But the One who named the Beast Beloved drew her to him, and she wept upon his shoulder. The task was done. Her people were safe. And though her heart ached, it still beat. She had not become what she loathed. How dreadfully close had she walked to that edge? She could not guess.
“Starflower,” said the stranger, stroking her hair with the tenderness of a father, “will you now speak love throughout your days?”
Imraldera drew back to look into his face once more. She saw in his eyes what he asked of her: A life of service, of burden. These things, however, did not frighten her. All she feared was returning to the life of slavery she had always known.
She saw in the eyes of the Lumil Eliasul that he offered a life more whole and free than any she had ever dreamed. Imraldera took a deep breath. Then she nodded.
“I have loosened your tongue,” said the Lumil Eliasul. “You may speak!”
She opened her mouth. Her tongue tingled as though she had bitten fire. Licking her lips, she struggled to form the words that were always waiting to be spoken.
“My Lord,” she said, and her voice cracked and trembled. “My Master.”
There in the veil of mist, the One Who Names Them knighted the Silent Lady who now sang. And she knelt before him, words pouring from her heart and falling, stumbling, from her tongue, uncertain but full of joy even as she mourned the death of her enemy. For now she knew better what it meant to love and to be loved. And in loving, she found her spirit opening ever more to the greatness for which it was intended.
“Are you ready, Dame Imraldera, to do my bidding?” asked her Master.
“I am,” she replied.
“I am sending you back into the Wood,” said he. “To the Haven where once the Brothers Ashiun dwelt, offering succor to those in need and protection to both the Far World and the Near. You will take up the work that they began, guarding the gates I have set between the worlds and teaching the people of both worlds to walk my Paths. And I will give the keeping of records to you so that this story and others like it may not be lost to the memories of mortal and immortal alike.”
Imraldera nodded. But more tears caught in her throat, and she could not for a moment speak. Fairbird . . .
But there was no returning to the Land. She was no longer Maid Starflower, the silent daughter of the Panther Master. She was Dame Imraldera, Knight of the Farthest Shore, Lady of the Haven.
Oh, little sister!
The Lumil Eliasul placed a hand upon her shoulder. “First, gentle dame, go and speak to your sister. Tell her that the curse is lifted, and she need be silent no more.”
———
Was it a dream?
Imraldera stood once more alone on the isthmus, and the mist was receding. So much of her life these days seemed either a dream or a nightmare. Had she invented, out of the sickness of her sorrowing mind, the comfort she felt even now surrounding her heart?
She shook her head and slowly put her fingers to her mouth. “No,” she whispered. “It was no dream.”
A growl drew her gaze swiftly to one side. Approaching out of the mist, she saw the form of a great Dog. But it dwindled. Still growling, it became a gangly child, its sex indeterminate, its eyes those of a wolf. There was blood on its face, blood not its own.
It saw Imraldera and stopped growling. Its peaked features grimaced with confusion and it whined softly.
Imraldera put out a hand. The words came with difficulty from her unpracticed tongue, and her voice was low and rasping. Yet there was gentleness when she spoke.
“Come to me, little beast. Let me wash your face and hands. I will love you, and I will help to make you whole.”
It took a few hesitant steps toward her. A bony hand reached out as though to catch hold of her and the possibilities it saw in her eyes. It was a creature divided, two entities in one. Child and beast, neither dominant, each driving the other mad. But the seed was there, only waiting to be watered.
“Come,” Imraldera said, extending both arms. She ached to embrace that lost little soul, to find the life inside that gaunt frame. “Come here to me. Be safe.”
It took another step.
Then its littermate appeared, as like to the first as a mirror image, only its eyes were given way to madness. It too was stained with the blood of its own father, and there was no child in that face, only monster. It snatched its sibling by the hand, snarling, froth dripping from its mouth. Two Dogs turned tail and fled Imraldera’s presence, dragging their Midnight behind them as they returned to bear word to their mother.
Imraldera wiped tears from her face. “I hope we will meet again,” she signed with tear-stained hands. Then she pursued the Path into the cavern, back once more to the Land of her birth.
The cat lay in a crumpled heap upon the sacrificial stone. But he was alive. Or at least he thought he was. He could feel every single aching muscle in his body and no fewer than three distinct bites out of his flesh and fur. So he must be alive, for what that was worth.