin blade had bitten, he tramped on after the cat and the girl and the prophecy at the end of their journey.
And he thought to himself, I’m going to die.
The Chronicler stood watching the tall young lord put distance between them. His lips compressed into something between a frown and a smile. It was a wry, self-deprecating expression either way, and he sighed as he too set off to catch the others. His short legs could not bear him so fast, but he felt as though the Path itself carried him, and he knew he would not fall too far behind. Not so long as he kept moving.
There were many things in the Wood. Things he was not seeing but that rather he felt. Lining the edge of the Path, they watched him, bright eyes hidden in shade. So long as he didn’t listen for them, he heard strange voices speaking in strange tongues, in words that made themselves understandable in his head.
“It’s the dragon slayer!”
“Who? Who do you mean?”
“There, silly! It’s the Opener of Doors!”
And someone sang like a chittering insect in a high, shrill voice:
“Fling wide the doors of light, Smallman,
Though furied falls the Flame at Night.”